What Is the Role of the Product Team?

Customer demand is often driven by innovation. Innovative products in manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, medical devices, and other industries are crucial for delivering excellent service and product excellence to customers, clients, and partners.

A large part of selling and manufacturing a product is the product experience team, which focuses on Product Experience Management (PXM) techniques, software, and other responsibilities from the very beginning of the product concept.

But what does a product team actually do?

In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the product team responsibilities, including their roles, responsibilities, and tools that make their job much more manageable.

What is the Purpose of Product Strategy?

Product strategy is a roadmap to customer success, from the initial concept of the product to the ways that it will be marketed, distributed, and improved. This starts by looking at the customer journey and the typical steps they take towards deciding to purchase your product (or not).

Product strategy cannot start without first identifying the customer journey. Mapping out your current customer journey starts by first understanding what is currently working and what isn't. The product team usually speaks to the marketing department and other subject-matter experts for insights into what each "stage" can look like.

When a product is first introduced into the market, what is the first course of action that your brand takes in order to estimate demand and gauge interest? There should already be measures in place that track specific KPIs that monitor interaction much before the product has gone to market.

Once you have mapped out your current customer journey, the product team can start mapping out the ideal customer journey based on their findings and the best way to interact with a prospect or buyer at each stage. Then, and only then, can the real product experience begin, and a comprehensive product strategy can start to take form.

What Are Three Major Areas of Product Management?

Product management echoes the strategy you have put into place. While a customer roadmap can be a large-scale operation and tracking effort, there are three fundamental pillars of product management that have been essential and unchanging throughout the years.

Here are the three significant areas of product management:

1. Product Discovery: Finding the perfect product begins with discovery. This starts as a journey of exploration, where market research, competitive analysis, and consumer insights will start to pave the way. Product managers and their teams take this challenge like adventurers, keeping an open mind to discover data-driven insights along the way.

2. Product Planning: The insights must be implemented once enough data is garnered within the product discovery stage. Here, the product roadmap and personalized customer journey takes place, which develops a schedule of improvement and updates on a regular basis.

Don't worry about making it perfect. Product research starts and ends with feedback, so make sure to be versatile and adopt a flexible work ethic to get things right. Remember that this is both an art and a science.

3. Product Development: The final stage is product development, where everything culminates in a tangible product. The engineering, manufacturing, and design teams are now engaged in creating a prototype of a minimum viable product (MVP) to add to the product catalog, which needs to be market-tested.

Although this is the last stage of the product management process, it is not the final step in your brand's efforts to sell the product. Continuous tweaking must be done to ensure satisfaction, compliance, and a competitive product experience.

What Is the Role of the Product Team?

Product strategy and product management are owned by the product team, which is end-to-end responsible for a specific product or product category, depending on your business. Product team members usually specialize in one product at a time and work with a dedicated product experience team to make sure they are progressing in the right direction.

Here are the primary responsibilities of a product team:

Owning Product Strategy

Behind every successful product is a dedicated team that has the ultimate responsibility of steering the strategic direction of the laid-out strategy. Whether they oversee one product or a range of them, their goal is clear: guiding the product from start to finish while keeping it aligned with the company's overall goals of profitability, scalability, and relevance to the client's needs.

Finding New Paths

It all starts with product discovery, a unique journey fueled by research, consumer insights, and market analysis. The product team digs deep to uncover hidden needs and identify strong pain points that need to be solved.

The team also spots emerging trends and understands what makes the market tick. Armed with this knowledge, they have a current and fresh perspective on new ideas and data-driven solutions.

Mapping Out the Route

Once the team has laid the groundwork and has some fresh ideas to work on, it's time for some planning to get done. This is where strategies take shape, and the product roadmap comes to life. However, flexibility is key in a world where consumer tastes and market trends are always changing.

Plans are constantly tweaked based on feedback and new information, both internally and externally.

Bringing Ideas to Life

With the roadmap laid out, it's time for product team members to roll up their sleeves and get to work. The product team takes concepts and turns them into reality through careful planning and repetitive market testing.

The journey doesn't end with the product hitting the market. It's just the beginning as they continue to refine and adapt based on feedback and evolving trends in the market.

Smooth Launch and Promotion

As the big day approaches, the product team will do everything to anticipate a successful launch. They work closely with sales and marketing teams, providing them with the information they need to promote the product effectively. This includes everything from product specs, labeling instructions, websites, apps, and marketing materials, all neatly organized in a central hub for easy access.

What Is an Example of a Product Team?

Product team structure and roles vary significantly among different companies. This usually comes with a "top-down" approach that starts with the product manager. Product management team roles can include the managers themselves, supervisors, and with larger organizations, even directors or VPs.

Depending on the brand's size, each specific product could have its own product manager. The product manager is tasked with delegating responsibility to product team members to carry out vital tasks and actions within the three pillars. The manager coordinates their efforts while liaising with SMEs throughout the organization and engaging them when needed.

Some companies like to take this a step further and implement a great product manager across product categories instead. For example, if your company manufactures lawn equipment and large installations, two separate product managers may be needed with similar skill sets but different levels of expertise.

Product teams align both with the business structure and marketing efforts. If your organization already has a strong business structure in place, the product team can be more closely related to a product marketing and product experience team. In a smaller business, the product manager could act as both a marketing manager and a business partner, depending on the knowledge required.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and every product team is different. One detail that binds them together is the need for a centralized, single source of truth that can accumulate all marketing efforts together to create a stunning and memorable product experience for your customers.

Lumavate: Making Product Experience Easy

Product management can be complex, especially without the tools and software necessary to make your job easier. Lumavate’s all-in-one PXM platform combines the functionalities of a Product Information Management (PIM) solution, with a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) and a Digital Asset Management (DAM) tool.

You can combine all your product's necessary information and data and create compelling experiences and designs that resonate with your clients. With text messaging and 40 out-of-the-box integrations, you can align your entire product strategy into a single platform.

Demo Lumavate today and learn how to take your product management to the next level.