Last Updated on November 17, 2022 by
It is a known fact that user experience is a very important part of the product management lifecycle. When product management teams start to develop and design a product, they would invariably expect their User experience and product designers to work in a cohesive fashion with the product management team. The main goal of these teams remains one and the same- “to develop a unique product and launch them in the market with high ROI.” Engineering professionals who aspire to be part of a product management certification India often begin their journey by comparing the different roles of UX designer, product designer, and product manager. On the surface, they may all seem to be doing more or less a similar set of tasks and activities, but in reality, they have very diverging roles and responsibilities. In this article, we have highlighted the key skills sets that product managers should have in their bio-data and explained how these skills help to create and market a product successfully.
Prototyping
Product prototyping skills are hardwired to an individual’s engineering expertise. The concept of prototyping is not new yet a majority of the product designers and UX managers fail to truly inculcate the essential aspects of having prototype development in the early stages of product design. In most cases, prototyping is considered to be a mundane task and often set off against the true nature of product design and development. Prototyping goes beyond the mere realms of designing a product and using it as a blueprint to develop the larger aspects of the product and then launch it in the market. In reality, a product team would make and discard hundreds of prototypes before selecting the best possible sample.
Key considerations during prototyping include these activities:
- Doing an assessment of designs using manual sketches or software automation
- Doing AB Testing and iterations to identify bottlenecks, problems, and outliers
- Analyze costs and scope of improvement using fail tests
What skills do I need to succeed in prototyping?
PoC Development: A well laid out plan with proof of concept guarantees 90 percent of the success in product development. As UX designers, if you have your POC roadmap sorted in a fine manner, you can easily overcome unforeseeable challenges and glitches.
3D designing: Visual skills and software based visual prototype development are essential skills for UX designers to excel as product managers in their careers. There are many free as well as proprietary software tools to help you with 3D prototyping. In a reputed institution that gives product management certification in India, students can easily gain a better understanding of how software based 3D tools and designing workflows are handled with better outcomes.
Research and analysis
Data analysis skills can make you a champion! Now, the role of UX designers may not seem like a research based work in the beginning. But, as their career progresses and blooms, UX leaders often attribute their success to their research and analytical skills. With the advent of Big Data and business analysis capabilities coming together in the larger context of running a business, a majority of the SaaS and Cloud product developers rely heavily on data analysis for their projects. In fact, successfully UX research analysts often conduct both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, summarizing the results to uncover hidden patterns that facilitate agile product designing and development. These research analyses can be done using software programs and data visualization tools.
Interviews and communications
UX designers often stay behind the curtains. Yet, the scope of their work is expanding with each passing day. The skills related to collaboration and team engagements don’t come that easy. And, these could affect the overall journey of product development.
UX designers may not be the client facing team members in a product management lifecycle, but with teams getting leaner and startups coming into the picture with their aggressive product and customer-centric strategies, talented UX designers often have the chance to double up as product managers, particularly if they have a good communication skill, which invariably means the ability to conduct an interview with prospects and clients, and understanding what the basic requirements are! The interview skills could involve research, analysis prototyping, and much more that we discussed above, in addition to journaling for whiteboard analysis with other team members.
Conclusion
It’s always a good idea to speak with as many trained product managers, designers, and UX engineers as possible before embarking on the journey of product development. It takes around three to four weeks to fully understand the ecosystem of product development and how UX designers and UX research analysts fit in here. If you are looking for a really quick and smooth transition in your career, joining the top courses in product management certification programs definitely proves their worth.
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