In today’s blog, I would like to write about a subject that most of us in the entertainment business care very deeply about- that is Product Management. What most people in this business care about is how to prosper as a product manager.

To begin with, product managers supervise the marketing of the product to the consumer.  An effective product manager must coordinate the activities of everyone who is responsible for the product.  Like the artist manager’s role, you may have many professionals to organize to make sure the product reflects what the consumers relate to and will want to buy into.

Sawhney & Tyagi (2010) did research to find out what caused problems for product managers the most.  They developed a four-part questionnaire after interviewing 20 product managers.  There were 198 survey respondents who had an average of seven years experience, 40 % worked in business-to-business technology and nearly 23% in industrial products.  Most had advanced degrees. They hypothesized that organizational barriers, short-term focus and lack of education led to weakness in a product manager’s performance.  The other hypothesis was that organizational barriers affect roles, responsibilities and competencies.

They found that if product manager were given more authority this would increase their productivity. Sawhney & Tyagi (2010) found that most of the time they must master the art of influence without authority, which is hard to do

They also found that it is too hard for the product manager to get to the people or to the information they need to do an effective job because so many contacts are required with sales, advertising, finance, supply chain and executive management, etc. (Sawhney, 2010).

They found that the biggest problem was organizational structure.  If companies would clarify the role and empower the position, product managers would be more effective.  The study also found that the two most important skills are product knowledge and customer knowledge.

Reference:

Sawhney, M.S., & Tyagi, R. (2010).  How To Prosper As a Product Manager. Kellogg Insight: Online Magazine of Kellogg School of Management. Retrieved from http://Kinsight.Kellogg. Northwestern.edu. /article/how_to_prosper_as_a_product_manager