Becoming a Product Manager: The Road Less Traveled
Product Management can be an intimidating role. It takes someone that is equally skilled at navigating people as they are with navigating technology. Traditionally Product Managers come from a design or development background, find they are good with people, and evolve their role into a Product Manager position. As such a lot of the information for new or aspiring Product Managers assume they have a certain level of technical knowledge.
As Product Management becomes a more sought after profession, there are many of us with a less technical background that are becoming interested in the role. I’ll be the first to admit, moving from a marketing role into a product role was a bit of an eye opener. One of the hardest parts of the transition was figuring out where to start as there are varying opinions on what being a Product Manager entails.
That being said there are some fundamental skills that all good product people should have. The goal of this post is to provide some areas of focus to help kick-start your journey. They are the skills to focus on improving regardless of your background.
The Soft Skills
Your soft skills, or intangibles, are part of who you are as a person. They are typically ingrained in you from an early age and take a lot of conscious effort to improve. The following are the soft skills that will help you right out of the gate.
- Curiosity. Be ready for a role of continuous learning. Learn both the product and the business inside out. Your job is making decisions, the more knowledge you have on the overall impact of your decision, the better decisions you will end up making. Good Product people can tell you important information on every aspect of the business. Often information that their job doesn’t necessarily require them to know, but their curiosity drives them to obtain it.
- Team orientated. Don’t isolate or silo yourself. Take on tasks within different areas of your business. Often people gravitate to what they are comfortable with. If you are a designer, you feel that you add the most value by providing design input. But everything you want is on the other side of fear. A Product Manager is the Swiss army knife of the team. You want enough knowledge in all areas of business to be dangerous. Go answer some support tickets, sit in on your development teams daily stand-ups, jump into finance meetings.
- Communication. There is a lot of internal and external interaction in a Product role. Internally, you are the central hub for communication. If one business group has a question, your job is to go and find the answer. Externally, being able to speak with, and say no to customers is very important. Customers will often ask for very specific features, which at face value would be a bad idea to add to your product. Your job is to ask questions and figure out the core problem, and then come up with a solution for it. Not all features should be added, sometimes you need to tell them no. This is not something everyone is comfortable doing, but as long as you can clearly explain your reasoning behind the ‘No’ most customers are understanding.
- Think big, but focus on being action oriented. Having a huge vision for a product is great, but there are usually hundreds or thousands of steps to reach that vision. At all times have a list of the top 3 or 4 things you can personally do to reach this vision, and get them done.
- Willingness to speak your mind. Bring your own unique view to each area of the product. Part of the reason there are such diverse opinions on what a Product Managers skill set should be, is because there are many ways to be a Product Manager.
If you struggle with some of the intangibles listed, focusing on improving them is a good place to start your journey. Even if your soft skills are on point, there is always room for growth. Solid soft skills are a huge asset in the workplace. They are what separate a true leader from a manager, and your job is to lead a product.
The Hard Skills
There is a trifecta of skills that people will bring up when asked what tools a good Product Manager has in their tool-bag. It’s design, some development, and a sprinkle of marketing. This is because many of your tasks will be setting priorities and making decisions in these areas.
You don’t need to have the traditional background in design or development to start your journey, but you will need to be willing to learn about them. So, here is a high-level run through to get you started.
Design
Design is more than how the software looks, it is also the experience the user has while using your product. We’ve all used software before. Look back on some of the products that you like. What did you like about the product? What didn’t you like? Why?
The why is the most important part. Your job is to understand why users do what they do, even when they sometimes don’t realize why they do it themselves. Seems simple right? A lot of design is rooted in psychology, fortunately there are plenty of books on the subject. A good book to start you off is Hooked by Nir Eyal. If you have a curious mind, you will love learning about this stuff.
You can look outside of software for design inspiration. Cars, home decorating, architecture. All have a user experience, and there is a similar underlying thought process between designing a physical product as there is a virtual one. Start focusing on how you interact with everyday products, and come up with ideas on what would make those products better or easier to use.
Development
For those of us who do not have a technical background, stepping into a sprint planning meeting for the first time is like watching a foreign film without subtitles.
The good news is that as a Product Manager, you don’t need to get into the weeds very often. For when you do, you should know the basics of development. This can be learned through the vast amount of free resources available on Google search away, along with sitting in and listening to your team talk shop. A good resource to start is Codecademy (www.codecademy.com).
The level of technical knowledge needed, and the amount to involve yourself in development problems is something I still struggle with. My current rule of thumb is to stay detached from code specific problems, unless it is going to impact the timelines of our next release.
I’ve found instances where a lack of knowledge of code has been beneficial. Asking developers to explain code to you in plain english helps in a few ways. Obviously the largest benefit is that the conversation is framed in a way that you can provide feedback into the solution.
A less obvious benefit is the developer is forced to view and frame the problem in a different context. This can help provide clarity, and can lead to the developer figuring out the solution to the problem.
Marketing
The most common misperception of marketing (besides that developers think we are all a bunch of snake oil salesmen!) is that marketing is strictly advertising. Advertising is a part of marketing, but there is a lot more to marketing than advertising. Learning about the four P’s are a good place to start. Product, price, promotion, and place (notice that promotion is only a quarter of the focus).
A good marketer has a complete understanding of everything that goes into the product. You can’t set a price if you don’t first understand your costs. You must also understand your buyers, and how they buy (ie your market). A good book to start with is Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore. It lays out all the different aspects to consider when marketing a product, and is technology focused.
Have your product in a good place prior to mass advertising. The great thing about a solid advertising campaign is that it will help a good product grow fast, but it will also cause a poor product to fail fast.
Still want to be a Product Manager?
There is a good chance that your first job in the technology industry will be something other than a Product Manager. Do not be discouraged by this. A lot of what you need to be a good product person is learned while working in other areas of the business.
Find a job that meets your current skill set and get your foot in the door. Start learning about the business and the product. Start reading about design, development, and marketing. Reflect on your intangibles and improve them. Take on as many tasks as possible, even ones outside your department. Speak with Product Managers and figure out how they made it to where they did.
Learn as much as you can, and then figure out what works for you. At the end of the day everyone has a unique journey to becoming a Product Manager, and so will you.
Thanks for reading!
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