Background
Nobody is born a product manager. In the technology space many of us have grown into the product management role after being software engineers, software architects, marketing specialists, or similar roles.
Different academic backgrounds can help in the role, some product managers have engineering degrees, others business degrees, and there are numerous examples of product managers coming for many other disciplines.
The challenge is that Product Managers require to pay attention to a wide range of concerns around the product, ranging from market research, to business analysis, to software/hardware development, to UX design, to project management, to pricing, to commercialization, and others.
Making it difficult to strike a good balance between wide visibility and deep expertise.
We will talk about this in the following paragraphs but my experience tells me that the secret is to dynamically switch gears on-demand between the high-level wide vision and deep-diving into tactical details depending on the specific moment in the product life-cycle journey.
Skill Set
Product managers often have to deal with the following concerns:- Market/Consumer Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Business Analysis and Strategy
- Business Modeling and Finances
- Requirements Gathering and Rationalization
- Usability Studies and User Experience Design
- Technical Design, Feasibility, and Cost/Time Forecast
- Regulatory and Legal
- Technical POC and Prototyping
- Project Program Management
- Engineering and Development Life-cycle Management
- Testing and QA
- Marcom
- Performance Metrics
- Continuous Improvement
- and others.
By now I am sure you may have heard many times the phrase "A Product Manager is a mini CEO of her/his product", and there is a great deal of truth in that statement.
As you know, it is very unlikely that the same person can be an expert in all the mentioned above concerns at the same time, in the same way that a CEO does not need to be an expert in every single aspect of her/his company.
However having a decent level of skills and experience in 2 or 3 of these areas of concern is key to managing products. If you are only a software engineer then you better polish yourself more in the business side. In the same way if you are an interaction designer then pick some coding skills, or if you are a marketing pro you will benefit from some usability and tech knowledge.
The wider your knowledge, the easier it will be to cover the 360 degrees around your product.
Generalist Versus Specialist
The previous paragraph may initially suggest that Product Managers are generalists (as the CEOs are), and I will argue that is partially true.Why do I say partially? Because in my opinion there is a great advantage for a product manager to be a bit deep in at least 2 or 3 of the skills listed above (or whatever ones apply to a particular product).
In my experience, product managers gain a lot of traction when they have a few areas of expertise in which they can partner side-by-side with some key functions and accelerate work and results.
There is no strict rule on which of the product areas one should be skillful on, determining that is more for each of us to decide based on our existing skills, our potential skills, and their match with the type of products that we want to manage.
For instance if you are managing high tech products, some level of technical thinking and skills will be necessary to get more traction in your role. Similarly, if you are managing entertainment products, some level of knowledge of the creative process and the mechanics of the entertainment business will help.
This last concept is leading us to the next paragraph, in which we make the distinction between generic skills and the notion of Domain Expertise.
Domain Expertise
There is an additional dimension that is key for product managers, the notion of domain expertise.If you are managing an insurance product then it is key to understand the insurance business and the insurance customer.
What happens if I want or have to manage -for instance- a healthcare product and I have zero experience in the healthcare field? Am I unable to do the job? No, you definitively can, but you better invest most of your initial energy and time on learning the market, the consumer, the competitors, the value chain, the distribution, the existing IP, the regulations, and other key aspects of the healthcare business domain.
Do not worry, none of us were born experts in a particular business, industry branch, market, or customer segment. Problem spaces have to be learnt one day, at that is OK.
I would even argue that both of the following principles are valid:
- A product manager with tons of expertise in a specific domain can bring substantial value to the table very quickly.
- Conversely, a product manager with no prior experience in the domain but with strong generic product management skills (and perhaps with expertise in adjacent domains) can bring a fresh new look to the problem space, and can provide innovative techniques to address the problem that can lead into disruption.
In fact, in my opinion, staying decades in a single business domain may not be very healthy for a well rounded product manager.
It is exciting to develop deep expertise in one domain, master it, launch great products, drive revenue, etc., but it is not a bad idea to eventually move to a new challenge in another business domain.
Such change is a great way of bringing lateral thinking and cross pollination to the next product management job.
It also shows a great degree of adaptability, which is a great skill in the professional profile of a product manager.
Such change is a great way of bringing lateral thinking and cross pollination to the next product management job.
It also shows a great degree of adaptability, which is a great skill in the professional profile of a product manager.
Ultimately
At the end of the day, what I consider essential in a product manager is being a true advocate of the customer, knowing the product user very well, and being passionate about helping that user to solve her/his needs or desires in the best possible -and profitable- way.Without that passion for customer advocacy any other skill will get diluted, I will even say that without that obsession for helping the target customer there is no Product Management.
Obviously, the passion alone may not be enough, here is where those skills in 2 or 3 specific areas become handy. Combine that with some domain expertise and high customer advocacy, and you will become a highly effective Product Manager.