3 Things You Should Know Before Transitioning Into Product Management

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Well, if you reading this you are probably among those individuals who may have realised that they would or potentially are planning to transition into the world of Product Management.

But, are you aware what does it actually takes to transition from a different field into the world of Product Management. Well, in the next few minutes we’ll try to explore 3 things you should know about before transitioning into Product Management in a detailed manner. Now a question you must be wondering in your mind, why is it important to know what it takes, let me try to explain it to you in this way:

You need to know what it takes to become a Product Manager vs a great Product Manager & the difference between them. There is an brilliant Harvard Business Review(HBR) piece on this, do give it a read. Individuals who are planning to switch to Product Management keeping in mind the cool title of a being a Product Manager, high paying job, better growth prospects & nonetheless thought of changing world by making revolutionary products etc. Well, the point to understand is the intention is more focussed on output/reward aspect (what I am getting out of this) vs what inputs are required of a PM(my contributions) on a day to day level.

It is very imperative to understand that the role of a product manager is to build products for users which actually solves their problem and has a value proposition to offer. This is the basic requirement and there can no exception to this. If you are someone who understands this at a fundamental level, you’re probably progressing in the right direction.

Let’s start exploring the 3 things required to know & are of prime importance for any individuals transitioning to the world of Product Management:

1. You want to build revolutionary products that would change the world. Well, i’d say your aimbition is nobel and should be appreciated, however, that is not how the real world works. There is no magic app available to solve all problems in this planet and probably wouldn’t be just available in near future. As a PM, you need to understand the fact that you won’t be able to solve everyone’s problem in the world, however, you can subset group of people with homogeneous characteristics in terms of their need, behaviour & expectations which in other term called as Segmentation. You build products for segments of users who are have similar interests, need and are willing to pay or use your service/app. Remember, without users (endpoint) there is no one to use your products. And hence there is no requirement of a PM.
2. I come from a technical background & hence I can become a great Product Manager.

Well, this is a myth and time & again this has been proven to be factually incorrect. There is common misconception among individuals that people having a sound technical background can become great Product Managers to contrary opinion, the world has seen Product Managers belong from some of the most unorthodox and non-technical backgrounds who has proven the fact that 'Your background doesn’t matters as long as you are willing to learn the craft of the trade’.

This is very important to understand that not everyone would have similar educational & professional backgrounds(depending on which part of the world they belong to).

3. Since I’m the CEO of the Product, I can do whatever I feel is right and build products accordingly.

This is one of the most common misunderstanding most individuals have when they switch to Product Management. Their assumption that since I am the Product Manager of product X at a company Y, whatever I feel right should be incorporated into the product. Here, I’d like to remind you the initial thought I made on role of a Product Manager and the expectation out it. Let me give you an example which illustrates what a PM truly does:

Suppose you are driver of a vehicle, and there are few friends of yours whom you need to pickup from their locations, and head to a destination, a nice summer vacation spot. You are to ensure that all your friends have a good time enjoying themselves making best of the day. Finally, you also see that your friends get dropped back to their respective home safely without much hassle.

Now imagine this example in context of a Product Manager (PM). Your fundamental job as a PM is to ensure that all your friends though have their own personal likes & dislikes enjoy the day at the vacation spot. This is your core goal. Now how do you achieve this is what tells how effective & a great PM you are. This can be further broken down into:

• You decide & fix the most optimum route to pickup and drop your friends home (with consultation with your friends) which takes the least amount of time & doesn’t creates hassle for everyone.
• You decide a common theme at the vacation spot in terms of food, drinks, games and other activities which serves everyone’s purpose and ensure that all your friends enjoy to the fullest.
• At the end of the day, you ask your friends for their honest feedbacks/suggestions on how they felt the overall experience was and how next time it can be made much better.

Crisp of the story, being a PM you play a pivotal point between multiple stakeholders to achive the common goal that is decided in your Product Vision. You manage everything to get a product from ideation state to being delivered to users for usage & work towards optimising it’s performance.

This post has been published on www.productschool.com communities.