From Technical Product Manager to Consulting Product Manager
My Path to Product Management: Part 4
Product Management: the intersection of User Experience, Business, and Technology. Every product manager has a different story to tell about how they got here, and I’ve decided to share my own tale as a multi-part series.
In Part 1 of my journey, I compared Software Testing to Product Management, and shared my thoughts on the ease of transitioning between the two roles. In Part 2, I touched on my Software Engineering background, and how it’s been both helpful, yet sometimes detrimental, to being an effective Product Manager. In Part 3, I focused on my experience as an Engineering Manager, discussing some commonalities between managing people and managing a product. In Part 4, I’ll cover the final step of my journey: From Technical Product Manager to Consulting Product Manager.
Technical PM vs. PM
In my role as a Technical Product Manager, I worked on a product for engineers, by engineers. The engineers in our organization were also actual users of the product. Because of this, many of the product’s feature requests were generated by our own engineers.
Even though these engineers certainly represented at least one of our user personas, they often did not match our target persona’s demographics, behaviors, needs, and goals. While it’s helpful to dogfood your own product to ensure it works properly, this strategy is not always effective in determining what problem should be solved next or how to best solve it.
I’ve found that Product Managers of technical products can all too easily focus only on the needs of the engineers they happen to work with instead of seeking out their true customers. If you’re a Technical Product Manager working on a technical product or feature, make sure that the users you’re interviewing are the right users, not just the ones within earshot.
Daniel Elizalde summarized this concept quite nicely in a blog post titled, What is a Technical Product Manager, Anyway?:
“The keys to success are the same as for every Product Manager — keeping customer focus, driving a vision, and ensuring the product meets the market needs.”
PM vs. Consulting PM
I’m rather fond of the title “Consulting PM”.
As a consulting Product Manager at Pivotal Labs, I work on products with clients, not just for clients. I am fully involved, fully responsible, and fully vested in the products I work on. I work directly with the product’s stakeholders, engineering team, designers, and end users. It’s not exactly my product, but there’s still a strong sense of ownership and pride.
In my transition to consulting, my role now includes not just product management, but also coaching and enabling our clients. As a PM, I make use of lean principles, design thinking, agile methodologies, and all the nifty tools and practices I’ve learned along my journey. As a consultant, I lead by example, mentor, teach, coach, and enable our clients to use these same practices.
Through my journeys of testing software, developing software, managing engineers, and managing a technical product, I’ve learned enough to give me a uniquely diverse perspective on product management. However, I’ve still learned more in the last few months at Pivotal Labs than I ever imagined possible. The best way to learn truly is by teaching. Docendo discimus.
Thanks for following…
I hope you enjoyed my journey from Software Tester, Software Engineer, People Manager, Technical Product Manager, and finally to Consulting Product Manager. In case you missed it, here’s the entire series:
