Future-Proofing Product Management in collaboration with Peer Product Managers

Product management has undergone massive changes in the past decade or so. What product managers used to do effectively in the past is now becoming more demanding.

While product management relied heavily on being data-informed, customer-centric, and outcome-driven in the past, giving more attention to leadership, data analysis, and domain practices has become a pressing priority, in addition to the tactical delivery of features and capabilities. Product Managers need more perspectives than just being execution-oriented and technical. They ought to be more balanced than inward-looking and prioritize their organization’s business objectives. The emerging need is to evolve in people leadership, data analysis skills, and a nuanced understanding of the business domain operations.

Here’s a ready-reckoner visual (sourced from Gartner) to understand how the roles and expectations have evolved.

While Product Managers are doing their best to cope with the dynamic demands of the market and expectations of the role, it is not always pragmatic to excel at all the aspects given the opportunity costs.

Nitorians have developed an innovative concept of Peer Product Management and have been helping product management teams deliver products using multi-dimensional approaches. The most crucial thing which also happens to be at Nitor’s heart is to work with clients strategically, be involved in planning, and contribute to clients’ business growth!

Peer Product Management – a novel concept, a practical technique, or much more?

While the product is the core, the product eco-system is equally vital to create a sizeable impact in the market. We are not oblivious to the “Apple” example.

A peer product manager helps in sketching the entire picture beyond the big picture and understanding how it puts your business in perspective. The biggest reason most products fail is to miss this concept. Product Managers fail to prepare for unexpected challenges and can steer the product throughout the lifecycle. Product Managers also need to have the courage to focus on the course correction, constantly focusing on the market dynamics and the competition. Peer Product Managers make this effort seamless and provide a helping hand to the Product Managers who are already on their toes.

The whole being more extensive and significant than the sum of the parts is practically demonstrated through Peer Product Management. A Peer Product Management team comprises tech practice experts, architects, business practice experts, business analysts, peer product managers, UI/UX experts, and the delivery team that works with clients’ product management teams irrespective of the product’s stage. Depending on your product’s stage, Peer Product Managers choose the relevant modus operandi.

Introduction phase

This is the very beginning of your product and your goal at this stage is to understand product-market fit. If you get that right, then half the battle is won. As a Peer Product Manager, our focus is to have your product adapt rapidly – with the help of market research, business and domain experts and all the customer insights.

This is the stage where your idea needs to turn into an MVP (Minimum viable product) and fail fast as needed. A Peer Product Manager is a subject matter expert – one with immense experience in having helped see ideas to fruition. Rapid prototyping is what we can offer at this stage to cater to the dynamic expectations of the market.

Growth phase

This phase is where your goal is to expand your reach, scale, and stay ahead of the competition. This is where you need multiple fresh perspectives, have someone who knows intelligent positioning, and is great with competitive user research and analysis.

The focus here is to be a growth hacker – help with getting in more users at the same time optimizing to accelerate growth. They are experts and gauging how parallel development can take place without impacting the UX or the core product and prioritizing product features or the expected product.

Design thinking and its application is reflected if your product is in the above two stages. Peer Product Managers are experts at design thinking and being able to leverage this to create a sizeable impact.

Maturity phase

In this phase the goal is – retention and sustaining the market share. As a Peer Product Manager, we help evolve the value proposition and focus on customer delight.

This is one phase where the product managers need to look for additional avenues for revenue like revitalizing the product line and incubating new product offerings to both existing and new customer segments.

This is a phase where you need to move beyond the core product and move next to an expected product stage where you set conditions that a user expects, then take it to the augmented product stage where you give more than the customer expects and finally the last stage in your maturity phase is to create a potential product – a futuristic product that delights the customer.

Decline phase

The stage traditionally is seen as the last in a product’s lifecycle. However, decline phase is where the product can either phase out or begin a new life. The essential focus is to be a solution seeker and to determine the best possible outcome for the product.

A Peer Product Manager at this stage of the product will work with you in thinking strategically regarding either pivoting, resurrecting the current offering, or phasing out. Have questions for yourself ready at this stage – things like why choose this over that or what actions can affect the entire business versus just a few stakeholders involved.

The right set of frameworks, the tried and tested methodologies, the best practices and being on top of the industry trends and customer expectations are some peculiarities of Peer Product Management.

Watch my interview on everything Peer Product Management and how we at Nitor help organizations:

It’s up to you to decide whether you want Peer Product Management to be looked at as a concept or to really leverage the expertise Nitor Infotech offers and create winning products, multiply users and revenue or go beyond just the core product! If you would like to walk the Product Management journey together, we are waiting to hear from you!