Starting your product management journey
Of late I have been receiving queries from many Engineering and Management professionals for guidance on Product Management transition. Considering this, I thought of jotting down my own transition journey to help larger audience for most common FAQs. Do write to me to share your feedback or to seek details on any specific topic on Product Management.
Disclaimer — The content below is from my learnings of B2B products life cycle and may not help cracking Google (or Amazon) Product Management interview. But I am hoping you find this useful while taking initial steps on this transition journey.
Let me start with the common queries I have encountered -
- Do I need a mandatory certification for Product Management before making this transition?
- I do not have a strong technical background; can I still be a successful Product Manager?
- I am from Engineering background — would it make it easier for me to switch to Product Management?
- How did you make this transition, “Any tips to share”?
Let’s tackle these FAQs one by one, based upon my learnings so far.
Is Certification Mandatory?
I always believe that any higher courses or certifications are like icing on the cake and will help you in one way or the other in future. A Course may help in a structured way of getting such knowledge from experienced professionals. But that does not mean one cannot traverse the path and complete the journey without getting certified. Do gain as much knowledge as you can — you have unlimited resources available on Internet. Such resources can prepare you well on “How the road ahead MAY look like and what all MAY be considered when you travel down the road”. I could not apply for any course because of time constraints but did read multiple articles on Product and Product Management when I started. One effective way to kick-start is, go through online readings and articles on Product Management in the order of — Definition of Product, Product/Market life cycle, light reading to familiarise on other key aspects of Product (Roadmap, Requirements, Prioritisation, Pricing, Packaging). Once you understand Product and Market life cycle, going through the responsibilities of Head of Product and Product Manager would give good insights as well. I also read some good books — my all-time favourite books are “Crossing the Chasm”, “Behind the Cloud” and “The Art of Product Management”.
Do all good Product Managers need to have technical background?
A deep knowledge of your own product and underlying technological domain is must to understand customer problems or to brainstorm with Engineering Teams. However, it is fine not to be hardcore techie or know all implementation nitty-gritty to shine at Product Management, provided you are passionate about it. I have seen many customer support team members with better Product Management skills than engineers who delivered those features.
Is Product Management a cakewalk for Engineering professionals?
I also thought so, and many people mentioned the same to me when I made this transition, only to realise that both are equally challenging. Main challenge for me was to control my engineering instincts while talking to R&D team or customers as a Product Manager. It was very tempting to provide engineering solution and workings of a requirement or getting indulged into engineering action for solution implementation. But having engineering background had certain advantages as well. I could think of possible short comings or constraints beforehand and avoid surprises from the field. Non-Engineering professionals may use their past skills in separate ways. For example, prior experience in customer support may help in envisaging the risks beforehand during customer onboarding and product upgrades. In short, one cannot guarantee cakewalk but if you are passionate about it, you will enjoy the journey irrespective of earlier experience.
How did I make Product Management transition?
As an R&D Engineer, I was always curious to know “Why am I doing this feature/module? What is the significance for the end user?”. My curiosity along with association with a good mentor/coach helped me in this transition. Before getting into Product Management from Engineering, I got an opportunity to work as an individual contributor as well as heading various functional units like Solutions, Support, Pre-Sales and Sales Ops to get a cross functional view of workflows, processes, and challenges of each functional unit for successful product delivery and delighted customers. This helped in organic switch to Product Management. In short, my interest and understanding of various functional units involved into end-to-end product delivery helped in making this switch. I highly recommend everyone to involve with cross functional teams to understand their day-to-day workflows to yield long term benefits.
That is all for this article. For future articles, You may look for updates on my LinkedIn page as well
