Five Traits of an Effective Growth PM
Growth Product Management is a loaded and misunderstood function in technology. While aspiring PMs have an interest in Growth, they are finding it difficult to understand growth product management. This story is to shed some light on traits that make a Growth PM successful.
Let’s understand growth teams’ responsibilities; A growth team could own an entire lifecycle of a customer starting from the user’s first contact with the product to on-boarding, activation, conversion, and retention. Depending upon the size of the team a growth pm could own one or all of these milestones in a users journey.
Growth PM’s mission is to set and optimize KPIs.
User Empathy: It all begins with the user. At the center, every growth tactic is the target user. Developing and maintaining user empathy helps a growth pm keep a check on suboptimal ideas. Ideas that put a KPI, for instance, revenue ahead of the user needs.
Data Savvy: Data drives growth. This includes qualitative data. Most successful PMs are adept at tuning out the noise and honing in on actionable insights. Growth PMs live and die by data.
Scrappy: Growth teams need to move fast. Best growth PMs believe in improving metrics iteratively, and not fix metrics in a single attempt. Being scrappy is an essential characteristic of a growth PM.
Curiosity: Growth focused pm is constantly seeking learnings to enhance the product experience. It also means that s/he visualizes the world through a “What if?” lens. This PM should always be asking questions to further their knowledge and to drive initiatives.
Tenacious: Growth PMs are encouraged to go against the norms and challenge the status-quo. This frankly creates discomfort within an organization. It can also be hard at times when multiple tests fail consecutively. Things can begin to look bleak. Times like this are common in growth. It takes a strong personality that is willing to take risks and thrive in challenging circumstances.
Growth product management is very challenging but it can be extremely rewarding. When KPIs start to move up, growth pms celebrate for a moment, put their thinking hat on and say what else can I do?
Rana Mumtaz, Growth Product Leader
www.linkedin.com/in/ranamumtaz
