Part 1: Core Preparation
Understand what a PM does
There’s a huge amount of information on this topic so I’ll be brief here, but I like the definition that Saeed Kahn uses:
“Product Management is cross-functional business and technology management focused on creating and delivering products that meet or exceed their business goals and objectives.”
The first thing I ask a client or potential hire is “How would you describe product management, and how does it work in your current business?”. This gives me valuable insights into the person’s exposure to Product Management practices and how they’ve seen it run at other companies. This is a great article to start understanding what a product manager does and why it’s important. I’d back this up by reading Inspired as the first PM book from the Core Reading list.
One of the things that I think many product people quickly realise is how different the ideals in books are compared to the realities of companies when they do end up working there. Even top-tier technology companies still have their own problems, whether that be due to scale, product mix, or even market conditions It’s easy to imagine a utopia where everyone understands and appreciates the Product Management function; however, it’s more likely you’ll end up at a company that has quirks and features that don’t align to these ideals. It’s important to be able to understand the core principles and ideas behind Product Management to effectively navigate your way through these companies, delivering consistent customer value while working within the boundaries of a specific structure and process.
Understand the market
As of right now (September 2023) there’s a lull in the tech market in Australia, and I imagine it’s quite similar throughout the global industry. Something to consider here is how many Product Managers are hired for each Engineer. This tends to be 1:10 for some places and goes down to as low as 1:3 at some companies. So again, Product Management is hard to have a successful career you need to ensure you stand out from the crowd.
The question you should be asking yourself is: “How invested am I in doing product management?” better yet, could you answer succinctly and with conviction “Why do you want to be a Product Manager?”. If you can’t articulate clearly and concisely why you want to become a PM, then it’s going to be extremely difficult for a business to invest time and energy into hiring and training you.
One of the best ways to get a clear understanding of the PM market in your area is to get into the community.
Embed yourself in the community
With Product people tending to be quite social, most cities have very active Product Management communities. This means that wherever you are I’m confident that there will be some sort of monthly, fortnightly, or weekly meetup that you can attend. Mind The Product is one of the most common ones, they run Product Tank events globally and are a great place to start learning. An example is this talk by Gibson Biddle (ex-VP of Product at Netflix) for World Product Day. There are also generally a large number of groups on Meetup.com, for example, in Brisbane Australia, there is a fortnightly product and design breakfast.
There are also a number of different Slack groups that you can join, for example:
Connecting with other PMs in the community will help you understand the landscape in your area. Are there more Fin-Tech companies? Are there a heap of Med-Tech companies? Is there a strong start-up culture in your city? Or are there a few huge established companies that tend to recruit all the talent in the area?
Another group to get in touch with is the recruiters in the area. Are there specialist PM recruiters? or are there just generalist “Tech” recruiters? Putting yourself out there may be hard but when they have a company coming to them looking to hire a new junior product manager, you might be the first person that pops into their mind as a recommendation!
I generally say domain knowledge isn’t as important as core product thinking and process understanding, however, if your area has a clear tech culture, scene or, industry, then it might be worthwhile working on studying that as part of your training to become a PM. Being able to speak to the macroeconomics of an industry or be able to clearly demonstrate an understanding of the different players in a sector and their strengths and weaknesses can be the difference between getting that job offer and being passed on.
Once you have connected with PMs, recruiters, and anyone else of interest in the tech community in your area, and done your study on the state of the industry in the area, you should start applying for junior roles. I know there are very few junior PM roles in companies these days, so something I have started recommending to people is to start with a customer-facing job.
Start with a customer-facing job
You hear many people talk about ‘voice of the customer’ and ‘customer-centricity’, but one thing that’s a sure-fire way to get you to understand how a customer thinks is doing a job that directly interacts with customers day in and day out. Whether that’s customer success/support, implementations, integrations, or even QA; these are all great stepping stones towards a successful Product Management career.
When I am hiring product managers I always respect someone who has worked in a direct customer-facing job, I find that it gives you a much different perspective and an understanding that even though you might intuit that something makes sense for the customer - sometimes the customer wants or would love something completely different. This helps to ground your thinking towards the customer’s perspective instead of insulating yourself within the business or technology side of your company.
Self-Assessments
The last core thing to do in preparation for becoming a product manager is to do a self-assessment. There are a number of different frameworks and templates out there but here are two that I recommend:
This assessment focuses on the three areas of People, Product, and Process to determine where the biggest areas for improvement are. I have used these three pillars to develop personal OKRs.
The “12 Core Competencies” developed by Ravi Mehta (Ex-CPO from Tinder)
This assessment is now used in the Reforge online learning platform for Product Managers. It covers similar aspects to the SVPG one above but has a bit more granular detail and some interesting insights about ‘product manager shape’ that you might not have seen before.
Once you have done the research above and gone through the self-assessments and you think you’re ready for the next step - head to Part 2 of this guide: Thinking like a PM.
