Top 10 Software Product Manager Skills
/This is part 3 of the defining products series. If you are still interested, part 1: 3 Questions to define a software product and part 2: Documents every successful software project needs.
Today’s article is about the skills and the daily task every product manager has to carry out in order to build a software product. If you have already read it, you will know that a product manager is a part of every stage of the product – design, build, testing and/or launch. Even if the product is an outsourced project, a PM’s role is involved in all the steps.
According to Josh Elman, a product manager who worked with Twitter, Facebook Connect, LinkedIn, Robinhood the job of a product manager is to:
“Help your team (and company) ship the right product to your users”
The only result any company expects from a product manager is the delivery of a great product. The qualities between each PM varies. And for these qualities, a PM can succeed or fail with their products.
Here are some of the best qualities to have in order to succeed as a PM:
1. Thinking Big
“The top 1% PMs’ thinking should not be constrained by the resources available to them. They’ll describe large disruptive opportunities, and develop concrete plans for how to take advantage of them”
Most of the times, PMs have to work with limited resources to produce the perfect product. For PMs it should be the first challenge to build their product. We all have to work with limited resources, but for a successful PM, the job can be done if he/she can utilize the resources in hand.
2. Prioritizing the list
PMs have to work with the customers constantly, even when they are building a product and also have to demo the features that are already been worked on. Gather feedback from the customers and put them to the list of features that will be done on an up coming cycle. They also have to test features that are being worked on in the previous cycles. Time is short for the whole cycle.
Good PMs know how to sequence projects. They can balance quick wins vs. platform investments appropriately. They should be able to balance offence and defense projects appropriately. Offence projects that grow the business, whereas, defense projects are the ones that protect and remove drag on the business.
3. Speak with ease
PMs are the ones who talk to the customers, and/or users, to understand the requirements for the product to be built. Talking to customers will give you the best insights about what type of solution they actually want from your company.
Most of the product managers think their customers “don’t know what they want”. But successful product managers know, “customers may not know the ideal solution to their problem, but they are experts in their problems”. They can always describe their frustrations. The top 1% PMs knows how to guide their customers in to understanding the right solution to their ideal problem.
As the product manager, you are the voice of the customer within your company. It’s your job to have an intimate understanding of your customers’ needs, so you can effectively advocate for a solution.
The shortest route to deep customer knowledge is talk to them directly and in plain context, not too much techie not too much business. Take time to get to know your customers. You need to be able to get in to the heart of the value they experience in a way, as if, you are facing the problems yourself.
4. Have know a few more things
As you may know by now as the product manager you have to work multiple teams to develop a product, meaning with techies, designers, testers, customers and analysts. You will have to understand the language each of these teams are talking with. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be a coding wizard to talk to a software programmer. But having a certain level of technical proficiency will make it easier to talk to them.
A few tips to keep in mind:
Don’t be afraid to ask question. If don’t understand something, don’t hold back. You can’t support the team or offer solutions if you actually don’t understand the situation.
Pay special attention to technical limitations. The most common sentences you will hear on the coding side, is that “it’s not technically possible” and “it will require more time to build”. A relation between a PM and an engineer is to debate on how long certain tasks should take. As a PM, you are responsible to set reasonable deadlines, and you have to be realistic about it. And I won’t forget to mention, it’s important to understand the dependencies and constraints of different technologies.
Make an effort to build on your knowledge. While most engineers don’t mind answering technical questions, but it can also help you to improve your skills if you do your own research on the topic in hand. Most of the time, engineers are too busy to projects so asking them a question, that you can figure out yourself, will take up their valuable time.
5. Not to think too much of yourself
A successful PM is the one with the thickest of skin, rhetorically speaking. You have to keep the status quo of any situation to the product’s favor. Sometimes discussions can turn up the heat in any room. It is your job to keep calm and maintain the situation in favor of the product to be defined properly. As product managers, you have the control to shape the product, but it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want because of arrogance.
Achieving that level Zen will help you to deeply understand your target users’ use cases and frustrations. As PMs, you are the advocate for your users and you have to represent their frustrations in such a way that your engineers can also get the picture.
6. Organized and consistent
Good time management is a basic skillset of any professional needs. But the top 1% of the product managers will take the best out of this skill, and it is very critical for them in the sense that they always have many different demands on their time.
Product managers have to touch so many different parts of the company. In nature of the job, PMs must be organized with their own scheduling and have to consistent when they are working with different teams.
Keeping you time organized in respect to your tasks will be more efficient. Stay focused with the schedule you have created and set tasks aligned to your core product management responsibilities first.
Remember to keep some time for yourself to regroup with your own work.
Priorities your meeting according to their importance. You should be able to reject meeting requests if you think its purpose is conflicting with your scheduling.
7. Able to understand feedback
It’s critical to be constantly changing that same vision or strategy in response to feedback from your users/customers. But this doesn’t mean you’re doing whatever they say. PMs are responsible for making decisions that affect tech, UX, design and business strategies. It’s unrealistic to think a single person will be the most knowledgeable in all these areas. To make these decisions responsibly, it important to ask for your customers’ feedback. Listen carefully to what they have faced in the build you provided them with. And humbly accept information that goes against your assumptions.
Remember, as a product manager, you are listening to their concerns hidden in their ideas and feedback.
8. Efficiency in UX
UX is the usability of any product and considers areas like interaction design and human-computer interactions. As a product manager, you can’t only focus your time and energy only on the business and technology elements. You need to be able to figure out and work with UX experts.
Keep yourself up to date with latest User Interaction (UX) technologies and practices in the market, and they change more frequently than technologies. A product manager doesn’t necessarily don’t need to be a product designer. But to be a well-rounded product manager, you really need to understand the underlying principles of UX. Having a greater appreciation of UX will enable you to make better and more informed product definition decisions.
A 1% PM is always thinking about how everything can be improved, not just the things in his/her domain. It’s a lifestyle, not a job.
9. Proactive
A good product manager is the one who can glue all the other teams together and keeps moving in the same direction. For this skill, you need to know where the team is going and the greatest sense of urgency about getting there. Successful product managers are proactive about driving action.
Often, moving forward requires gracefully managing competing interests. Staying on top of what’s happening, what needs to be done next, and where the team is encountering friction requires regular meetings.
10. Attitude to solve any problem
Product management is a complex role that requires deep domain expertise, commitment and mastery of myriad interpersonal skills. There is always more than one responsibility for one personnel. When you are applying for a job at a new company, you will see there is a huge list of job description that the company expects you to deliver.
But the most important skill and the primary role as a product manager is to have passion and the right attitude to solve any user problem.
Technical, communication and UX skills can all be taught – but every successful product manager brings their own passion for problem solving. Without this passion, you are just another employee with a title.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the top 10% of product managers excel at a few things. The top 1% excel at most or all of them. If you are a product manager, you may want to start building on these skills. Don’t worry if you haven’t mastered all the prerequisite skills. Bring your passion for making other’s lives bet
