In college, I majored in microbiology and cell science (yes, I know that this is quite a transition), and then I went on to become a product person. As a consequence of this, the idea of a catalyst has always been quite intriguing to me. A catalyst is a substance that, when applied to a chemical reaction, both boosts the rate at which successful collisions occur and reduces the amount of energy that is required for those collisions.
However, what does this have to do with the items themselves? More than you might think, to be perfectly honest. In the’science’ of products, a product manager is someone who possesses the talents that enable businesses to spend less time and money (thereby reducing the amount of energy required) to produce a successful product (a reaction).
People are compartmentalised into several silos inside practically every organisation, such as sales, research and development (R&D), marketing, and operations. A significant amount of effort is required when one is simultaneously driving alignment and passing along knowledge and work. It is easy to comprehend this phenomenon given that, according to the conventional strategy, every organisation pursues its own objectives and devises its own strategies to do so.
On the other hand, many businesses are working on dismantling these silos in order to launch an InnovationOps strategy. This strategy brings together people, processes, and innovation jobs that need to be done in order to continuously work towards a single objective. Product managers are, in many respects, essential to the achievement of success with InnovationOps. The following are some of the methods that they use to do that.
The response of innovation
Product managers collaborate with a variety of forces, both internal and external, including customers, prospects, stakeholders, and regulators. These individuals provide product managers with information regarding customer requirements that must be satisfied. Following that, product managers will communicate this information to the team responsible for product development.
It’s possible that this is where the communication from the product manager comes to a stop in a traditional product strategy; but, under an InnovationOps approach, it does not, because, once more, the focus is on breaking down information barriers. They work with sales, marketing, operations, and even more elements of the organisation to ensure that everyone knows what the product is and establish how it should be positioned. The product manager then interacts with the product enablement team to design a solution.
After that, the problem is solved or the issue is improved, and the solution or improvement is applied to the initial set of internal and external pressures, where it ideally has a favourable influence. However, they inevitably expose additional problems that need to be addressed once they have been solved. The product manager acts as the spark in this never-ending cycle of communication, which is made possible by technology and is characterised by the accessibility of input at each stage.
Value creation
If a product is going to be successful, it needs to have a distinct path of value generation that anyone should be able to recognise. Product management professionals are in a position unlike any other to improve the likelihood of the value being created using a method known as InnovationOps. Product managers have touchpoints with a wide variety of stakeholders and personas both inside and outside of the organisation. As a result, they are able to contribute to the process of bringing diverse groups into focus and alignment.
Product managers then have the experience of connecting the outcomes from each group. They are able to contextualise the overall vision of a product to a wide range of audiences, making it possible to ensure that every group is working towards the same underlying goal rather than concentrating on goals that are exclusive to their department or an individual team.
In addition, given that product managers are involved in every facet of product communication, they are in a unique position to guide the organisation through the process of trade-off prioritisation. They are aware of which products present the most potential for profit at the present time and which ones ought to be saved for a later date or discontinued entirely. It is essential to keep in mind that the debate of trade-offs would take place in a compartmentalised setting if the usual approach were taken. But with the help of InnovationOps, product managers have been able to collect and share information, as well as receive the critical input required to drive a choice that is more value-facing.
Management of the product’s health
The idea of ensuring that a product continues to be in good health is a relatively recent one, but it is one that is very necessary for product managers who take an InnovationOps approach. Product health can be understood in a number of different ways; however, for the sake of this discussion, we will be concentrating on the degree to which each stage of the product life cycle is running effectively to ensure the product’s overall success. This includes the stages of discovery, production, distribution, and sales.
Product managers are able to recognise possible problems with the health of their products at each stage of the product development process because they are involved in every component of the process. It is not uncommon for a product manager to be in a position to point out how, when, and where an organisation is placing an excessive amount of emphasis (and expenditure) on a certain area.
For instance, the corporation may place a strong emphasis on velocity when what it really ought to be doing is devoting more resources to research and the creation of new ideas. A scenario like this would leave those working in the factory with nothing to do because the plant is designed to produce, but the lack of new discoveries and ideas isn’t providing enough “raw materials” for the machine to use. This would result in the factory workers being idle. A product manager can step in and share their thoughts on the state of the product with all of the groups in order to demonstrate why such a push will result in problems after it is released.
Evangelization of product thinking
Product managers have the experience necessary to assist in transitioning an organisation to a product thinking mindset when using a method known as InnovationOps. This strategy brings together people, processes, and innovation jobs to be done in order to free up organisational knowledge. The following are some of the shifts that occur with adopting such a focus on users and value:
Output to outcome: Product thinking places a higher priority on the benefits a product offers to its customers, the organisation, and even society as a whole than it does on just meeting deadlines and sticking to a budget.
When a business sells a product, the customer is the one who ultimately makes the purchase choice. Customers nowadays have access to more information than ever before, and because of globalisation, they also have more options. Instead of producing an inventive idea that could or might not solve an issue, product thinking pushes businesses to place a much greater emphasis on the requirements of their target audience.
Product thinking needs organisations to deliver on consumers’ total enjoyment and satisfaction, as well as how likely they are to promote the product to others. Quality assurance To desire and delight – While you want a new product to launch without bugs or flaws, you also want customers to be delighted with it.
Product managers are in a position to hold the key to the kingdom in many respects because they have extensive product knowledge as well as insight into how important groups function. And in the InnovationOps methodology, such characteristics are essential to the process of disseminating vital, goal-oriented information to the general public.
If you have any questions about this, you can ask in the comments section.
