How a product manager brings value to your project

Last week was World Product Day, an annual celebration of the product community and the value it brings to organisations through shared knowledge and experience. 

It got me thinking about the role we play as product people, and more specifically, what value I can bring in my role as a Product Manager in an agency setting. What can I share to help organisations get the most from their investment in us? 

At its heart, the Product Manager role is about helping organisations figure out the right thing to build. We’re here to guide teams toward solving real challenges and achieving the outcomes that matter most. 

We help identify what to focus on first, so that value is delivered sooner. And we reduce the risk of failure by working closely with cross-functional teams — researchers, designers, developers, analysts — to test assumptions, explore feasibility, and make sure what’s being created is desirable for users, viable for the organisation, and sustainable to deliver and maintain. 

But here’s the thing. For us to do that well, we need partnership. 

We need our clients to be open about their challenges and share the context and data that’s informing their thinking. The more we understand the world you’re operating in, the better we can help you navigate it, and make decisions that are grounded in evidence and shared ambition. 

And let’s be honest, there’s little need for a Product Manager if an organisation already knows exactly what to build, why, and how. If every detail is known and the solution is fully scoped, delivery can follow a more linear process. You just need an expert supplier to follow the recipe. 

Here’s where we might challenge that idea. 

In our experience, projects that seem fully defined on paper rarely stay that way. Once you get started, start talking to users, looking at real data, working with real constraints, things shift. Priorities change. Assumptions unravel. New opportunities emerge. It’s why overly fixed scopes often lead to workarounds and rework, rather than the right solution. 

That’s why we believe a Product Manager’s role is valuable, even when things seem well-defined. We help manage change, spot new insights, and ensure you’re always moving toward the value, not just ticking off outputs. 

When a project has multiple moving parts, unclear pathways, or shifting stakeholder needs, that’s where a Product Manager can guide you through the uncertainty. It’s in these moments that agile, iterative working really comes into its own. 

We’re also seeing more organisations recognising this shift. More teams are moving away from traditional vendor-client relationships and towards longer-term, strategic partnerships. 

A recent study from Efficio Consulting and Cranfield University* (Procurement 2025) found that two-thirds of organisations expect strategic relationships to become more important. Yet fewer than half had made progress in selecting their strategic suppliers. 

And here’s the tension we often see... RFPs that ask for a ‘Discovery’ phase but also list detailed specifications for the final deliverables. 

That’s a contradiction. If you already know exactly what needs delivering, what’s the point of Discovery? What insights are you hoping to uncover, and what space have you left for them to shape your direction? 

We know that for many organisations, this isn’t about bad intent, it’s often down to outdated procurement processes or uncertainty about how to ask for something more outcome focused. 

So, if you’re new to working this way, here are a few tips to help you get the best from a product partner: 

1. Be open.  Share the vision and ambition you have for your organisation and be honest about the challenges you are facing in achieving that.  Provide data and insights that leads you to believe this or allow your partner to help you explore this space.  If you want improvements to a product or service that already exists, who are the users, why do they use it and how well have you been meeting their needs in the past.  
2. Focus on outcomes. When writing your RFP be clear about the outcomes you want to achieve and let your partner help you work out how to achieve that.  Delivery of certain outputs may be easier to document and measure, but they may not actually get you to where you need to be.  At Nexer we are a creative bunch, and our team can provide multiple different ways to approach a problem.  Use us for this expertise.  
3. Make room for discovery. If you’ve recognised that as a company you need to do more work to explore the problem space, consider requesting a Discovery phase to make sure uncovering insights that allow us to be sure we’re tackling the right problem in the right way.  And please, if requesting a Discovery, don’t then also list upfront all the specifications that need to be delivered.  Why bother with research and ideation if you already know what is needed?  Instead, let the activities and deliverables emerge from the findings. 
4. Be present. Partnership means collaboration. We’ll need your input throughout the lifecycle of the project. Priorities and directions evolve as we learn more, and we need you alongside us to make decisions that stick. 

If you are looking for a strategic partner and you’re not sure where to start or how to best prepare your RFP.  Let’s have a chat.  An early discussion or workshop could help to shape your thoughts or stress test your idea without committing yourself and will no doubt lead to stronger outcomes: lee.emery@nexergroup.com

Survey *https://www.efficioconsulting.com/en-gb/resources/insight/procurement-2025-is-digitalisation-driving-more-effective-procurement/