It’s difficult for people who aren’t product managers to understand the pressure of the job. As a product manager (PM), you’re responsible for developing and releasing products that drive the entire business forward. If that product fails, the business can be damaged. If that’s a scary thought, think of the inverse: When a product succeeds, it has the potential to transform the entire business. And, as a product manager, that success can put your career into hyperdrive. 

What determines success or failure as a PM? In large part, planning. There’s a general product management process that touches all the bases necessary to set a product up for success. Following that process allows a product manager to mitigate risks and keep the launch process moving forward. 

In this post, we’ll dive into the product management process so that you know how to use it to prioritize features, meet customer needs effectively, and ultimately maximize your chances of a successful outcome.

What is the product management process?

To understand the product management process, you first need to understand what a product manager does. In essence, they’re big thinkers. They match the vision and strategy of a product to the goals of the company, and then they prioritize features, gather and analyze market and customer feedback, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and oversee the product life cycle.

The product manager’s role throughout the product management process is to make big decisions and act as the central point of communication. This is not the same thing as project management, though you’ll often see the acronym “PM” used for both a project manager and product manager. Project management looks at the tasks involved in the day-to-day execution of projects and is responsible for making sure those tasks get done: They’re the logistics champions. Product managers and project managers work together to make sure products are launched successfully. 

The product management process

Alright, here it is: the magic behind the launch. These are the components that the best product management processes contain.

1. Idea management

It’s the product manager’s job to come up with a great idea for a product. However, they don’t come up with that idea in a vacuum. Often, product managers conduct brainstorming sessions to come up with product ideas and solutions with cross-functional teams. Once a great idea has been identified, PMs need to make sure that idea meets the market needs, which involves conducting research to understand customer pain points and needs. 

2. Business case

The PM is responsible for writing a business case. This persuasive document serves as a foundation to help stakeholders understand the rationale behind the product, facilitate decision-making, and secure buy-in from key stakeholders, ensuring alignment throughout the product management process.

3. Product specifications and vision

The vision for the product needs to be clearly articulated so that everyone understands what the product aims to achieve. The PM should create detailed profiles of target users to better understand their motivations, behaviors, and needs. And you should document functional and non-functional requirements to ensure they align with user needs and business goals.

4. Product roadmap 

We talked a bit about the project manager ensuring day-to-day tasks are defined and carried out. But the larger roadmap needs to be developed by the product manager. This product roadmap outlines key milestones, timelines, and dependencies, providing a visual representation of the product's development trajectory. Lucidchart has great templates to help teams develop a visual product roadmap that everyone can understand at a glance.

5. Prioritization

The reality is that a great product can’t have every feature. Sacrifices need to be made so that the product can be developed effectively and launched on time. A product manager uses frameworks such as MoSCoW, RICE, or Kano models to assess and rank features based on their potential impact and feasibility. Then the PM should determine which features to focus on. The rest of the feature ideas can be kept in a backlog for potential future incorporation.

6. Delivery

This is where things really get exciting. Before delivery, the product needs to have all coding, design, and features finalized according to the defined requirements. Then it goes through quality assurance, which means ensuring the product is free of bugs and meets quality standards (this includes unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing). 

Then the product managers need to work with GTM teams, providing feedback and ideas to help them develop the marketing and promotional plans. This ensures that users are aware of the product and understand its value. And then voila! The product can be introduced to the market.

7. Continuous improvement with analytics and customer feedback

So you’re a PM who’s just followed the above steps and delivered your product. Now you retire, right? Alas, not yet. 

Now that the product is in users’ hands, you have access to much more data about it. You can use analytics tools to gather user behavior data and feedback from various channels like surveys, reviews, and support tickets and then use that information to make improvements. 

This is why new models of products currently on the market are often so exciting—they’ve listened to customers’ feedback and have made improvements. Product managers need to regularly assess the product’s performance against goals and user feedback and then identify areas for enhancement. Those areas for improvement should be incorporated into future releases.

Tips for a successful product management process

The product management process is lengthy, contains many stakeholders, and can be very stressful. Here are some tips for making the process easier:

1. Document everything: From approvals to processes, keeping everything documented allows PMs to stick to the original plan, conduct audits, and provide evidence when needed.

2. Engage stakeholders early: Involve key stakeholders from the beginning to gather diverse insights and secure buy-in throughout the process. There’s nothing worse than not getting a stakeholder’s approval and then having a single blocker disrupt the whole process.

3. Be agile: Use Agile practices to remain flexible and allow for quick iterations and adjustments based on feedback and changing market conditions. Your product may need to change slightly depending on, for instance, engineering constraints. Incorporating Agile methodologies means you can bend and not break when you encounter challenges.

4. Iterate based on feedback: Lean on the user feedback you’ve collected to improve your product. Lean heavily on that data so it’s easier to get stakeholder approvals and have a rationale for the decisions you make.

5. Be transparent: As you move throughout the product management process, it’s wise to keep all stakeholders informed of progress, challenges, and changes to maintain trust and alignment. They can also give valuable ideas to overcome blockers and keep the product moving forward.

Product managers have a lot riding on the success of their products. Following the product management process helps wrangle the madness and increases the likelihood of delivering successful products that meet user needs and contribute to business objectives.