Emily Hunter has been writing about health-related topics for many years, and currently writes on behalf of the product development engineers at Pivot International. In her spare time, she cheers for Carolina Crown, formulates her own sodas, and crushes tower defense games. Follow her on Twitter at @Emily2Zen.
When it comes down to your product, you just want it to work - not just in the sense of all of its features operating properly, but you also want it to resonate well with your intended audience. You want them to love what you've created. They should feel like it has enhanced their lives. Whatever it is you've made, make sure that your creation avoids a few mistakes product designers inadvertently make during the process, so everything works as well as it possibly can.
No one can ever say product development is an easy task. There are unbelievably tight deadlines to keep, limited resources, and bosses or clients who want your deliverables now to appease. Naturally, this means product development managers have to find places to cut costs, find ways to speed the process, and try to follow a regular production schedule. That may be a good model for a factory, but the process of product development is something altogether different.
A product manager is a marketer, a negotiator, a demographer, a liaison, a researcher, an innovator — it can entail so many jobs that two job descriptions reading “product manager” may read quite differently depending upon the product and the company. Given such a diverse range of duties, what exactly qualifies someone to be a good product manager? In short, it requires a firm grounding in the present and a creative eye toward the future.