TechAbout - Skills and Qualifications
In most cases, the description of a Product Manager covers a wide range of skills. However, most Product Manager roles include several key components:
Domain Expertise
Your knowledge of your market and product area is often the reason your company hired you. Understanding the customers and the business is a crucial factor in your role as a Product Manager.
Domain Skills
- Product Management
- Requirements Analysis
Business Expertise
People often say that the Product Manager is the CEO of the product. While that may not be entirely accurate, ensuring the company generates a profit is usually part of the role. A Product Manager needs a suite of business skills to keep the product profitable.
Business Skills
- Understanding the Customer
- Competitive Analysis
- Financial Planning and Strategy
- Pricing
Leadership Skills
Many people within your company look to you for guidance. If you don’t already have leadership skills, it’s essential to develop them quickly.
Leadership Skills
- People Management
- Project Management
Operational Ability
Product Managers must dive deep into the details required to manage a product, such as creating part numbers or updating spreadsheets. While you may delegate some of these tasks, you are often responsible for them.
Operational Skills
- UI/UX Design Planning
- Sales Planning
- Product Development
Skills Acquisition
Learning the product management discipline takes time and practice. All product managers were new to the process at some point, so don’t get discouraged. Here are a few suggestions to kick-start your understanding of the product, market, customer, and the value your product delivers:
Know Your Boss’ Goals
As a product manager, you’ll be measured not only on the success of your product but also on how well you align with company goals and objectives. Understanding how your boss is measured helps you focus on what is important to upper management and the person directly responsible for mentoring you.
Friend a Sales Engineer
Sales engineers are in constant communication with customers and know the product inside and out. Shadowing a sales engineer can provide deep insight into the workings of the product and how customers use it in their daily lives.
Talk to Five Customers
Don’t be afraid to engage directly with customers. Customers actively using your product often want to share what they enjoy (or dislike), giving you valuable insights to make informed decisions and trade-offs. Understanding your product's value comes from speaking directly with the people who use it the most—your customers.
Use the Product
For consumer product companies, this is essential, and you should use the product daily. If you work in a high-tech company developing business-to-business applications, ask your engineers for access to a demo or staging environment where you can experiment with the product. Hands-on experience is the best way to learn. Sales engineers typically have access to these environments, so another reason to connect with them.
Sit in on at Least Ten Customer Support Calls
The customer support team fields questions and issues from customers daily. They handle the tough questions that arise from customers and partners. Listen to the feedback and questions customers bring to the team. Understand how the support team engages with customers and use that knowledge to deepen your insight into the customer and product. If you can’t join the calls, meet with the support manager and individual reps to review their issues list and the top questions they receive weekly.