Hi friend ๐,
When I was a junior product manager, I had a lot of thoughts about product management. I was one of them, and I sometimes felt that I was merely filling in the spaces that the design team, marketing team, or technical team had left unintentionally. And I've always been that way; I'm the one who brings empty cups to the kitchen. So, when somebody questions me about "what product manager does", the first thing I responded was "filling the blanks". It's easy to end up with a list of tasks that no one in the company wants to do, like secretary work or keeping engineers on stand-up meeting, or trying to communicate with your CTO about why that animation is important to the end user, or explaining to the executives why we missed the deadline for that specific project... The list could go on and on. It's filthy and chaotic. However, after a few years in that position, I discovered that the most important aspect of product management is enabling individuals to improve and have an impact. It is vastly different from all of these filthy jobs. Let me explain.
The product development lifecycle can be thought of as the path of an idea from someone's head to the end userโs keyboard and screen. It evolves during the trip and should be accessible to all artists in the company along the road. It all starts with an idea. Great product managers understand that an idea or an opportunity can be found everywhere. PMs are responsible for generating platforms to collect these ideas from end users or coworkers. When it is born, it should be validated; after that, it should be designed; after that, it should be tested; after that, it should be developed; after that, it should be tested again; after that, it should be measured; after that, it should be maintained... The list could go on, but in all of these scenarios, the PM is the one who solves the last mile of connecting points and ensures that there is no blockage. If everyone can bring their own magic to this journey, the end result will be a multiplier of the efforts put in. You have to have a platform for this.
Today, Zeda is our product.
What I enjoy best about Zeda is its simplicity. You won't know which features you'll utilize the most with these products, and it'll be difficult to build your strategy. When you first start using Zeda, though, every piece of software is included in your package. So you can experiment with Zeda to see what happens when you maintain track of your documentation, OKRs, roadmaps, and customer feedback. Everyone in your organization should adapt and understand that Zeda is the place to record all of their ideas.
Zeda's content marketing strategy is another strength. The posts on their blog are very well written, so I've been reading quite a few of them. I frequently use Product Library, which has over 1200 articles, and its collection of over 200 tools for product managers. You should look into Zeda if your company doesn't already use a product platform.
Weโll talk again tomorrow.
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Just take a look at our product and you will know the difference โ https://producter.co/
Either Zeda's concept has a lot of applications outside of product management, or product management has a lot of concepts that apply beyond product management.