Hi! I’m Lattika, a Senior Product Manager at Alida.
A typical day for me includes many different things, but I spend a lot of time talking to customers. My responsibilities vary depending on what phase of the product life cycle I am in. This is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product. It begins at inception through to engineering, design, and execution.
- Initial Discovery Stage. In this stage, I spend time brainstorming with my customer-facing teams. Here, I collect user feedback.
- Product Definition Stage. In the “Product Definition Stage,” I fleshing out a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). I also define the fundamental features of a product. I take into account what competitors are doing and how I can make my products different. This is my favourite phase of the product life cycle where I get to work with my UX/UI designers and bring out my creative side.
- Execution Stage. Finally, in the “Execution Stage,” I work closely with the Engineering team to put it all together and build the product.
Throughout the product life cycle, I work in tandem with my Project Management team to ensure a timely release, by ruthlessly prioritizing the backlog and removing any roadblocks for the Development team along the way. The Project Management team assists me in lining up a set of beta customers who can provide early feedback to enable me to improvise my product functionality.
Close to release, I work with my Product Marketing teams to communicate the value of the product being launched and how to position it to target customers as well as how to enable our Sales organization to sell the product and its functionality. Depending on the type of product, at times I also need to think about the pricing strategy of my feature and how it needs to be priced for customers to find value in purchasing it.
Last but not least, one of the key components of my role is to monitor the health of the product to ensure that my product is performing as it should and driving customer success.
A career in product management has been incredibly fulfilling and stimulating as it encompasses the most interesting aspects of product, design, and business. I’m particularly energized by engaging with customers, identifying their pain points, and building products that meet their needs.
