A Day In The Life Of A Senior Product Manager At A Technology Support Company
A Senior Product Manager's day is highly structured, following Agile methodologies with a two-week sprint cycle, focusing on "unblocking" the team and enabling their full potential. This involves a mix of customer interaction ("what are you worried about?"), collaborating with engineering and design teams on development and mock-ups, and independent research to identify areas for improvement, all while constantly looking ahead to the roadmap and future development.
Project Management, Communication, Problem-Solving, Data Analysis, Teamwork
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Vinnie Shahzad
Senior Product Manager
Mid-Size Technology Support Company
UCLA, 2006
N/A
Engineering - Aerospace
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Video Highlights
1. A product manager's day is highly structured, often following Agile/Scrum methodologies with a two-week schedule.
2. The role involves removing roadblocks for the team, collaborating with engineering and design on product development, and conducting customer research to understand needs and pain points.
3. A significant part of the job includes data analysis to identify areas for product improvement and innovation, showing a data-driven approach to decision-making
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a product manager look like?
A day in the life of a product manager is typically quite structured, often following Agile or Scrum methodologies. This means working according to a fixed two-week schedule. The specific activities depend on where you are in that schedule.
Generally, you'll start with a morning stand-up meeting. The first priority is to unblock your team so they can work to their full potential.
After that, you'll likely spend time thinking about what's next on your team's roadmap. This could involve various stages, such as customer research, where you might talk to customers to understand their concerns and needs.
You might also work with your engineering team to discuss plans for developing new features, or meet with your designer to review mock-ups before they go to engineering.
Towards the end of the day, many product managers like to conduct research, which can involve diving into data to make discoveries. This helps identify problems you may not have noticed before and find ways to improve the user experience.
Essentially, your day involves ensuring your team can work effectively and planning what comes next to make things better for your users.