3 takeaways from my first 6 months as an Associate Product Manager
I’ve been working as a full-time associate product manager for slightly more than half a year now. Looking back, I would like to share 3 important takeaways from my experience thus far.
#1 — What “fall in love with the problem, not the solution” actually means
Fall in love with the problem, not the solution
I’ve read/heard about this quote numerous times before beginning my product management journey, but I’ve never truly understood what it meant until I experienced this myself.
I was working on a requirement to improve the operational efficiency of an internal tool and came up with a very elaborate solution that addresses all of the pain points brought up by my stakeholders. While it was a valid solution, it was not the most efficient one when zooming out and considering the entire product system as a whole. Because I had spent so much time working on it, I became fixated on improving the solution I had instead of looking at the issue from another perspective.
Hence, when you’re too fixated with the solution you’ve devised (“falling in love with the solution”), you may tend to be less receptive to feedback and not be able to see the same issue from other perspectives. On the other hand, if you are focused on the issue at hand (“falling in love with the problem”), you will be willing to consider all possible solutions to address the issue, even if it means having to start from scratch again.
There are #2 ways of getting things done
Given that product managers do not have the luxury of formal authority, one of the hardest things to do as a product manager is getting other people to do things for you, and what I’ve noticed is that there are 2 distinct ways of doing so:
- Name-dropping your way through — for example, telling the person that his/her manager has already given the go-ahead for this request when the person asks the reason for the request.
- Convincing the other party of the shared benefits — for example, spending the time to explain to the person why the request is mutually beneficial for both parties and why it is worth the effort.
The first method takes less effort and time to get things done. However, it is not really good for the long term, especially if you need a favour from the same person down the road. On the other hand, the second method takes more effort, but the other party is more invested in the request, and you maintain a better working relationship with the person.
#3 — Associate Product Manager vs Product Manager
Having read up quite a lot online about the job of a product manager, I had certain expectations about the type of work I will be doing even before I started my role. Even though an APM is a more junior role, I thought I would be doing the same thing, just on a smaller scale.
What I’ve come to realise is that, as an APM, it is more likely that you’ll be helping a senior product manager execute his/her roadmap instead. Especially if the product is a complex one, you will most probably be working on a couple of features within the product. This brings about a slightly different challenge, because instead of having your own product backlog, you have a shared backlog with other APMs. Naturally, this means that the engineering resources are shared as well. In such cases, good prioritisation and convincing skills becomes even more crucial.
But do note that this is just my experience, and the structure/resource allocation differs from company to company.
Conclusion
The best way to learn is to get hand-ons experience, and this definitely applies to product management. I am thankful for the many learning opportunities in the past 6 months, and a nurturing boss as well. There is definitely so much more for me to learn, but in the meantime I hope you find this insightful!
For other APMs/PMs reading this, what are some takeaways from your experience? Do leave a response!
