To be a good product manager takes so much work.
- Research and compare the products on the market, if any
- Listen to the stakeholder on the product requirements
- Have a high level review with the engineering team, and other departments involved, estimate on the cost and benefits
- Propose what features to include and what not to include
- Convince each department and stakeholders to buy-in on the decision
- Design the metrics to track and follow up on the implementation
- Draft up edge cases and QA plan
- Prioritize features and define impacts with existing product
- Manage the entire development cycle and develop release plan
- Post release metrics reporting and bug reports, etc.
I probably omitted many more steps. Kudos to great product managers.
My all time favorite product manager is Louis Topper when we were working in Massdrop.
I learned the most from Jay Stansell and his organization: Product Coalition.
If you want to learn how to be the "evil" yet "successful" product person, this is the bible in Silicon Valley: Hooked