The role of Product Manager is often defined as "CEO of the Product" who undertakes every thing required for growth of the product. However, often a Product Manager (PM) may not have direct control over everything that is essential for the product success but the PM is the owner of the product. Then, what are the competencies a successful PM must have or what skills required to start journey as PM is often asked by candidates looking to navigate across industries or become PM due to its popularity.Core Competencies:
These core competencies develop over time with foundating being in classroom or under mentorship of PM. Core Competencies can be considered as 360 degree understanding of product and processes required to go live with a product. Some examples are:
a. Market Research: It is very important to understand the industry, do customer interviews, user testing with the prototypes, performing market assessments etc.
b. Design: A PM may not be design expert however, must understand running design sprints and iterations to develop a design thats well suited for target audience.
c. Roadmap Planning: A PM is expected to understand the product lifecycle, do feature/benefit analysis, feature prioritisation to identify USP, roadmap planning, resource allocation (almost everytime there would be budget and resource constraints)
d. Business Understanding: While developing a product is exciting and daunting both, launching it to be a sucess is the real test for a PM. One must understand the revenue/pricing modelling, cost structures, know how to translate business requirements to technical and vice versa and last but not the least, should be able to define and track success matrix.The list goes on but a basic understanding of the above can help you get started in PM journey. Constant monitoring and reflection of each of these skills' contribution in success or failure of product is key for PM, which they develop over time.While the above set of skills is good kick-starter, but doesn't warrant success in the role as there is a significant role played by a PMs interpersonal skills, relationship management, time management, how resourceful one is, how self-aware a PM is and how good communication skills you have. Also, the company you are working or aspiring for makes a lot of difference. While defining a PM as "CEO of product" would be right when you are working for a startup, same would be restrictive and controlled in a larger corporation.Hope this helps in getting basic understanding of the PM role.
Ha ha. I am excited to see the curiosity out there. But the best part is "Anyone can become Product Manager". You just need the right attitude required for PM role. A product manager identifies customer needs, assess business requirements, create a solution and leads the product development through the product life cycle. Sounds like Entrepreneurship? Yes, most PMs work with the same attitude. And that's one of the ways to land a PM role. "Build something"Product Management is intersection of design, technology and business, thus you need the core competencies mentioned in comment above and you should assess your skills. If you’d like to assess your own product skills, check out Product Skills Toolkit. Some of the ways you can get a PM role:1. Build something
2. Work with someone who built something3. Find areas of interest in your current organisation (consider it as a 2-step movement, where you first get the complimentary skills internally). I'd suggest to also learn fundamentals alongside through a curriculum or online course.
Check out the post for insights from three expert Product Managers. For more queries, please post in comments.
The role of Product Manager is often defined as "CEO of the Product" who undertakes every thing required for growth of the product. However, often a Product Manager (PM) may not have direct control over everything that is essential for the product success but the PM is the owner of the product. Then, what are the competencies a successful PM must have or what skills required to start journey as PM is often asked by candidates looking to navigate across industries or become PM due to its popularity. Core Competencies:
These core competencies develop over time with foundating being in classroom or under mentorship of PM. Core Competencies can be considered as 360 degree understanding of product and processes required to go live with a product. Some examples are:
a. Market Research: It is very important to understand the industry, do customer interviews, user testing with the prototypes, performing market assessments etc.
b. Design: A PM may not be design expert however, must understand running design sprints and iterations to develop a design thats well suited for target audience.
c. Roadmap Planning: A PM is expected to understand the product lifecycle, do feature/benefit analysis, feature prioritisation to identify USP, roadmap planning, resource allocation (almost everytime there would be budget and resource constraints)
d. Business Understanding: While developing a product is exciting and daunting both, launching it to be a sucess is the real test for a PM. One must understand the revenue/pricing modelling, cost structures, know how to translate business requirements to technical and vice versa and last but not the least, should be able to define and track success matrix. The list goes on but a basic understanding of the above can help you get started in PM journey. Constant monitoring and reflection of each of these skills' contribution in success or failure of product is key for PM, which they develop over time. While the above set of skills is good kick-starter, but doesn't warrant success in the role as there is a significant role played by a PMs interpersonal skills, relationship management, time management, how resourceful one is, how self-aware a PM is and how good communication skills you have. Also, the company you are working or aspiring for makes a lot of difference. While defining a PM as "CEO of product" would be right when you are working for a startup, same would be restrictive and controlled in a larger corporation. Hope this helps in getting basic understanding of the PM role.
Ha ha. I am excited to see the curiosity out there. But the best part is "Anyone can become Product Manager". You just need the right attitude required for PM role. A product manager identifies customer needs, assess business requirements, create a solution and leads the product development through the product life cycle. Sounds like Entrepreneurship? Yes, most PMs work with the same attitude. And that's one of the ways to land a PM role. "Build something" Product Management is intersection of design, technology and business, thus you need the core competencies mentioned in comment above and you should assess your skills. If you’d like to assess your own product skills, check out Product Skills Toolkit. Some of the ways you can get a PM role: 1. Build something
2. Work with someone who built something 3. Find areas of interest in your current organisation (consider it as a 2-step movement, where you first get the complimentary skills internally). I'd suggest to also learn fundamentals alongside through a curriculum or online course.
Check out the post for insights from three expert Product Managers. For more queries, please post in comments.
Thank you for this answer. . Can you also throw some light on the possible ways to land a role of a Product Manager?