Understanding and supporting Product Management Career Progression: Why we launched the PM Genome Project
Product Management is among the most important jobs within growing and established companies. Product is multidisciplinary and requires a variety of hard and soft skills. Product managers almost always have some past, on-the-job experience in other roles, which can range from software engineering, sales, design, finance or just relevant subject-matter expertise. There are a variety of positions that naturally lead to product management, but it can be hard to break into the role. Training and tangential experience are not the same as actually spending time as a product manager.
Finding the right resources
There are many resources to help. We’ve attended countless meetups, read hundreds of blogs and articles, and have even contributed to some of the leading publications in the space. We also value mentoring (both seeking out mentors and serving as mentees). We know many aspiring and growing PMs that have taken product management classes from some of the leading institutions. A number of leading enterprises are known for their internal product management training programs.
Our view is that these training and career development resources are vital to help people move into product management and help current product managers take on more significant responsibilities. Additionally, the training received at a job should be transferrable to other roles, and the training received outside of work should be relatable to the product manager’s current role.
Most available resources fall into one of two categories: they are either provided on-the-job, and are very relevant to how that given organization views product management, or they are general to product management and widely available (blogs, articles, meetups, training courses). Think of it as a “T” shaped profile. General trainings aim to expand the horizontal bar and company-internal trainings often focus on the vertical depth. The PM Genome Project will analyze and categorize different types of “T’s” to help current and aspiring product managers pick where they want to develop their skills and translate their abilities to other companies.
On-the-job training can vary widely, depending on how the particular firm defines product management. Some firms see PMs as very technical, others very design-focused, and others want PMs to have a solid business and financial foundation. Some organizations place a heavy emphasis on project management. Other companies train and mentor their PMs to have a balance of these and more skills. Given that many organizations treat product management differently, are the skills and learnings transferrable for long-term product managers who will spend time at different enterprises throughout their careers?
Publicly available product management resources focus on general product management skills. The knowledge that product managers gain at meetups, from reading blogs and attending training is valuable, but it may be too general for a given product manager at a specific firm. Articles, mentoring and meetups that discuss how it’s done at a different company, or a different industry, will be only so helpful. Additionally, there is so much content and so many activities, it is hard to keep up (and pick the right places to spend your time!).
Searching for clarity in an ambiguous career
The PM Genome Project was created to focus on the gap between these two options. We are developing a research program to better understand and quantify this gap in current product training, explore ways to supplement the current resources, and test new offerings and tools that can help aspiring, new and experienced product managers.
At the core, the PM Genome Project aims to address career ambiguity in product management. The project is a collaborative research effort meant to serve as a center of excellence created by product managers, for product managers. As a first step, we want to better understand the the product manager career journey (aka “PM Genome”) and we have launched an initial survey to collect feedback from product managers. As the Project gains momentum, we want to establish a diverse community of product people; expand our learning agenda; and publish ongoing research that inspires, educates, and mobilizes the creation of innovative career solutions in our field.
The PM Genome Project is not trying to replace current training and career development opportunities. We seek to supplement the current resources and provide insight that can help develop new tools and training. For example, there is room to help product managers connect with other PMs with similar interests and also provide research on the state of product management, from the product managers themselves. We also think that providing some structure and organization to the available resources (e.g., a ‘hit list’ of the top 5 articles for B2B PMs, for B2C PMs, etc) could be useful to our profession. Offering resources and advice based on the current abilities of a given product manager, career background, the way product is done at his/her job, and other factors would be immensely valuable. Deciphering product management career journeys is the first important step. These are just some initial ideas, and we will share more as we continue to advance our research agenda.
We hope that you will follow our progress and get involved! Our first research project is a 3-minute survey to collect information from product managers. From there we will publish the aggregated results, document a longer-term research agenda, and begin building a network of product managers and leaders.
An article by Ryan Troll, Joseph Aamidor and Torben Spitzer, cofounders of the PM Genome Project.
