Home stretch. At this stage of the game, you’ve absorbed pages and pages of information that will contribute to your development as a product manager. In this final chapter, I’ll walk through miscellaneous nuggets of knowledge that didn’t logically fit into the previous chapters, followed by a Q&A that answers any lingering questions that weren’t covered by the industry spotlights. In essence, I want to attempt to tie any remaining loose ends and finish strong. If you still have thoughts, concerns, or questions, I’ll happily make my email available ([email protected]) to field leftover queries.
Abandon Fear
Fear is a useless emotion in product management. The analysis, decision-making, and research conducted before the product steps into development should give the PM enough confidence to jump into the unknown without being held back by fear or doubt. If the team senses that the PM is unsure about the product path, it can cause a domino effect that can hurt morale and team motivation
. If the road chosen returns nothing, go back and pick a new path.
Think like Spock, lead like Kirk
For those of you who aren’t Trekkies (myself included), Captain Kirk and Spock are both characters from the popular Star Trek franchise. Kirk, a capable, charismatic leader who instills confidence in his subordinates and manages the team
, is complemented by Spock, a calculated, analytical thinker who has perfected the art of emotional stability and rational thinking. In a work environment, you’re expected to be both the brain and the heart, which can be a tricky thing to master.
A PM representation of Kirk will speak up at meetings, sit at the head of the table (both literally and figuratively), defend his or her team members (engineers / designers / etc.), and make the tough calls when nobody else can. At the same time, the PM will have to understand the data (models, research, studies, etc.), advise the engineering team on pros & cons if relevant, and keep a cool head if tensions flare.
All in all, keep your cool. People will test you, things will go haywire, and egos will emerge in the conference room. Be tactical in your thinking and never react based off of emotion alone.
Don’t ask permission, just ask forgiveness
Corporate bureaucracy
and red tape can hinder your ability to innovate. On one hand, rules are put in place to protect you and the company. Sending unencrypted emails containing sensitive information to vendors and skirting the process designed to secure data to save time is a bad idea. But, there are grey areas where calls need to be made, and you don’t have time to pull together every single point of approval. Exercise good judgement, but bend the rules where necessary.
Don’t always rely on “best practices”
Best practices
were put in place based on observations from history. If 100 projects all used one method and 95 percent of them succeeded, the process is documented and branded as a best practice for all teams to follow. Often times, there are “better practices” waiting to be discovered. In essence, a best practice is just a baseline; it’s what everyone else is doing. As the timescale changes from year to year, the same recommendations won’t work. Find new ways to improve on the status quo, and refresh the thinking each year so you’re not relying on outdated models of thought.
Embrace exponential thinking
Human beings are bad exponential thinkers and predictors. If we’re asked to predict the next 20, 50, or 100 years of technological development, we’d be terribly inaccurate once the time has come and passed. This handicap restricts us from seeing things how they will be instead of focused just on how they are. The next century will be defined by those that can make calculated bets on emerging technologies that will outlast the hype. Train yourself to accept and anticipate radical change, and find a way to put yourself at the bleeding edge so your job isn’t on the chopping block as a direct result of exponential tech growth.
Dealing with failure
Failure is not an end state; it’s a minor road bump along the path to success. I’ve never known a product manager
who had a perfect record when it came to product deployments, so don’t set unreasonable expectations for yourself. If a launch or decision ends up producing results you’re unhappy with, go back to the drawing board and start over. Being frustrated in the aftermath of a bad call isn’t productive, but using the learnings to influence the next iteration may lead to a home run the second time around.
Never underestimate the power of luck
Success is not 100 percent attributed to skill and hard work
. Luck can be the factor that makes or breaks a product, and doing everything you can to maximize the amount of luck that falls on your side is a wise decision. For example, if a cybersecurity startup is entering the market, a spring of hacks that pop up at once can be a golden opportunity to reach out to the companies affected and negotiate a contract to provide products or services. Capitalize on acts of God or dumb luck moments, because you will need a lucky break every once in a while to provide relief and dissolve pressure from the team.
10 Q’s
How do I hire a product manager?
Carefully. Pulling people from related roles like technical program manager or finding strategic thinkers from areas like consulting can be the best bet if your organization hasn’t formalized internal requirements for a product role. Since the role is still relatively new, there is no prescribed way to hire strong PMs. Talk to leaders in the community, source their advice, and above all, tease out critical thinking ability in the list of candidates you interview.
What if the organization I join doesn’t understand the product role?
A common issue. Companies, especially non-tech firms, will either convert a “project manager” into a product manager
to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the role, or will hire a product manager and stick them with marketing and customer service responsibilities without any direct pull on engineering or the product being built. If you’re outside of the organization, ask questions during the interview and be sure the role involves touching the core product. If you’re inside the organization, approach the top-line management leader and set time on the calendar to discuss expectations for a PM role and provide your two cents. Often times, leadership is willing to make changes because they’re under the assumption that nothing is wrong. Be a voice for product, and build a product culture that you’d be proud of, piece by piece.
What if I have a limited budget for product development and engineering?
A tight budget is not necessarily a bad thing if you’re tasked with producing an MVP. The scope for an MVP is limited, and non-critical features can be stripped away since it will be used as a proof-of-concept to test the market. However, if you’re building a V2 and beyond product, it can be difficult to push ahead without adequate resources. Going with cheaper development is an option, but it can come with a quality tradeoff. The best move forward is to communicate the final deliverable with $ budget to leadership so they are well aware of what is realistic, and show them a mock or improved version of the product that can be built with $$$ budget. It could be a useful tactic to convince them to allocate more funds, or it can just set expectations accordingly if you deliver a subpar product with the resources you were given.
What if I’m not respected?
Find a way to earn it. People are motivated by incentives
, and those who don’t respect you feel that way because of something you did or didn’t do, so think of ways you can attract others by helping them help themselves. Pull people into a meeting, ask them for advice, or send them documents for review. Small moves that make peers feel included and showing them that their opinions are valued can go a long way.
What can I start doing today to flex my product management muscles?
Create a product in your free time. Put together a business plan, go-to-market strategy, mock PRD, mock roadmap, and use Balsamiq or Sketch to put together wireframes. If you have the resources, find engineers who can build it and manage the development journey. Or go online and donate your product management skills for free to build experience and a portfolio of pro-bono projects. The best way of learning is doing, so get involved.
Is an MBA required to be a product manager?
No. An MBA
can help solidify the business fundamentals, but it can’t immediately make you product-ready. Utilizing 2 years on a full-time program can be valuable to some, but others will be better off in the workforce for two years. If you can work full-time and get a part-time MBA, even better.
What are the growth opportunities for a product manager?
There is no glass ceiling for a product manager. Sundar Pichai (Google) and Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) are examples of product managers turned CEOs, so there’s no limit to how high you can go. Find an organization that has a clear promotion path, be impactful, and the rest will take care of itself.
Join a startup as PM #1 or an established company as PM #1000?
This is a tough one, and depends entirely on the person making the decision. I’ve boiled down a handful of pros and cons to each below.
Startup PM #1
- Control over the entire product portfolio; single point of responsibility for strategy
- Lower base salary, but high equity stake
- Wider scope of responsibilities beyond product due to size of company (marketing, customer service, picking up takeout, etc.)
- Limited resources and funds
Established company PM #1000
- Control over a single product, but can be a billion-dollar service line or market opportunity
- Higher base salary, lower equity stake in the form of restricted stock units (if any)
- Narrow scope of responsibility; focus on just one vertical
- Well resourced / fewer budget constraints
Is it detrimental to my career to join a product team at a non-tech company?
Absolutely not. Every company will have a technology function, and non-tech companies are ripe for disruption. If taxi companies embraced innovation a long time ago, Uber would never have been launched and yellow cabs would have a stronghold on the transportation market.
I’ve heard PMs work 80-100 hour weeks. How do I avoid this?
False. Hours of work does not equal productivity
. Every additional hour you dedicate beyond a reasonable threshold has diminishing returns, and positions you for burnout. A healthy 40–60 hour work week is achievable, and it’s all about keeping track of priorities. Finish the urgent tasks first, say no to people to avoid over promising, and treat your mental and physical health with the same level of care as your career.
Additional Resources
A collection of learning outlets and tools to keep your product knowledge fresh and relevant.
Product bootcamps
- Specialized learning centers are popping up all across the country, and a couple are centered around developing product talent in 8–10 weeks. The effectiveness of the programs are yet to be vetted, but it’s worth researching if you are in a completely different industry looking to transition.
MOOCs
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow students from all over the world to tune in and sharpen their technical skillset. A couple of solid companies (Udacity, Coursera) have courses taught from top professors around UX, software engineering, and data analysis.
Must Reads
- Crossing the chasm
- Zero to One
- Lean Startup
- Hooked
- Design of everyday things
- The imposter’s handbook
- The personal MBA
A call to action
On February 19, 2017, Susan Fowler dropped a bombshell on the tech industry that reverberated all throughout Silicon Valley. A skilled female engineer at Uber, Susan opened Pandora’s box when she revealed counts of discrimination, sexual harassment, and unfair treatment within the org hierarchy of Uber. In the months following, an unsettling number of women came forward, both internally and externally to speak of their experiences being inappropriately propositioned, objectified, and intimidated.
To all the current and future product managers who read this, we can and need to do better. An ideal PM is responsible in part for dictating culture, upholding values, and being an ethically sound model citizen, inside and outside the walls of a tech enterprise.
If you witness harassment, unfair treatment, or discrimination, don’t shy away or turn a blind eye to it. Speak up. Attack it head on, and stand your ground. To build the future of technology, we need to do it together, and the current diversity rates across the industry are abysmal.
Let’s pledge to stand up for our peers and colleagues, and take the small but vital steps to eradicate this vein of dangerous thinking from the industry permanently.
Commencement
Whew, you’ve made it through. Throughout this 150+ page journey, we’ve covered process, strategy, design, development, and lessons from top-tier professionals along the way. We haven’t covered everything, and there are certainly knowledge gaps that come with packing so much into a slim cookbook, but I hope you’ve understood the potential of the product manager role.
First off, I want to say thank you to the readers. In this brief exchange of time, money, and mental brainpower from your side, my wish is that you’ve come to one of three conclusions:
Wow, product is exciting. I need to become a PM and enter this role ASAP!
Product is dull. I’ll stick to what I’m doing now, thanks. Plus, this manual was garbage, sorry.
I’m still undecided, but I learned skills along the way that will serve me well irrespective of what I end up doing.
Even if just one person is inspired to enter the tech industry (or product specifically), I’ve done my job and will happily sleep at night.
Second, it is my firm belief that every company will become a technology company in the next 15–20 years, if not sooner. Software is eating the world, and you may be surprised at how fast development is accelerating. Machines are defeating human beings at skilled tasks (AlphaGo), jobs are being replaced rapidly (self-driving cars/trucks), and companies are finding ways to stay ahead of the curve by hiring the best engineers, product managers, and tech talent with exorbitant compensation packages. I recently shared a flight with a C-suite executive of a bicycle manufacturer who told me their competitive advantage in the past year and beyond will be software engineering. A bicycle company. Wild.
Lastly, keep learning. The industry will move forward without you, whether you like it or not. People often overestimate the amount of time it takes to learn a new skill or understand a new technology. Spending just 15–30 minutes a day to read through Hacker News, skim articles on TechCrunch, or stepping through tutorials online can have a profound effect on your career. I recently sat down with a colleague who majored in computer science five years ago, but feels out of touch with recent developments and frameworks in the web space. If he’s falling behind, so are you if you don’t dedicate yourself. Read blogs, attend meetups, speak to subject matter experts. Never let the fire or passion die, and seek out new reservoirs of inspiration if you feel burned out.
And with that, I’ll wrap up. Good luck, and I can’t wait to see the transformative products that the next generation of product managers put in the hands of consumers.
Until next time.
“Coding is a beautiful thing…If there is a God, he definitely codes. There are fail-safes in the world. That’s code. I don’t want young black kids to aspire to be rappers or ballers. Even lawyers and doctors—those are service positions. I want them to be coders. They can make their own worlds then. They don’t need anybody else. I love hearing those kids’ ideas, all these kids on the Internet. The excitement of making something, that’s the spark of God.” - Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) / Interview with Complex.com