A Beginners Guide to a Product Management Career - The Muse

A Beginners Guide to a Product Management Career - The MuseA Beginners Guide to a Product Management CareerI remember the first college class I ever took where I actually read the assigned readings each week simply because I welches interested in what I was learning. Up until then I had become a professional skimmer and was convinced I would never find the right major. That class was human-centered design, and it is what I consider the start of my career in product management. I just found the intersection between solving problems with technology and how people actually use that technology so absolutely fascinating. You mayve just learned about product management as well and are wondering, Could that field be right for me? Or, maybe youve been thinking about it for a while and still arent koranvers exactly what it would entail. While most product managers are mora than happy to talk to someone interested in the field to help get a better sense of the job, there are things that you ca n do on your own first to answer some of your questions. So, in an alternate universe, if I was trying to figure out if I wanted to pursue this professionally, here are the three things I would tell myself to do right now.1. Read These BooksProduct managements gained popularity over the last 10 or so years thanks to great product companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google. But just because its new doesnt mean there isnt loads of great content already out there These three books in particular are each relatively quick reads and they cover the fundamental concepts.The Design of Everyday Things by Don NormanThis book is really more about design and usability than strict product management. It is what started me thinking about everything in life as a product Itll make you realize that every single decision that goes into making even basic things like a door or a chair has trade-offs. And those trade-offs affect how people will (or will not) use what you make. You will know immediately i f thinking about designing things for people is something you have a passion for or not.Inspired How to Create Products Customers Love by Marty CaganThis is one of the few books that truly answers the question, What the heck does a product manager actually do all day? Marty Cagan is one of the godfathers of product, and in this he breaks down all of the responsibilities of the role and gives great real-world advice on how to effectively accomplish each of them.The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton ChristensenIn product, and business in general, youll often hear references to the concepts from this book, so you may think that you know the ideas well enough. You dont. You need to read this book yourself to really appreciate the concepts. Noted product management author, Ken Norton described it in his famous Books for Product Managers blog post as, The most important book of the past fifty years. If youre a technology PM and you havent read Christenson, do so right now. I listened to him a nd he was right. 2. Bookmark These Blogs Now and Read All Past Posts (But Really)There are millions of product and tech blogs out there that are good, but one of the first things you will need to learn as a PM is how to prioritize. So, if you had to pick only a few ways to get your information each week, ansicht would be my picks.Marty Cagans BlogIf his anthroponym sounds familiar, its because we just spoke about him a few paragraphs ago. If youre trying to get into this industry, youll need to know how to do things like define product principles and create a roadmap. Cagan will tell you how to do these things. The good thing for you is that while a lot of people currently in the field may have more experience than you, they still do these things wrong. So, learning about them from someone like him will at least let you start on the right foot without any bringing any bad habits along.Ken Nortons BlogYes, this name again Nortons most famous for teaching us to always bring the donuts . He has years of experience in product, most notably at Google, and now as a partner of Google Ventures. Some of his most famous posts include What To Do in your First 30 Days as a PM (I followed these rules in my first 30 days at The Muse and it served me well), How to Work with Software Engineers, and How to Hire a Product Manager. You can subscribe to his weekly newsletter to get good insight into the similar problems all product managers face.TechCrunchOK, so you dont need to read all past posts for this one- that would not be a good use of your time. But being a product manager in the digital world is going to require being aware of whats going on in the industry, whether thats new technologies being released, recent funding rounds or acquisitions, or just insights into new products across different sectors. There are loads of blogs you can use to get this information (like Hacker News, Gizmodo, and so on), so it doesnt only need to be TechCrunch. But pick your favorites and g et into the habit of consuming this information daily.ProductHuntThe amount of awesome products out there is inspiring ProductHunt will introduce you to new ones each day that you can learn from, and even potentially use to make your life easier.3. Start Thinking in a Product Mindset for Everything You Do Every DayAt this point, if the field still interests you, welcome Youre about to enter a weird world that is awesome and exciting, where your work is never complete and your nutzers problems will never be 100% solved. Youll soon realize the way you think about everything you use in your life will change. Have you ever tried to purchase something on your phone and you almost threw your phone across the room out of frustration while trying to complete the purchase form? Well guess what- a product manager was responsible for pushing that live (with the help of an engineering and design team) and there are a million reasons why it couldve been created that way. Maybe they couldnt come to an agreement across internal departments on which fields to cut from the form and now the user (and companys conversion numbers) has to pay for it. Maybe they didnt properly prioritize the importance of building a responsive form because they didnt understand what percent of their users use the site on mobile. Maybe they did and you were in the minority, so the mobile features were purposefully deprioritized No doubt, if youre being interviewed by a somewhat decent company, in the first or second round you will get questions like, What is your favorite product to use? and How would you improve that product? So do yourself a favor now and start thinking in this mindset all day, every day. When you use something that was so easy that you didnt think about it, take a moment to appreciate that And think about how hard it probably was for that product team to deliver something so beautifully simple. Starting to view your world with this mindset will help you start thinking like a prod uct manager before you land your very frist job.Within the world of product management, there are many different directions you can choose to go in. Your experience will vary depending on the types of products you work on and the types of companies you work with. But no matter what, these three first steps should help you figure out if this career is right for you and hopefully ignite your passion for itAnd if its already ignited, check out these open product management positions now.