How to decide whether you should move to Product Management
“Should I transition to Product Management?” - A question most technology professionals ask themselves at least once in their careers.
The best way to answer that question is by actually trying out a Product Management position for a few months. However, with limited time to explore, and growing organisational complexity in large firms, this is generally not an option.
I grappled with a similar dilemma two and a half years ago, before deciding to leave my engineering role to become a Product Manager.
After having been through the transition process myself, and having helped several colleagues think through similar decisions, I’ve tried to narrow down the decision making process to 4-questions.
Is product management a good fit for you?
Below is a checklist, which by no means is exhaustive, but will give aspiring PMs a means to assess whether product management will be a good fit for them or not:
1. What excites you about the process of building a product?
Product Managers are responsible for the product as a whole — planning, prioritisation, user research, and product development. If you’re someone who gravitates towards getting involved in every aspect of the product development process, versus a specific function/area, then product management might be of interest to you.
2. Are you okay with being in the driver’s seat and navigating uncertainty?
Like any other leadership role, product management is about making decisions (sometimes even in the face of ambiguity), and owning up to them when things don’t go well. See whether you already have such leadership skills or are willing to develop them as a PM.
3. Are you willing to interact with people on a regular basis?
Product management is a people facing role. You interface with people from diverse backgrounds, and in a given week, you’ll spend approximately 70% — 80% of your time interacting with stakeholders (including team members). Being an introvert or extrovert doesn’t matter so much, but your ability to manage your time with people, will definitely play a role in deciding whether you’ll enjoy being a PM or not.
4. Do you like dealing with abstract or concrete problems?
PMs rarely get to solve crisp, well-defined problems. Instead, PMs frequently work their way through abstract data (using research / metrics) to define a concrete problem statement that the engineering team can solve. Try to identify which setup works best for you — defining the problem statement or solving it.
It’s important to mention that you need not have these PM attributes from day one. I’ve seen several individuals who developed these skills during their product careers, but were willing to educate themselves in these areas in the first place.
If you want to get a deeper understanding of what the transition to Product Management from a different function looks like, then you should consider reading — What I learned when moving from Engineering to Product Management.
