Answers for a New Product Manager
Posted by Ivan Chalif in Best Practices, Communication, Customers, Professional Development
I saw a question on Linked In from a new Product Manager who is switching careers and wanted some pointers about how to make the transition smoothly. I answered the question with some suggestions. She is not a software Product Manager, as I am, so my response to her was not tied specifically to what I do as a software PM. I am re-posting a slightly modified version of my response here. Enjoy!
<original_response>
Welcome to Product Management. It’s a very challenging and rewarding field and provides a great opportunity to interact with many business functions.
I work as a software Product Manager, which is slightly different than what you are doing, but regardless, ANY Product Manager should be doing the following things to be successful:
- Learn about your product(s).
Even if you are already familiar with them, do whatever you can to learn more. Review documentation, go to user training, talk to any “experts” within your organization about what they know about the product. - Listen to stakeholders.
Product Managers are the link between many different areas of the business. You will need to take those diverse and frequently conflicting interests into account as you make product decisions. Product Management is not a democracy, but it does require listening to, understanding, and synthesizing input from many different constituents. - Listen to users.
Every product or service has a user. It may be an external customer or an internal one. The Product Manager is the proxy for that user and all users. To effectively be that proxy, you need to listen to feedback from users, both positive and constructive. Don’t let others (Sales, Support, Executives, etc) be a filter. You have to hear for yourself. - Understand your business.
Beyond just making your own product successful, you need to know how your product fits into the overall corporate strategy and what the success factors for the company as whole are. Your decisions need to take those external factors into account. - Make decisions holistically.
Product Management is a long-term process and you will be faced with making many decisions almost every day. As you weigh the details of each situation, focus on how that decision will affect your product over time. The shortest, easiest option may look appealing, but also consider what that decision means for the future. Also consider that each decision is not made in a vacuum. Try to see how those decisions are linked together. - Take risks and embrace failure.
No one does everything right every time. Even with the best planning and analysis, things don’t turn out the way you think they will. Don’t be afraid to do something just because it might not work. If it’s not successful (or as successful as you thought it would be), figure out why and learn from it. A past manager of mine told me once that it is OK to make many mistakes, but not the same mistake more than once.
There is so much to Product Management that it is hard to sum up in short space and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should help make the transition a little easier. Some of the information you need to be a successful Product Manager only comes with experience and getting your hands dirty.
</original_response>
One thing I left off of my original response (because she was already doing it to some degree) is to talk to other Product Managers. Success as a PM in one organization does not guarantee success in another, but there is a lot of collective knowledge out there. Search out and use that knowledge to jump from rock to rock as you cross the river, rather than wading across on your own.
For starters, check out the other Product Management blogs I have listed in my blog roll on the right panel (look for the heading: BlogNation). They know a lot about a lot of PM topics. Just ask. They won’t bite.
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