The day-to-day work of a product manager varies over the course of the product life cycle. At the beginning, you'll be figuring out what to build; in the middle you'll help the team make progress; at the end you'll be preparing for the launch.
产品经理的日常工作是随着产品处于的不同时期变化的。在产品开始阶段，你需要弄清楚应该做什么；在开发中的时候，你需要帮助团队去取得进展，最后，你需要准备好发布所需的东西。
While the product life circle varies by company (and sometimes even by team), it usually follows a general pattern of Research&Plan, Design, Implement&Test, and Release. Of course, these frequently overlap and feed back into each other.
然后产品开发周期流程是随着公司变化的（有时候甚至随着不同组变化），一般情况下，由调研计划、设计、开发测试和发布几个步骤组成。当然，这些步骤经常重叠和反向。
Some companies or team split the product manager role across two people: the more business- focused person and more engineering-focused person. When companies make this split, they call the engineering-focused person the technical program manager or technical product manager(TPM), and they call the business-focused person the product manager(PM).
有些公司和团队会把产品经理分成两个角色：一个更多关注业务，另一个更关注工程。如果公司按照这个分了的话，偏重于工程的角色会被称为技术产品经理（TPM），称呼更侧重业务的角色为产品经理（PM）
When a team has a TPM and a PM, the product manager focuses on Research & Planning and Release, while the technical product manager is more focused on Design and Implement &Test. For example, the product manager will research the market and define the requirements. The TPM will work with the PM to translate those requirements into the specific feature work required, and then facilitate the engineering team as they build it.
当一个团队中同时有TPM和PM后，PM会关注与需求研究&计划和发布，TPM会更关注设计和研发测试。例如，PM会调研市场并定义用户需求，TPM将会和PM一起将这些用户需求转变为开发所需要的功能，进而驱使工程团队去完成实现。
Research & Planning
All products and features start with research and planning. This is the time when the PM is starting to think about what to build next. The next idea may come from a customer request, competitive analysis, new technology, user research, the sales or marketing teams, brainstorming, or big vision for the product.
调研和计划
所有的产品和功能都是从调研和计划开始的。这是产品经理开始思考接下来做什么的时候。下一步的想法可能来自一个用户的请求、竞品分析、新技术、用户研究、销售的反馈，脑暴后者是对于产品的大的愿景。
Depending on the scope of the role, a bit part of the product manager's job in this phase is creating or proposing a roadmap. This means figuring out a cohesive long-term plan for the team. The PM talks to all possible sources to create a large list of potential features or development work. Then, based on factors like customer needs, the competitive landscape, business needs, and the team's experience, he prioritizes the features and scenarios.
根据产品经理的能力范围，在这个产品阶段的产品经理的主要工作就是创造或者提出一个产品的蓝图。这意味着必须为团队提出一个统一的长期计划。PM需要和所有潜在的需求源沟通，然后列出一系列潜在的需求和优化工作。然后还需要依据，用户的需求，竞品的情况，商业需求和团队经验，指出所列需求的优先级。
Once the PM has a proposed roadmap, he needs to bring other people on board. Some companies, such as Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, have a top-down approval process, where executives and directors get involved very early. Other companies, such as Google, Facebook, and many startups, have a bottom-up approach, where the PM focuses on winning over engineers.
一旦PM有了一个产品的蓝图，他需要让所有其他人都明白和理解。一些公司，比如微软、苹果和亚马逊，有着一套自上而下的流程，产品经理会像非常早的向经理和总监们描述。还有一些公司，比如谷歌，facebook和很对创业公司，有着从下往上的通道，产品经理会更优先去说服工程师。
Once he's chosen a feature set, the product manager becomes the expert on them. He'll think deeply about the problem he's trying to solve and the goals of features. In the coming phases, everyone on the team will have questions, including "Why are we woking on this?", and the PM will need to have answers.
一旦选择了功能列表，产品经理就会变成团队的专家。他将需要深入思考他尝试解决的问题的目标和功能是什么。在接下来的产品阶段中，团队中所有的人都要可能问PM类似于“为什么我们做这个东西”这样的问题，PM必须能够回答好。
This is also the time when the PM starts defining success. He'll envision what the world looks like if the team is successful. Many companies use the model of Objective and Key Results (OKRs) to communicate the most important goals of the team. In this model, the PM works with the team to come up with measurable results that it can commit to.
这同样是PM定义什么是成功的时机。他需要想象出如果取得了成功，应该会是怎么样的情况。很多公司利用OKR的方式在团队里进行重要目标的沟通。在这个模型里，PM需要和团队预期提出可被衡量的重要结果。
