One of the beneficial aspects of the digital age we’re currently in is the ability to share information quickly, and to a wide audience. While there’s a ton of content out there, every once in a while I come across a real nugget.
I stumbled acrooss an article written a few years ago by Matt Khoury entitled “Product Manager: an attribute or job title?”. Mr. Khoury addresses what product managers do, summarizing this as a job of getting things done. It’s an interesting way to pull this apart. Many times, I’ve had to explain how a product manager differs from a project manager.
At minimum, it’s the need for market understanding as well as cross-functional accountability that separates product management from project management.
While the job of getting things done is one thing, the product management skill set is entirely another. There are very few college courses on product management with many of these bundled into a post-graduate certificate program. What this means is each product manager enters from a different discipline (eg: marketing, engineering, design, sales, etc… In EdTech, many product managers began their careers as teachers).
So you might ask, what is the skill set for a product manager?
Steve Johnson of Product Growth Leaders explains it this way (in an early ebook – ‘From Fragile to Agile‘): A product manager skill set is comprised of four areas:
- Business Knowledge (eg: traditional business functions: finance, operations, sales, etc.)
- Market Knowlege (eg: the market served)
- Domain Knowledge (eg: what the product solves)
- Technology Knowledge (eg: how the product works)
It’s rare that an incoming Product Manager has all four skill areas. An intellectually curious and hard working person can figure out, or get training in, the areas that he / she doesn’t know.
One areas that I’d add, but cannot be defined as a skill set, is passion. Intuitively, I’ve always believed passion is a big driver and looked at my own past experiences as a guide. It took Mr. Khoury’s article to truly frame this for me.
Any hack can get things done. It takes a passionate person to get the things done that customers desire, care enough to get them done correctly, learn the business and market drivers that move the needle, understand the technology and how potential solutions provide additional value for a current or latent customer. All this, while, providing leadership and an eye on continuous improvement, the competitive landscape and innovation. Profitably.
Markets are constantly changing and customer needs are always evolving. Someone has to be paying attention to this and Getting Things Done. But….someone has to be responsible for keeping an eye on market and customer needs. This can be the same person for a particular line of business or a specific solution – the Product Manager.