4 Reasons Generalists Make Effective Product Managers
“It’s hard to transition into Product Management… If you had a technical background, then you’d have a better shot at becoming a PM.” These are claims many product-curious professionals are met with when they express interest in the field. Could we get any less inspiring as a tech industry?
A quick disclaimer, highly technical problems need technical product managers. They bring a valuable, experienced perspective, find technical users more relatable, and can more effortlessly earn the trust of Engineering.
To complement our skilled, technical PMs, we need some generalists. They can be just as, if not more effective — depending on scope and depth of the problem at hand. Here’s why:
1. We have cross-functional experience making it easier to build trust and influence across the business.
The beauty of Product is how diverse we are. We come from Marketing, Engineering, Sales, Operations, Customer Success, Data Science and more. Odds are high that a generalist PM has sat in one or more those roles, meaning they have collaborated with many of the others. Having been in the role of a teammate means you understand their pain points, where they may or may not have bandwidth to support your strategy, and how to capitalize on their expertise to drive the product forward. Not only do you have this understanding, they believe that you do. A successful PM not only has their cross-functional team 100% behind their strategy, but also assisting in the implementation. Having been or partnered very closely with your stakeholders, gives you unparalleled empathy that is key in partnering with them as a PM.
Conversely, because generalist PMs are not experts in the specifics, they are naturally more flexible on the details as long as the overall desired outcomes will still be achieved. This makes the partnership with Product more enjoyable from the stakeholder’s perspective.
2. We are experts at solving new problems by referencing historical, parallel situations.
While we may not be an expert in a specific area of the business, we have solved problems across many. When faced with a seemingly new product problem, we think about previous situations addressed in our career. These may have been for a different user, industry, position, or product stage but we can quickly identify when a piece of it feels eerily similar to the one at hand. Thus, we are able to confidently draw upon the approach we used, and more efficiently use a variation of it in the present than if we’d never faced that parallel situation before.
An example might be that as a Product Marketer doing buyer persona research, you learned that A) the buyer is not the user, and B)when a buyer is considering renewing a product contract the weight of internal user feedback varies. This depends on a company’s organizational structure, cash they have to spend with vendors, and the use case the buyer pitched to gain approval for the product in the first place. Later, as Product Manager, you are building a subscription based, B2B product for users who work at companies of varying sizes. Given your Product Marketing experience, you are able to make a case for why you need to surface user activity to the user and buyer, so that both can be confident in the effectiveness of the tool in their workflow.
More on how generalists are skilled at parallel problem solving in Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.
3. We are natural end to end thinkers.
Because generalist PMs are not specialized in going deep in any one area (though they must practice) we are sure to go broad! Let’s say one is building a front end data reporting tool. Just as soon as they are thinking about the reports that will make the most sense to the user, they are considering every component or step before and after that must be included in order to deliver value. This includes aspects like the capabilities of the APIs transferring the data, the speed of which the data factory can compute the supporting mathematical model and the accuracy and breadth of the input data before computation. This end to end approach gives a PM the ability to derive a level of confidence that whatever might display in the report is going to be performant and useful to the user — not to mention is competitive and sellable. Next, they are quickly scoping out the work and dependencies to ensure the new feature delivers maximum value while using minimal resources (time, money, people, etc).
4. We don’t need to become experts to make a smart decision.
A critical skill in product management is the ability to make smart, best-in-time product decisions and deprioritize what is not important in the moment. As generalists, we know a little bit or more about all components of the business, and lean on our trusted experts to get any additional information needed to make a decision. We listen to learn what we don’t know, and are comfortable leaving less important details to unpack at a different time. This creates an environment where more efficient, quality decisions can be made.
Seeing yourself in the above? Make your case.
Your diverse professional background makes your approach to problem- solving unique. Your proven ability to collaborate cross-functionally, natural tendency to think end to end, and efficient decision making are all skills that are incredibly difficult to teach. As a fellow generalist PM, comedian, and board game inventor, Jake Comito, once said “PM is a mind-set. PM is not an Engineer who also talks with Legal and Marketing sometimes.”
Already made it in Product Management? I invite you to flip the script. Rather than deter our product-curious friends from joining us, why don’t we answer with the truth…It’s perceived as difficult because there’s no one way in, it’s about knowing how your diverse experience is a strength and making your case.
