Anatomy of a Product Manager
Anne-Lise Waal strips us product managers down to our skivvies! As the Managing Director of Attensi and former Director of Funcom, she knows a thing or two about the business savvy skills that product managers need to manage the commercial needs of your product.
Be metrics driven—but make smart metrics
Live and breathe your metrics and metric drivers. What are you measuring? Why? What features and experiences drive these metrics and how can those be improved? But above all, make your metrics relevant so prevent misaligned incentives.
Know your stats, stat!
Stakeholders from here, there, and everywhere will be asking for product performance. Have a ballpark number at your fingertips and be prepared to draw simple graphs. Complex numbers, excel sheets, and graphs cloud communications. Keep it simple, but keep it right.
Know your audience
Communication is always contextual. What you say to commercial stakeholders, developers, and marketing folk will and ought to differ. Learn the lingo and the jargon, and don’t be afraid to ask questions to learn more. Everyone wants to learn a new language, right?
We’ve given you just a sampler of the anatomy of a product manager, but there’s still more to learn of the head, shoulders, knees, and toes.
About the author
Lorian Leong
Lorian is a product professional and independent researcher immersed in Stockholm’s tech scene, with expertise spanning lifestyle and entertainment technology, internet and consumer tech, B2B/B2C hardware, and internal tools. This diverse experience allows her to bring a nuanced perspective to each project. As the cofounder and former organiser of ProductTank Oslo, she has also played a pivotal role in fostering a community of product professionals and driving conversations about innovation and best practices in product development. Passionate about the intersection of technology and society, she conducts research exploring how technology shapes everyday life, with a special focus on internet and mobile phone studies. Her published work highlights her commitment to understanding the broader impact of our digital interactions.
