The Product Manager's Handbook

This book gives a good introduction into the roles and responsibilities of a product manager. It makes no assumptions of any prior knowledge or experiences. For each chapter, it provides worksheets or process flow charts. In addition, case studies of actual events are presented. At the end of each chapter, it provides a set of checklist. Therefore I will recommend this to any reader interested to know more or making a career change. Overall, this book provides an excellent overview of the on-goings within business processes. Below is a brief summary. This book is divided into 4 parts. Part I gives an introduction into product management. Part II highlights the process that the product managers (PMs) can use in their annual planning activities. It provides a format or guidelines for the annual product marketing plan. Part III highlights the analytical skills of PMs, which is to evaluate existing product line and to determine & implement new product strategies. Part IV elaborates on the marketing skills necessary for a successful product line. Special attention is devoted to pricing and marketing communication decisions and activities. Briefly, product management is about the planning, forecasting and marketing of products and services. There is a need for PMs to be cross-functional leaders. The overall responsibility of the PM is to integrate the various segments of a business into a strategically focused whole, maximizing the value of a product by coordinating the production of an offering with an understanding of the market needs and requirements. PMs manage not only products, but projects and processes as well. The PM's job is to oversee all aspects of a product/service line to create and deliver superior customer satisfaction while simultaneously providing long term value for the company. In terms of time allocation, the PM typically spends 40-55% on day-to-day activities, 20-30% on short term activities and 15-25% on long term or strategic activities. Therefore excellent time management is crucial. Examples of day-to-day activities are maintenance of product fact books, motivation of the sales force and distributors, collection of marketing information including competitive benchmarks, trends and opportunities and customer expectations, acting as liaison between the sales, manufacturing and R & D, etc teams. Examples of short-term activities are controlling budget and achieving sales goals, participation in annual marketing plan and forecast developments, working with advertising departments or agencies to implement promotional strategies, coordinating tradeshows and conventions, participation in new product-development teams and predicting and managing competitors' actions, modification of product and/or reduction of costs to increase value, recommendation of line extensions, participation in product elimination decisions, etc. Examples of long term strategic activities are creation of long term competitive strategy, identification of

This is another book that forms the trio of my reference shelf in marketing (The others Succesful Product Management & Sucessfull Product Management). Again, this book gets you in the ready-action mode you need to keep focused on what really matters of your product dynamics.

I've been a product manager for several years. This book gave me a great foundation for my work when I was getting started.

I read this book in 2000 when I started my first job as a PM. Since then, I have re-read it a few times. Each re-read is such a pleasure as I am able to tie in my experience to more and more facets of the book that were previously unclear. The book is an industry independent, general review of the roles and responsibilities of a product manager. It lays a nice foundation for those who are new to the position by outlining business processes, internal and external interactions and organizational roles a PM can expect to have. The book does not delve into the mechanical details of marketing: such as conducting research, performing surveys, managing channels or evaluating effectiveness. However, it does talk about which kind of product managers would benefit from certain types of marketing initiatives.If you are new to Product Management or would like to learn more about the processes involved in managing a product's lifecycle, this book is an excellent introduction.

If you want to follow some steps in your decision making processes as product manager, you should have this book. Easy to understand, and to apply , this handbook brings you ideas and simple models on how to implement market analyses, marketing programs, etc.