India is at the threshold of the second wave of the software industry. The first wave was IT services, dominated by key players like Infosys and TCS. Today, the focus of the industry is pivoted on software products. A large number of software product startups have sprung up in India. Freshdesk, Wooqer, and Tally, are some of the recent examples of pure-play software products developed entirely in India.

In addition to this, consumer based products, like Flipkart, and MakeMyTrip, have created a strong product brand within India. Large corporates like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have also set up their product development hubs in the country.

While software engineering, and quality analyst talent has been easy to find, there is a serious dearth of skilled Product Managers in the Indian industry.

Over the last few years, I have taken numerous interviews for Product Managers in India, and I find a significant bunch of candidates who are confused between the role and job scope of a Project Manager and a Product Manager. In it’s simplest form, a project manager is to the IT services industry, what a product manager is to the software product industry. And yes, IT services is significantly different from software products. In an IT services organization, the project manager is given a specification or a strict list of items to complete, and he is responsible to get the job done. However, in a pure-play software product company, the product manager is also responsible to create this specification, and define his own list of items to get done.

A product manager is best described as the mini CEO for his or her own product. This is because he is responsible for getting the product built, but more importantly, he is also responsible for the success of this product. To keep it simple, let’s link the product management role to the life-cycle of a software product.

Image courtesy: powerofmarketing.com

STAGE I: Planning and Research

Every product during its conception must be evaluated against its need in the market, and must be compared against similar products. It should justify the return on investment that would be required to create it, and also align with the strategic vision of the organization. The first bit of responsibility of a product manager is to conduct this research and align the rest of the organization with his conviction. Once this receives a green flag, a product manager proceeds with defining the product roadmap. A product roadmap might contain a long term vision, return on investment calculations, and a detailed product specification. Throughout this stage, the product manager must work with various stakeholders in the company, including company executives, finance and marketing departments, and his internal team of designers and engineering experts.

STAGE II: Implementation

Now that the product specification is ready, it’s time to build the product. This is the only stage where the role of the product manager resembles closely with the role of a project manager. This is where the product manager must work with the internal organization, including usability engineers, developers and quality analysts to build the product and bring it to life. Similar to a project manager, the product manager, during this stage, is required to keep-up with tight deadlines, and also keep the rest of the organization in the loop with the latest developments.

STAGE III: Roll-Out

And then, the final phase in the product life-cycle is its launch! This is when the product hits the market. The product manager is once again equally involved and equally responsible for the product during this stage. He must work with the marketing communication teams on the product messaging and its market positioning, and assist them with the preparation of the product marketing material. In most cases, he is also responsible to take the product to it’s customers, through conferences, or forums, or otherwise, and pitch it to them. All of this is done by working hand-in-hand with the sales team within the organization. Another important work item for the product manager during this phase is to collect feedback. This feedback must always act as a critical input in the on-going product roadmap. The product manager takes this feedback, and is responsible to make all necessary tweaks to the long-term product plan based on this feedback.

All-in-all, the product manager is like a father to the product: from it’s conception to its launch. He must guide the product through every step of its development, and make modifications/tweaks at every opportunity to ensure that it would be successful. The product manager is also the pivot in the organization, and plays a key-role in connecting the internal (developers, quality analysts etc.) and the external (marketing, sales, etc.) organizations. He is also the direct interface with company executives, and holds the responsibility of keeping them up-to-date with the risks and achievements related to the product.