Product management is a fundamental role that sits in the convergence of various functions and capacities. To succeed, great PMs must have a diverse set of necessary competencies. Being the driving force of the product it’s often expected to have technical and non-technical knowledge about certain functions involved in making a product. From prototyping to run A/B testing to analyze and understand how to code on a basic level to managing a business and understanding user needs, a product manager should be skilled in all these terms. In this blog, we will talk about more key skills of a product manager which no one talks about.
Product sense
Product sense additionally called Product intuition is nothing but a skill to understand what can make a product credible. It is a skill to judge the relevant solutions for the user problems and think of some outstanding solutions which will make that product more superior. It’s not more than a skill which can be improved with time and practice. You can develop this skill with more practice and experiments. Following gives you the perfect insights about great product sense :
- Profoundly understand the objective of the product keeping both business and clients in mind
- Continuous evaluation of product deliverable and factors which are contributing or detracting
- Research! Research! And Research! About finding the opportunities and areas where a product can excel and serves the best of the goal. Competition analysis is the best way to get inspired
- Learn to seek the truth and not validations
Being an Empath
Empathy is the greatest skill a Product manager can have. How? Well! Empathy in product management means to have an option to hinder enough to tune in and watch, sufficiently humble to learn and change, and ready to comprehend what somebody is managing as well as to feel and understand it with them. Empathy is tied in with feeling with people vs intellectually recognizing their circumstances. This can’t be stressed enough that it’s important to understand the customer’s pain point and build our product on the same line. That understanding of pain point comes from empathy. It is not wrong to say that most of the time a product fails because the focus was on the wrong problem. You may miss out on insights about the best solutions to your problems, your right audience even after using proven approaches without empathy. How to master this skill? Be empathetic !! Build it by doing and not just by thinking. Following are some ways to master this skill
- Be a good listener
- Turn insights into action
- Get back to more conversation
Being stupid
No matter how much experience you do have, how many products you have built to date, never lose a habit of asking Why, How, When, and What? Start with accepting the fact that you know nothing about what people want, what solutions you have. Always be in a state to learn. This will always lit the light in you to explore more about it and come up with more creative ideas. This skill is important because developing a product is an ongoing process. Product management is a continuous journey of improvement of the product. You may face a situation where you have to abandon your ideas, your product, or maybe a few features but there is always a scope for improvement. And this skill will help in enhancing your product more beautifully. So always ask Why, How, When, and What.
1st principle thinking
Most product managers follow 1st principle thinking. This helps them to stick with their basics. Always question the basic problem. Why are we building this product? This will help Product managers to bound their teams around the basic problem which is the most important thing in a product. It helps in making comparative decisions for product managers which increases the tendency to reach the right decision effectively. Imagine you being a Product Manager is in a situation where you have to improve the existing strategy of a product. And you have to make certain decisions and plan your new strategy. Now you come across a confusion contrasting two things and you are unable to decide which one to go for. By using the 1st principle of thinking you can rethink both the ideas. Ask yourself WHY? and see what fulfills product vision the most. Voila! you have your decision.
Emotionally Strong
Product managers are the major decision-makers in product development so they need to be emotionally strong in the process. Sometimes they need to make some big decisions where they have to choose and prioritize their choices. Product managers sometimes get attached to their products. They put their blood and sweat into developing it so that attachment is obvious. But this is wrong. Product managers are expected to be emotionally strong because they may face a situation where they have to discontinue their products. Google+ is the big example we have, it was launched in 2011 and it was taken down in 2019. The journey was full of experiments and risks but ultimately after the failure, they have to discontinue their product. You may face criticism, your product may not have a good launch, your product may fail but this is not the end. In these situations, this skill plays a big role.
So, these are the few key skills no one talks about Product Manager. If you think you can add more skills to the list then write us down in the comments section. We would like to know about your insights on this. For more such blogs, follow Zeda.io on Medium.
