NEW CASE STUDY: How we built top-rated shopping apps for Crate & Barrel and CB2 
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NEW CASE STUDY: How we built top-rated shopping apps for Crate & Barrel and CB2
In a connected digital ecosystem that gets more complex each day, the role of the digital product manager has never been more important, or more challenging. Plenty of attention has been paid to digital product managers (DPMs) in recent years. But the pace of change is only accelerating. The job is changing. And only those DPMs who can supplement their management skills with deep digital expertise and understanding of the product landscape will be able to keep their teams ahead in the race.
There is no “traditional” path to becoming a DPM. Heady DPMs come from marketing, from computer science, from project management, and more. But what our
DPMs all have in common is an obsession with user journeys, product design and development, a level-headed vision for how to achieve it, and the benefit of shared tribal knowledge.
At Heady, we’re a little obsessed with digital products. Our DPMs are more than a little obsessed. So here’s a look at their roles, what they see happening in the digital landscape now, and where it’s going next.
“You’re the voice for the person who’s not there, whether that’s the user or the developer or the client.”
Digital product managers, at the most basic level, are tasked with keeping digital products running consistently in an environment of constant change. As new vendors emerge, rules evolve, and technology pivots, a DPM’s work of “lifecycle management” is an always-on responsibility. It begins with product maintenance: making sure that bugs get fixed, code gets updated, security remains strong, and more. But for skilled, future-focused DPMs, maintenance is simply a foundation for the real work: product enhancement.
Digital product enhancement involves the refinement and improvement of products: proactive changes that are grounded in user insights. (Think new features, improvements to the user interface (UI), refreshed technology.)
“If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.”
These product refinements, a key part of digital product lifecycle management, almost always originate in one of three places. They come from a business need, a user need, or a tech advancement.
Digital product managers are responsible for balancing all three elements in considering any enhancement. In other words, DPMs must make sure that product changes both delight users and further the business, while taking advantage of new opportunities presented by the underlying technology.
For example: let’s say that Company X’s leadership team is interested in a technical advancement in location-tracking. Company X wants to activate location-tracking in its app, so that it can gather and leverage additional user data.
This is where a digital product manager shines. The DPM in charge of Company X’s product must use what they know about digital trends and user habits to develop a strategy for implementing location-tracking that those users will find acceptable—or, even better, appealing. Maybe the DPM recommends that users get targeted discounts based on their location, or can see when friends are nearby. In this way, the DPM finds a way to enhance the product for both the business and the users.
Staying in lockstep with users and on top of new technologies and trends requires that digital product managers live and breathe their products. A great DPM will always do this, whether they work in-house or at a partner organization. And in fact, partnering rather than hiring brings with it a few key advantages.
Location-tracking is just one example of digital tech, in an ecosystem that is growing and diversifying at breakneck speed. It’s the digital product manager’s responsibility to stay aware and deeply informed about new technologies—and to translate both maintenance requirements and enhancement opportunities to business executives.
Given the increasingly complex tech landscape and the unique requirements of various platforms, DPMs must be cutthroat prioritizers. At Heady, DPMs execute both maintenance and enhancement priorities using the agile process. This requires the DPM to create detailed roadmaps, set goals and deadlines, and manage their developer teams during two-week sprints. The agile process also allows DPMs to act quickly when new opportunities arise.
“You need to be really, really in tune with your user, because you have limited screen space and infinite technologies to work with.”
In the future, the digital ecosystem will be even more complex than it is today. So digital product managers must be constantly developing new strategies for their lifecycle management responsibilities. The “tribal knowledge” generated at an organization like Heady, where digital products are our sole focus and DPMs share knowledge, is key to such continuous evolution.
In the future, missteps in product changes will be even more costly than they are today. The knowledge-rich environment of a product-focused organization like Heady provides some protection against missteps. Heady DPMs are empowered to move their teams through maintenance tasks efficiently and pursue industry-first enhancements confidently—because they must also complete thorough research and validation of any idea.
Therein lies the other meaningful advantage to partnering for digital product management: consistent, thorough vetting of any and all ideas. Given the existential relationship between product success and a partner firm’s success, the bar for decision-making is simply higher for DPMs at a company like Heady. The ultimate winner in such a scenario? Undoubtedly, it’s the brand.
Digital tech will continue to be fast moving, as the world grows hungrier for the hyper-targeted, personalized experiences that digital products provide. Every brand needs a digital product manager who understands the discipline of delivering exceptional experiences to the brand’s users, while balancing business requirements and emerging tech. In choosing that manager, companies would do well to consider not just today’s definition of the role—but where it’s headed.
“We have to prove an idea is a good idea if we want it to be implemented, which is super valuable for a Brand Partner.”
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