Product Manager
The product manager role is vital to the routine delivery of successful products to market, yet it’s a role that doesn’t exist in many organizations. Technically, the product manager doesn’t have any output they can point to in order to show what they’ve done, however, they are the vision for the product. They need to know the product and how their customer base interacts with it better than anyone else on the planet. On top of that, they need to know the market they’re sending their product into. How competitive is their product? What makes it better or worse? Finally, how does it fit in with the business’ goals and vision? Ultimately, design and engineering will be focusing their efforts in the direction the product manager leads them. The industry saying is that when the product succeeds, the team succeeded. When it fails, the product manager failed. It’s a big responsibility.
Designer
All good product teams consist of a designer who understands the product vision and makes it come to life. They have to have the user experience in mind when designing. It’s not enough to make it look pretty. It has to be functional. You can have the best idea with a customer base that is eager to use your product, but if the usability is difficult, your product won’t succeed. Good design is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see and feel it.
Engineers
Of course, every product team needs a group of stellar engineers to make the product come to life. The number of engineers is going to depend on the product being created, as well as the life stage the product is in. If it’s in support stages and your team is responsible for it, you may need to add additional engineers to solely focus on that work. The general rule of thumb is no less than 2, and no more than 12. If you can’t feed your engineers with a couple boxes of pizza, it’s probably too big of a team. One common mistake product teams make is asking engineers to twiddle their thumbs until a user story is put in front of them. NO! Don’t do this. Get engineering involved in the product visions. Get them involved in the design. Make the process a collaborative effort. Some of the best ideas for a product come from engineers who understand what’s technically capable. Also, this will help buy in. Instead of working on a small slice of the pie, each engineer will understand how their slice of the pie is creating value for the customer.
Testing
No job is more or less important than another, but often times, I’ve seen testing get overlooked. Typically, it’s an attempt to save money from a business perspective. It comes from a fundamental flaw in product development thinking that says we won’t have errors in our code. If we hire the best people and give them the tools and time they need, we don’t need to worry about testing. If you’ve spent any time around software, you know this is just setting your team up to fail. The best teams invest heavily in automated testing to save the team time and get new features deployed quickly. Even still, having testers in the system walking through the workflows the clients are going to perform before the client performs them is invaluable. It will undoubtedly lead to a better reputation for your product, making it worth the investment.
Wrapping It Up
So we know what a product team looks like now. A product manager who casts the vision. A designer who brings that vision to life with mockups and prototypes. An engineering group who turns the designs into reality. And a testing team that ensure reality isn’t broken. Larger teams may include additional team members, such as data analysts or marketers, but this aforementioned group is what makes up the bare bones essentials for developing successful products. Hopefully this helps you think about how your team goes about creating product and gives you some ideas on how to do it even better!
