How do you transition from a non-product role to a product manager?
My answers to FAQs on what do companies look for, to kick start your PM journey.
According to 2020 Emerging Jobs Report by LinkedIn, Product Owner / Growth Manager is ranked as top 6th in India & top 15th in US.
PM roles are pretty exciting but there’s no such graduation course to become a PM. Many folks who are interested to know about product management, often ask me what it takes to be a good PM.
Pragmatic Leaders gave me an opportunity to share my journey as a product manager. I hope I was able to answer some of the commonly asked questions.
Could you share your experience of transitioning to Product Management from Software QA Engineer role?
I would say it was possible for two reasons — Curiosity to learn and understand how the system is working & the passion to deliver best quality product to the user.
What do companies look for in a new product manager, like someone who is about to start his or her journey in product management?
Ability to quickly make the right decisions is one of the most important skill.
For example, let’s say a product is ready to be launched tomorrow. Then, we realize there’s a bug. Now, the PM has 2 choices.
#1 To release the feature with a known bug and fix it later.
#2 To stop the release, fix the bug, then release.
PM’s call would be based on the severity of the issue. If it affects 50% users, it’s a clear No. But if it affects 5% of my users, would it be okay to live with the bug for a few days and then fix it, benefitting the other 95%?
Check out more such questions in the video!
P.S. It would be quite useful for aspiring PMs. People who are already PMs can very much relate to the reality (which is generally unstated).
I would like to say special thanks to my mentor / manager Tanu Gupta, who did handholding for me in the initial stage of PM. Learning to be calm and handling situations in a tactful way at the time of criticism is something which Tejas Vyas taught me.
