How to become a product manager? Part 1
I want to tell you about the path of becoming a product manager (PM) and the vision of this profession. It is not the only true one, but it will definitely broaden your horizons. The article is most suitable for students and graduates with minimal work experience.
The base
A product manager is not about knowledge of IT terms and the use of existing tools. Knowledge of the agile manifesto will undoubtedly help you on the way, but will not make you a product manager. That’s why I don’t recommend starting with books that directly write about product management (inspired, the lean startup, hooked). I believe that in order to approach such books, you need to initially have a base for discussion. Otherwise, you will not be able to reach your potential as a PM, while reading them. Each product experience is unique and depends on the situation and time.
To begin with, I recommend reading books that gonna help you understand the philosophy of proper management and product approach:
- Kaizen: The Key To Japan’s Competitive Success. The book is about Japanese philosophy, thanks to which the concepts of kanban and lean were born. This philosophy can be put not only in the foundation of the agile, but also in the foundation of your own life path.
- Writing That Works; How to Communicate Effectively In Business. As a product manager, you will connect different parts of the business and constantly communicate. It is necessary to properly structure and convey your thoughts to the interlocutor.
- High Output Management. This book describes the basic product approach to doing business. You will learn how to conceptually understand the product, thanks to the “black box” principle.
- The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. To build clear processes and avoid bottlenecks.
- Blue Ocean Strategy. Real examples of product development analysis in different business area and a clear explanation about competition principles
Explore the pain
1) Get a job as a manager. The vacancy “sales manager” / “customer service manager” is perfect for starting:
- In most cases, it does not require work experience
- Learn how to sell yourself and your product ideas
- Ability to identify customer pains
- Improving communication skills
- Finding optimal ways to solve the problem
- Working with documentation and its creation
Ideally, you need to get a job in a company that is connected with the IT industry. This will ease the way and give you the opportunity to grow as a PM within the company. You will know the audience and their pain perfectly and will be able to improve the company’s existing products without any problems.
2) Make your own business. A more complex, but at the same time a more profitable way for getting knowledge. It is not necessary to create a complex business with large risks and investments. You can buy socks in China and resell them on the local marketplace — this is also a business. Everything that you will do while creating a business will be relevant to your future profession.
Google it
To understand the development processes, you have to take an ordinary product and decompose it. The easiest way to do this is, to take the google.com search, but you can choose any other popular product (instagram, telegram, reddit). You need to understand what is happening inside the product: before, during and after using it.
Try to answer the following questions:
- How this product works technically
- How the design of this product works
- How this product makes money
You need to focus on those keywords:
Technical:
- Frontend
- Backend
- API
- DataBase
- Programming language
- Server
- Analytics
- Platform (desktop, mobile)
Design:
- User experience (ux)
- User interface (ui)
Money:
- Advertisement
- Subscription
This is the end of part 1, thanks for your attention and i hope you learned something new. I would like to discuss this with you and have some feedback.
Next time, i want to write about:
In Part 2:
- about the terminology of product management
- the stages of the appearance of the feature from idea to implementation
- what is technical specification
In Part 3:
- metrics and experiments
- preparation for the interview
