Building a high-performing product management team is not easy, because finding good product managers is hard. Some skills are coachable, but some are harder to acquire and for some personalities, the product manager role is just not a good fit. So if you are looking to recruit product managers, or looking to transition into product management, or wanting to improve as a product manager, here’s some advice and guidance based on my experiences.
The product manager role is a varied mix of functions that require very different skills, some of which seem polar opposites that would be difficult to find in one person. A good product manager will be able to perform some of these functions very well–a great product manager will be able to adapt behaviour to the many different situations he or she is faced with and excel in each one.
I tried to narrow down the varied functions into a shortlist of roles, but my list didn’t end up very short. So below are my 9 different personalities that I’d look for in the ideal product manager, in no particular order.
The Analyst
- Gathers and analyses product data, such as usage and revenue, across different market sectors and segments
- Gathers and analyses market, customer and employee feedback data as a driver for product decisions
The Businessperson
- He or she loves building business cases and delivering commercial innovation in pricing and/or go-to-market models, and understands the trade-offs between different sales models
- Knows when to bundle versus charge for new functionality, know how customer and partner contracts work
The Counsellor
- Good at empathising with customers, analysts, sales, services, support and R&D, listening attentively
- Proactive in seeking solutions that work best for all stakeholders across customers, sales, services, support, R&D
The Demo Demon
- Completely comfortable in the product, knows how to quickly wow prospective customers with unique value
- Focuses on showing the business outcomes that the software can deliver for the key personas in the customer
The Evangelist
- Is engaging, passionate, and inspirational about solving customer problems with innovative solutions
- Can communicate internally and externally with confidence, and is perceived as knowledgeable and trustworthy
The Geek
- Is in touch with latest tech trends, an early adopter for new technologies and excited by new tech innovations
- Constantly thinking about how new tech innovations can be applied to solving customer problems
The Guru
- A go-to person for difficult problems that need in-depth business and technical knowledge to solve
- Strong technology architecture knowledge
The Organiser
- Process-oriented, manages workload well, is good at keeping track of many different initiatives across product development, product management, product marketing, etc.
- Is adept at ensuring agile processes are followed, and ensuring all tasks are rigorously completed
The Visionary
- Sees emerging trends early and understands how they can solve new and existing business problems
- Good at out-of-the-box thinking on the opportunities for new technologies, new business models and new go-to-market strategies
You might want to rate yourself in each of these, on a scale of 1 to 10. How do you fare, and where do you perceive you can develop and improve? No one person can be all of the above, so if you are building a team, you should look to balance the personalities across the team to ensure that you have a good mix of different skills to call on.
What skills or personalities am I missing? Is the above valuable to you as you look to improve your skills, or the skills of your team?
Terry Lawlor 