Digital Products Manager

Digital product managers are primarily strategists and planners.

The candidate must be a self-starter that will deliver digital experiences that achieve business goals. As the product manager, you will work with UX/design, development and key business stakeholders to define and plan the launch of new features. You will also be responsible for the continuous optimization of Blowtrumpet’s digital products, while measuring and being accoutable for the success of these initiatives against core customer satisfaction metrics.

Digital product managers must have a solid understanding of web development, from coding to layout. Develop products by identifying potential products; conducting market research; generating product requirements; determining specifications, production timetables, pricing, and time-integrated plans for product introduction; developing marketing strategies.

With creative vision combined with market research skills, digital content managers plan out successful product launch campaigns, reaching out to consumers and finding out what they look for in digital products. The digital product manager acts as a mediator between the consumers and the technical teams, communicating consumer needs and translating those needs into new product features for the team to design.

Key Skills

The key to being a successful product manager does not lie in having deep expertise in any one field, but rather in an ability that we define as “Digital Product Management Thinking (DPMT).” DPMT in the digital economy is the ability to integrate analytics, business model, coordination, and design thinking, also termed as ABCD Thinking.

‘Design Thinking’ used to be the exclusive purview of designers. Today, design thinking is a problem-solving methodology adopted by entire teams and companies. Similarly, product managers must draw upon the collective thinking of their team. This is not trivial because product managers typically do not have team members (such as software developers) reporting to them directly. Most of the work must be accomplished through influence, implemented by building and leveraging a set of organizational and social networks. A team must understand and buy into digital product management thinking.

A product manager has  ability to leverage processes, such as lean and agile development, to facilitate timely decision-making, and resolution of conflicts. Thus, a combination of soft skills (e.g. persuasion and negotiation) and hard skills (understanding technology, business economics and allied analytics) are essential for success.

Responsibilities

Create and implement product vision, direction, and business plans, including product plans, user stories, product migration and evolution, and product life cycle and retirement for small scale projects or small enhancements.

Develop conceptual and evolutionary product plans that meet measurable benchmarks of customer satisfaction and will exceed customer expectations for flexible and exciting functionality and user interface. This includes managing small budget plans, developing business cases, identifying and assessing business opportunities and determining strategic fit conditioned by technical feasibility under the direction of the Manager or Director.

Gather, validate, and evaluate product/market requirements through market and guest research, competitive and product research, guest communications and external white papers.

Develop business rules and requirements specifications for assigned product features to include effective product and user interface design, rapid prototyping, product validation testing, and usability testing, while ensuring that the product strategy is adhered to throughout the product life cycle.

Develop and deliver materials to the appropriate marketing and sales organizations which convey the purpose and details of the product, definition of its user, benefits to the customer, customization capabilities, and competitive comparison.

Responsible for making sure that the success is universal in all areas of delivery of the project by coordinating via guidance from the Manager or Director.

Willingness to evaluate new functionality that should be applied to existing products currently and for the future.

Monitor the release process and placement of projects or enhancements in a release by communicating an integration plan to the sustainment teams, as needed.

Must have a strong desire for continuously performing ongoing competitive analysis, being a problem solver and escalating as needed any issues with Manager or Director.

Passion for cultivating partner relationships - with a keen ability to manage expectations that lead to successful contributions to the site, without compromising brand partnerships, site quality, or guest expectations.

Assist in development of new processes and tools such as (internal ticket tracking system)

Willingness to quickly shift on priority or direction under the guidance of the Manager or Director to help resolve high level guest or business needs.