Ri: Senior Product Manager & Product Manager Responsibilities
This list of responsibilities for SPM and PM (PO) has been specifically tailored for WCC’s needs and Product team structure. Therefore, some areas of the end-to-end Product Management lifecycle such as Product Marketing and Monetisation have not been covered in here.
SPM and PM in nutshell
Product Manager: Strategic and Broad
Brief: In an SPM and PM setup, the Senior Product Manager plays a strategic role and oversees and manages multiple work streams for the same product or multiple products across a product portfolio. The role works closely with one or more PMs (POs ) each owning one work stream or initiative to give them direction based on the vision, strategy and the roadmap.
Topics
SPM’s Key Responsibilities
Ideation
Work with the business to identify and build an Ideas/Initiatives backlog
Own and oversee one or multiple initiatives
Create Opportunity Canvas
Identify key opportunities and problems
Mapping Ideas/Initiatives to Business Objectives (OKRs), Mission and Vision
Prioritise Ideas/Initiatives
Create and prioritise
AssumptionsDiscovery
Work with User Research and Service Design through data insight and user research studies to
Find, collate and extract key customer insights
Articulate the problem space into discrete problem statements
Identify target users and their pain points
Prioritise users, their problems and pain points
Define Experiments
Work with Service Design, UX and Tech leads on potential solutions addressing the user problems and pain points
Create and prioritise
AssumptionsCreate and prioritise
HypothesesIdentify and define the metrics to capture and support the hypotheses and test cards
Create and prioritise
Test CardsCompile Business Case to fund agreed delivery scope and confirm financial sustainability
Validation through Experimentation
Build backlog of Epics (including the hypotheses) to conduct initial experiments
Define the minimum viable solution/product to enable the hypotheses to be tested
Capture learnings and review hypothesis
Assess if problem solution fit has been achieved
Work with Architects to assess technical feasibility on solutions/products proved by the hypotheses in order to build in scale
Value Proposition Design (Product Definition)
Define the product (The What), users (The Who), and the benefits (The Why) linked to the business mission and vision
Define the Product definition through Value Proposition Design by working on
The WHO = User targets
The WHY
Their jobs to be done (JTBD)
Their Needs
Their Problem
Their Benefits (gains)
The WHAT = Potential solutions that fits the problems
Scope
KPIs (north star metrics to capture and track)
Define and drive the Product Vision and Strategy linking to the
WHO
WHAT
WHY
Business OKRs, Mission and Vision
Build, own and maintain outcome based Product Roadmap linked to relevant OKRs
Build and prioritise backlog of Epics and Features and liaise with PM who will create user stories
Work with Architecture or Tech leads to conduct feasibility assessment of the features
Horizon and Release Plan
Define MVP and major releases including the scope
Plan the upcoming horizons (90/180 days) and communicate to PMs so they can align their sprint planning with the Horizon and Release plans
Stakeholder Management
This is the core part of the Product Management job and require great deal of good soft skills particularly building empathy with stakeholder, challenge them with evidence, and get their buy-in.
Build empathy and a strong and strategic relationship with Senior stakeholders such as Business Owners, Product Council, and the customer(s) to align on the value proposition
Challenge stakeholders with evidence to protect the scope of the Product (Say No by not say No - soft skills come here )
Build strong relation and empathy with the Product team (PMs mainly) and maintain the line of communication with them
Landscape Analysis (Market, Competitors, Trends, Technology)
Identify and analyse
Market landscape
Competitors
Trends
Technologies and Solutions
Potential Partners
Build vs Buy
Scrum Ceremonies
Daily Scrum:
Generally optional for SPM to attend unless he/she is involved in some tasks in a sprint
Sprint Review:
Attend and see the work done by the team and provide input/feedback
Invite and encourage Senior Stakeholders to attend the review session (inform the PM if SLT or the customer will be attending)
Sprint Planning
Generally optional to attend when there is a SPM and PM set up but that can adapt when SPM is also involved in conducting planned work for the next sprint being planned. But the session is led by the PM
Sprint Retrospective: attend and participate as scrum team member
Product Manager: Tactical and Focused
In a SPM and PM setup, Product Manager plays a more focused role on one workstream or initiative and is responsible for delivering the increments based on the roadmap and the horizon plan. Product Manager has to work closely with the PM to receive direction and execute the sprint backlogs.
Topics
PM’s Key Responsibilities
Validation and Experimentation
Maintain and refine the backlog with user stories based on the Epics and hypotheses created by SPM
Prioritise stories based on the release and horizon plan created by SPM
Stakeholder Management
This is the core part of the Product Management job and require great deal of good soft skills particularly building empathy with stakeholder, challenge them with evidence, and get their buy-in.
Build empathy and a strong relationship with the following roles/ disciplines and maintain the line of communication with them
Product Manager
Engineering
Service Design
UX Design
The end user (customer)
Business (e.g. service lines)
Challenge your stakeholders with evidence to protect the scope of the Backlog (Say No by not say No - soft skills come here )
Backlog Management
Create user stories
Develop acceptance criteria
Prioritise user stories
Define metrics to support KPIs
Backlog Refinement: Refine stories and acceptance criteria with UR, UX Design and Engineering
split and slice the stories so they can be delivered in one sprint - following the INVEST model (stories shall be Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable)
Maintain backlog hygiene
Work with the scrum team to
refine stories (take their inputs, analyse and incorporate to the stories considering the sprint goals and size of the stories - Say no when their inputs are not aligned with the sprint goals or increases the size of the story)
provide a rough estimate on stories prior to Sprint Planning
ensure user stories meet the Definition of Ready
Sprint Management
Build sprints backlog
Set Sprint goals in line with the Release and Horizon plans that SPM provides and agree the Sprint goals with SPM
Communicate the Sprint goals to the scrum team
Review the work at the end of the sprint and check against the acceptance criteria
On completion of stories, PM assesses the stories against acceptance criteria and DoD and close the stories once DoD is met
Support the Delivery Manager / Scrum Master to Remove Impediments
Work with the Delivery Manager / Scrum Master to Create, Apply and improve Definition of Done
Scrum Ceremonies
Daily Scrum:
Support the team if there is a blocker that concerns the Product
Track the progress
Remind the sprint goals to the scrum team
Sprint Review:
Review the Sprint Goals with the team
Review the work from the team and check against a/c (acceptance criteria)
Accept a work as done or incomplete
Sprint Planning
Lead the sprint planning
Communicate the Sprint Goals
Review the agreed stories and a/c with the team
Lead the estimation with the team
Decide which stories can be moved to the backlog when the velocity is reached.
Sprint Retrospective: attend and participate as scrum team member
SPM and PM Shared Responsibilities
Topics
Shared responsibilities
Risk Management
Delivery Manager … Capture, prioritise and track risks, constraints, challenges and issues and communicate with the SPM/PM
Analytics
Review and measure KPIs and Metrics
Data analysis
Capture and analyse user feedback
Release Plan
Planning the releases
Production Release Roll out
Customer / User readiness support comms
Stakeholder Management
As stated in the above sections for both SPM and PM