5 Product Management trends of 2021 that every Product Manager should know

We learned the lesson of “2020” in the hard way that whatever tomorrow might bring, we need to be healthy and self-assured to face things that come up!  Every December sounds like a prediction month, where all the businesses and industry experts publish a lot of blog posts predicting what will happen over the coming year. But, At the end of 2019, we never thought that this global pandemic would completely transform our lives and work. COVID-19 makes most of our anticipation remain untrue. :(

Especially for product managers who had a long bucket list of tasks to complete in 2020 had become a complete mess. They pushed to transform their working process, leading to crushing many meetings to settle, and now, the entire businesses become more digital.

With 2021 set to be a year of transformation between the pandemic and a real return to our previous state, this article will help you with the five ways that will affect the world of product management this year.

• How will digital products help with business growth?
• Where should be the product operations manager’s focal point?
• Product management tools evolve faster never like before
• Pandemic remains to impact how we work.
• Focusing on significant customer connections is more critical than ever.

Now, it’s time to take a broader look at each topic. Let’s begin!

How will digital products help with business growth?

The year of unexpected lockdowns, restrictions, and social distancing created more consumers to be more active online. Surprisingly, there was tremendous growth in the digital commerce world; all the businesses pushed to carry forward their business through online sales for survival. Other traditional sectors, like banking, healthcare, and education, also adopted a new digital dependency.

As organizations everywhere geared up with their digital transformation plans, product managers need to do more crucial roles in their organizations and to decide what to build next for their product to stand out of the competition. Last year this phase, we had a different idea totally but what we can know is understanding the cruciality of digital experience and with it what are all the chances to improve our business. With this 2020 takeaway, similarly, there are many opportunities in the digital world to prove ourselves and our product proficiency every day in 2021. Focus on the new digital trends that cause every single day to tackle it and find your way and crush it when you get an opportunity.

Where should be the Product operations manager’s focal point?

Out of all the new upcoming product management specialist roles, one of the most critical roles will be the product operations manager. This role aimed explicitly at overseeing and enhancing how the whole product team works and how all the campaigns decided are moving from scratch communication to processes. Product’s accelerating specialization makes significant operations ever more critical. Product operations managers always need to have a sharp look at those newly diverging teams set up to concentrate on what they could give their best work while collaborating productively with each other and with the organization members.

This all includes defining, creating, and organizing clear-cut new processes for the whole product team from the base that is from researching, selecting, and integrating the perfect tools and services. Product operations managers will also be responsible for collecting and collaborating information with the broader business, and finally, maintaining valuable direct relationships between product teams and customers.

Product management tools evolve like never before

Product operations are vital to unlocking efficiency from the growing product management software ecosystem, which already includes ample amounts of tools to help with almost every phase of the product life cycle. As with the product manager role, these services are doing a great job to help the product managers to give their best at this crucial time, and that’s why it is becoming progressively specialized. There are plenty of tools available for visual collaboration, customer behavior analytics, capturing user insights, etc. Now, mostly you would have tried a lot of tools to select which product management tool suits you the best. Still, you can’t find the one; you need to try Hellonext, which helps you better strategic planning and in-depth customer analysis.

The best part of these tools is it not only helps you to enhance existing workflows, but they also create new opportunities for how teams collaborate. The future generation of product management tools will need to provide a new type of specialists with high depth and flexibility by integrating with other expert tools accessible to stakeholders outside the product team, including customers. As they define and create valuable processes for managing their teams, product operations will ask for new features and functionality, further speed-up evolution across the entire ecosystem.

Pandemic remains to impact how we work

2020 was a challenging year for the world’s organizations who spent their days struggling with ever-changing market conditions and the unexpected transformation to full remote working. According to the current situation, things won’t change much in 2021. The most realistic vaccine rollouts would be closer to 2022 before the return of a full office atmosphere, regular travel, and live meetings.

As companies pay more time on deep-rooted thinking next year, they will need more proactive management measures and enhance existing remote practices. Product managers will need to create wise strategic planning processes that aim for success and don’t depend on a never-ending series of intense video meetings. Improving access to tools that facilitate effective asynchronous communication will help improve business-wide visibility, encourage contributions from a large variety of stakeholders, and provide everyone with considerable time to get work done.

Focusing on significant customer connections is more critical than ever.

For some previous years, product management has slowly elaborated from its internal engagement to focus on external engagement too with customers. Knowing the importance of the customer feedback and a deep understanding of user insights on what they need to help product teams build better products and services for more people. But the impact of the pandemic has made managing those collaborations harder, as face-to-face workshops, discussions, and user testing came to an unexpected halt.

New platforms that help manage the recorded customer conversations have helped bridge the gap. But 2020 has changed more about how customers behave that product managers must reconnect direct lines to users in 2021. Developing product operations and roadmap, the vital point of contact for customers can be an ideal way of improving these relationships and ensuring the organization has access to a free flowing pipeline of better product feedback and insights. Besides, tools like Hellonext can manage in a better way to bring customers into the conversation by capturing their insights and sharing progress without depending on face-to-face interactions.

Product management trends in 2021 Uncertain but thrilling times ahead. Uncertainty over what tomorrow will remain to be part of everyone’s lives in 2021. But the particular feature is that it’s an exciting time to be in product management. Most people and businesses who discovered the ease and comfort of digital platforms during this lockdown will not destroy these benefits in the post-pandemic era. Product management’s role as a strategic part of a vast range of organizations will remain to grow throughout 2021 and beyond!