A Director of Product Management is responsible for leading the development of the product vision, strategy, goals and roadmap. They work closely with product managers to ensure successful delivery of the roadmap. In this blog post we describe the primary responsibilities and the most in-demand hard and soft skills for Directors of Product Management.

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Main Responsibilities of Director of Product Management

The following list describes the typical responsibilities of a Director of Product Management:

Align

Align the right resources to the task at hand.

Apply

Apply your leadership skills to guide our products from inception to global adoption.

Articulate

• Articulate both vision and business case to senior leadership and across the organization.

• Articulate the benefits of new products or features and the future direction of the product roadmap.

• Articulate the product vision.

Build

• Build and lead a team of product managers.

• Build and maintain an internal network of connections that cross organizational lines.

• Build and nurture relationships with key suppliers and manufacturing partners around the globe.

• Build impactful, personal customer relationships.

Champion

• Champion and execute a holistic vision for the Content Creation Products and Services team.

• Champion a One-Team culture across Product, Engineering & Design.

• Champion diversity of team, thought, and opinion.

Coach

Coach and mentor team members on product strategy.

Collaborate with

• Collaborate across multiple teams and a virtual team of language owners internally.

• Collaborate across multiple teams executing strategy from design, development through product launch.

• Collaborate closely with Architects, Engineers and Designers to define usable and scalable solutions.

• Collaborate closely with engineering, UX, and doc.

• Collaborate with business users to define processes that meet business needs.

• Collaborate with customer facing roles to drive market awareness and customer adoption.

• Collaborate with highly cross-functional teams to deliver a world-class application.

• Collaborate with OU marketing teams to drive demand-gen activities for common layer products.

• Collaborate with sales to establish long-term sales forecasts for our products.

Comfort

Comfort conducting user studies and talking to people to understand their needs.

Communicate

Communicate both internally and externally.

Conceive

Conceive and implement product strategy across multiple product categories.

Conduct

Conduct competitive analysis to ensure your product and business strategies are second to none.

Consolidate

Consolidate requirements from industry leaders and customers.

Create

• Create and communicate product plans, benefits, roadmaps and results for new products and releases.

• Create both back-end and customer-facing solutions to solve localization problems.

• Create business process documents (process guides, templates).

• Create collateral and analyses to support the positioning and launch of said GPU products.

• Create compelling demos for internal and external use.

• Create consensus for the product vision both internally and with key external partners.

• Create Go to market strategies in cooperation with Marketing.

• Create influence over the Digital P&L and achieve strong P&L Growth results.

• Create project plans, business and technical requirements documents for product execution.

Define

• Define and analyze metrics that inform the success of the product and features.

• Define and drive short-term and long-term delivery roadmaps.

• Define and drive your product portfolio's mission and strategy.

• Define and evolve the product roadmap and strategy for Fauna's database products.

• Define, guide, reevaluate and execute the product strategy.

• Define metrics and experiments (AB or other) to evaluate success.

• Define new marketing campaigns and collaborate with the marketing organization on campaign execution.

• Define product strategy and create detailed requirements.

• Define product strategy - Develop product strategy for the Low Code platform business.

• Define the digital product strategy, vision, and roadmap.

• Define what success means for product releases before features go into development.

Deliver

Deliver the "Why” and "How” of the product vision and roadmap to all relevant stakeholders.

Design

• Design and Engineering teams still talk about how incredible it is working with you.

• Design an organizational engagement model to ensure there is effective stakeholder coverage.

• Design HR technology strategy and roadmap to address current and future business needs.

Determine

• Determine and / or refine processes for submitting bugs, feature requests, and custom development.

• Determine buy / build / partner decisions.

• Determine / execute on plans for any improvements required.

Develop

• Develop a prioritized roadmap based on market and customer dynamics.

• Develop a vision and Roadmap for data scale services.

• Develop business cases for new products working with Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Finance.

• Develop Integration strategies and technology plans, working with other Salesforce teams.

• Develop product strategy, goals, and business cases / justification.

• Develop, recruit and retain talented and high performing product management team.

• Develop relevant, sustainable solutions.

• Develop task lists to members of the team working on the product.

• Develop ways to constantly define and monitor success.

Discover

Discover and prioritize customer use cases and requirements to expand our product to new markets.

Distill

Distill insights from early customer engagements and translate into meaningful business strategies.

Document

Document and communicate status updates to team members and Management.

Drive

• Drive a robust software development process that is agile, predictable, and results-oriented.

• Drive attainment of business metrics.

• Drive based on business impact and customer needs combined.

• Drive cross-cloud, cross-program alignment and strategy.

• Drive decision-making on how the "whole product” is packaged and delivered to the market.

• Drive industry narrative for the common layer products thus winning external and internal mindshare.

• Drive Lifecycle management of all products from concept to end-of-life.

• Drive overall product vision, strategy, roadmap, and requirements to fuel growth.

• Drive revenue growth through development and execution of product-line growth strategies.

• Drive the end-to-end delivery of world-class technology solutions.

• Drive the end to end feature delivery cycle.

• Drive the ongoing development of features based on client need and commercial benefit.

• Drive the vision, strategy and roadmaps for major portions of the product line.

Engage with

• Engage in problem solving with analytics to determine trends and root causes.

• Engage with enterprise customers for requirements gathering and roadmap briefings.

• Engage with our partner, customer and developer communities to drive customer success and enjoyment.

Ensure

• Ensure alignment and deliver a world class experience for consumers (B2C).

• Ensure end to end product definition and delivery of solutions.

• Ensure processes are scalable and flexible to meet future business needs.

• Ensure product management methodology and processes are adopted effectively.

• Ensure that engineering teams and architects are aligned around these sets of priorities.

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed.

• Ensure the voice of the customer is present as we continuously evaluate our roadmap.

Establish

• Establish metrics for success and take responsibility over the success of a product line.

• Establish success criteria for key product features using meaningful metrics.

Evangelize

• Evangelize our products and technology with customers.

• Evangelize product vision both internally and externally to get people fired up about your product.

• Evangelize the Scale vision and lead change.

Execute

• Execute plans to make those objectives achievable.

• Execute PM framework and processes to define functional and technical requirements for engineering.

Facilitate

• Facilitate communication with key stakeholders to ensure successful delivery of your roadmap.

• Facilitate sales and channel trainings on new features and capabilities.

Find

Find and resolve the issues before they become blockers.

Focus

Focus on both client and employee experience, and how product strategy affects each.

Formulate

Formulate a strategy for delivery of apps, services, and microservices on the Salesforce Platform.

Foster

Foster and maintain relationships with key partners and vendors.

Gain

Gain alignment and establish a process and drive annual strategic planning cycles.

Help

Help establish product management best practices.

Hire

Hire, train, mentor and coach product team members to support the organization as a whole.

Identify

• Identify and select high value partners, develop and implement respective business models.

• Identify technical development opportunities and partnerships.

• Identify technology opportunities, dependencies, gaps and risks.

Incorporate

• Incorporate feedback to product vision, requirements, specifications, critical metrics.

• Incorporate perspective into Investment Backlog for delivery.

Increase

Increase product management skills and knowledge of team.

Influence

Influence pipeline build / demand gen activities.

Lead

• Lead and ensure delivery of agreed service or product to customers.

• Lead and implement product specific planning activities.

• Lead a team of Product Managers in associated areas of ownership.

• Lead competitive landscape audits.

• Lead, grow and motivate a relatively newly established team of Product Managers.

• Lead the development of the product vision, strategy and roadmap.

• Lead the Product Management team ensuring the right skill set to take the company to the next level.

Leverage

• Leverage product data to continually get smarter about how to improve our products.

• Leverage product data to continually get smarter about how to improve our products Minimum.

• Leverage your relationships to ensure innovative technical & product solutions for salesforce.com.

Maintain

• Maintain and enhance the brand identity of the product.

• Maintain professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops.

Manage

• Manage a global team of product managers and project managers.

• Manage all phases of product development and delivery, including concept, testing, and launch.

• Manage and guide a multidisciplinary team of consultants to ensure they achieve their goals.

• Manage and mentor Product Owners and other product supporting team members.

• Manage a team of direct reports.

• Manage a team of Product Managers and coordinate their activities across multiple business lines.

• Manage backlog refinement and planning sessions.

• Manage, mentor and build a high performing product focused team.

• Manage, mentor, coach, develop other Product Managers on the team.

• Manage our amazing PM team.

• Manage our amazing PM team, helping them grow and do the best work of their career.

• Manage the product managers.

• Manage vendors to plan, execute and monitor projects directly and / or indirectly.

Meet

Meet annual product level financial targets.

Mentor

Mentor Product Owners / Managers.

Monitor

Monitor implemented systems and processes to ensure high performance.

Motivate

Motivate and drive a high-performance team to set stretch goals and crush them.

Operate

Operate both strategically and tactically in a dynamic environment.

Oversee

Oversee the creation and communication of project plans for all related projects.

Own

• Own and drive our next-gen high-availability offering for high-volume B2B and B2C sites.

• Own and manage the full product level financial plan, including both revenue and expenses.

• Own product backlog and prioritization for key product areas.

• Own product roadmap and execution.

• Own testing across the website.

• Own the portfolio and product roadmap and communicate with all stakeholders.

• Own the product strategy.

• Own the product vision and roadmap that synthesizes the needs customers over the long and short term.

• Own the product vision for your area.

Participate in

Participate in Process Improvement activities.

Perform

• Perform other duties as required.

• Perform speaking engagements or product demonstrations as needed.

Prepare

Prepare and present product-related updates for different levels in the organization.

Present

Present product and roadmap to customer executives.

Prioritize

Prioritize Feature requirements.

Process

Process improvement orientation.

Produce

Produce and present presentations to both internal and external audiences.

Provide

• Provide coaching, mentoring and support to people leaders and individual contributors.

• Provide leadership while never forgetting that you're a team player.

• Provide thought leadership internally and bring in best-in-class product management practices.

Receive

• Receive and react to product feedback from all internal and external stakeholders.

• Receive similar job offers.

Recruit

Recruit, train, manage, develop, and retain employees.

Research

Research and apply regulations and governing standards to product requirements.

Revise

Revise tools and processes used from the product organisation.

Scope

Scope and prioritize activities based on business and customer impact.

Seek

Seek market opportunities that generate high value and loyalty.

Set

Set priorities in alignment with Sales and strategic objectives.

Support

• Support and grow the product development team.

• Support any required RFI / RFP boilerplates, training, tools, collateral, and knowledge bases.

• Support sales strategy, sales resources and partners as needed.

• Support the sales team on sales calls including objection handling, demos, etc..

Take

Take part in product planning and task assignment.

Team up

Team up with Product Line owners to develop and maintain the product roadmap.

Track

Track market trends and dynamics to inform product decisions and strategy.

Train

Train Salesforce Sales teams and partners on messages and delivery.

Translate

• Translate product strategy into detailed requirements, user stories, and prototypes.

• Translate product strategy into detailed requirements with attention to detail.

Travel

Travel for costumer meetings, user conferences, and internal collaboration.

Understand

• Understand and influence the business needs of the Adobe as well as various applications.

• Understand market needs and build innovative product vision, strategy and roadmap.

• Understand of current data protection and privacy laws.

• Understand our competitors strengths, weaknesses and market strategy.

• Understand the how the vision will be delivered by the product team(s) and provide input.

Work with

• Work closely with development teams acting as product owner and managing the backlog.

• Work closely with key customers to plan, communicate and execute product roadmap.

• Work closely with product leaders across Salesforce Clouds.

• Work closely with sales and marketing to launch and sell the solution.

• Work closely with senior and executive level management.

• Work closely with UX to define and simplify the user experience across the products.

• Work cross functionally with Design and Engineering to align on the multi-year product vision.

• Work from home with one-time allowance.

• Work on strategic initiatives from day one.

• Work well with multiple project teams simultaneously, on a team or work independently.

• Work with Demo Teams (supported by SEs and PMs) for packaged vertical demos in the landscape.

• Work with engineering to develop, test and deliver a marketable product on time.

• Work with existing teams / structure.

• Work with partners to have them adopt the platform.

• Work with Sales, Marketing and other client-facing teams to gather and analyze product needs.

• Work with the CEO and senior leadership on product vision and the roadmap.

Most In-demand Hard Skills

The following list describes the most required technical skills of a Director of Product Management:

1. Product Management

2. Agile

3. Technical Background

4. Product Development

5. Finance

6. Scrum

7. Product Vision

8. Management

9. Business

10. Economics

11. Product Strategy

12. Project Management

13. Sales

14. Statistics

Most In-demand Soft Skills

The following list describes the most required soft skills of a Director of Product Management:

1. Written and oral communication skills

2. Analytical ability

3. Leadership

4. Interpersonal skills

5. Organizational capacity

6. Problem-solving attitude

7. Collaborative

8. Presentation

9. Creative

10. Attention to detail

11. Entrepreneurial mindset

12. Self-starter

13. Strategic thinker

14. Priority management

15. Ability to manage multiple tasks

16. Quantitative

17. Results-oriented

18. Drive

19. Flexible

20. Multi-task