Level Up! Advancing Your Product Management Career
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How do you graduate to senior roles as a Product Manager? We’ll start by putting some definition to those roles, then dig into some practical advice on how to make those kinds of transitions with a special focus on an issue every level PM contends with: Influencing others. Originally presented at the Boston Product Management Association Fall Mentorship Meeting, September 2015.
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Level Up! Advancing Your Product Management Career
- 2. My Secret Origin English grad PM by accident Web, mobile
- 3. Role definitions Practical advice for career advancement Influencing others
- 4. What does a Product Manager do?
- 5. Product Managers define the right stuff to make.
- 6. Product Managers understand the big picture of their individual products
- 7. PM Directors focus on process and people, not single products
- 8. PM VPs focus on the overall business and its success
- 9. PM - individual products PM Director – process and people PM VP – overall business Differences in areas of focus
- 10. How do you get from here to there?
- 11. Find a good boss and/or mentor
- 12. Have a direct conversation with your boss
- 14. Time your request for promotion
- 15. But, wait a second…
- 16. How do you get people on board with your ideas?
- 17. Big Picture - Internally
- 18. Relevant Questions – By Department
- 19. Inside Their Minds – By Stakeholder
- 20. Me YouUs
- 21. Don’t Be All Business All The Time
- 23. ChristopherCummings.com Visit Product Management Meets Pop Culture at Follow me on Twitter @chriscummings01
Notas do Editor
- Hi! Thanks, Sarah and Cait and everyone at the BPMA for making today possible. Thank you all for being here so early on a Friday. It’s great to be here to offer some practical advice on advancing in our careers as product managers and to do it in a way that’s hopefully both clear and fun.
- First a little bit about me so you know where I’m coming from. I’ve been in product management for about 15 years. Worked at big companies and startups. As an individual contributor and as a manager. To be honest -- I didn’t plan to be involved in any of this. I started out in editorial. At an online games startup. My job was to generate content and do community management. And then a couple weeks in the CEO told me they needed my help to produce a game. I was like, “What?” It was a stockcar prediction game. I didn’t know anything about NASCAR. I didn’t know anything about making games. I didn’t understand, really, what the heck was expected of me. But it was a startup, and that’s what you do -- you pitch in. So I learned quickly how to work with engineers, with design, with others to make a product, launch it, then iterate on it as we got user feedback and learned new things. And once I got a taste of that, I was hooked.
- Today we’re going to talk about navigating your career as a product manager – specifically how do you graduate to the senior roles? We’ll start by putting some definition to those roles, then dig into some practical advice on how to make those kinds of transitions. So you can hit the ground running like the Flash here. And lastly we’ll look specifically at something that cuts across all product managers – no matter what level they are – how do you influence people to get them on board with your ideas?
- Basic question, right? Many different answers. We’re mini-CEOs. We’re captains of the fleet. We’re the grease that gets things done.
- We’re responsible for Product / Market fit. If you make the best product in the world and there’s no market for it, nobody cares, then you’ve got a whole lot of nothing. Product/Market fit stems from asking the right questions of the right people at the right time so you can understand…
- The big picture. Product managers understand the market and generally look after an individual product or service. They focus on short term development goals and long-term strategy. It’s research, competitive analysis, customer interviews, use cases. How does that compare with a director of product management?
- Directors aren’t usually involved in day to day product management of an individual product. Instead, they’re focused on the process of how we do product management – things like building launch teams, standardizing reporting, portfolio strategy, and resource allocation. They don’t necessarily manage direct reports but they facilitate cross-collaboration of the individuals involved in the products under their umbrella.
- Product Directors focus on the business of product management, the Vice President of Product focuses on the business itself. As someone who’s been in this role let me tell you: It’s hard. Because you’re essentially influencing executives all day every day and trying to facilitate common understanding and coordination so the executive team is focused on the right thing for the business and your markets. This means asking questions: Are we aligned with the right business model? How do we drive longer-term value for our partners or customers?
- So at a high level, this is the breakdown… the Product Manager focuses on an individual product. The Director focuses on the processes and people issues that can get in the way of product management. And the Vice President focuses on the executive team making sure that the business is asking itself the right questions and resolving issues at the executive level.
- We’ll make three assumptions now: 1) You’ve been a PM for at least 3-5 years on a few different products; 2) people like working with; and 3) you’re working at a company that is large enough to have a Director or a VP role. Taking those as assumptions, were going to look at five practical pieces of advice to help you get from here to there…
- The first step in taking charge of your career is building a support network of mentors and sponsors. If you have the support of your boss at work, that can really help your career because they can provide coaching, they can get you training, they can give you feedback that help you build on your strengths. If you don’t have a direct boss like that, see if you can find one and transfer over to their department. If that’s not a possibility, ask if they’d be willing to mentor you.
- If you want to advance, you need your boss’ support. (Or you need them to leave so their position opens up.) Either way, if you feel you’re ready to advance, humbly approach your boss and let them know you enjoy working for them (presumably true), you’d like a more senior role if one opens up, and you’d like their honest advice on how to proceed. Take their feedback, process it, and figure out how to apply it. Then periodically check in to see how they think you’re doing.
- Look for opportunities to demonstrate you’re already doing these advanced activities. Don’t devote your entire workday to this; you need to get your actual PM work done! Advocate for another PM’s product. If your company has interns, offer to manage them. Start mentoring a willing junior PM. Those kinds of things show that you’re management-ready. It’ll be a learning experience for you and also help improve the team. Everyone wins.
- I read an interesting statistic the other day: Accenture surveyed 3,400 professionals at medium and large-sized companies and found that most people never ask for a promotion. But of those who do, 59% of people who asked for a promotion got one. But the timing is critical. Prove you’re worth it, that you’re already doing the job. Find out how your company handles succession planning, performance evaluations, and promotions.
- You might be thinking right now, I’m already doing these things but I don’t have that title… I’m good at my current role, so the company wants to keep me in it… In the cast you probably have three options if you want to advance: 1) Make your case, be patient, wait it out; 2) look for other groups or business units that might have senior roles you could be a good fit for and see if you can transfer; 3) look for other companies that need leadership.
- Now we’re going to switch gears and dig into one specific issue that every product manager faces – at whatever level of the organization, from junior roles to executive roles and everything in between – and it’s a big one because it plays a large roe in how far you’ll go in your career and how successful you’ll be. How do you influence people? In my mind, there’s three aspects to this: The big picture of your company; the departments you work with; the your key stakeholders. Let’s look at those one at a time.
- What’s the big picture internally – what is the vision and mission? What are you as an entity trying to achieve? How does what you’re doing, or about to do, or propose, -- how does that fit in with the company’s vision and mission? You need to be able to articulate not just product/market fit, but product/company fit. Know your big picture, your company, and how your product fits in.
- Every group in a company has a purpose. Sales is to cultivate relationships and generate revenue. Engineering’s is to make things. UX is to make products easier to use. What is the goal of the departments or groups you work with? As a unit, what’s important to them? Yes, sales is about making money – but are there particular goals they’re after? What about engineering? Maybe, as a group, they’re being challenged to be more innovative. If you can align your interests with theirs, and show how your new feature is not just market-driven but also innovative, that will help engineering achieve their goal while helping you achieve your goal.
- What about the individual? Who are your stakeholders? What motivates them? Get to know them. Get to understand them. And you’ll be in a better place to work with them and get done what you need to get done.
- Remember – this is your target in discussions. There’s you and what you want. There’s me – as the PM, and what I think we should do based on the available data. And then there’s us – collaborating to get the right things done. That’s the space you want to focus on. US. Succeeding as a business. Language is really important in this, and inclusivity.
- Last thing I wanted to talk about. And this is actually the hardest for me. Because I’m geared to just dig in and work. I’m a husband, a father, I’m active at my church… there’s a lot going on, and my lunch times are often spent dealing with things happening back home. But you need to relax. I need to relax. Because a huge part of getting people to listen to you isn’t just knowing your facts, it’s about being personable. If you’re someone who people enjoy being around, if you have a sense of humor, if you make time for others and are inclusive toward them… that will go a long, long way to them listening to you and what you have to say. Then you just have to make sure that what you’re saying is worth their time!
- And that’s the end of the story for now. Thank you for listening!