On the Mind the Product blog, Martin Eriksson writes,
I’ve always defined product management as the intersection between business, technology and user experience. A good product manager must be experienced in at least one, passionate about all three, and conversant with practitioners in all.
To Martin’s list I would add expertise on the market (or persona) and a passion for the domain. I’ve written about expertise in product management in my free ebook. (Download it here).
User experience (UX) is an area that befuddles many product managers. Ideally, product managers should be focused on the customer problem while development designs the company’s solution. A strong dev team will propose one or more solutions to the articulated problem, allowing the product manager to accept the best option by leveraging his or her business, technical, marketing, and domain knowledge. A UX designer is a critical element of a successful product team.
If you’re interested in UX design (and all product managers should be), take a look at The User Experience Guidebook for Product Managers from the helpful folks at UXPin.
The difference between good and great is often in the user experience. Let’s all become passionate about brilliant UX design.
About the author
Steve Johnson is a recognized thought leader and storyteller within the technology product management community. At Under10 Consulting, he helps product teams implement product management in an agile world. Sign up for his inspirational newsletter.