DIFFERENT SKILLS = DIFFERENT STRENGTHS
AS A PMJackie Bavaro - @jackiebo
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT IS ALL ABOUT FILLING IN THE EMPTY SPACE
ANY EXPERIENCES YOU’VE HAD CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER PM
•The Venn diagram of PM Skills
•Examples of how different roles have built up those skills
•How to build the missing skills
•How to find a company and role that’s good for you
•How to use your unique skills to succeed as a PM
Overview
Design a great product
Ship It
Strategy & Vision
Leadership
Customer Focus
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Prioritization
Project Management
Technical Skills
Communication
Strategy & Vision
Leadership
Customer Focus
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Prioritization
Project Management
Technical Skills
Communication
ENGINEER
Strategy & Vision
Leadership
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Technical Skills
Communication
MARKETING
Project Management
Customer Focus
Prioritization
Strategy & Vision Leadership
Customer Focus
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Prioritization
Project Management
Technical Skills
Communication
DESIGNER
Strategy & Vision
Leadership
Customer Focus
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Prioritization
Project Management
Technical Skills
Communication
PROJECT MANAGER
Strategy & Vision Leadership
Customer Focus
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Action Oriented
Technical Skills
Communication
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Prioritization
Project Management
Strategy & Vision Leadership
Product Design
Analysis & Synthesis
Technical Skills
Communication
BUSINESS ANALYST
Project Management
Customer Focus
Prioritization
Action Oriented
INDUSTRY EXPERTISE
HOW TO BUILD THE MISSING SKILLS
CUSTOMER FOCUS
• Spend time with people
• Watch them use products and look for where they run into problems
• Learn what their goals are
• Practice framing products in terms of customers and goals
• Build up some compelling anecdotes to make the customers real for you
• Check out the IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit
PRODUCT DESIGN
• Use a lot of products
• Always think about how they could be improved. Double check your improvements for customer focus
• Stay on top of new trends, notice what you like and don’t like, and why
• Consider ways that you could apply something that works well on one product to another kind of product
• Read some books on product design
ANALYSIS
• Learn the fundamentals of data analysis
• Check out Lean Startup and the KISSMetrics blog
• Practice if you can
• Sit in on data analysis meetings
• Play with the data yourself
TECHNICAL SKILLS
• Take some courses
• Optimize for learning skills that you could actually apply at your job: CSS, Scripting, SQL
• Discuss technical issues with engineers
• Ask them to help you ramp up
BEING MORE ACTION ORIENTED: SCRAPPINESS
• Be Brave
• Make a habit of stepping up
• Do, Delegate, or Decide you don’t need it
• Look for times you or a teammate feels blocked - that’s a sign there’s an opportunity to be scrappy
• Yes, this is hard work
PRIORITIZATION
• Get comfortable with the need for prioritization
• If you waited until the product was perfect it would never ship
• We’re not always right about how important things are
• Once the product launches you’ll learn much more from your customers
• Decide what you’re optimizing for
• Are you testing a hypothesis? Making a use case possible? Aiming for a quality bar?
PICKING THE RIGHT ROLE FOR YOU
• Consider making the transition at your current company
• Consider going after a TPM or EPM job
• Look for a role where your skills will be valued
• “How do you split the work with designers and marketing?”
• “What do you look for in a PM?”
• Look for a company where you’ll be able to learn a lot
• You might want to pick a company with lots of PMs so you can learn from them
USE YOUR UNIQUE SKILLS TO SUCCEED
•Use your skills to identify areas where you can be helpful
•eg. put together a marketing plan, do some data analysis
•Especially great if you can use your skill to be helpful early on
•Pick up experience and ask for advice in the areas you don’t know.
•Ask how to learn, don’t just pass questions along
•Share your skills
•Build up your credibility by teaching other people what you know
...oh, and maybe buy our bookTHE END
Also: pmblog.quora.c
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PHOTO CREDITS
• http://flic.kr/p/aEHMU
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soyuz_TMA-09M_rocket_in_the_assembling_facility_1.jpg
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Decisions_Decisions_(Horton,_Oxwich_Point_or_Castle)_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1511202.jpg
• http://flic.kr/p/99XzqQ