This post can be helpful if you want to break into product management and you don’t know where to start. You can either read product management books, follow product leaders on Twitter, start working on side projects, all of the above or some other strategy. There really is no one way to get into product management. I am going to give my own 2 cents here using product management vocabulary.
Product Mindset:
The role of product management has evolved over the years and has solidified on certain principles that are essential. So, it’s important to internalize some of these ‘must haves’. I will add that these principles and mindset isn’t something special and anyone can learn and practice them. The next few points are going to use some of those principles.
Product Strategy, Vision, Mission, Roadmap:
This is actually a common product management framework, where you need to think deeply about what you want to build and why. Vision/Mission is what drives a company and product and your strategy and roadmap is guided by the product vision. Similarly, it’s important to reflect on your career goals. Here are some pointers to help bring more clarity: Understand your motivation: what matters the most to you? What kind of space, role, social environments are important to you and in the next 5–10 (even 20) years. This helps define your life’s mission. From your mission, define a vision which is a little less abstract, but still extremely high level and long term.
Frameworks:
Product Management is about developing processes that can be used to launch new features and products and manage them. Frameworks are really tools in a product manager’s pocket that help them navigate complexities around managing people as well as decision making and it’s important to borrow some of these frameworks for your product career transition. Some of my favorite ones are: Jobs to be done, prioritization frameworks, experimentation. Defining these frameworks and playbooks as you do your current work or studying will help you answer many questions in informational interviews as well as real product interviews.
Users
Being user centric is something you will hear all the time. Building products is all about understanding users and what they want. In some way, it’s like an author or a movie creator who wants to understand their audience and have to craft their creation based on what the audience wants. Referring to the theme of applying product management concepts in your career, think of people you interact across dimensions — industry, role, decision making ability. Speaking with a product veteran of 20 years for advice vs speaking to a recruiter when you want to know about a specfic role. Remember that as a product manager, you will do a lot of this — talking to people from different functions at different levels and for different use cases. Start practicing in your current role now!
Conclusion:
Remember, transitioning into product management is possible from any starting point or background. It’s one of the roles where you don’t need to have specific pre-requisites around education or experience. All you need is the motivation and the right mind-set. I hope this helps to get you started with your journey into product management.