In today’s blog, we will discuss some of the skills you need to be a product manager.
Product management is a very vast domain. It requires a potent mixture of hard skills and soft skills. We will talk about both skills in this article.
Suppose I am a graduate and I want to get into product management. I need specific skills more prominently at the start of my career, while particular skills will be more critical for me when I have two to three years of experience.
Now at the start, obviously, you will be working on the product specifications and would require more technical skills. Soft skills are also much needed, but the emphasis should be more on technical skills. When I say you need technical skills, you do not have to be a coder or developer, but yes, a basic understanding is essential; that is precisely what I will discuss further.
Product Management Technical Skills
So let us discuss some Hard / Technical skills:
Understanding of Technology
You do not have to be a coder or developer. I mean here that you should have a basic understanding of technical skills to easily communicate with the engineers. So understanding the App architecture and knowledge of databases, GTM strategies, Google Analytics, and SQL are required.
Eye for Design
Again, you don’t have to be a UI/UX expert, but you should be familiar with, let us say, at least Figma. And Figma is straightforward to learn; there are many free courses from which you can learn Figma. Check out some resources on how to learn Figma here. Not this is important for your understanding, but it will help you to mock-ups that you share with product designers.
Data and Analytical Skills
Analytical skills are basically your ability to collect and interpret data. Now, of course, as a product manager, you have to crunch many numbers- starting from how many users are onboarded on the app, retaining after D30, predicting growth, and much more. Technical tools like advanced MS Excel & SQL are essential. If you want to know in detail the different tools used by product managers, comment below, and we will write a new post very soon.
Product Management Soft Skills
Now you require technical skills in the initial stages of your career. As your progress and gain experience, your soft skills play a more critical role in your product management career.
Communication Skills
As I mentioned in my last post, one of the primary responsibilities of a product manager is to deal with different stakeholders. For that the no of things required is communication. They frequently have to communicate their goals and ambitions, either orally or in writing to various people like the marketing team, the design team, or the engineers. Not to forget, they have to keep users’ problems in mind. So communication plays a critical role here in guiding different teams effectively.
Problem-Solving
Now, this is something you learn with time only. On a day-to-day basis, you will be solving a truckload of problems. There is a bug in the app, some issues with the database, and many more. As a product manager, you need to be a first principle thinker. You need to be really good with problem-solving.
Teamwork
It goes without saying that teamwork is by far the most essential skill. Most importantly. Being a product manager is not a one-person army; you have thousands of minds working behind a product, and everyone has multiple suggestions, but as product managers, the main challenge is finding the center that aligns with the users, the team, and the users. And for that, teamwork is the only way.
Conclusion
So to summarise what we have discussed today, product management needs a mixture of hard and soft skills. Obviously, both are important, but hard skills are something that is more prominently highlighted during the initial stages of the career. That was it for today. Subscribe to the blog for more such content. Thank you so much for reading. Don’t forget to share.
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