UML Diagrams for Product Managers
Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a visual language that is used to model software systems. The standardized notation of UML diagrams helps teams design, understand, document, and share the structure and behavior of a software system. UML was published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an approved ISO standard in 2005. While most software engineers don’t adhere strictly to the exact specifications of UML for their day-to-day work, their informal hand-drawn diagrams commonly include concepts from UML - and therefore, product managers benefit from understanding how UML works.
UML can help product managers build better products by providing a visual representation of the product’s technical design and architecture. UML diagrams can help to clarify the requirements of a product, identify potential problems, and align on technical design considerations with engineers.
One type of UML diagram used in product management is the use case diagram. Use case diagrams are used to define the requirements of a system from the user's perspective. A use case diagram consists of actors, use cases, and relationships between them. Actors are the users of the system, and use cases are the tasks or activities that the users perform in the system. Use case diagrams help product managers to define the requirements of a system, identify potential issues, and communicate the requirements to the development team.
Another type of UML diagram is the class diagram. Class diagrams are used to represent the structure of a software system. A class diagram consists of classes, attributes, and relationships between them. Classes represent the entities in the system, attributes represent the properties of the entities, and relationships represent the connections between the entities. Class diagrams help product managers to understand the structure of a system, identify potential issues, and communicate the design to the development team.
UML also includes other types of diagrams, such as activity diagrams and sequence diagrams:
Activity diagrams are used to represent the flow of activities in a system, and are particularly helpful for design sprints
Sequence diagrams are used to represent the interactions between objects in a system, and are particularly helpful for integrations
While product managers don’t need to know the exact standards of UML, understanding how different entities behave and interact can yield dividends for PMs and their teams.
By having a visual representation of technical designs, PMs can help clarify the requirements of the product and identify potential issues, while also documenting technical decisions for future reference and maintenance.