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Many companies use internal systems to standardize and optimize their daily workflow. Internal systems consist of a wide range of tools and applications used by all internal teams, such as admin panels, data visualization dashboards, customer management platforms, resource management tools.

With the rise of internal applications in recent years, product management related to internal systems has evolved significantly. Currently, many organizations have an internal product team to design, develop, and maintain their internal systems. Unlike traditional product managers, internal product managers are responsible for updating the internal products based on the changing work requirements within the company. Low-code platforms are a popular option among their solutions because they can both meet the requirements and ensure development efficiency.

This article walks you through the detailed responsibilities of an internal product manager and discusses how to manage internal applications well.

As an internal product manager, what tasks do you do?

The needs of an organization are constantly changing as it grows. In order to keep up with business changes, the internal systems within companies need to be constantly updated and iterated, which is generally the task of the internal product team. The internal product manager is responsible for developing internal tools with a clear goal and a set of functionality, and then upgrading them to meet the specific demands of business users.

Normally, the workflow of an internal product manager is as follows.

1. Define business requirements.

2. Develop a technical solution according to business requirements.

3. Test the solution to see if it provides all necessary functionalities.

4. Roll out the tool to internal teams.

5. Upgrade the tool regularly or add extensions to address new requirements.

Who oversees the development and maintenance of internal systems?

The answer to this question is not unique, but in any case, every organization needs someone like a CTO to supervise the development of internal tools. The supervisor should focus on the features, performance, and usability of the internal tools, as well as how many employees within the company start using it after its release.

Usually, the development of internal tools is part of the job of the CTO team. After figuring out a detailed solution, the task owners specify an internal product manager to build the framework based on the desires of their colleagues.

The internal systems free up both the users and the developers. Besides offering an efficient solution to individual teams within the organization, it is also a method to manage all the internal applications, thus largely reducing the workload of developers and the internal product manager.

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How does internal product differ from regular product management?

Internal systems play a critical role in the growth of a company. There are dedicated workflows within each company to handle and manage internal business, thus ensuring the proper functioning of the whole company. Internal product managers are expected to have a thorough understanding of these internal processes and design tools accordingly, so that they can guide all employees at the company to use the tools and provide help when necessary. Using internal tools guarantees efficient cooperation between teams and saves a lot of time for the technical staff, allowing them to focus more on the company business.

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Internal product management is very similar to that for product management in general except their target users. The target users of internal products are the company's employees, while the target users of external products are the company's customers. Therefore, the internal product managers are responsible for designing solutions, communicating with the departments, and providing timely feedback on technical or practical issues.

In summary, internal product management is to support internal production and support the delivery of the company's products and services. By comparison, external product management is to understand customer expectations and improve the company's products accordingly.

The responsibility of internal product management contains two major parts.

• Consider colleagues as "customers". For instance, the sales department needs a data visualization dashboard to have an intuitive view of the entire sales chain. Then, the internal product manager should develop an internal tool to satisfy this demand.

• Build a series of flexible internal workflow. This will help the employees within the organization turn their ideas into practice with the least amount of time and cost.

Manage internal systems best practices

It can be tricky to build and manage internal systems that streamline internal business processes. Hopefully, the following ideas provide some insights into this task.

Solve internal pain points

Internal product management is to develop tools that improve the overall performance of the company without impacting its external business. The focus of an internal product manager is to identify the problems faced by the employees within the organization and eventually facilitate the expansion of their external businesses.

The internal staff may have various demands based on their current situation and propose solutions from their perspective, but ultimately it is the internal product manager who determines the priorities of the issues in the backlog and the solutions to take. In other words, the major goal of internal product managers is to design and develop tools that can solve the pain points of their colleagues from multiple departments.

Collect user feedback

Internal product managers should first guarantee transparency in product communication with other teams within the organization. There are several tasks they can consider. First, they can collect ideas on and the problems with product communication strategy and send these comments to all teams within the company regularly. Second, they can bring together issues encountered by individuals when using the internal system.

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An effective way to ensure transparency and efficiency in communication is to have meetings with all internal teams. On such platforms, the internal product manager can present information such as whether users find the current internal tool useful, what they think of it after proper exercise, and any other experiences they would like to share. Audiences can also provide feedback and give comments to help the internal product manager to further enhance the product.

Reduce onboarding costs

It is critical that the internal tool is intuitive and easy-to-use. If an internal product manager delivers a difficult-to-use internal tool, then internal users have to spend a lot of time familiarizing themselves with it. However, not all of them are "tech enthusiasts" and they may have less interest in investing energy and efforts in this. The user experience can be terrible. Consequently, having internal tools barely contributes to overall performance and growth of the company.

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Ideally, in addition to keeping the system interaction simple and straightforward, the internal product manager should create a manual for all internal systems being used, in text or video form. The manual details the features and functionality of each tool and the skills required to operate them. Such complete and precise descriptions can go some way to reducing the pressure of using them and serving the goals of introducing internal tools.

Increase scalability

Each organization has its own set of operational processes and business goals. As an internal product manager, having a comprehensive understanding of the company's needs and goals is crucial to build an efficient internal system.

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For a growing company, it is essential that the internal system is scalable. For example, in the early stages of development, a company's business scenarios are often very limited, meaning that a few basic internal tools can solve most business scenarios. However, as the company thrives and the number of users increases, their needs expand accordingly. Users may demand a large number of additional features to the same solution. Therefore, scalable systems are especially important and a great design of the internal tool provides tremendous help.

Low-Code Platforms: Get more done with less effort

Low-code platforms help internal product managers quickly develop efficient internal systems using pre-built templates, drag-and-drop interface, and other UI components, thus simplifying the work of internal product managers.

Low-code platforms support companies building internal applications for various business scenarios, including marketing-related systems, sales-related tools, onboarding interfaces, and more. As an internal product manager, you can use low-code platforms offering modules, reusable code blocks, and rich third-party integrations to develop internal systems.

Openblocks is one of the best low-code providers. On Openblocks, you can invite collaborators, grant access to individuals or teams, build MVPs and deliver apps, and much more. Below is an internal tool built on Openblocks. For more demos, see demos.

About Openblocks

Openblocks is an open-source low-code platform where you can find 50+ built-in components. It also offers excellent documentation to discuss technical details, present practical tutorials, and provide all the information you need know for building an app. On Openblocks, you can get connected to most databases and any API within clicks, design custom components, share apps with colleagues or customers, and more.

Start your first app now and feel free to reach the vibrant community on Discord if you encounter any issue or would like to share an idea!