Essential Skills All Product Managers Must Master

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” – Bill Gates

Being in the shoes of a modern day product manager is not a mere feat that anybody can pull off. There are a vital set of skills which every product manager must ace in order to be recognized and stay at the top. These skills consists of a mix of various soft and hard skills

A primary set of skills is a necessary set of attribute to any job role in the present day. The skills you possess act as a key factor in defining the person you are. The workplace demands the requirement of such skills from people. It is important to master the essential skills to make sure that you do not lag behind the others and have a successful career. Having a ‘T’ shape skill approach is a good practice where in you know many skills and are broadened in specializing few of them. Here, let us see about some of the essential skills that an individual must possess in order to have a fruitful journey as a product manager.

The first set of skills are the hard skills. Hard skills refer to the job related knowledge and abilities that employees need, to perform their job duties effectively. Problem solving and critical thinking is the primary skill a product manager should possess. “Do not get obsessed with the solution, but instead fall in love with the problem”. Effective problem solving is done by breaking problems into small bits and back tracking it to know why the problem has come up. Customer empathy is something which should always be running in the mind of a product manager. Standing and thinking in the position of a customer is the best way to understand the problems and demands for a product. Being a user of your on product is how a product manager can achieve this. Also collecting customer feedback helps in understanding the pros and cons of the product, which can lead to improvements and developments of the current or newer versions of the product. Something important to understand is that, whatever a product manager does must be data driven. Decisions must always be backed by data. Hence learning and efficient usage of data analytical tools such as Google Analytics will certainly help. The next important thing is to have a business understanding. It is crucial to know the company’s missions and vision and to align products accordingly. Also understanding the revenue, profit, cost aspects are necessary for achieving effectiveness. Evaluating risks is a life savior. This skill consists of understanding value risks (will the user buy it?), usability risks (will the user figure out how to use it?), feasibility risks (can we build it?) and business viabilities (will it help for profits and growth?). Designing a product by evaluating these factors are important for sustainable development. Apart from these, having a good domain knowledge and technical understanding of the products will certainly help. Ultimately prioritizing the tasks and executing tasks according to schedule will complete an efficient product cycle.

The next set of skills are the soft skills. Soft skills refer to the personal qualities that help employees really thrive in their workplace. A product manager must mandatorily be a jack of trades when coming to storytelling. This is a skill in which the product manager becomes the salesperson of his products or ideas. It is important for him/her to have the skill and ability to pitch his product and convince the stakeholders associated with it. The next skill is that of leadership and ownership. The most important thing to understand is that the product manager must lead with influence and not with authority. He/she should take responsibility whenever necessary, be open to suggestions and ideas and also give credit to the work done by his colleagues and team members and never discourage them. A product manager must also have the ability to say “No” whenever necessary. Communication skills of a product manager must be as strong as a rock. He/she must properly understand and follow etiquettes while composing mails, slack messages, etc. Also possessing good writing skills is vital to write PRDs, business letters, etc. These skills can be enhanced by regularly posting articles on platforms like LinkedIn and writing blogs. Last but not the least, a product manager must be a team player. “The product team matters and not only the product manager”. It is important to mingle with your team members, to understand and empathize with them and get along. Team work is always the major contributor and hence to be a good spirited team member is a product manager’s duty.

All the above skills will come into play at different times in the career of a product manager. A typical product management career path will consist the roles of Associate Product Manager (APM), Product Manager (PM), Senior Product Manager, Group Product Manager, Product Director, Senior Product Director, Vice President and CPO/CEO hierarchically. Majority of hard skills come into play at the lower levels. A manager starts his career as a APM or PM. At this stage he must utilize executional skills such as problem solving, data analysis, etc. In the stages of Senior PM and Group PM, he/she must execute strategical skills such as product discovery, risk mitigation 3 and business understanding. The next stage is of Director and Senior Director where majority of soft skills come into play. Here a product manager must ace the skills of both people and product management. There will be a lot of junior managers reporting to a manager at this stage and hence it is important to interact, understand and maintain good relationships with them and in the meantime get the work done by them on time. The senior most stages of Vice President and CMO/CEO require skills for good product practices, excellent business understanding and client relations.

It can be seen that, for a product manager, it is not enough to have only some of the skills mentioned but is necessary for him/her to master all of these skills. The application circumstance for each and every skill might not come at once, but all these skills will be essential at different points of your career as a product manager. Different situations will demand for a combination of various skills and hence it is important for a product manager to imbibe the essence of all these skills and understand where and how to apply them. A product manager must train himself, practice these skills and aim to become a master of all of them. Acing these skill sets will definitely improve a product manager’s efficiency and productivity and will enhance his contribution to the company. Thus the skill sets can make a product manager stand out from the rest and lead to a fruitful and successful career.