An Introduction Blog: Jumping Headfirst into Product Management
Hey everyone, I’m Mark.
Earlier this year, I made a commitment to tackle a subject that has been on my mind for quite some time — Could I get into Product Management? If so, what would it take to make this a reality?
I’ve been curious about Product Management for some time now. Like others who might be in my position, I’m standing on the outside looking in at a familiar three-way Venn diagram between UX, Tech, and Business. This blog will serve as a documentation of my journey to learn about PM and I’m happy to see that you’re coming along for the ride.
Accountability is important, and if this helps you too, that’s awesome!
Let’s look into those two questions I posed one at a time.
To expand on why I wonder about getting into Product Management, I’ll provide a brief history of my professional career, which started shortly after my undergraduate degree in 2011. My career development started completely on the backbone of manufacturing and a hands-on approach within a plant environment. I’ve done work in pharmaceuticals, snack foods, and most recently plastics.
In my spare time, I love exploring the Columbus, Ohio tech scene, most notably as an occasional participant to events such as Startup Weekend.
As my interest in the tech scene continued to grow, my career also continued to evolve. I was no longer simply a quality manager or packaging engineer, and instead my daily duties quickly grew into helping drive the direction of my company’s products. So, 8 years after heading out of the gate, not only am I finding myself with a keen interest in a completely different industry, I’m also finding that my day job was helping pave the way for the transition.
This was the perfect time to say “go.”
What needs to happen for this to be a reality? How does a guy in manufacturing get into the technology industry, without any prior coding or software experience? One way to answer this question is “with a lot of help.”
I had already started by doing some independent research and meetups with folks already in the industry. It was a good start; however, I found myself being pulled in quite a few directions. While it’s great to allow a free flow of information come in about a new subject, after a prolonged length of exposure the effectiveness takes a decline. You’re left with raw, unstructured information, without a definitive pathway for next steps.
I knew to achieve this reality, I needed structure. So I contacted my friend Jay, and hopped on board for his accelerator, Unreal Collective. With Jay’s guidance, we worked out some fundamental points to a 12-week program:
- Get used to key tools for Product Management and productivity in general,
- Complete the Complete Product Management Course on Udemy,
- Compile questions that I want to ask people in the software industry — and create a list of people who I want to speak with,
- Perform my own product teardowns so I can begin to understand what a product looks like and “feels” like,
- Strength my understanding of the product from conception to release, and finally,
- Document the process!
Which brings us to here. As previously stated, I’ll be using this blog to document my journey into Product Management. Having a place to house my thoughts and product teardown posts for potential feedback will be a crucial part of the learning experience.
Please feel free to comment or reach out regarding my work here.
In a few months, at the very least, I’ll finally have some answers to the questions I posed.
