Product Managers - Own your Product Journey
- product management
- 5 min read
By Roger Norton – Head of Product at Founders Factory Africa
At some point in our careers, a lot of us wonder- What is the journey to a thriving career in product management? This journey can be both challenging as well as rewarding. Product management is a very vast and multifaceted role which comes with some very clear roadblocks. As a product manager, it is crucial for you to acknowledge these challenges because this is the reality a lot of people find themselves in. It is also very essential that you come up with a roadmap on how you are going to go about your journey as a product manager.
Key Takeaways:
- Product management comes with a set of challenges like you being the only product manager in your team or company, your manager being ill-equipped in training you for your role, not being optimally supported in your work environment and your company confusing product and project management.
- There are some steps to navigate your path as a product manager.
- These steps include assessing your skills based on the type of career you want, using the product management wheel to know and fill your gaps.
- It is essential for you to engage in a constant learning process and embracing giving and receiving feedback, building a support network, and getting better at self development.
1. Self development challenges in product management
a. You are the single product manager in your team
Product as a discipline and a department is relatively new and is not very well understood. Organizations are still adapting to the idea of product management as a separate domain. So quite often you end up being the only product manager on a team or a company which can make your experience as a product manager quite isolating and lonely, making it important for you to look for constant learning and support.
b. Your line manager has never been a product manager
Very often the person that you report to doesn’t have any experience in the field of product management. They might be an engineering manager or a business manager or something else and might not be equipped to support you in your job. Product management on the other hand is a relatively new and nuanced discipline and involves a relatively new way of thinking about how you build products, manage teams, run the efficiency of delivering value to customers by checking the products and so on. They have no idea about the skills that make you excel at your job beyond managing backlogs and doing the obvious daily tasks. So quite often you don’t get much guidance or mentoring through that space, especially not in direct management.
c. Product managers are not optimally supported in their work environments
Product teams are quite new. Developer teams or business analyst teams have been around for quite a long time and the way that they fit into the organization is quite well defined. But as organizations start adopting more of a product led mindset, product management as a domain starts becoming more and more important. Often, the way you are running the team or the way you are positioned in the company or where your reporting lines are, the work environment isn’t actually conducive for you being as effective as you can be.
d. Your company confuses product and project management
The last thing that we see is companies confusing product management with project management. The freedom that you as product managers are given in the role in what you can deliver is very limited to effectively just managing deadlines, pushing tasks and just managing the delivery of a project or a feature. Product management is so much more than that. It is the discipline of how you communicate or how the team communicates and understands customer centricity and builds products that deliver value against the business strategy.
A lot of people are hired as a product manager but end up being a project manager. It’s often quite a difficult place to be in on how to be a junior employee and how to communicate that to the boss and how to reposition your role within the organization to actually be effective.
2. Steps to navigate your path as a product manager
a. Assess your skills based on the type of career you want
The first step is assessing your product management skills, your gaps and where you want to grow. The better approach is you can talk about T-shaped careers, so you can talk about going wide, or going deep in your career. The core part when you’re looking at moving your career forward, you need to assess which of those is most important. As a product manager, it is important for you to know whether you want to become more of an expert in certain things you’re really good at, or do you want to increase the breadth of your skills and start moving into adjacent areas around the organization. Usually in large organizations, you might be required to go deep and become a specialist in a particular set of skills. But in smaller organizations, you might be required to grow more breadth so you can cover more bases.
b. Use the product management wheel to know your gaps
When you know which direction you want to grow your product management career in, using things like the product management wheel is a great way of identifying what your skill gaps are. When you do these assessments, it’s often quite difficult to see how you operate in a space from your perspective. So it is helpful to use something like a product management wheel where you have a spider diagram of what your skills are and how good you are at each of those. You can then ask your peers and line manager to rate you on a scale of 1-10 on each of these skills. It gets really interesting when you start overlaying those together, when you can see the gaps of where your expectations or somebody else’s expectations are misaligned. By doing that you can hold up a mirror to better understand your gaps and better understand the context of where you will need to grow.
c. Take action plans to fill your gaps
Once you have identified what these gaps are, you then need to work out a plan on how to move your career forward and take action plans towards it. You need to be thinking constantly about what your career as a product manager will look like in the future. As you do that, you can identify this as a very simple future self matrix of identifying your future self. The “As-is” is how you are today and the “To-be” is where you want to be. This could be promotion, or a shift in your own organization. It definitely helps to set a time-limit to it as well. If you are coming from an experimental mindset, you always need to set a time limit of how long it’s going to take you to achieve. When that period is over, you can reflect back and see what went right and wrong. This process amplifies the learnings in the end.
d. Be in the Goldilocks zone during your self-development
In unpacking the actions and things you want to achieve, there’s a sweet spot called goldilocks zone on self development. As your motivation increases, and you do something that’s challenging, you want to push yourself a bit, but you also don’t want to push yourself too far because that might mean you fail at everything. Then it’s not motivating at all and becomes demotivating. But if you make them too easy, and you achieve all those goals, that is not going to give you the sense of accomplishment, growth and fulfillment you want.
e. Start a learning process
The next step is starting the learning process. As a product manager, you can learn in mainly 4 steps. The first step is consuming information by reading about it, maybe through blog posts, training, podcasts and conferences. Product managers should know their learning style, whether they learn better through hearing, listening, reading or mix and match. The second is applying that information. It’s no use simply reading things and not applying them, because otherwise you don’t remember it well. You can talk to your manager and try to apply this knowledge in a new company initiative, or if it’s within the product that you’re working on. The third step is reflecting. It’s good to have a companion who you can share this information with for both informational and emotional support and to keep you on track so they actually give you feedback on the journey. The more you talk about it, the more feedback you get, the more you can reflect on it and look at it and get tips on how to improve. The final step is actually sharing that information. Once you’ve reflected on it and practiced it, you can start sharing it through networking with other product managers, teaching, volunteering and teaching. That’s when true mastery actually comes in.
f. Learn the importance of getting and giving feedback
Research shows that only 28% of people receive feedback a few times a year, while 19% receive it once a year or less. Employees prefer getting corrective feedback over positive feedback and managers are not keen on giving corrective feedback. Feedback is an important part of learning. You as a product manager need to have the skills to pull feedback from your team members naturally. To be really great at feedback, you have to get it, give it and encourage it. It is a crucial ingredient for accelerating growth. It’s important because it gives clarity on many areas of development. Positive feedback is good because it gives you reinforcement for what you’re really doing well. However, to need opportunities for growth, you need clarity around areas for development. As you get feedback, it builds your confidence and also encourages you to take risks. If your confidence levels are good, you are more likely to take risks. It also helps combat imposter syndrome.
g. Learn how to get feedback
Be very specific and persistent in asking for feedback on your work. Apart from your manager, you can also ask your team members for the same. When someone does give you feedback, treat it as a precious gift, because your manager is often not likely to give it. It’s a very difficult conversation and when they do give it, please thank them first and tell them you really appreciate it. Then try to make the feedback very visible. Sometimes these changes do take time but clearly show them that you are working towards it and keep them part of that journey. There are going to be cases where you disagree with the feedback and you feel negative emotions. Just tell them you’ll consider it, and avoid reacting emotionally. Do get back to them with why you don’t agree with it and they might actually give you some other feedback on top of that.
h. Build a support network
We all need a support network, especially product managers because they are usually the only product managers in their team. You can build a support network of 3 people. One person can give you regular feedback regarding work. Then you want someone who knows what a good product person is and knows product management really well. Finally you want someone who helps you live to your full potential. It is important that you don’t just reach out to your support group in the bad times, but also in good times. Let the relationship grow organically rather than make it a very formal relationship. It is important to note that this support network can grow and refresh over time, as you grow in your role as a product manager.
i. Get better at self-development
Habits are formed based on frequency and not time. It’s better to start small so that you can keep on track of your self-development tasks. You can also consider getting an accountability partner who regularly keeps track of your progress. It is worth noting that we pick up habits from people around us. So if you are around other product managers for whom learning is a priority you will also do it. It’s a healthy pressure that will help you thrive in your career.
We repeat a behavior when our brain experiences pleasure and when the experience is satisfying. Reward yourself every time you do it.
The journey of becoming a successful and thriving product manager is long, challenging yet rewarding. By owning your product journey, actively seeking growth opportunities, and building a robust support network, you can navigate these challenges and excel in your field. It is also important to engage in continuous learning, self-reflection and embracing the process of giving and receiving feedback for your professional development.
About the Author:
Roger Norton – Head of Product at Founders Factory Africa
Frequently Asked Questions
Some common challenges that product managers face in their companies are that they are usually the only product managers in the team, their line manager has never been a product manager, they are not optimally supported in their work environments and their company confuses product and project management.
Product management wheel is a spider diagram of what your skills are and how good you are at each of those skills. You can then ask your peers and line manager to rate you on a scale of 1-10 on each of these skills. It helps you see the gaps of where your expectations or somebody else’s expectations are misaligned.
The four steps in which product managers can engage in continuous learning is consuming information, then applying that information, reflecting and then sharing that information with others.
Feedback is important for accelerating growth. It gives clarity on many areas of development. It gives you reinforcement for what you’re really doing well. As you get feedback, it builds your confidence and also encourages you to take risks. If your confidence levels are good, you are more likely to take risks. It also helps combat imposter syndrome.
As a product manager, your support network should consist of 3 people. One can give you regular feedback on your work. Then you want someone who knows product management really well. Third, you want someone who helps you live to your full potential in your field.
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