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Product Manager's Guidebook
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  • Guidebook
    • Welcome
    • Contribute
    • Donate
  • Prelude
    • A Note From The Author
    • How To Use This Guide
  • Introduction
    • Overview
    • What is a Product Manager?
      • Roles and Responsibilities of a Product Manager
      • The Product Mindset
      • Understanding the Product Management Lifecycle
      • Different Types of Product Managers
    • Product Team Structures
      • Stakeholders, Leadership, and the Company
      • Cross-Functional Product Team
      • Differences between Project, Program, and Product Management
  • People Skills
    • Overview
    • Communication
      • Knowing Your Audience
      • Elements of Persuasion and Motivation
      • The Art of Storytelling
      • Effective Meeting Management
      • Delivering Presentations and Demos
    • Building Relationships
      • Collaboration Cadence and Tools
      • Team Agreements and Purpose
      • Understanding Business Problems
      • Managing Expectations
      • Communicating Progress
    • Leadership
      • Cross-Functional Leadership
      • Applied Motivation and Getting Buy-In
      • Giving and Receiving Feedback
      • Aligning Product Mission, Vision, and Strategy
      • Sharing Impact and Outcomes
  • Process Skills
    • Overview
    • Strategy
      • Objective Setting
      • Prioritization
      • Roadmapping
    • Discovery
      • Problem Research and Definition
      • Customer Discovery and Research
      • Solution Design and Validation
    • Development
      • Writing and Using Product Requirements
      • Concepts through Designing
      • Working with Designers
      • Development Execution and Methodologies
      • Working with Engineers
      • Scoping and Writing User Stories
      • Technical Debt Management
    • Delivery
      • Roll-out and Release Management
      • Assessing Assumptions, Risk, and Issues
      • Measuring Product Launch Success
      • Marketing and Communications
      • User Activation
    • Optimization
      • Iterative Development and Learning
      • Streamlining Processes and Experiences
  • Knowledge Skills
    • Overview
    • Understanding the Customer
      • Customer Segmentation and Targeting
      • User Research Methods
      • Understanding Customer Pain Points
      • User Personas Development
      • User Behavior and Psychology
      • Acquiring and Retaining Customers
    • Data-Driven Decisions
      • The Role of Data in Product
      • Data Analysis and Interpretation
      • Identifying and Understanding Assumptions
      • Formulating Your Hypotheses
      • Selecting a Hypothesis for Testing
      • Navigating Signal Metrics to Define KPIs for Hypothesis Testing
      • Testing Your Hypothesis
      • Upholding Data Privacy and Ethics
    • Domain Knowledge
      • Competitive Analysis and Industry
      • Achieving Product-Market Fit
      • Technology and Innovation
      • Aligning with the Company
    • Business Understanding
      • Organizational Values, Objectives, and Priorities
      • Long-Term Planning
      • Business Model Fit
      • Monetization Strategy
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  • Example
  • Pain Points
  • Practical Exercise
  • Related Research Topics
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  1. Introduction
  2. What is a Product Manager?

Understanding the Product Management Lifecycle

The product management lifecycle is the journey a product takes from conception to retirement. It includes but is not limited to the following stages, discovery, design, development, launch, maturity, and decline. As a Product Manager, understanding this lifecycle allows you to effectively guide your product through each stage, making strategic decisions based on its current lifecycle stage, and ensuring that it meets customer needs and business goals at each stage.

Example

Consider a team communication platform, like Slack or Teams. The lifecycle might begin with a problem they’ve identified, such as users complaining about file sharing. As the PM who runs messaging, you own the neglected file-sharing feature.

You work to define the requirements by asking for input from various departments across the organization and work extra closely with your manager, design manager, and engineering manager to get a first draft. The requirements are later shared with the broader company and leadership for approval and alignment.

After requirements are defined, the next major stage is product design, where key features like a file-sharing UI (user interface) are designed, getting sign-off from key stakeholders and leadership. This stage is the first chance to visualize the feature and typically comes with new assumptions and questions.

The engineering team then takes over; the PM builds out the projects while the engineering manager outlines the engineering tasks from the requirements. The PM aids the eng teams as they build the first version.

During the launch stage, product marketing, customer support, legal, and other business teams are deeply involved to ensure everything goes smoothly. It’s considered good practice, especially with larger user bases, to launch the product to a limited set of users to validate the feature’s hypothesis, increasing the number of users with validation over time.

The maturity phase focuses on expanding the functionality, integrating with other platforms, and optimizing features. During this phase the PM continuously oversees improvements based on user feedback and analysis of usage data.

Eventually, the PM must navigate the product's decline, assessing when to innovate, pivot, or retire certain aspects to maintain relevance and user satisfaction.

Pain Points

The product management lifecycle involves many moving parts and requires balancing various stakeholder needs, timelines, and resources. Deciding when to move from one stage to the next can be challenging, especially when retiring or pivoting a product.

Practical Exercise

Map out the lifecycle of a product you use regularly. What stages did it go through?

Related Research Topics

  • Product lifecycle stages [ Google | Perplexity ]

  • Strategic decision-making in product management [ Google | Perplexity ]

  • Development lifecycle [ Google | Perplexity ]

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Last updated 2 months ago