BREAKING INTO ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Many sources describe how to be a great product manager. Amongst all the techniques and guides, one critical skill stands out; getting your product shipped. Going from idea to product takes navigating your organization successfully while building your product to get your product to customers.

Your brand enters the room before you do. If you're a PM with a powerful and positive brand, you will be more effective motivating teams and getting what you need done. Brand is tricky, however, because you don't own it; you only influence it.

The gap between product inspiration and customer delivery can be large. Coming up with the great idea is only the beginning. Assembling a great team is necessary to build and survive to even release your vision to customers.

The career of product management is very fulfilling, but ultimately not for everyone. It’s a harder job than it looks like when you only see the glossy product announcements. Read on for an unvarnished look at many sides of a PM job role to help determine if this is for you.

While leading people and product, one thing separates people who do the job from people who lead. That is sharing your voice on product topics including your vision, your strategy, and your confidence. Sharing comes with criticism, and that only makes you better.

Living in Silicon Valley and having worked at day zero start-ups, I've met many venture capitalists. At one point I even interviewed with some well-known VCs. Over the years I've heard that many believe PM is a great pre-VC role. In this post I looked at the data and it's true. PM is a great side door into VC.

How you build a product is intricately tied to who you are as a person. Training builds skills, and experience builds a career, but who you are is just as important to the final product. Who you are is how you build product in surprisingly personal ways.

PM credential courses and degrees are becoming more popular and available. If you are considering a credential program to help you get your first PM job; choose carefully. Keep reading to understand how to evaluate a training investment, plus many training opportunities today.

Few things seem to induce terror in people more than public speaking. I have met many in my life who avoid it any form. In a product management career, this is a critical skill in order to be effective, prosper and get ahead. Become bulletproof with practice and by applying techniques shared in this post.

PMs work hard to get the right product out to customers. Requirements documentation creates key inputs to getting the right result. Explained are the primary assets PMs create for MRDs, PRDs, user stories, and the development processes they feed.

Attrition during COVID has been on the rise, causing managers to need to backfill more frequently. Though disruptive, attrition creates an opportunity for PM managers to build stronger, more diverse teams with some focus and creative search strategies.

Based on a long career in product management, these are 12 PM career traps to avoid. It's natural to learn and improve at PM over time, but it's better to sidestep the avoidable traps. This post covers role and product selection, working with coworkers and customers, and knowing what you do and don't own.

Episode two: A short oral history in podcast form on my own career in product management. Included are common questions and answers, plus my points of view on techniques and career. Hosted by Ashwini Vasanth at the Through the Corporate Glass podcast. https://www.throughthecorporateglass.com/.

Episode one: A short oral history in podcast form on my own career in product management. Included are common questions and answers, plus my points of view on techniques and career. Hosted by Ashwini Vasanth at the Through the Corporate Glass podcast. https://www.throughthecorporateglass.com/.

Product manager skill sets require practice and sharpening over time to get better and more effective. To achieve this, investment in self is an important and strategic learning technique for working professionals. Better skills can also help open the door to more opportunities with more responsibility and authority over time.

Over the recent five years, educational organizations have begun offering formal product management training. Before that there have been a wealth of PM leaders individually sharing their expertise with the public. These are some of my favorite authors and insights.

Moving into a PM managerial role means adding a new kind of product to your responsibilities. Your team is a product that you must build, grow, and maintain. Think about team profile and how each person is uniquely shaped to contribute to the whole as they grow.

Enterprise products are significantly different than consumer products, though some similarities exist. These products build in resilience at multiple layers to serve the needs of organizations that rely upon them as mission critical components. Here are seven laws that enterprise products must adhere to.

Product managers need to speak to customers for feedback and research. Sometimes finding customers to interview can challenging. With some creativity, however, finding customers can actually be easy to do. Here are over 30 avenues to find and reach them.

Ambitious PMs work hard to deliver and aim to get promoted to more senior roles. As you move across companies in your career, you might be surprised to be offered jobs with titles below the one you currently have. Learn the levers being used and which ones you have control of to achieve your long-term goals.

Building first and hoping to make money later requires effort, time, and investment. As pursestrings tighten in a down economy, this business model may be on its way out.

How to start building product roadmaps by understanding product lifecycle stage and customer needs. Research and balance the right inputs, and pick up your pencil. Then validate, iterate, and repeat.

Product roadmaps are relied upon by numerous internal and external stakeholders; not just product management. How to navigate the natural tension between stakeholders comfortably while delivering valuable results.

Getting into your first product management roles can be challenging. Too often, interview candidates take themselves out of the running with avoidable mistakes. Understand what the hiring manager is looking for and how to position yourself as a top PM candidate.

Audio and slides from a presentation at Product School on how to break into technical product management. Each path into PM has a story. See why entry is selective and learn how to create your personal career roadmap to break in.

The value of a MBA in Silicon Valley has been debated when it comes to young technology companies and start-ups. How to evaluate whether a MBA is a good choice for your career by considering timing, ROI, school selection, and its ability to open doors for you.

Steve Harvey, when talking about comedy said, "You only learn this business when you're failing." Product management success also takes time and craft is not achieved overnight, nor without repeated attempts. See how endurance and patience build strong PMs, and how good PMs possess these characteristics.

UX matters, and what you show, don't show, and set up as your application defaults create the experience your users get on your product. What you intended is subservient to these defaults. LinkedIn prioritizes connection clicks over connection quality which creates connection spam. Don't let unintended consequences ruin your product.

If you like archeology you know that foundations and walls once built can last generations. Company culture is similar. The patterns laid down early can be long lived. Trust your gut when meeting new companies and potential managers.

Unlocking entry into a product management career takes horizontal growth of skills beyond your foundational training area. If you're eager and driven, use the decoder ring to identify roles, training, and educational tracks, and translate them into finding opportunities, and landing your PM starting point.

In a very early startup the first PM does not often truly own the product. The founder is your first PM; being the person who launched the company on their great idea. It can be hard for them as a result to hand off their baby to someone new. Learn how to grow and succeed in this environment of high ambiguity, and high risk.

When you're a PM, everything can look like a product, and a wedding is no exception. Defining your true stakeholders and customers is the key to building a product that will succeed. Fun as it is, not every problem can be reduced to a script. Also, one seldom misses what you don't tell them didn't show up.

Sometimes despite loving a product, you will still leave it behind after a decade or more of use because it just doesn't meet enough of your needs. Email is a sticky application that is still heavily used by me on a daily basis. What my old Yahoo! email account was missing wasn't features, it was an ecosystem.