I am asked often – “What kind of background does someone need to have to be successful in a product manager role?”
In the past two weeks alone, I have interacted with over 20 people who are either interested in the product management field, are looking to amplify the voice of the consumer, or want to drive the direction of a product and not just project manage tasks to launch a product
2020 has definitely shown us how quickly people’s needs and expectations can change (at times, involuntarily).
It is during times like these when product management plays a critical role in ushering in a new wave of products that customers want and in a way that they want them
For this vision to be realize, it’s important to build a pipeline for diverse product talent and next-generation product leaders
And to achieve this, these are the quality traits that I believe are crucial to have, if you want to be a high impact product manager in 2021 and beyond:
● Natural ability to make stuff happen through influence, handling chaos, ambiguity and complexity in a detailed organized way
● A leader, a doer, a learner and customer-obsessed
● Passionate about quality products
● Strategic and creative thinker, with strong analytical skills to synthesize data from multiple sources (i.e. analytics, user research, marketing research, and design), to identify key customer unmet needs and solutions that can address the needs
●Self motivated and entrepreneurial drive to innovate quickly, work under pressure & handle multiple initiatives simultaneously
What else can you add to this list?
Comment below and let’s chat!
Have you tried this?
What other tactics do you use to gain leadership support?
Let’s chat!