As a product manager, comfort with decision-making is critical. If you can't make decisions and say no, you won't enjoy or succeed in product management in the long term. I agree you should try things and learn. However, you also need to be realistic. Product management is an amazing and rewarding career. I'd encourage everyone to consider it. Thanks for sharing your insights!
As an intern product manager at early age startup, the way I deal with imposter syndrome and weight of decision making is just... by following the best product management practice that is widely adopted by other product manager as well. For example design thinking would mean that it's better to always conduct research before decision making even if you're short on time (coz you will always be short on time at early age startup 😅). One of the example is conduct freemium of the product if it's easy to build but costly to produce at wide scale, then try to see how much people convert to sales even after you gave them limited discount for using/finishing the freemium. If the conversion low means it's not ready and you might want to know why by just simply using survey or user interview. Those research can also be a stored qualitative data which may be used for future decision making so avoiding research by saying "there's no time" is a no way to go IMHO. Just read many blog and article about product management, macro ecenomy (Amplitude Report), market trend and stay grind. Remember that you are payed based on how replacable you are, which mean if you're still working, means nobody also good enough to replace you currently. Btw loving your video, and the art of context switching is the most annoying part when stakeholder look at you and they saying stuff like "didn't i told you about this just 3 days ago". Like bruhh PM have to remember many things, even if we note it down pliss be patience if we forgot something hahaha
There would be probably one more point to add which applies especially for PMs. And this is public speaking and presentations/demos - specifically in customer facing situations. The frequency is obviously depending on the product/industry and company one works in but in generell terms, PMs have to present a lot right down to even doing sale pitches to customers. People who don't like this either have to find a place in product management to avoid such things or will have a hard time feeling happy about the role.
Thank you again. A UX designer here. I wanted to know if I am ready for Product Management emotionally. I think you really covered most of it. Keep making such videos. Thank you
Hey Anika, thanks for your thoughts in this video. I was wondering if you could consider two things: 1. Doing a video on user research and the different types of user research 2. Splitting videos like this into sections so that in the future I can easily scrub through and get back to a point I thought might be important to listen to again If not, no worries, just something I thought might be helpful for me and possibly others. Thanks again!
This was super helpful! I am trying to break into the industry coming from a Finance background, with little to no direct product experience. Great job!
Thank you for this video, a question to you can a PM be upfront before UI/UX designer or developer about the constraints the design is facing to pass through? Or he/she needs to be diplomatic about it.
Thank you for sharing, I am a software developer and learning product management. Being a software developer I do not interact with different types of people, it is just my team members I interact with. Also, I hesitate to say no. Whatever instructions I get from senior management I do follow it and I never say no. I identify these to be my weaknesses. I want to overcome them and want to become a good PM.
Wow... this has been an incredibly insightful and timely video for me! I've got all of the ones you mentioned except for #6: technology. I'm coming form a client facing background and I've always thought about tech products as a way to satisfy users' needs. That's what I care about.. whether it's going to be built on ruby vs javascript wouldn't matter to me as long as I understand the pros/cons of each approach. For this reason this video has really made me question if I am "geeky" enough to be a PM.... an important decision to make as I'm currently interviewing for two very different roles and one is very PM focused 😮
a 25 years old teen talking about Product Management 😂.. the first 5 minutes of the video she is talking about her salad.. I will never hire a Product Manager younger than 35 years... haha funny teen
product managers do seem to be treated much better by companies than software developers who are expected to "just make things work just fix it' and are the eternal scapegoats when things don't go to management's plans. all the accountability talk is formal only and in practice all blame goes to engineers. I think the comment re salad talk is coming from the viewpoint that product is ultimately a bunch of non tech (non analytical) folk getting to have their cake and eat it at the expense of software dev grind and blame.
First and foremost a 25 year old is not a teen and that questions your credibility on a position to hire anyone. Secondly even if its meta, count the experience not by years, but the necessary skill set, knowledge and the positive traits.
As a product manager, comfort with decision-making is critical. If you can't make decisions and say no, you won't enjoy or succeed in product management in the long term. I agree you should try things and learn. However, you also need to be realistic. Product management is an amazing and rewarding career. I'd encourage everyone to consider it. Thanks for sharing your insights!
As an intern product manager at early age startup, the way I deal with imposter syndrome and weight of decision making is just... by following the best product management practice that is widely adopted by other product manager as well. For example design thinking would mean that it's better to always conduct research before decision making even if you're short on time (coz you will always be short on time at early age startup 😅).
One of the example is conduct freemium of the product if it's easy to build but costly to produce at wide scale, then try to see how much people convert to sales even after you gave them limited discount for using/finishing the freemium. If the conversion low means it's not ready and you might want to know why by just simply using survey or user interview. Those research can also be a stored qualitative data which may be used for future decision making so avoiding research by saying "there's no time" is a no way to go IMHO.
Just read many blog and article about product management, macro ecenomy (Amplitude Report), market trend and stay grind. Remember that you are payed based on how replacable you are, which mean if you're still working, means nobody also good enough to replace you currently.
Btw loving your video, and the art of context switching is the most annoying part when stakeholder look at you and they saying stuff like "didn't i told you about this just 3 days ago". Like bruhh PM have to remember many things, even if we note it down pliss be patience if we forgot something hahaha
Bruh, love and agree with everything you said!
Dude world has adhd write small and concise comments
There would be probably one more point to add which applies especially for PMs. And this is public speaking and presentations/demos - specifically in customer facing situations. The frequency is obviously depending on the product/industry and company one works in but in generell terms, PMs have to present a lot right down to even doing sale pitches to customers. People who don't like this either have to find a place in product management to avoid such things or will have a hard time feeling happy about the role.
Such a great point! I can’t believe i missed this. Thanks :)
Indeed a chit-chatty video, I let it play while I had my Indian lunch.
Leftover as well.
Biryani.
:)
Thank you again. A UX designer here. I wanted to know if I am ready for Product Management emotionally. I think you really covered most of it. Keep making such videos. Thank you
Thank you Anika ! This video reaffirmed why I actually like product management
Love to hear that!
Hey Anika, thanks for your thoughts in this video. I was wondering if you could consider two things:
1. Doing a video on user research and the different types of user research
2. Splitting videos like this into sections so that in the future I can easily scrub through and get back to a point I thought might be important to listen to again
If not, no worries, just something I thought might be helpful for me and possibly others.
Thanks again!
Thanks for the comment!
1. sections added - I always put them in, and forgot to with this one.
2. research is on my list of upcoming videos soon!
@@TheProductPup thanks a bunch, looking forward to it 😊
Glad I came across your videos, my question is, Is there any Great difference between a Product Marketing Manager and a Product Manager?
This was super helpful! I am trying to break into the industry coming from a Finance background, with little to no direct product experience. Great job!
Thank you for this video, a question to you can a PM be upfront before UI/UX designer or developer about the constraints the design is facing to pass through? Or he/she needs to be diplomatic about it.
Thank you for sharing the information. It's very hard to find such a genuine piece of content these days. Really appreciate it♥️
Glad it was helpful! Thanks so much for commenting :)
Great insight! Thanks for this
Decisions!
Thank you for sharing, I am a software developer and learning product management. Being a software developer I do not interact with different types of people, it is just my team members I interact with. Also, I hesitate to say no. Whatever instructions I get from senior management I do follow it and I never say no. I identify these to be my weaknesses. I want to overcome them and want to become a good PM.
Eggplant! Salad! Only crackheads like Product managers can see this as a normal food🤣
lol ok
Wow... this has been an incredibly insightful and timely video for me! I've got all of the ones you mentioned except for #6: technology. I'm coming form a client facing background and I've always thought about tech products as a way to satisfy users' needs. That's what I care about.. whether it's going to be built on ruby vs javascript wouldn't matter to me as long as I understand the pros/cons of each approach.
For this reason this video has really made me question if I am "geeky" enough to be a PM.... an important decision to make as I'm currently interviewing for two very different roles and one is very PM focused 😮
Why always that a pm is doing a video is eating/ drinking, I'm pm and I do the same :v
Becasue we like to multi task haha
a 25 years old teen talking about Product Management 😂.. the first 5 minutes of the video she is talking about her salad.. I will never hire a Product Manager younger than 35 years... haha funny teen
You are going far 😉thanks for helping boost my video with your comment!
product managers do seem to be treated much better by companies than software developers who are expected to "just make things work just fix it' and are the eternal scapegoats when things don't go to management's plans. all the accountability talk is formal only and in practice all blame goes to engineers. I think the comment re salad talk is coming from the viewpoint that product is ultimately a bunch of non tech (non analytical) folk getting to have their cake and eat it at the expense of software dev grind and blame.
First and foremost a 25 year old is not a teen and that questions your credibility on a position to hire anyone.
Secondly even if its meta, count the experience not by years, but the necessary skill set, knowledge and the positive traits.