Developing as a Product Manager
It takes competent, passionate, skilled product people (and a cross‐functional product development team sharing the same characteristics) to deliver a successful product. And becoming this kind of a product manager takes time, effort, and commitment. It ́s a long journey and a hard one if you are not having a kind of compass that helps you find your way. Too few product people are having a line manager helping them with all of this and you're probably having to manage your own development and don't know where to start. Come to this session to learn how to take control of your own skill growth.
Developing as a Product Management Personality from Petra Wille
Slides
Transcript
Hello lovely product people, product folks out there. I'm so glad to be here to talk about developing as a product management personality, let's start with some insights.
Did you know that only about 25% of product managers do report that their company supports and values self progression? This means that on the other hand, 75% of all PMs are not optimally supported when it comes to their personal and professional development. And I think this needs to change. My name is Petra Wille, and I'm a product coach. My mission is it to help heads of product, product team leads, product leads to become the best coach their employees ever had and to help product people, to take control of their own product journey. This talk is focusing on the latter. It will help you to figure out what it needs to become an even better product manager. And I will share my three main ingredients you need so the three ingredients you need when it comes to growing as a product person.
And I will explain my framework for PM development so that you can start your own journey tomorrow.
Let's start with ingredient number one and this one should be rather obvious, time. If you don't invest some of your time on your personal development, nothing will change and it will not get any better. But in fact, I see so many product people that have not understood this lesson and still remain rather passive when it comes to personal development. If I asked them why they are not making some time for the development, the answers usually are, "I don't know where to start. I don't know what to learn. I just don't know it's my job or I'm waiting for my boss or for my company to take care of that. And I just don't know how to find the time."
And I kind of understand number one and two but three and four, come on, waiting for somebody else to take care or to help you grow, that is just the waste of time. Because if the company or your line manager would care, they would have already started to help you here. And even if they do, in some companies they do, then it's still up to you to do the heavy lifting, waiting for others and hoping for them changing you is as asking somebody else to exercise on your behalf. And we all know you don't get the apps from other people's crunches and you can't find the time, I know your schedules are busy, but you are product managers. So you should know how prioritization works. And if you can't find the time, then that's maybe your first development topic, right? Then work on your prioritization skills and then start prior to prioritizing your own personal growth.
And to make sure you have some good reasons to do so, here are my arguments or the arguments that I find most appealing. Why this should matter to you. Investing in yourself is completely portable. You carry it with you wherever you go. When it comes to investing in yourself, the skills, the competencies, the experiences, and the connections are all yours to keep. So make the time.
And when it comes to preparing for the future, we are often told that we should begin investing and preparing for the future as soon as possible. The context of this usually is that of financial investing, right? But you could use the same metaphor here, you are benefiting from investments you made early on in your career so the time is now, make the time.
We over estimate what we can achieve in a week and we totally underestimate what we can achieve in a year. That's just how human brains are wired, but consistency beats intensity. So rather start with a small time budget and be consistent. I usually tell my coaches to start with 20 minutes a week and then see where it takes them. It's easier to make more time once you've seen the positive effects it has. So make the time.
And now let me share the various ways to learn something, and then let's reflect on how much time you are already investing. And I promise that you're doing much more of this than you actually notice. Good two by two, every presentation needs a good two by two, you can learn by consuming books, blog posts, podcasts, and so on, and you are improving a skill by applying it to your daily day to day work or to a side project you're currently having, right?
Reflection helps you to make sure that you're investing your development time wisely and making a contribution to the product management community. No matter if it's your company's product tribe or the global community, helps you to see how much you have already learned about certain things. Now, please take a minute, draw this little thing if you are having pen and paper at hand, if you don't then you can with the power of your mind, you're just filling this two by two. So let's give us seconds. Please fill in the blanks, reflect on what you are already doing. I give you some nice music and keep my mouth shut.
Perfect. So no matter how your two by two looks like try to find something in each quadrant, consuming is good if you want to acquire new know-how, but applying is key if you want to build a new skill and reflecting helps you to make sure you're still on track and contributing leads to true mastery. And if you're finding a balance that is right for you, then it's much more likely that you're doing it. So if you like listening to a podcasts, go all in on that. There's nothing wrong about it. Right?
Okay. Now we have talked about why it is so important to make some time. And I promise I can talk about this a bit more in the, ask me anything session later on, but for now, let's have a look to ingredient number two, it is important to find an ally. You need three kinds of outside perspectives to help you grow substantially over time.
All of this could be something your line manager is capable of, but they often are just too busy to take care of all three dimensions, or they simply don't care enough to cover all three perspectives, but there is hope so let's have a closer look on what you need. You need people who provide feedback regarding your work, your role and your performance to improve exactly that. From how a particular meeting went to how you are perceived when giving a talk, you need somebody who knows what a good product person looks like and helps you to see your blind spots.
And then you need somebody who helps you to live up to your full potential. Somebody who has a vision for you. And if your line manager isn't covering all those, here's how to still get these perspectives. You need to create your own growth, supporting environment, find colleagues that are giving feedback on a regular basis and make sure you give some back and return. Actively ask line manager to help you with identifying your development areas and then find yourself a mentor, somebody who believes in what you do and believes in what you can become.
Or you could join a group of like-minded people that want to learn the same things, and you could ask them to help you identifying some more of your blind spots. And then you can get yourself a coach just for some time helping you with a certain development topic, right? So no matter how you are creating your a little growth development support group, make sure you find those people and make sure you listen to what they actually have to tell you.
So now, that we have discussed where it's important to make the time, and that is important to find some allies, you might still be thinking, "Petra, you promised to answer the question of where should I start and what should I learn?" And that brings me to ingredient number three, the blueprint. It is impossible to progress without knowing what you could be thriving for. Without a blueprint, without a clear idea of how the best product people work.
So let me share a metaphor that I'm using when I'm explaining why having this blueprint matters, let's assume you want to become a professional photographer. Where would you start? With buying a high class, new camera or with pegging a super master photo class somewhere? Well, both is a start, maybe not a bad one, but there is another thing that is key, reflecting on the type of photographer you want to become, because you can become so many types of this food, fashion, sports, editorial, landscape, or wildlife. So it's important to reflect on that because that influence is to know how and the skills you need to acquire the equipment you need to buy, and the way you use this equipment. And even if some development areas are super obvious for everyone entering this field, others are easier to spot if you know what you want to become. In this case, or in this example of wildlife photographer, that animal behavior might be something you should be looking into, right?
And it gets even better if somebody else is pointing you in the right direction, there are always things you should learn, but you don't know that this is something you should be looking into. Unknown unknowns is what these aspects have been called on the famous Rumsfeld scale.
So what I am advocating here for is figuring out what type of product manager you need to become in your company and context. This is something you should discuss with your line manager or if not existent, with your team. I would share a canvas for this discussion later. And once you figured out what you need to become, you want to make sure you are learning the things necessary to do the job well. And you do this by making the most out of your allies, ask them to give you feedback and to help you to reveal the unknown unknowns.
I've created the interview guide for this conversations and I'll share it with you now. So the whole framework actually consists of three parts. It's the role description, the PMwheel and the future self. Let's start with the role description, because that is what is missing in so many companies. And that's the equivalent to the question of what type of photographer do I want to become. Even working with a client, doing some coaching sessions, I usually ask if there is a role description for PMs early on, because it's such an important information to have. And I usually get told, "Yes, we have some, you can easily find them on our career pages. They're just like what the job posting say, just check out the job postings, right?" That's not what I'm talking about. A role description is something different. By creating it, you are aligning expectations upwards with upper management and your line manager, sideward with your peers and stakeholders and inwards with your team.
And it helps a lot to have such a role description, because if everybody has agreed on what the role is all about, it is much easier for you to figure out what you should become better at. And it is easier for others to give feedback to you. It's less personal because they're mainly pointing out where they see gaps between the role description and your current profile. Here's a canvas that I'm using for this purpose. Just feel free to download it, we had a link shown on the slide. As always with canvases, it is not about filling the blanks. It's about the process. The discussions you will have to have to come up with an agreed on version, but the role description itself is not something that helps you to identify your development areas. You need somebody who knows what a good PM looks like in your context.
And it's helpful to have an interview guide for this conversation. I have created such an interview guide and I call it the PMwheel. You will understand why in a second, let me briefly explain how it works. On one hand, it talks about the five main tasks a product manager usually has. What problems do you need to solve to offer value to your user while making some money for the company? What are the various solutions that are solving the problem and which of these solutions is the most promising one? The two together usually are called product discovery. How are you planning to deliver this solution that touches topics like road mapping and stuffing? Do you know how to deliver the thing? So working with the team, creating backlog items and actually shipping the thing, go to market all these kinds of things. Onto how to figure out if people are using what you have delivered, and if you need to iterate on your solution.
And on the other hand, it names three dimensions that are also important in order to do the job of a product manager correctly. Does the PM know anything about teamwork, about team motivation, about alignment and about how to get the team's buy in? It's personal growth and it's finally, does the PM know the underlying basics of agile ways of working?
I've created a set of questions that are helping you to reflect on each of these dimensions, and it helps you to ask others for their feedback on it. So here you see just one example. And that's just the questions from the bucket and understand the problem. The questions will help you and others to give you a one to seven rating. That's just a scale I like to use for each of the dimensions.
And then, you can draw a spider web graphic, and I will show you an example of that on the next slide. But for now, I have to add a note here. These questions might not all be relevant for you, right? It depends on your company's take on product management. So do you believe in impart product teams or are you more or less running in order taking feature teams? And it depends on your role description, rather, technical PMs may grade low on the user research bits and that's okay. That's why it is so important to create the role description first, if you have assessed yourself, that it's usually step number one, right? Assess yourself, and then talk to your line manager, peers, or team, you will end up with one or five spiderwebs. And this usually speaks a clear language. There is one, or are two dimensions.
And in this case, it's understand the problem and personal growth that are rated, not that well. And these are the ones you should focus your time and efforts on.
To do so, you could come up with a development plan or you should come up with a development plan, something that helps you to commit to small actions that gets you closer to the competent product management personality you want to become. I like to use the future self template that originates from the book for your improvement for that. Reflect on your as-is, what is the current situation when it comes to let's say, understanding the problem? Think about your to-be next. What would I like to change regarding this? What would I like to learn and how could, and that's a super important and helpful framing question. How could others tell that I have evolved on this topic?
Once you've filled in these two, you can come up with actions, things that are getting you closer to the to-be things that you can check off a list. And last but not least a timeframe. Three to four months is usually a good period for such a development plan. See it a bit as a contract with yourself. I like to do one of them. So one of these future self templates, I fill them in per development area, but only one of them at a time. So pick your battles wisely.
I know this was a lot of input and I want to give you a bit of time to digest. I keep my mouth shut for another 60 seconds. Give you some nice music again. And I ask you to write down your main takeaways of this session. What is, for example, one thing you would like to try or start with tomorrow? And I will be doing my recap after we actually did this little exercise. So let's start the music. Here we go. Your main takeaways.
Okay. Let's come back together. I really hope that there are bigger and smaller things you're taking away from this session. And if it is only one thing, then it's just time for your personal growth is always time well spent. If you want to put your personal and professional development on your agenda, you have to make some time to consume, to apply, to reflect and to contribute. And please don't wait until somebody else has taken care of this because it will not happen. And remember it is in your very own interest to do this. Find your allies, people that are good in giving feedback, helping you to become a competent PM and people that help you to reach your full potential. Work on your blueprint.
How does a competent PM look like and what are you missing or could be better at to be this strong product person? Feel free to use my role description, canvas, the PM wheel and the future self to make your journey a lot easier. You can download a PDF containing all three templates here and now, thanks to the organizing team for inviting me and to all of you for listening in and for committing to your product management growth journey. And now, it's time for some questions, I'd say, thank you.
