The key People Skills for a Product Owner, Manager, and Leader
A frequently asked question from Product Owners and Product Managers in the field is: “What are the most important skills for a Product Owner/ Product Manager?” Some of the best Product Owners, Product Managers, and Product Leaders we have worked with have mastered the core Professional Product Management competencies, as discussed in this article. Many of them however, have also mastered the People Skills area as defined in the Professional Product Management Framework. These People Skills will be discussed in this article in more detail. But first, let me introduce you to the Professional Product Management Framework to position these core skills.
The Professional Product Management (PPM) Competency Framework covers the product management skills and competencies that you may need to develop. This framework is used by organizations to hire, develop and retain treir product professionals. It is a comprehensive framework that allows to be tailored to an organization’s specific needs.
We’ve learned that at the core of professional product management it is all about Communication and Entrepreneurship. Product Managers create value by seeking out new opportunities, by finding problems worth solving and communicating that to the rest of the organisation. The other six areas that product managers need to master are Leadership skills, Product skills, People skills, Process skills, Business skills, and Market skills.
In this article, we’ll explore the People Skills of a Product person in more detail. The other competencies areas are discussed in separate articles, listed at the bottom of this article.
People skills
One of the important skills of a great PO/PM is their ability to collaborate with other people. Collaboration with customers, users, executives, management, peers, and teams in engineering and design for example, is critical to a Product professional’s success. In order to collaborate effectively, they need strong relationship development and -management skills. By forming authentic and trustworthy connections with both internal and external stakeholders, POs/PMs inspire people and help them reach their full potential. Building strong relationships is also critical in negotiation, resolving conflicts, and collaborating with others towards a shared goal. Especially when balancing the needs of customers, resource-constrains, and company objectives, these skills are critical.
Developing authentic and trusting relationships often leads to more supportive stakeholders, when additional funding is needed for example, or when dealing with conflicting stakeholder interests. These people skills also prove to be valuable when collaborating with others outside the organization. For example to encourage customers to test a new feature for early feedback, or to convince a prospect customer to try an MVP product. Strong people skills make a big difference between having irate customers because of a bug introduced into the product and those who say, “Don’t worry, we know you got this!”
The People area consists of skills like Collaboration, Problem Solving, and Relationship Management. These skills are grouped into the following competencies:
Collaboration
Great Product Managers can facilitate collaborative group activities and/or workshops with colleagues or clients. They shape and deliver a wide variety of collaborative group activities and workshops with colleagues or clients.Problem Solving
They are able to articulate a problem statement, including complex ones, with exceptional clarity. They continue to refine understanding of the problem and ensure Intermissions and Winning Strategies are up to date.Relationship Management
Product Managers need to create effective working relationships with colleagues to achieve the best possible outcomes. They build good rapport and strong working relationships with colleagues and clients.
Want to learn about the other Professional Product Management Competency Areas?
The following articles discuss the other Competency Areas from the Professional Product Management Framework in more detail:
Excited to move your Product Management skills forward?
Becoming an expert in a field takes more than a single course. It is more like a journey, requiring knowledge gathering and experience in practice. That is why we have developed Product Management Learning Journeys for Product Owners, Product Managers, and Product Leaders.
If you want to use a structured approach to boost just those skills that you need to improve in order to take the next step in your career, then consider our Professional Product Management Training Modules. Modules like Value Maximization, Envisioning & Storytelling, Strategy & Roadmapping, or Stakeholder Engagement & Politics provide you with 8+ week learning and development tracks, allowing you to really improve a specific area of competence, instead of going through a very generic course that covers all kinds of different topics on a high-abstraction level.
Our learning journeys are designed to find the perfect balance between the theory from university with the intensity of a bootcamp. These ingredients are blended into a training format that fits anyone’s preferred style of learning. We teach you enough theory to know when you’re playing with fire, but we focus on applicability for the job to be done.
The journeys offer a personalized approach for professionals to grow their capabilities and to advance their careers. The blended learning journeys around product management consist of (competency) assessments, trainings, workshops, exercises, on-demand content, personal reflection, coaching, and consultancy.
The foundation of the product management journey is formed by the PPM framework. It’s connected to your product career framework and is implemented throughout the whole learning journey.
Want to get started? Take a moment to explore our website, learn more about our approach to Product Management, or schedule a chat about how we can help you, your team, or company to move forward.
