Why Journalists Make The Best Product Managers
How many product managers do you know that started their career as an actual product manager? Becoming a product manager is often as individual as the person themselves. But why are people becoming product managers? What are the stories behind the decision? That is what we here at XING want to find out. I have the pleasure to start this article series and will tell you how I, a former economic journalist, got into product management.
What did you want to become when you were younger?
Because of my parents, I grew up with Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock. Looking back, I am not surprised that I wanted to become a detective. I remember founding a detective agency with my sister and some friends — and of course our dog, a Bernese Mountain Dog. We took our fingerprints, did regular expeditions through the forests and interviewed our families and neighbours. Unfortunately, we never had a big case. Even though I didn’t become a real detective, I had to interview and investigate as well as a journalist and in a different way also as product manager. Unfortunately, without a dog so far.
What would you say are your best skills?
My curiosity, empathy, insistence and passion. As a journalist my favourite part of the job was to do interviews. I am really interested in what people think, what they are passionate about and why. And I really want to understand their point of view. My friends always joking at me that I want to know everything in detail. My insistence helps me to not give up and always try a little bit harder — especially when I am passionate about that topic, what usually is the case. Also, I have to admit, that I try to be as organised as possible. I hate nothing more than to sit in a meeting and to be unprepared.
What is your educational background? What did you learn? And why?
I studied journalism in Hamburg. The decision to become an economic journalist came out of an own need. In school I was interested in economy and politics — and so I read a lot. To be honest most of the articles about politics and especially economics were written so complicated that I had the feeling, I am too stupid to understand the topic. I thought that this cannot be reader friendly and came to the conclusion to try to do it better.
During my bachelor’s degree I learned different interview techniques, to write different types of articles and together with fellow students I published a magazine — it was called ‘Digger’, which is a word for ‘buddy’ in Hamburg and also related to the verb ‘to dig’.
After my bachelor’s degree I completed an executive master’s degree in digital journalism. This was more management related, for example how to restructure an editorial office so it fits the user’s needs and how to manage the change, or how to do a design thinking workshop.
What was the exact moment you thought of becoming a product manager? And why?
As a journalist my main responsibility was to find good topics to write about, write interesting articles and do interviews. This was fun. But also I was always very interested in how to earn money, how to reach potential new users and how to give the user a better experience based on his or her needs. But I never met a product manager in my editorial working environment.
Then I started working for XING Klartext, the XINGs own news discussion format. And there it was: a product manager. I needed to learn the role’s remit in relation to my own. In my previous jobs I was also responsible for thinking about new product ideas and implementing them. But now I had to see somebody else take responsibility for this part. That made me think of becoming a product manager the first time — but I had too much respect for the role.
Later on, our editorial team lost our product manager. But of course, there was a lot to do: we wanted to implement a new product structure and also the bugs and issues didn’t stop coming in. When we observed a bad bug, I took over the task. It was really hands-on and a lot of fun to work together with the developers on solving the issue. The moment I saw the result of our work, I knew it: I wanted to become a product manager. I was so proud that we could improve the situation for the user — even if this were just tiny changes.
How did you do it?
I talked to the product director at that time to hear what he thought about that crazy idea of me, a journalist, becoming a product manager. And I have to say I was really lucky that he believed I could do it. He stood up for me and organised an internship in the XING Profile team. The team with the most stakeholders in the company, I guess. It was good to learn in a different environment than news — the water was way colder but because of that I learned a lot.
How was the start?
Exciting. Fun. And I felt a bit of pressure — but only from my side. I wanted to learn as much as I could in as little time as possible. When looking back I think, I exaggerated a bit.
Who and what helped you to get to know the role better?
Before I took the first step, I talked to different product people whose opinion I value. We discussed about what it takes to be a good product manager, the tasks and the hardest parts. I tried to understand if the role suited me and what I could expect. From Marty Cagan I learned a lot as well — unfortunately not in a discussion but by reading his book ‘Inspired’.
This was a lot theoretically input. What the role is about practically I learned first of all by observing the product manager I worked with in my internship. And I still do that. You can learn a lot only by observing. But also, by doing something and trying out things, making mistakes and experiencing success. One of the best parts of the job is that you never stop learning.
What did you do, when starting as a product manager? How were you onboarded?
I had the luxury to start as an intern product manager in a company I already worked for. The structure of the company, our tools and processes were already familiar to me. On top of that I had a senior product manager by my side. The first thing we did, was to look at the product, the mission, the main KPIs and what we want to achieve in the next quarter. Also, we set goals what I want to learn in the next months. It was important to me that I really understood the topics we worked on — so I took some developers to the side and asked them many questions about what we need to do from a technical point of view and how XYZ works.
What was your biggest challenge?
The hardest part for me was, to learn that it is ok to not know everything. When you work in a job for years you know what to do. You are building up expertise and feel secure about what you do. When changing job all of this is gone. You don’t feel confident at all. This was something I needed to learn to live with. Because product management isn’t a job in which you will ever know everything — there will always be a new technology or new situation you have to deal with. But that is something that makes the job so exciting, isn’t it?
What is it about journalists, that make them the best product managers?
This is quite obvious, isn’t it? ;)
All joking aside. Actually, there are a few things from my professional background that help me a lot in being a product manager.
For me as a product manager it is important to speak to our users on a regular basis. To listen to them and to understand them. My background as a journalist helps with this a lot, because as a journalist I was used to asking direct questions, listen to my interview partners and understand them. As you can probably imagine, journalists are very communicative. This helps me with stakeholder management: I really enjoy to keep my stakeholders up to date, hear from other product people what they are working on and plan for the future. For me this is the opposite of a burden.
I am a fast learner. As a journalist, I had to learn to familiarise myself with topics quickly. In product management we are facing different problems to solve and need to understand them from different perspectives — ideally in a short amount of time.
Also it helps me that I know how to tell a story. We often need to present our ideas to others: to the product team, product directors or even the higher management. Of course there is a difference between telling a story in journalism and selling a story in product management. But I feel that my professional background supports me here.
And last but not least, as a journalists I learned to be stubborn. We do not give up when we get a no as an answer — or no answer at all. So as a former journalist I’m not too bad at getting on someones nerves — but of course in a nice and charming way. And since we, as product managers, are constantly waiting for information or things to finish, this skill helps me a lot.
What did you recognise in product managers you want to do differently?
I don’t know if this topic is only about product managers, but I want to try to put the holistic view and the user experience over my own little product world and product specific KPIs. I have the impression that often we are too focused on our own products and feature sets so that we forget to see the bigger picture. This is pretty understandable, because we work on our products and think about them the whole day. But I want to try to remember to take a step back as often as I can.
What was your best moment as a product manager so far?
With Covid-19 came a lot of uncertainty. How are the colleagues? How are my contacts? How can I tell people that I need help or that I want to offer some help? So, we decided to use the “Status” feature on the XING Profile to tell your outer world how you are dealing with Corona. It took only around two weeks from the idea to the release. It felt great to iterate on something really fast, change just a bit but make a huge difference to the user.
What was your hardest moment so far?
Like in real life it is hard to let things go. In the first months I had the pleasure to think of a new feature for the XING Profile. The whole team brainstormed and created a User Story Map. We were aligned on the MVP, all User Stories were written and we had started to work on it. But then out of the blue another topic kicked in. This was prioritised higher and so we needed to stop working on it. Until now we never touched it again. And this still makes me quite sad.
Which advice would you give the younger you today before moving into product management?
I would give myself the advice that product management is no rocket science and that it is possible to grow in the position of a product manager when you have enough passion and interest. I had a lot respect for the role. I could have started the journey earlier, had I understood this.
And a second advice would be, be never too shy to ask “why”. You learn the most interesting things when you ask why. But especially when starting in a new role someone could be too shy to ask — at least I felt like that sometimes.
This interview is part of the article series ‘Why … Make The Best Product Managers’. In this series we ask our colleagues here at XING and externally to get an insight into the many ways into product management.
