Who are product managers?

Product Managers are the folks behind the tools that we all use and love. They are responsible for  

1. Defining a product strategy, including identifying the product’s target market, developing the product vision, and creating the associated roadmaps that will help guide the product team (and any supporting groups) to deliver on the agreed upon MVP (minimum viable product). 

2. Conducting research into the market so that the company is sure that this product will have a solid consumer base upon launch. 

3. Establishing product requirements so that functionality, user experience, and minimum features are at the forefront of development and don’t get lost in the ether of things like mission-creep or budget constraints.

4. Managing and collaborating with cross-functional teams to make sure that everyone who participates in building the product is on time, on task, and on budget.

5. Product test to ensure that the product is behaving the way that it was originally intended to. 

6. Manage the product development cycle including overseeing timelining, budgeting, resource allocation, and the distribution of work across departments and teams ensuring that the product is launched on time and within a given budget.

7. Iterating to adapt the design as internal and eternal feedback, as well as testing information comes back and shows a need to improve. 

8. Launching the product by developing a go-market strategy, often in conjunction with the company’s marketing, sales, and other customer-facing divisions. They may also weigh in on projected revenue growth and targets as well as what metrics to be paying attention to establish customer success metrics. 

8. Monitoring and analyzing the product’s performance to ensure that the product is performing in the field as it was imagined it would 

 

Individuals working in the field of Product Management can have a variety of titles based on their experience or area of expertise. Some of these include: 

1. Product Manager – someone who is responsible for leading the development and launch of products that meet customer needs and business goals

2. Product Owner – often someone is responsible for defining and prioritizing product backlog items as part of an Agile (or similar) development team and ensures their team delivers a successful product. 

3. Technical Product Manager – someone who does everything a project manager does but often works with technical materials such as IOT or software.

4. Product Analyst – someone responsible for analyzing product data to inform future development and improvement

5. Director of Product Management – a senior leadership role responsible for setting the strategic vision for product organization and overseeing product managers and the product department

 

A dive into job descriptions

EdTech

Using this job search, I pulled 8 Project Management positions from the EdTech space. 

Some examples include:

  • “Research countries, markets and cities to identify key educational, institutional and commercial partners”
  • “Train end users to access and understand online and paper reporting tools”
  • “Collaborate with designers, architects, engineers, and quality assurance to translate high-level business objectives into project charters and functional requirements”
  • “Coach and mentor junior technical product managers and business analysts”
  • “Deliver MRDs (market required document) for product initiatives and PRDs (product required document) for content”
  • “Guide the sales team and the customer success team in their efforts in sales, renewals, and upgrades and collaborate with product marketing to improve the customer journey”
  • “Leverage data throughout product lifecycle to make informed decisions, inform innovative ideas, and create superior experiences for customers”
  • “Work collaboratively with engineering to design, implement, and test features”

Mixed Careers

To compare EdTech against Product Management in other fields, I used this job search. I pulled 8 positions from a wide variety of fields. 

Some examples include:

  • “Lead ideation exercises to facilitate creative problem-solving and establish the development and direction of products and platforms“
  • “Own the product life cycle: market, BI, and user research, defining wireframes, scope, KPIs, and development process”
  • “Serves as the face of the product for all stakeholders”
  • “Helps mentor and onboard new team members”
  • “Evaluate product mix, roadmap requests, and competitive positioning in collaboration with team leads”
  • “Establish, monitor, and measure success metrics after deployment”
  • “Write or coordinate the preparation of RFPs”
  • “Act as product domain expert at all levels of customer interactions and represent the voice of customers to internal teams”

Visual Learner?

Compare the two images. The word clouds are the responsibilities list that I fed into a word cloud generator. The truth is that even when accounting for some of the slanting of language toward certain buzz words in EdTech, these two word clouds look pretty interchangeable to me. I think the only thing that might have skewed my metrics would have been if I had included more technical Product Management positions and even then I think it would have only had a minimal effect overall. 

EdTech Word Cloud

Mixed Careers Word Cloud

Do they need a portfolio?

Let's ask ourselves some important qualifying questions.

Does this job have content creation as a focus? 

Yes – in multiple forms. As a Product Management professional you might be creating wireframes, sketches, internal and external facing documentation, timelining and budgeting materials, etc. While it’s difficult to pin down exactly what kind of content creation you might be doing, it’s pretty safe to say that if you land in Product Management, you will be doing content creation as a core part of your responsibilities. 

Should someone applying to this job highlight a process they’ve created? 

Absolutely. 

Just like in the Project Management field, process management is at the heart of product management. The trick here is whether or not you’ve managed a product through a full product cycle before BUT even if you’ve managed part of a product cycle (i.e. you supported your school or district in developing a curriculum) that’s better than nothing.

The more that you can highlight your field readiness in this arena, the easier it is for reviewing experts or hiring managers to gauge your ability to jump right into their projects. 

Is this a job for which you should highlight any work (i.e. publications, blogs, podcasts, creative materials, etc.) that they’ve already created? 

Potentially. 

If you’ve been able to get published in any kind of magazine, journal, or paper or mentioned in an article because of product that you’ve been involved with – absolutely! That should be on your portfolio, LinkedIn profile, and in your resume/cv. 

If your vlog or podcast would double as some kind of Product Management skills highlight or master class, I would include those, too. 

Now that we've established that they probably DO need a portfolio, what's next?

While this isn’t every single step that you’ll need to take, here are the major things to put on to your checklist:

1. Review your content

What do you already have created that can be used as-is or can be recycled to meet some of the job description’s highlights that are common for Product Management professionals? 

2. Identify any gaps

What content is missing from your portfolio that you will need to create so that a hiring manager or reviewing content expert can see the full scope of your skill and flexibility?

3. Select your display platform

How will you display your portfolio so it’s clean, concise, and inviting? 

4. Create your brand

What brand identity will you establish and maintain so that potential employers and hiring managers have a clear picture of who you are and what value you can bring to them as an employee and asset to their team?

5. Publish, network, and share

How will your networking and sharing strategy change or evolve to include your portfolio? Who will you share this new resource with? Where should this resource appear in your resume and social media profiles? When should you make this available to prospective employers?

Think you might need some support creating or working on your portfolio?

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Just have questions? I got you.

Want to talk with someone about your portfolio face to face? 

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