Its been ~3 years since I have switched full time as a Product Manager from building software.
As I look back, it has been an exhilarating ride! Nothing could have prepared me for this, not even the umpteen books, podcasts I went through in preparation for the role. This has lead to my most important learning - Product Management is a practicum subject! If you are an aspiring PM please make sure to actually build products or do tear-downs instead of just reading! I will share more on this, but its a topic for another day!
Today, I want to discuss about some of my biggest mistakes in the last 3 years and the key learnings I took from them.
With possibilities in technology getting re-defined every year, incremental thinking is a liability!
A short story! Sometime in 2020, I was jamming with a friend about some big bold ideas. He mentioned what if code written in 1 language can automatically be converted to any other coding language. Ofcourse, I scoffed off thinking huh! that seems almost impossible with so many different languages and different rules. That was 2020, and in 2023, LLMs & Chatgpt have already made it possible!
Solution : Don’t set the bar of what is “possible” yourself as a PM. Start with a 7 star experience with your customers and then work backwards!
Execution is important especially as a new PM. But, we are also paid to think and research. Zoom-out every now and then and spend time on synthesising customer feedback, analysing data, understanding the market landscape and hypothesising where the market is heading and what not!
Solution : Block time in your calendar for “product work” every week in which you zoom out of day to day execution. Set time with your Engineering and design counterparts to discuss your learnings.
PMs are bombarded left and right with queries and work from every function - leadership, sales, support, engg., marketing! As an early PM, it is easy to get overwhelmed by this. I realised I was spending more time on less impactful items and leaving out less time for the impactful ones.
Solution : Have a personal system which ingests various tasks & queries that come your way, prioritises them and allocates time acc. to the impact they have on your goals. One example of such a system is Shreyash Doshi’s LNO framework.