Ask HN: What should Product Managers spend most of their time doing?
I'm a new Product Manager at a FinTech and spend most of my time either writing process documents or putting together models in Excel. I feel more like a Business Analyst, but was wondering what PMs out there spend most of their time on? Or if you employ a PM, what is the most valuable work they do for you?
3 comments
Varies a lot depending on the type of product you're on. If you have a B2B product, you're probably talking to the customer a lot, charting out plans with sales and marketing. On the other hand, if you have a B2C product you're looking at engagement numbers (which would hopefully in the order of thousands/millions), running experiments and doing surveys etc.
It also depends on what phase of the product lifecycle your feature is in. Early on, you're writing a lot of strategy docs putting together vision decks to convince people. During active development, you're keeping track on day-to-day activities, prioritizing features and putting out fires. You're also hopefully figuring out a GTM plan. If your product is already launched, you're thinking of v2, listening for feedback etc.
It also depends on what phase of the product lifecycle your feature is in. Early on, you're writing a lot of strategy docs putting together vision decks to convince people. During active development, you're keeping track on day-to-day activities, prioritizing features and putting out fires. You're also hopefully figuring out a GTM plan. If your product is already launched, you're thinking of v2, listening for feedback etc.
My product people spend a large percentage of their time talking to customers. They're the customer surrogate in any meeting we have, which is a role they collaborate with salespeople to fill.
Is your product sold to external clients? Or is it internal?
Is your product sold to external clients? Or is it internal?
External - and that's really good info, I don't spend much time at all speaking with clients