The successful product manager must be the best versions of smart, creative, and persistent. - Marty Cagan
Some of my competencies include:
- conducting customer interviews
- user testing
- feature prioritization
- roadmap planning
- resource allocation
- performing market assessments
- translating business-to-technical requirements
- pricing and revenue modeling
- defining and tracking success metrics
Emotional Intelligence
A great PM can inspire internal and external stakeholders to reach their full potential. This characteristic is vital in resolving conflicts between the engineering and creative teams; successful negotiation, and working collectively toward a shared goal.
Objectivity is key. This prevents one from projecting their own perspective onto users of the product. If a feature doesn't add value to the user, no matter how in love with it we are, it will always cause more harm than good and can easily damage relationships with engineers.
Balancing what a CEO wants to drive business goals against customer opinions and requests, all the while accruing technical debt, isn't an easy feat and can be incredibly stressful. Restraint, professionalism, and pushing hard on the right priorities can keep one cool under pressure.
Empathy. You must be in love with the problem, not the solution. As a PM, we must balance customers' emotions and concerns with the concerns of the sales team on how to sell the product, or the support team on how to best support it.
Company Fit
I haven't seen too many standard job descriptions for a Product Manager because the role is dependent on a variety of factors:
- Company size
- Type of product
- Industry
- Culture
What I have grown to realize is that 'fit' is everything and a product's success is largely dependent on how well the team works together.
Two factors tend to weigh heavily in how companies can differ and evaluate this role:
- PM drives engineering
- Engineering drives product
- PM-engineering partnership
I tend to gravitate toward companies that foster a PM-engineering partnership. Some tells include joint discovery, decision making, and shared accountability. Engineers join PM's during customer interviews; PM's are in sprint meetings to help remove roadblocks. This process is very streamlined.
- Startup
- Mature
I've had the pleasure of working for companies in both of these stages. There are definite pros and cons to each. My Startup experience has meant wearing many hats (i.e., Product Manager, Owner, and Designer)in a fast-evolving and frequently changing environment that is plagued with ambiguity. More risks = a bigger impact. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. With a Mature company, the scope tends to be narrower and there are plenty of warm bodies to handle associated tasks. You're typically one of many Product Managers that are leading several product teams with 10-20 engineers on them. This gives you the ability to develop some best practices and standards. If the product has market fit, you're likely to spend a lot of time developing and nurturing an established customer base.
