Prodlab Primer

The Product Management Club of IIM Indore

Prepared in Association with Placement Preparation Committee

 Prodlab Primer

Ello ello!
Hello! WeProdlab!
We are are Prodlab!

What is our
mission? How do we plan on
achieving it?
To build a Global Community of
Product Leaders.
• The Big Project
• Webinars, Workshops, Guest Lectures
To equip IIM Indore community • Product Improvement Series
students to excel in product • Live Projects
management careers. • Events,
• Panel discussions,
The club aims to be one stop • Product summit
solution for all things product! • Alum Connect
• Newsletter and social media
knowledge snippets
• PM case-prep sessions
• Quizzes and Competitions

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 2

 Prodlab Primer

So what is Product Management really?

Product management is the practice of strategically driving the
development, market launch, and continual support & improvement
of a company’s products. Product
Design
Engineering, Design & Marketing lies at the heart of Product Product
Management. It can be best summed up with Manage
ment
The Product Triangle.
Product Product
Devel- Market-
And what do we mean when we say Product? opment ing

It could be any item or service you sell to serve a customer’s need or want.
It could be physical (like durable/nondurable goods) or virtual (like offerings of services or
experiences).

Now we want you to spend some time exploring the differences between Product
Management & Project Management ☺

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 3

 Prodlab Primer

And what exactly do Product Managers do?

Put simply, a Product Manager (PM) represents the customer.
Their role in technology companies is to think holistically about the customer experience.
In Adam Nash’s words,

“PMs figure out what game a company is playing, and how it keeps score”.

They are like mini-CEOs of their products! Product Managers spend most of their time in
some of these activities.

Conducting Developing Communicating Coordinating Acting on Feedback

Research Strategy Plans Development & Data Analysis

Broadly, there are three types of PMs:

• Internal PM – Builds tools for other people inside the company
• B2B PM – Their clients are other companies
• B2C PM – This is the most common type. The PM has to get feedback from users and
analyze this data in order to adapt the product to the needs of the consumers.

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 4

 Prodlab Primer

The Product Development Process

There are 7 phases in the Product Development Process.

• Conceive: Collect user problems and brainstorm solutions.

• Plan: Market research on ideas from phase #1, conduct customer interviews & road
mapping for the product
• Develop: Make timelines & decide on your features. Come up with user stories, specs
& estimations. Set the requirements.
• Iterate: Finish the MVP or early prototype, test your assumptions. We use tools for
testing different versions of the product.
• Launch: Work with different teams (like Marketing, Legal, PR, Sales) to position the
product for public launch. Check the market response after the launch.
• Steady State: Collect metrics, optimize them.
• Maintain or Kill: Analyze the data. Is the product competitive. What is the ROI? Does
it fit our company’s vision? Arrive at a maintain/kill decision. If you decide to kill, go
through with “sun-setting”.

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 5

 Prodlab Primer

The
The Product
Product Lifecycle
Life cycle
The product life cycle is the process a product
goes through from when it is first introduced into
the market until it declines or is removed from
the market.

The life cycle has four stages.

• Introduction: The product is being released

into the market. Marketing and
promotion are at a high. The company
often invests the most in promoting the product.

• Growth: The market expands as a result of the growth. The product in the growth stage
is typically tweaked to improve functions and features.

• Maturity: Its sales tend to slow or even stop - signaling a largely saturated market.
Companies will often develop new or altered products to reach different market
segments at this point.

• Decline: Product sales drop significantly. The product loses market share, and
competition tends to cause sales to deteriorate. Eventually, the product will be retired out
of the market unless it is able to redesign itself to remain relevant or in-demand.

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 6

 Prodlab Primer

References
References (if any)
& Resources

Did we get you interested in ProdMan?

Here are some resources if you’d like to explore further.
• Product School
• Product Manager HQ
• UX Magazine

References:
• The Product Book by Product School
• https://productschool.com/blog/product-management-2/career-path/7-phases-of-
product-development/
• https://www.productplan.com/learn/what-is-product-management/

Prepared in association with Placement Preparation Committee 7