Product Manager required skills

In this article we’ll talk about the most important skills that a Product Manager should have

• Communication and facilitation
• Never lose sight of the final goal, which is a business goal
• Ability to work on the details without missing the big picture (polish your technical skills)
• Metrics: become great at defining them and making decisions based on them

Communication and facilitation

It is of essence that Product Managers are able to listen, understand and speak about complex scenarios and exchange ideas with a wide variety of audiences.

A Product Manager will generally need to talk to:

• Executives
• Other Product Managers
• Project Managers
• Software Engineers
• QA Managers and Engineers
• UX/UI Designers
• Marketing specialists
• Sales managers
• Legal counselors and auditors
• Customers and potential customers

As we can see in this list, a Product Manager not only should enjoy communication and interaction, but also have the ability to listen and understand the needs of a wide variety of audiences and take action based on these interactions, he should be able to get all of these on board behind a shared vision and a shared goal so that the end result ends up being satisfactory for everyone involved. Otherwise, the business goal, which is what’s always behind a product vision and objective won’t be accomplished.

Never lose sight of the final goal (business goal)

Although a Product Manager should have a great deal of interaction with all parties involved he should never lose focus on the goal, and the goal is not to build an excellent product, the goal is always associated with business aspects and objectives.

So, while being able to create an excellent product, if our team, or company doesn’t succeed in achieving the business goal, our excellent product will be left at the side of the road as it has been the case for so many awesome products that were technically fascinating but the market, the targeted audience, decided not to go with it.

As Product Managers we must work every day to create excellent products, but we must never lose sight of the real goal, otherwise all our efforts will have been in vain.

Be ready to help on the details, never miss the big picture

Similar to what was described in the previous section, be ready to have a fluent communication with the development team, to talk with software engineers, QA engineers, UX/UI designers and analyze specific details that need your attention and require definitions.

Pay attention to proposals coming from the development team, it is not weird to find out that some of the coolest features of a product were envisioned and brought up by Developers, QAs, Designers, so give those ideas the analysis you think they need and define their priority, work closely with everyone involved and participate on the details as far as you are not missing the big picture.

Time is always scarce so make sure you are helping your team but make sure you are also fulfilling all your responsibilities, be ready to delegate and learn to delegate also, that will help you and will make you a better Product Manager.

Have full understanding of the business

As soon as you are hired by a company, or as soon as you are assigned to a project, work hard to get a full understanding of the business you are about to get it. Make everything you think is necessary to be the source of truth when it comes to the business goal that should be achieved by the product that’s about to be built.

Go over the recordings of the meetings you attend or those that you were not able to attend so you don’t fall behind and lose track of what’s going on. You should position yourself as the product leader, the guy that knows where we are going.

One more thing that’s important here, is to be humble. If you are starting in a company or in your role as Product Manager, don’t hesitate, don’t be afraid of scheduling a meeting with someone that you know that has a good understanding of the business and let them know that you want their help to learn and to understand so you can do your job at the best of your abilities.

Metrics: become great at defining them and making decisions based on them

Educate yourself in Metrics Frameworks, take courses and training, read books, attend seminars, and think of your product and the business goal that should be achieved.

Get together with the stakeholders and define what metrics, what KPIs, you are going to define and use to determine the performance of your product once it is released to the market.

Learn how to read them and how they should be interpreted to make good strategic decisions to optimize your product performance.

Having this skill will speak highly of you and your job as a Product Manager who is capable of making the required adjustments to achieve a company’s business goal with a product.

So, to summarize:

1. Work on your communication skills, be ready to listen and speak to a wide variety of audiences and facilitate meetings that allow everyone to get on board with a product vision and most important with the business goal.
2. Pay close attention to the quality of the product and advocate for creating an excellent product but don’t lose sight of the final goal, pay more attention to the things you believe can help your product to achieve business success.
3. Help and be available for the development team to clarify and decide on the specifics of features and details, but don’t allow yourself to get dragged into investing too much time in small details, be on a permanent watch for the big picture, learning to delegate will be of great help for this.
4. Know the business from top to bottom and be humble if you don’t know something, don’t waste time and ask for help from those who already know all there is to know about the business and schedule meetings with the purpose to learn and understand everything so you are better prepared to do your job.
5. Metrics: become a master of using them, learn all you can about this great tool that’s not other thing than measurements than will let you know how well your product or a feature of your product is doing in the market.

Summary

1. Top skills that a product manager should have
2. Communication and facilitation abilities, be comfortable interacting with different audiences
3. Be ready to help on the details, but never miss the big picture, learn to delegate
4. Make sure you have a full understanding of the business you are in
5. Metrics: become a master of using metrics and making adjustments based on them