Product management lessons learned :10 tips for beginners

In this post I am going to list down 10 product management lessons which I have learned as a product manager over the last decade. If you are a rookie product manager and nervous about your fist ever product management job then this is a must read for you. It you keep these tips in mind, it would help you sail through your first assignment.

I have been working as a Product Manager since last 8 years now and there has never been a day when I did not enjoy doing this job. Although I worked as a Product Manager at different organisations over last couple of years but the job roles and responsibilities does vary from company to company depending on the organisation structure and their processes followed to get the work done. Having worked in product, I did learn some important lessons while working on different assignments which would be helpful for many aspiring product managers. 

Lesson 1: Empathise with the end user

As a Product Manager you are the voice of the customer and while taking crucial decisions for the product, always put yourself in the shoes of the end user. This will help you to think about the benefits that the end users will get out of your actions. If there is something that will not help users in any way then you need to think about it and evaluate if its worth to do this activity and burn time, resources and money. There are situations when you would be working as a product manager for a product that you don’t like, even though you won’t ever use that product personally in your life but professionally you still need to pretend that you like the industry, learn about the end users their demographics and start thinking from their perspective.Making users happy and satisfied is one of the goals that you need to achieve as a product manager. This is one of the product management lessons which would go a long way.

Lesson 2: Don’t hesitate to ask for help

There will be times when you are asked to submit an assignment or you need to take a decision which could impact end users. If you don’t know the answer at that moment or don’t know what you should do then it is OKAY. Don’t stress yourself, every problem has a solution. Do your research on the internet to find some of your answers, check with your team, coworkers for suggestions and their past experiences. Sometimes when you join an organisation and are new to their processes, then it doesn’t hurt to ask around before you do something. It is always a better step rather than doing something wrong.

Lesson 3. Be curious and ask why?

When you are assigned a project or an assignment the first task that you should do is try to understand the goal or purpose of the that task. It will help you in maintaining your focus on any project. As a product manager if you have been given a list of features to be implemented or you have been asked to come up with new features then its extremely important to understand why you are implementing a feature and what is it supposed to solve. Its not just with features but everything you do as a product manager like attending meetings, creating documents, and brainstorming it is crucial to know why you are doing what you are doing. Keep asking questions to your coworkers, managers or key stakeholders if you are not aware of what is going on and need more information.

Lesson 4: Involve the team in decision making

Product manager is a person who works with key stakeholders, engineers, designers, QAs and external key stakeholders. Product Manager is on top of everything that is going on for a product. There are many decisions that a Product Manager has to take during their day to day activities and it is crucial to involve the team in decision making. This helps in fostering trust among each other and team feels more confident while working with the product manager. More tightly knit your team is, more they will be eager to work together and solve problems.

Lesson 5: Keep learning

As it is said ‘there is no age for learning’. As a product manager you are always learning new things, innovating ways to improve your product, and solving challenging problems for the users. Not only as a product manager, but also developers need to learn new languages to keep themselves updated with the latest technologies in the market. Product Manager may need to learn new tools from time-to-time for product analytics and technologies used to build the product. Product management is a profession for you if you don’t mind learning new tools, processes and technologies. You can check out a list of tools that product managers use for analytics in this post to get started.

Lesson 6: Trade Offs

Another important lesson in product management is trade offs. You will be at a point where you will need to prefer some things over the other while building features. You could also be required to pick and choose some features while drop others with a valid reasoning. Trade-offs could happen with resources, product features, or could be anything else. If you are clear with your objectives and goals, then you should be able to make right decisions during trade offs.

Lesson 7: Communicate Clearly

This is a must skill for a product manager, and one of the most fundamental product management lessons. If you do not communicate clearly then product management is not a job for you. You must be able to convey clearly what needs to be done. Now there are two parts to it, communicating with the key stakeholders, your team and the other part is to make sure if the other person understood you correctly. Just ask for any questions to clarify what you communicated. If you are at the receiver end and you are in doubt then repeat the message and confirm if your understanding is correct.

Lesson 8: Think Big

‘Think Big’ makes it to my top 10 product management lessons list because this is neglected by most of the product managers. When you are working on the details of a task keep in mind the impact your task would have on the product you are building. For example if you are building a feature or improving a feature, think about the goals it would help in achieving. If you get some time during your working hours then try to think about what you can do to improve your application. Staying focused on detailed tasks is good but when you accomplish a task with bigger picture in mind, it is more fruitful.

Lesson 9: Don’t get emotional

As a product manager while working on a product it is natural to get emotionally attached to the product. But one of the fundamental product management lessons is to keep your emotions aside while working on a product. You don’t want to base your decisions for the product based on your emotions or your gut feeling only. It might impact the product in a negative way if the decision you took was not as per the situation’s demand.

Lesson 10: Always look for the data

Keep a tab on the metrics related to the goal that you need to accomplish. Explore and analyze all the data platforms which can share insights about your product performance. Before you take an important decision step back and gather the available data, analyze and summarize what it is pointing towards. Data will help in validating your hypothesis, assumptions and also support qualitative data. Additionally, if you are questioned about a decision, you can always present the supporting data behind your decision. This will not only help you in taking better decisions but boost the team’s confidence in you. Here is an article about data-driven product prioritization to help you understand how data can be utilized for prioritizing features. This is the reason that ‘Always look for data’ makes to this list of product management lessons.

Product management is about working together to build something useful for the masses. Enjoying and having fun together as a team while working on a product will not only make the journey smooth but also you could end up having some friends for lifetime. This role can be very demanding sometimes leading to stress and frustration, it is important to keep your calm during this time and take out sometime to spend with your family. Getting the required emotional support and maintaining good mental & physical health should always be on your radar while delivering amazing products.