Kim’s Design Leadership track has been a complete success ever since we started Ambition Empower. For the last 14 years, she has been helping product teams, managers, and leaders succeed, so when we went looking for someone to head a new track for Product Managers, we went straight to her. The track is ideal for PMs who wish to enhance their skills and grow within all the diverse challenges of product management.
Kim! We’re so happy you agreed to do a Product Management track with us! What would you say are the most essential characteristics and skills you need to succeed as a Product Manager?
– I think this varies depending on how the PM role is defined in your organization, the life stage of your organization and product, and the scope or seniority of the role.
– Regardless, I think PMs at any level need to understand their users and customers, the business strategy, and the forces that affect their market. They need the leadership skills to get the most out of a team. They need empathy and negotiation skills to juggle a wide range of stakeholders. It takes excellent communication skills to ensure everyone is clear and aligned around the goals and requirements.
– I think, above all, PMs need to take in a huge range of opinions and data, know how to filter those for quality and relevance, and involve the right people to get the best decisions made. Note that I didn’t say “make the best decisions” because, in my view, the best PMs approach many decisions in a collaborative way.
That’s quite a tall order. What are great ways to learn those skills?
– In my experience, the best PMs start with curiosity, a growth mindset, and an awareness that everyone else on the team is more expert in something than they are. They read voraciously, seek feedback frequently, and experiment not just with the product but with the way they work. They take courses not just in product management but in adjacent fields. And they learn a ton on the job, ideally with good mentoring—things like good judgment and relationship skills take years of conscious practice.
I’ve talked to many PM’s over the years, and sometimes I’ve thought that they’ve taken on an impossible task. What would you say are the most significant challenges among PMs, and what are effective ways of dealing with them?
– The challenges definitely vary based on the role. In startups, PMs often have the impossible task of defining and building a product when the business strategy is still up in the air—maybe we’re going after a different market this week than we thought we were aimed at last week. When the product has a big enterprise customer base, PMs can struggle to make any change at all without upsetting people. But there are universal challenges too. Stakeholder management is always one of them.
– Lots of PMs want to empower their teams but have to take feature wish lists from their execs. Being asked to do too much with too little. Or being caught between development teams with a strong push to be agile and senior managers who want two-year roadmaps. I see some early to mid-career PMs struggle with where their role ends and where the architect’s or designer’s or researcher’s role begins.
– Senior PMs often try to figure out how to transition from doing everything themselves to delegating among a larger PM team. As for effective ways of dealing with them…well, that would be a long answer! We’ll dig into all those things in the track over the next year.
Finally, what are you most looking forward to when you start the track in January?
– It’s been pretty clear in the design leadership track that it’s not just me teaching people “right” answers. There’s a ton of wisdom in the group, and it’s great to hear people share their own experiences and strategies. Also, this is a new track—I think we’ve got a solid outline for what to cover, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing where people want to go and adapting as we need to.
Thanks Kim! We’re really looking forward to doing this together with you!
Checkout Kim’s new Product Management track, and join Ambition Empower now!
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Kim Goodwin is the author of the bestselling book Designing for the Digital Age. For the last 14 years, she has been helping product teams, managers, and leaders succeed. Earlier in her career, Kim was the VP of Design and General Manager at Cooper, a leading design and strategy agency in San Francisco, for 12 years.
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