How the charity sector sees the role of a product manager

Admin on 02/07/2022

Introduction

This short study is intended to offer some observations about how the role of the product manager is perceived across the charity sector. It is not in anyway to criticise the job descriptions used by charities in advertising these roles as the best job descriptions are surely those that accurately describe the job. The intention here is to consider whether, and if anything what, the job descriptions might be able to tell us about what charities expect from product managers.

Twenty three charity sector product roles advertised in May and June 2022 were included in the study. All of the job ads were used to create a list of thirty three characteristics, and then each job analysed against the list.

Observations

All of the role descriptions fitted within the generally accepted role that product management plays within an organisation, that of bringing together user needs, organisational goals and using technology to achieve them.

Within the roles there is variety about the purpose of the role. Some were more focused on managing technology to achieve organisational goals with little mention of user needs, whilst others were focused on organisational goals (even if these weren’t defined in the job ad) with little mention of the technologies. Understanding user problems and meeting user needs was the least mentioned. Perhaps this results from an assumption that the organisation already understands its user’s needs and intends to improve how they are meet through technology, or because the concept of being user-centred hasn’t been adopted.

All of the roles, even the senior and ‘head of’ level, were very focused on delivery. There was very little mention of developing business models, validating market assumptions, or other strategic product work. This may suggest that, whilst charities are adopting more technology and recognising the need to manage it, they are still yet to adopt more contemporary digital approaches and product thinking.

Analysis

What product management roles are called

Different role titles used in the job ads.

  • For 23 roles there were 14 unique job titles, 19 if those titles include the product in brackets, e.g. (CRM)
  • 47.83% roles had unique titles, including Head of Product Management, Head of Product Delivery, Lead Digital Product Manager, Senior Product Development Lead, Senior Digital Product Manager, Senior Product Development Officer, Senior Product Development Lead, Innovation and Product Development Manager, Web Product Manager, Digital Product Owner and Junior Product Manager
  • 21.74% of the roles had the job title Product Manager
  • 13.04% used the title Digital Product Managers
  • 8.70% were called Product Owners

How much product managers are paid

Salaries of product management roles specified in the job ads.

  • The average salary is £45,976.45, from twenty two of the roles as one did not specify the salary
  • The lowest salary mentioned was £27,000 and the highest was £83,000
  • Of the two ‘Head of’ level roles the salary ranged from £48,231 to £83,000
  • Senior level roles averaged £44,300
  • Individual contributor roles averaged £45,865

What product managers work on

Different types of products the job ads suggest product managers will work on.

  • 91.30% of product managers would work on existing products
  • 34.78% would be working on building new products
  • 65.22% would work on external facing products
  • 26.09% working on internal products
  • 52.17% of the ads mention an outcome or goal the product manager would be aiming to achieve with the product

How product managers work

Working practices mentioned in the job ads.

  • 52.17% of the roles ask the product manager to be user-centric, to understand user needs, but only 26.09% would be involved in user research
  • 52.17% would be expected to monitor the performance of the product
  • 39.13% would use continuous improvement and iterative development
  • 30.43% mention using agile practices

What product managers are responsible for

Aspects of managing a product that the product manager would have responsibility for.

  • 86.96% would be managing stakeholder relationships
  • 60.87% would be managing supplier relationships
  • 52.17% would be responsible for managing projects
  • 34.78% had line management responsibility. Two heads of product, three senior product managers and three product managers
  • 34.78% would be responsible for managing the budget for the product
  • 30.43% would be responsible for product strategy
  • 26.09% would manage the product roadmap
  • 26.09% would be responsible for prioritising work on the product
  • 17.39% would be responsible for product vision

What skills do product managers need

Skills and characteristics mentioned in the job ads.

  • 65.22% would need communication skills
  • 34.78% would be to be analytical
  • 26.09% need to be able to cope in a fast-paced and rapidly changing environment
  • 26.09% need influencing skills
  • 13.04% would need a growth mindset to succeed
  • 13.04% need negotiating skills
  • 8.70% need facilitation skills
  • 8.70% need to be creative
  • One role required the candidate to have a PhD in biology and others required particular specialist knowledge relating to the business model for the product, e.g., licensing

220701

Admin on 01/07/2022

Today

  • Analytics, analytics and more analytics
  • Walk to the beach
  • Weeknotes 309

Tomorrow

  • Product role analysis
  • Retro for June
  • Delivery plan for July

Weeknotes 309

Admin on 01/07/2022

Photo of the week:

This week I did:

Analytics to impact

This week has featured a lot of analytics. I’ve been working on migrating to GA4, defining goals, mapping metrics into impact measures, and aligning products and services into theories of change. As much as I like the if-then logic and hypothesis-driven thinking of theory of change, I wonder if the one-way linear flow is limiting and whether we should be thinking more in flywheel change models.

The ultimate split

This week’s irregular ideas email was about how our brains evolved in two hemispheres to solve the problem of having to focus on the details and look at the big picture, and how we took the idea of rational thinking vs emotional feeling and used it to enforce misogynistic power structures in society. It wasn’t one of my best. It lacked clarity and the ideas felt disconnected. I don’t know what next week’s will be about but I want to try to make it more succinct in how it expresses the ideas.

Product roles in charities

I started the analysis of the twenty three product roles in charities that have been advertised recently. The point of the study is as an observation, not in any way a criticism, of the different ways charities think about the role of a product manager. Already, the main theme emerging is of inconsistency (for example, there are fourteen different job titles across the twenty three roles), which I think suggests the organisations are shaping the role to fit their particular needs rather than (perhaps) recognising the value good product management can bring.

And I read:

Continuous Digital

I started reading Allan Kelly’s Continuous Digital book. It aims to offers an alternative for projects for our digital world. Already it’s brilliant and I’ve barely started.

Communitarianism

I still maintain that one day historians will look back on the twenty-first century as the era of redefining the place of the individual in society. The individualism of the past few centuries no longer holds the kind of sense it used to, the relationship between the individual and the collective is changing drastically (a concept I want to explore in my dividual.me project if I ever get around to it). Communitarianism “is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person’s social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism.” It seems like it might have something interesting to contribute to that redefinition.

Power Cube

I’ve been reading about and trying to understand The Power Cube (Thanks to James for sharing it). I’m really interested in the power dynamics between people, especially with things like giving and taking responsibility, and how we (re)design systems to allocate power appropriately, and not confuse power with authority, which is an easy thing to slip into if you’re not careful.

And I thought about:

Digital charity show and tells

I wondered whether any charities do show and tells of work in progress. If we assume that working in the open and getting feedback early and often is a good thing (ya know, all that agile stuff), then I guess there’s a few ways these kinds of show and tells could work. Perhaps as an enabling platform that makes it easier for charities to show their work to their particular target audience or as a way to share practice among the digital charity teams and people.

Fitbit Publication Library

I’m interested in how commercial product companies create good impact, often without intending to, and what charities can learn from them. My usual example is Uber, which accidently caused a 6% reduction in deaths from drink driving, and what could they achieve if they’d intended to. I found the Fitbit Publication Library which shows research studies that have been conducted using Fitbit devices. I think this might become my next go to example of a company using product for good.

Mobius loop

Thought a bit about the mobius loop model for product development and how different sizes and speeds of work might fit, can you have different pieces of work at different stages at the same time… and why do we always represent linear time in our models (to end back where I started).