The Complete List of Product Manager Tasks

What does a Product Manager actually do? This isn’t a trick question, we promise. Think about it for a second. You may know the Product Manager tasks you do, but we guarantee that the answers from the wider community will be different. Why? Well, because there’s so much that a Product Manager could be asked to do. 

Unlike other roles in a company, it’s hard to condense the job description of a PM into a single sentence and still capture all that the role entails. There lies the fun of Product Management, it can be shaped and sculpted into whatever your organization needs. Product Managers wear many different hats and fill multiple different roles, kind of like a Broadway actor who’s constantly slipping into the costume of multiple characters. That’s what makes it such a challenging yet rewarding job. 

To help you find clarity on what you need to be doing as a Product Manager, we’ve put together a long list of all the possible Product Manager tasks you may need to fulfill. Think of it as a menu where you’re picking off the items that are most relevant to you. 

We’re not going to get into too much detail on how to perform these tasks or get good at them. We’ve got countless pieces of insight about all that which you can search for here. Instead, we’re going to give you a brief overview of the task and then move on, while linking to useful resources for you to find out more. Capisce? 

So, whether you’re defining a new Product Manager role for your business, writing a job description, restructuring your product team, or just want a refresher on your responsibilities, here’s our list of some of the most essential Product Manager tasks. We’ve also put them into neat categories for you. 

Communication-based Product Manager tasks

Meetings

As a PM, you’ll be having conversations with everyone, be that the developers and designers on your team, executives, and even customers. This level of communication is great, as it helps you sync up with the wider organization and keep everything aligned, but it does mean that you’ll be in a lot of different types of meetings. In fact, this is one of the main tasks of a Product Manager: you’re going to have meetings scheduled pretty much every day. Meeting after meeting after meeting. 

It’s really important not to see meetings as a chore or something to just tick off the list. Each meeting you host or participate in should be beneficial and support overall product development in some way. If it doesn’t, don’t be scared to bin off the meeting. If everyone in it is thinking, “This could have been an email”, make it one. 

There are multiple types of meetings you’ll be in as a Product Manager, these include: 

• Standups: A short daily meeting with the wider team to sync up work, identify any blockers, and make sure that everyone’s tasks are aligned for the day.
• Sprint planning: A meeting at the beginning of each sprint to plan and prioritize work for the upcoming sprint cycle so the team understands its goals. 
• CAB meetings: Meetings with valuable customers to gather insights about the product and customer needs to improve what you offer. Learn more about Customer Advisor Board best practices. 
• Feedback calls: To gain insights from customers who aren’t on your Customer Advisory Board, you’re also be holding regular feedback calls to understand their needs, wants, and frustrations. 
• Roadmap planning: A quarterly or bi-annual meeting to plan and update the product roadmap, discussing long-term goals and priorities with leadership teams.
• Stakeholder meetings: Meetings with other stakeholders within the organization to give updates on the product process and gather feedback. 
• Backlog refinement meetings: A meeting to review and refine the current product backlog to ensure items are optimized and ready to be actioned in upcoming sprints. Learn how to get the backlog refinement meeting right below 👇. 

Participating in these meetings isn’t the only thing you need to consider. If you’re leading them, then you’ll also be tasked with writing meeting agendas, structures, and follow-up actions from the meetings.

Team Nurturement

As a Product Manager, you’re communicating and collaborating with many different people – we think the previous section makes that very clear. This means that building and nurturing relationships within your team and beyond is a really important task that you need to tackle pretty much every day. 

By working on nurturing your team, you can improve the productivity and performance of key people, helping you to get the most out of them, which in turn helps you to craft a better product. 

Meetings and keeping up communication are great ways to nurture your team, but another is transparency. By making decisions based on evidence you can show, you build trust and understanding with your team, helping to develop a good culture that ensures that everyone is pulling in the same direction. By nailing your product team structure, you can further improve the nurturing of your team.

Document writing

As the PM, you’ll be crafting multiple documents that help you provide clarity, direction, and a shared understanding of what you’re building and why. Among your other tasks, a Product Manager is also the storyteller, the strategist, and the scribe all rolled into one. The documents you create help to illuminate your wider team so that they’re not left in the dark and aren’t building misaligned expectations. 

There are a few different types of documents you can create, but some of the most essential that you’ll be creating as part of this Product Manager task include:

• The Product Requirements Document (PRD): This outlines the what, why, and how of the product or feature. It’s your chance to detail everything from user stories to technical specs, ensuring everyone from devs to designers knows exactly what they’re building.
• User Stories: A user story is a fundamental part of Product Management that details the functionality of your product from the user’s perspective. Writing user stories helps you discover more about what your product needs to be able to do. 
• User Personas: Creating user personas helps you better understand who you’re building your product for. They provide laser-sharp clarity that guides your design so that your user’s needs are always kept in mind.
• Product Strategy Document: A product strategy document outlines your product strategy, detailing business goals, product goals, limitations, and market research to create an overall vision. A good Product Strategy Document defines the unique benefits of your product.
• Release Notes: These are the documents that communicate what users should expect from the newest version of your product. It details the new features you’ve implemented, what you’ve changed and improved, as well as anything you’ve removed or fixed.
• Product Proposal: This is a document that helps you outline an idea into an actionable plan. Writing a product proposal can be what gets a product idea over the line and greenlit. 

These are by no means all that you should be documenting. In fact, there’s a lot of information about your product you should be recording for your internal stakeholders and customers. Remember, information is key to being a successful Product Manager, so if you feel that it’s beneficial to record something about the product, do it. 

Research and discovery Product Manager tasks

Product discovery

Product discovery is a crucial task and one that you’re going to be doing constantly as a Product Manager. You want to be completing continuous discovery throughout your role, which is where you’re constantly experimenting, learning, and applying what you’ve learned to make something better. In the world of Product Management, every day is a school day.

Product discovery is your detective work 🔎. It’s the process of uncovering the true needs of your users, identifying the right problems to solve, and exploring the best solutions. It’s not just about finding out what to build, but why you’re building it and how it will impact your users. The beauty of product discovery is that it’s not a one-and-done task; it’s a continuous effort.

There are multiple ways you can tackle your product discovery, whether it’s through user interviews, A/B testing, prototyping, or data analysis. Whatever tactic you choose, just make sure it can help you learn something about your product. 

Building domain knowledge

Within your role as a Product Manager, you need to do what you can to understand the domain that your product operates in. This is a major part of product discovery, as these key learnings may help you identify solutions and ideas to improve the product. 

For example, if you’re a Product Manager for a crypto business, but haven’t got the foggiest idea of what a bitcoin is, you’re going to struggle to be a good Product Manager for that company. Building domain knowledge ensures you have the expertise to thrive in your field.

Market research

Conducting market research is a key Product Manager task. Doing it enables you to learn about new trends and competitors in the industry you operate in. A key aspect of research and discovery, this task gives you insight to make key decisions about your product, influencing how you update features, pricing strategy, and more. 

Without solid market research, you’re just guessing what your customers need. By doing it regularly, you’re able to tap into the pulse of the industry and make sure that you’re ahead of the curve. You can uncover hidden opportunities, identify potential threats, and understand the competitive landscape. With this knowledge, you can position your product not just as another option on the shelf but as the must-have solution. A hunch might work once in a blue moon, but consistent success? That’s built on data-driven insights. 

Looking to improve how you do market research? We’ve got a list of the best tools to help you below 🔽.

Customer research

Customer research differs from market research, but it’s an equally important Product Manager task. Customer research is all about gathering insight from your customers, and there are multiple ways you can do this. You can run customer feedback sessions, surveys, or simply track customer metrics to see how they’re interacting with your product.

Customer research is your direct line to the people who matter most: your users. While market research gives you the big picture, customer research zooms in on the individuals who are actually using your product. It’s about getting up close and personal with their needs, pain points, and desires. After all, you can’t build a product that people love unless you understand what makes them tick. Completing this task gives you evidence to back up your decision-making, ensuring that every change you make is rooted in real user needs. 

One great way to conduct customer research is to train your customer teams to get really useful feedback. 

Customer feedback strategy

We’ve just touched on the importance of customer research and gathering feedback. But to get the most out of it you need a game plan for organizing how you collect this feedback and turn it into actionable insights. It’s not just about asking for opinions; it’s about setting up a streamlined approach that ensures you’re not just gathering data but actually using it to make your product better.

When building a customer feedback strategy, here are some of the steps you need to include:

• Collecting Feedback: Use surveys, interviews, and feedback forms to gather user insights. Think of it as setting up multiple channels to catch every valuable piece of input – no feedback gets left behind.
• Organizing Feedback: Sort and categorize the feedback you receive. It’s like curating a massive pile of post-its into neat, actionable insights. Chaos may be great for creativity, but order is key for execution.
• Analyzing Feedback: Dive into the data to identify patterns and trends. This is where you connect the dots and figure out what the feedback is really telling you.
• Acting on Feedback: Implement changes based on your insights. Turn those golden nuggets of feedback into real product improvements, making sure your users see that their voices are making a difference.
• Closing the Loop: Communicate back to your users about the changes you’ve made based on their feedback. It’s the “thank you” note that lets them know you’re not just listening, but actively improving.

Keen to learn how to craft a killer Customer feedback strategy? Check out our guide below ⏬.

UX research

UX research helps Product Managers better understand how customers are interacting with your product. It focuses on behaviors to help you identify trends that you can then use to improve the user experience. It’s all about observing how real people use your product, understanding what delights them and what drives them crazy.

UX research can help you find out if users are struggling to access a feature, are having friction with a certain function, and see if they’re using your product as you intended. All this is an important Product Manager task, because if your users find the experience frustrating, then they’ll be heading for the exit faster than a cheetah at lunchtime.

Remember, UX and UI are different, but the findings you get from UX research can influence how you design the user interface of your products. This research allows you to make your product more seamless to use, so be sure to add it to your recurring list of Product Manager tasks. 

Strategy and planning Product Manager tasks

OKRs & KPIs Setting 

When building a product or feature, before you even get to set your strategy, you need to know what data and performance metrics you need to track to see if it’s doing well. 

As the Product Manager, you need to establish your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), which will then feed into what KPIs you track throughout the product life cycle. Your OKRs aren’t just pie-in-the-sky dreams; they’re ambitious yet achievable goals that will make your product shine if hit. 

Those OKRs will help you identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you need to track as you iterate your product. By knowing your North Star vision, you’ll be able to set appropriate KPIs that act as a stethoscope constantly measuring the pulse of your product, making sure it’s not just surviving, but thriving. OKR and goal setting are a major part of building your product strategy. 

Here are some excellent Product OKR examples to inspire you, and improve your goal-setting ↘️.

KPIs tracking 

Of course, you can’t just set and forget your KPIs, you need to track them consistently. Tracking KPIs is an important Product Manager task, as it helps you gain insight to assess the health of your product. The KPIs you track are determined by the overarching goals you set at the start of the project and should be aligned with your goals to clearly indicate whether you’re meeting them. 

There are a lot of KPIs that you can track, related to multiple parts of product management. There are multiple product adoption metrics you should be tracking, Pirate Metrics to help you track the overall customer lifecycle, and product launch metrics to name just a few. It’s enough to make you go dizzy. 

Tracking KPIs is a key task for Product Managers. You can’t avoid it. If you’re finding it overwhelming, we’ve got a downloadable resource detailing all the most important KPIs and metrics you need to follow. No extra fluff. You can check it out below:

Financial Tracking 

The data and information you get from tracking KPIs are useful tools for Product Managers to help them make better decisions. However, another set of data that PMs should be tracking is the financial performance of their product. 

By completing the regular task of financial tracking, such as tracking MRR or ARR,  you’ll have a better understanding of your profits or losses, which can significantly influence how you approach iteration and improvements to your product. It can also lead to you changing your pricing strategy. 

Pricing Strategy Creation

To get the most out of your product, you need to price it effectively, making sure that you use the right pricing model and have the right price range that attracts customers. There’s more to it than just slapping a price tag on your product and hoping for the best. To find the best pricing model, creating a pricing strategy needs to become a core task you perform. 

You need to consider multiple factors when building your pricing strategy to ensure that you’re identifying the right model that best suits your needs. This includes assessing your costs, understanding your target market, and analyzing your competitors. There’s far more to this task than just setting your pricing at around what your competitors charge. You shouldn’t be playing copycat when creating your pricing strategy. 

You’ve got multiple pricing models that you can choose from, including: 

• Freemium: You provide a basic, free-to-use version of your product where users can pay to upgrade to access more premium features. 
• Reverse trial: A reverse trial is a model that gives users access to your entire product for a period of time before downgrading users to the free version. 
• Subscription: You charge a recurring fee for ongoing access, providing steady revenue.
• Pay-per-use pricing: A flexible pricing model where users pay as they go, only being charged based on their actual usage. 
• Bundling: This is where customers can pick the features they want to buy and bundle them into one package. 

To pick the right model for you, you first need to complete the Product Manager task of building your pricing strategy.

Product Positioning

As a Product Manager, your role is more than just iterating on and changing the features of your product. Working on how you position your product in the market can have a big influence on your product’s success. That’s why it’s an essential Product Manager task. 

Positioning is all about how you determine your product’s unique value and where you should fit it in the market. The way you position your product will alter how your sales and marketing team talk about your product, changing how it’s perceived by your audience. 

PMs that experiment and make changes to their positioning often make bigger impacts than counterparts who only focus on iterating product features. It can help you attract more users. without having to sink resources into development. 

Product positioning is something you should not ignore, as it can unlock huge benefits. The problem is that many PMs get it wrong and tackle the task from an incorrect angle. We’ve spoken to product positioning expert April Dunford to uncover the secrets to make you better at doing it. Check out our on-demand webinar through the link below 📽️.

Go-to-Market planning

When your product is ready to launch, one key Product Manager task is coming up with a strategy on how you’re going to go about it all. This is a critical task that a Product Manager will have to do from time to time, and you’ll need to do it well to influence the overall success of the product. 

Your GTM strategy will involve multiple different business functions, be it marketing, sales, customer teams, and your executives, so you’ll be key in coordinating your approach with all these stakeholders to ensure that your plan is aligned and effective. 

A go-to-market strategy provides many benefits. It helps to create alignment, establish the market fit of your product, accelerate growth, save costs, and work out any kinks in your process. It’s a very important task and an essential one for the Product Manager. 

Product lifecycle management Product Manager tasks

Idea triaging

Idea triaging is where you review past ideas and determine which ones are worth exploring. It’s a very important Product Manager task you should be doing regularly. See, ideas are like confetti – they fly around everywhere and are a bit messy. Triaging your ideas is like sweeping them up into a neat pile, before throwing the tattered ones away. 

Not all ideas are created equal. As a Product Manager, you’ll be bombarded by suggestions everywhere you look. Stakeholders, customers, and even yourself sometimes will come up with a silly idea. You can’t and shouldn’t pursue them all. That’s where idea triaging becomes so valuable. It’s there to help assess and categorize ideas based on their potential impact, feasibility, and alignment. 

Your time as a PM is limited. Idea triaging stops you from wasting time following up on ideas that aren’t worth it, instead allowing you to be strategic in your approach and work on the ideas that have the most potential. 

Backlog refinement

Your product backlog is a treasure chest of tasks, features, and ideas ready and waiting to be moved to your development backlog. However, it’s important to realize that not everything on that backlog is going to be a gem. To make sure that your backlog items are relevant, actionable, and worthwhile, you’re going to have to refine them every once in a while. 

Backlog refinement, also known as backlog grooming, is a Product Manager task that you’ll be doing regularly, and helps keep your backlog in tip-top shape so that you can effectively identify items that should change from ‘could do’ to ‘will dos’. This is the difference between a product backlog and a sprint backlog.

By refining your backlog, you ensure that the team is always working on the most valuable tasks and that nothing important slips through the cracks. It keeps everyone aligned and focused on the right priorities, making it easier to plan sprints, allocate resources, and hit your deadlines.

Backlog refinement can be a task you do in isolation or a collective task when you hold a backlog refinement meeting. If you’re unsure about how to host one, we’ve got a backlog refinement meeting agenda template you can download. 

Product roadmap management

Managing the roadmap of your product is one of the most fundamental tasks for a Product Manager. You’re the one guiding the development of the product, so it makes sense that you’re the one mapping out each stage on a roadmap. 

Roadmapping is not something that you’ll be doing every day, but it’s a task that you’ll do on and off to ensure that the items in the roadmap continue to align with your goals and can still be achieved. 

Your roadmap is where the vision of your product lives and outlines how you’re going to develop the product. Now, there are multiple different types of product roadmap formats you can use, with some being better than others. We’ve got a whole list of them that you can check out below ⬇️.

With all that said and done, we really think there’s only one choice when it comes to the best roadmap format. That is Now-Next-Later. Developed by ProdPad founders Janna Bastow and Simon Cast, Now-Next-Later is a time horizon-based roadmap, eliminating defined timelines and instead grouping items based on their priority. 

The Now-Next-Later roadmap makes up the basis of the ProdPad tool. Why not find out firsthand what makes Now-Next-Later so much better than the rest?

Release Planning

Release planning helps you build concrete steps on how you’re going to deploy the next version of your product. Release planning is not the same as roadmapping, as unlike roadmaps, release plans are focused on creating concrete dates and timelines of deliverables. Release plans are more strategic and concrete, allowing you to better coordinate the launch of something that you’ve already built. This task follows roadmapping.

We’re not going to sugarcoat it, release planning can be a pretty stressful Product Manager task. This is because you’re trying to add structure to something that’s super complex and unpredictable. To help make this task a bit easier, we’ve got a guide on how to master release planning. You can check it out below 👇.

Jack of all trades

Is that list looking like a lot to do? Well, that’s because it is. Here’s the truth: this list is totally impossible for one person to handle. So don’t. Instead focus on the most important stuff.

Some would argue that PMs are expected to do too much, and many will look at some of the tasks on this list and think, no, someone else should do that. 

Well, that response is fine. At the end of the day, the Product Manager tasks you complete will differ from day to day and change depending on what your business requires. Hopefully, you won’t be called on to perform all the tasks listed at the same time. Instead, as you journey through the role, we believe these are the core tasks that you may find yourself being responsible for at some point or another. 

Need something to help you become a better Product Manager? ProdPad does just that. Our tool makes good Product Managers great ones. Prodpad has helped many PMs improve how they perform many of the tasks listed above. Try it for yourself to see how ProdPad can benefit you.