Introduction
The ability to maintain focus while working through any number of tasks, opportunities, and challenges is a hallmark of an effective product manager. Understanding how to strategically direct your attention and resources is crucial for success. In today’s blog, we’ll dive into some strategies you can use to help keep you focused on the prize and drive your products, and career, forward with intention and precision.
What is your Objective?
Your primary goal as a product manager is to find opportunities in your market’s problems and objectively pursue them based on where your company’s strengths intersect with your market’s values. This means maintaining a deep understanding of your market, its trends, your customers, and the competitive landscape. It’s also about discerning which opportunities are worth pursuing based on their potential impact and alignment with your business’ strategy.
Assess Market Opportunities
Begin by assessing opportunities in your market and aligning them with your business’ strengths. What are the needs of your market? What problems do they suffer from? What problems are they seeking solutions for? Which problems are they looking to solve now? By understanding and prioritizing these opportunities, you can begin to focus on initiatives that offer the greatest potential for success — and consequently, highest return for your investment.
Formulate a Competitive Strategy
As a product manager, you must never lose sight of the competitive landscape your product fits in. Regularly review and iterate on your competitive strategy. Who are your competitors? What are their strengths, weaknesses, and strategic moves? What are yours? This knowledge will help you not only understand where your product may need to grow next, but also give you the information you need to help you position your product effectively and to anticipate market shifts.
Create Positioning Documentation
What is your product’s vision? What is it’s value proposition? How does your product fit in the market?
Clear and effective positioning is critical from both an internal alignment perspective and for market perception. Define the market problem you focus on, what your solution is, how you message your product’s value, etc. This document serves as a corporate communication tool to help keep all stakeholders aligned on what you’re building and why.
Propose your Product to the Business
With a clear understanding of the market opportunity you want to pursue and its competitive landscape, you’ll want to have a documented business proposal and plan. It should include a thorough analysis of the market’s problems, estimated size, and potential profitability of you product. This proposal will help guide decision-making and, more importantly, resource allocation — if you don’t have the resources you need to make your product a reality, then it is effectively dead, if not in limbo.
Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs help maintain focus and measure progress. These generally should be aligned with your strategic goals and not just be for show (the latter known as “vanity metrics”). Regularly review and adjust your KPIs to ensure they remain relevant and information with respect to providing insight you need to know how your product is performing in the market.
Buy vs. Build vs. Partner
The more complex your product is, the more you’ll likely have to balance between buying, building, or partnering for each piece of your product’s puzzle. These decisions will significantly impact your focus and resource allocation. Consider the advantages and trade-offs of each option and choose the best that aligns with your goals and capabilities.
Utilize Personas for Distribution Strategy
Personas are powerful tools that help bring focus to your product and its delivered value. By understanding your target customer’s characteristics, behaviors, and needs, you can tailor your approach to strive for maximum customer research and impact. Use personas to help guide your marketing, sales, and distribution efforts by keeping them concentrated on the most receptive of audiences.
Develop a Portfolio Management Strategy
As a product manager, you’ll inevitably be juggling multiple products or features. Develop a strategy to help maintain your portfolio and keep your focus balanced and strategic. Evaluate and prioritize your efforts based on their strategic and financial fit, ensuring you lean towards that which offers the greatest return on investment.
Create and Share Roadmaps
Roadmaps are visual representations of your strategic plan. Create and share internal roadmaps to help keep your team focused and informed about the direction and progress of your product. Similarly, external roadmaps can be shared with stakeholders and customers to both build trust and manage expectations.
Conclusion
Focusing as product manager requires a balanced between prioritization and time management — it’s about strategically directing your limited time and efforts to the most impactful opportunities. By understanding your target customer, maintaining competitive strategy, clarifying your product’s position in the market, proposing sound business plans, and developing effective distribution strategies, you can keep your focus sharp and driving your product forward. Remember, focus is not just a skill — it’s a strategic asset that will serve you well not only as a product manager but in any role you take on in the future.