Where will the product manager be in 3 years time?

Where do you, as the Product Manager, see yourself in three years time?
I always find this question challenging: the pace of product management and technology is moving so fast that it would be quite difficult to predict where or what today’s product manager would be doing in three or five years time. However here are a few thoughts that may help you answer the question and put you on track for a prolonged and fruitful career as a Product Manager
Stress on seeing yourself as a successful Product ManagerI’ve always liked this quote from Allan R Cohen book “The portable MBA in Management”

“…the meaning of success has also changed for most people. No longer do people think of success in terms only in vertical terms (for example in terms of promotions). Increasingly, people define success in their own terms, measured against their own particular set of gaols and values in life. We call this psychological success. The good thing about success from the individuals point of view is while there is only one way to achieve vertical success (that of moving up), there are an infinite variety of ways of achieving psychological success.”

Applying horizontal success to Product Management

The Product Manager could apply philosophy of horizontal success by talking about:

• Becoming or continuing to master a range of technologies that are applicable to his/her market and product.
• To be known as the Product Manager that successfully launched a number of innovative products into the market place.
• Broadening your product portfolio and entering new markets.
• Taking on more responsibilities and mentoring junior product managers

Achieving the above and being formally recognised for it is also known as lateral promotion acording to Promoting to a new employer

"The lateral promotion is where, because of your increased knowledge, skills or experience, you earn more pay but do not get a managerial position. Many companies have realised over the past decade that one way to keep their personnel happy is not to make them supervisor, manager, partner or vice president, but to pay them better for being good at what they do. It's a simple way of rewarding - and keeping - valuable employees without putting extra strain or a new life on them."

It’s important not to give the impression (or have the idea) that you’re using the company only as a stepping stone to becoming the “Head of Product Management” or promoted to being the “Group Product Manager.”
Be sure to persuade the interviewer that you are able and ready to add value to the company and the product range(s) you will be managing before you give any impression on having a desire to climb the corporate ladder.

7 things the Product Manager needs to consider when bypassing processes

Wikipedia, states that: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. Therefore it is important that the product manager believes and supports the processes that the company has implemented. However are there ever situations when it is acceptable to break an agreed process?

The answer depends a lot on the industry and products you’re managing. Very early on in my career I worked as an Avionics Engineer – the company would periodically be audited (with little or no warning) by the CAA, FAA and internal QA department. For obvious reasons failure to adhere to and being seen to follow the laid down processes would be totally unacceptable. Other industries are bound by SOX or ISO 9001 etc…. So if asked, at an interview – it would be wise to demonstrate that you understand and embrace the appropriate processes and procedures. However it would also be good to demonstrate that you can think outside the box. Some industries are not heavily regulated and there will be times when bypassing a process may result in commercial gain. If you feel it is appropriate to bypass processes then by sure to indicate that you would consider the following 7 points:

1. Inform your line manager. The last thing you want is for you boss to approach you if something goes wrong – ensure you keep her/him in the loop.
2. Weigh up the risk and rewards to the company and product. Are you sacrificing quality and therefore the company’s reputation for the sort term commercial gain? E.g. by shipping a product to a customer before it has been fully beta tested. On the other hand if you don’t ship first will your competitor ship before you and gain valuable market share?
3. Weigh up the risk and rewards to your career – in other words would you feel confident defending your actions to corporate management? How would you explain a lost commercial opportunity to the CEO or MD?
4. Keep a record of what was not done or who was not consulted.
5. Send an email, in advance, to those you are asking to actually by pass the process (e.g. support staff) and be sure that you clearly indicate that you as the ‘Product Manager’ are prepared to take full responsibility for any unfavourable outcome.
6. After the event (e.g. a release of a new online feature) be sure to backtrack – tidy up any loose ends and make sure that the records correctly reflect what actually happened and why. Or continue beta testing and offer the first customers a free upgrade etc…
7. Review the process that was bypassed and see if it could be improved to cater for any future emergencies.

My final thought on the topic is never by pass a process if it involves compromising on health and safety, breaking the law or deceiving the customers/end user no matter what the commercial gains.

If you want to get into Product Management - then ask a good Product Manager.

Many ask the question “How do I get into Product Management” well here are a few links to Q&As, on the topic, on Jeff Lash’s new website ‘Ask a Good Product Manager’


How can a software engineer become a product manager?
View my answer to this question - hopefully it will help not just the asker but many more software engineers who want to make the transition from software engineering to product management.

How can I become a product management consultant?
After being a product manager for a number of years you may want to change career and become a product management consultant. Read how Adrienne Tan of brainmates answers this question.

How can I become a product manager without any experience?
Saeed Khan of On Product Management shares his views on how to get into product management.

You can also read more of my thoughts on how to get into product management at:
How to get into Product Management

And read how other got into Product Management at:
How others have moved into Product Management

How do Product Managers Keep up with Technology?

In general Product Management and/or Technical Product Management is about orientating between business and markets trends and needs and
being able utilise technology to define product features and enhancements. Marty Cagan, in his article Are You Technical Enough? States that:
"When I interview product management candidates, I’m looking hard at these two points. The candidate must convince me that they are capable of understanding and applying new technology, and of earning the respect of the engineering team."

As such keeping up with new and emerging technologies and learning about technologies that could be new to you is not only a challenge but critical to being a good and well respected Product Manager. Marty in the same article gives a few tips on how to stay technically savvy or should I say technologically savvy.

"There are many ways to do this. Books, articles, blogs, extension courses, experiment with the technologies or write software on your own, spend more time with your engineers, ask them about the technology topics they are exploring and tag along."

'Technical Product Manager' or 'Technology Product Manager'

In my book we should be careful not to get being technical mixed up with being able to apply technology to solve a problem – semantics one might say – let me explain – I view being technical as being the role of the Developer, Engineer or the Architect the person who is able to dig deep into the code, design the solution be it hardware, software, firmware or a combination of all three – they are also the people who are able to maintain the product, figure out work arounds (e.g. when chip sets all of a sudden go obsolete and purchasing are unable to source any more or a release of a new online feature causes performance issues not experienced in UAT or system test environments). The Product Manager needs to be able to have an appreciation for these issues but is not the person to offer up a detailed solution.

Things Product Managers do to keep up with Technology

Here’s how a few Product Managers that I have interviewed keep themselves updated with new technologies:

From Marketing to Product Management: Ivan Chalif says that he
"...typically let my Engineers bring new technologies to me, but I keep my eye open for new UI features and capabilities in other products that I think might be useful for my users. I also subscribe to a number of usability- and technology-oriented RSS feeds."

Transition from Web Developer to Product Manager: Patrick Jolley said "By using sites like TechCrunch and eHub. I also really like the ‘Movers and Shakers’ section on Alexa."

Interview with a Director of Product Management: Paul Young says that he tries "... to read a lot. I make heavy use of Google Reader to keep up with RSS feeds from favorite tech sites like Engadget. I also regularly read the other Product Management blogs that I link from my site, Product Beautiful. I am always amazed and humbled by the great thoughts and posts that other Product Management bloggers are creating."

Interview with an Ex AOL Product Manager: Brunella said "By reading a lot on the Internet and getting the latest hints through friends and colleagues in the field."

Interview with Jeff Lash: Author of How to be a Good Product Manager "... I try to read as many blogs as I can manage, read general consumer and business magazines, and learn from colleagues. I try to use as many new web sites as possible -- I always sign up for the "notify me when this service is available" email notifications, since there's too many to remember. As much as I try to stay ahead of the curve, though, I can't keep track of everything. My feeling is that if something is really going to be important, I don't need to be the first to find out about it, since I'll probably hear about it soon enough if enough people are talking about it."

From Technical Support to Product Management Mark Barns states "Mostly through working closely with in house development teams on Product Requirement and Software Requirement Specs. Continuous customer engagement, Trade Shows and Standards bodies attendance also help."

Tony Bradley in his article: Keeping up with Tehnology gives this advice:
"New technologies and improved technologies are emerging all the time. It can be daunting to try to keep up with them all. Remember to focus on keeping your business needs in mind and finding the technology that helps solve them rather than keeping up with technology just for the sake of keeping up with technology."

How do you keep up with technology? – Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.

Interview question on under performing

What would you do if your boss called you to a meeting and informed you that your team has been complaining about your lack of leadership and management?
You would or course be surprised even shocked because you would have put things in place to ensure that you where leading and managing the team well. Once you express that you would be surprised you could then:
1. Ask if their where any particular examples.
2. List the things you would have in place to ensure that individually and collectively the team felt they where managed and led. Such as:
a. Regular team meetings – where everyone has the opportunity to give feedback and where you have the opportunity.
b. Regular one to one sessions – where you have a chance to get close to your team members.
c. Periodic review of work done – with out micromanaging your team.
d. Yearly formal appraisals where tasks are set followed through with formal quarterly reviews.
The above demonstrates to the interviewer how you would manage your team so that such a situation would not occur.
However if such a complaint surfaced and your line manage agreed with the complaint then you could suggest you work with your line manager to put an action plan together in order to get things back on track.

Interview Question: How Do Product Managers Handle Success?

The interviewer poses the folloing question:
"You, and your team, were involved in a successful launch of a new product that exceeded business expectations during its first phase - what would you do?"

First I would Celebrate [with the team of course] and then….

Follow Brian Lawley’s advice which is stay humble and give credit to the team.

Following that it would be critical to analyse all the activities that led to the success launch of the product. State that as the product manager I'd have the over view of all activities but the analyse will be designed to get into the detail.

Were standard processes and procedures followed? – If they where then that’s fine, if not find out what was done differently and then suggest that the particular process might be improved in the light of the current success.

How was the interaction between the various stakeholders? Did the requirements change? What methodology did the development use: Scrum, DSDM, Waterfall (probably not!). Were there code reviews, was there pair-programming for those real in-depth tricky aspects of the code base.

How was the marketing tasks carried out? – What budget was spent on promoting the product via to launch compared to other product launches? How was the sales team trained?

Round up your answer by stating that you would document the feedback – coupled with your own observations and recommendations and then work towards embedding the improvements into the 'departments and company culture' so that the next phase and next product launch will be even more successful. Finally state that you would share and discuss your finding with your colleagues via case-study on the departmental blog and/or team meeting, thus functioning around CMMI level 2 to 3.

Where do you see your product in two years time?

Looking into the future and knowing what the competition, the market and your product will be like is probably one of the most challenging tasks that any product manager has to undertake. This can be a tricky question to answer at a job interview. “Where do you see product x in y years time”? How a product manager answers this question gives the interviewer an insight as to how much of a visionary they are and whether or not they keep a keen eye on technology as it progresses. Here are two mini case study answers to such as question.

I carried out a few interviews over the last couple of days and asked the candidates “How do they see the web in a few years time.” A few interesting thoughts came up. One person drew an analogy between the way television has evolved over the past few years: from two analog channels in black and white to 100s of digital channels via cable & satellite. Like wise the number of web pages will continue to increase therefore competition for viewer-eye-balls will increase as well. The candidate went on to say that as TV has become an integral part of everyday life the web will become even more embedded in the lives of business professionals. We will become more reliant on information to do our jobs and that information will be provided via the types of on-line products and services that we ['we' being the company they were hoping to join] produce – our [being 'us' working together] challenge is to package the information in an easy, digestible and appealing way so that users keep on coming back for more. The subtle use of we and our came over quite well.

The other candidate focused on enabling technologies like ajax and silverlight to enhance the user experience and discussed the merits of web 2.0: social networks and web services to give users a more personalised experience – he quoted the BBCs and new home page i-google as an example of being able to move widgets around a webpage and mix and match a combination of widgets to give you the all the information you want in the format you want. Thay stressed that going forward many more websites would adopt and roll out such features- untill they become almost standard. They also mentioned how mobile device will probably change and copy the UI of apples i-phone.

Whilst neither candidate came up with the next killer app or suggested something total new or innovative, however they both demonstrated that they had at least thought through the general direction of on-line products and were able to demonstrate how and why future changes might be brought about.

How to improve your Product Management career and grow in your job

I have recently been interviewing Product Managers about their jobs and writing interview Q&As for those who may be going for a job in Product Management. ( Refer to 'Your Career' for a list of articles). The aim is to provide individuals who want to get into Product Management with ideas, insight, inspiration and encouragement – one common thread that spreads across all the interviews is that everyone had a different role before they entered the world of Product Management.
Brian Lawley gives a webcast entitled “How to accelerate your product management career.” I have given a summary of the 20 odd points that he raises. In the hope that this will also help those who are currently working as product managers and those who want to break into product management.

1. Career goals: where you are honestly have 1/3/5/10 year goals – start with the 10 year goal and work backwards. You need to sit back and do some real thinking about this. 
2. What’s the difference: why do some people advance very rapidly while others move slowly or stagnate – it about the techniques you use and how you manage up.
   How does your boss view you: attitude and productivity: you need to be organised and get on with people – you also need to be a good leader. 
3. Productivity = deliverables: both strategic and tactical - day to day and important high level projects and tasks that are important to the company. Ensure you free up enough time to tackle additional responsibility – therefore the day to day work need to be under control. 
4. Get a mentor: your boss, an executive, senior peer, paid coach - spend an hour a week with your mentor discuss where you’re at and how to rise above issues. 
5. Be the bearer of bad news quickly and propose solutions and timelines. 
6. Keep careful company: network with the right people. Show me your friends and I’ll tell you what type of person you are therefore avoid negative people they will drag you down. 
7. Be an expert: have the relevant information in your head both your discipline (product management) and your market – use google alerts, read books & blogs to stay up-to-date. 
8. Beef up your resume: and build your brand – put in extra time and help others, do volunteer work, get certification, take-up internal opportunities to lead. 
9. Be a solution employee:– manage your boss by giving them a weekly update and get input on areas you need but have recommendations to issues that are raised. 
10. Always give the team the credit: – be humble and give credit to others – however when things go wrong be ready to stand up and take the blame. 
11. Choose right: the boss (gauge this at the interview) choose the right job and company, get into a company and market that is rapidly growing. 
12. Be a good communicator: be concise and always have the correct tone. 
13. Hire only those who can over take you: You are who your team, therefore hire stars and that will reflect on you – your team will push you up, while your mentor will pull you up. 
14. Truly care about people: – you will work with them again – never speak badly about anyone. It will come back on you. 
15. Always be professional:– don’t make issues personal get perspective before communicating –practice listening. We have two ears and one month.
16. The last thing you do: you are always remembered by the last thing you do at a company its the last thing you do that people will remember you by. 
17. If you can’t stay positive then move on: You don’t want to be branded as the a negative person. 
18. Don’t sit on the fence:– be committed to your job or decide to move on. 
19. Build your network: - people are treated as assets – your safety net is your network. 
20. Know what your good at: – hire people to complement your skills – do the things that your good at.
    

How do you demonstrate that you can manage products

Product Management interview question:

Tell me about a project you have run or a product you have managed through its life cycle?

This is an interview question that gives you the opportunity to:
a) Demonstrate that you have a practical experience in the product development process.
b) That you have considered the user by developing a product that utilises technology to solve a problem and therefore meets the customer’s needs.
c) That you are able to lead with-out-authority by matrix managing a cross functional team of multi-disciplined professionals.

When answering this question you also have the opportunity to briefly touch on a previous area/question that you may have felt you didn’t answer too well – however you have to be brief, no detract in any way shape or form from the original question and ensure you don’t give the impression that you are labouring any particular point or trying to get one up on the interviewer. For example if you where previously asked about stakeholder management and you didn’t feel that you gave a full and impressive answer - then touch on your experience on stakeholder management while speaking about a project you have worked on.

A few typical points that you need to bring out are as follows:

• Be sure to outline the role you played at each stage.
• Ensure you highlight that you took the initiative at each key stages.
• Speak about brain storming sessions that you led out in to firm up on requirements and the products feature set and ultimately define the product.
• Your ability to create and manage a product roadmap.
• Be sure to explain how you communicated the vision and project to technical and business stakeholders.
• Show how you led the team and got buy-in at each stage of the product life cycle.
• Speak about your interaction with stakeholders from across the organisation from sales and marketing to engineering and customer support.

It is important that you take the opportunity while answering this question to speak about your domain and knowledge of the technologies you worked with – coupled with your sharp business acumen. Above all don’t be afraid to mention things that went wrong BUT be sure to speak about what you did to put things right and be prepare demonstrate what you learnt from such mistakes.

The interviewer may ask you to speak about a project that went well or not so well. If so be sure clearly demonstrate that you understand why the project went the way it did.
It's possible to spend the whole interview on this one question alone -

Bottom line is that you as the Product Manager are seen to be in fully in touch with the product at every stag ein its life cycle.

How to get into Product Management

ProfSvcs has left a comment on my blog post "Moving from Technology to Product Management to increase business skills" ‘asking how someone gets into product management’. The answer became what I would consider too long for a comment so I’ve written this article that I hope will help him and others who what to move into product management. I must stress that this is my opinion based on my own experience and the experience of others I’ve worked with.
Rest assure very few people leave education (college, university…) and walk straight into 'technical product management' (as opposed to 'marketing product management' which is closly related to 'brand management')– we all have had a life before product management and that life (job) helps form the basis of our current role, consider where the following Product Managers have come from:

Bikram Gupta was a developer,
Marty Cagan a software engineer,
Andy Wicks a Business Analyst,
Daniel Leon a web-master and then a project manager,
Paul Young a web developer,
Brunella Russo worked in Account Management/Client Support role,
Jeff Lash worked as an information architecture and user-centered (IA & UCD)design, and
Matt Rowe has a background as a business/ systems analyst.

Two possible routes to landing your 1st Product Mangagement job

Go for an internal transfer from where you are into product management.

Strive to get into product management in your current company. If your company uses product management speak to the person who head up the department. See if you can obtain a job description and critically rank your self against it – also use product management job descriptions from companies that operate in similar industries as your current company. Your analysis should result in you being able to clearly identify areas that you believe (and are able to demonstrate to another person) what you could do straight away (out of the box so to speak) and what are the areas that you would need to improve on. Once you have done that set yourself an action plan (with time scales) and aim to improve your areas of weakness. This may include spending time with engineers and/or with product managers so that you become familiar, on a practical level, with various aspects of the role. Take one of the product managers or engineers out to lunch and talk over these areas with them. You could consider sacrificing a days holiday – arrange to come into work – and spend the day with a product manager or the engineering team or arrange to go on a customer visit with the product manager and attend some of the meeting that s/he chairs. (Note: I'm not saying tha it can all be done in a day - but the journey of a thousands miles must begin with a single step)...
Put the results of your analysis and action plan into a presentation – book a meeting with the Head of Product Management and make a pitch for a job. Remember you must show that you can add value.

Again you could think about raising your desire to move into product management at your annual appraisal. Ask if you could be seconded to Product Management for a period of time.

A lot depends on the culture of your company and the type of managers your dealing with.

Change your approach AND your company in order to get into Product Management.

In my experience it’s easier to change roles in your current company than to try and move into a new role in a different organisation. However you could change your approach from looking inside your company to looking at companies that operate in the same market segment or offer similar products. If you can proof that you have solid domain knowledge coupled with the understanding and skills of a product manager then they would be sure to want to speak to you. The covering letter that accompanies your resume (CV) should highlight that you have the skills that they are looking for. It will be tuff so you will have to do twice as much work as anyone else applying for the job. Study the company you’re applying to and the product ranges they offer along with competing products and companies. Be prepared to answer any question they may through at you and be able to ask them questions that demonstrate that you have done your homework and thought through the issues.

Finnally you need to be constantly reading and studying.
You need to immerse yourself with good reading material I would personally recommend the following:
How to be a good product manager
Silicon Valley Product group
Listern to the Webinas on Product maagement View

Product Managers need to reduce and handle stress

What type of situations cause you stress?
How do you handle stress?
Stress can be a killer and every Product Manager and Project Mangers would have experienced during the course of their career. I was asked the question “How do you handle stress?” when I was being interviewed for a Product Mangers job at my current company and I have made it a point to ask the question of every Product Manager that I interview. Here are the reasons why.
It’s important that a product manager recognises the symptoms of stress learn how to cope with stress and have in place successful techniques for managing stress and be able to manage projects and/or product development in such a way as to reduce stress.
There are no real template answers to these questions – the key thing is to have strategies in place to deal with stress demonstrate that you recognise and are able to deal with it. Let’s face it, starting a new job can be stressful, the product and project managers job are ones where you lead with out authority often in a matrix management framework. Therefore you’re likely to have a lot of responsibility for delivery but very little if any direct reports or authority over the people you need to motivate to get the job done. No line manger what to hire someone and then see then burn out because the workplace and/or job was too stressful for them.

Read the following blog psots
What do Product Managers do? What is expected of them? And how not to become overwhelmed?
How Product Managers can successfully ride the storms of a commercial life.
What Your Leader Expects of You
for tips on how to manage stakeholders and product development in such a way to reduce stress.

Remember we are all human beings - admit that you do get stressed` and trun what some may see as a negative into a postive by demonstarting ways you 've handled stress in the past and therefore showing that you can handle it if you where hired for the job in question.

Interview answers to questions regarding demands on development resource

How would handle a senior business stakeholder that demands more than you can deliver with in a certain timeframe?

If you have had experience in managing projects and products using scrum (or some other agile management frame work) then this would be your opportunity to demonstrate that you understand the benefits of scrum to manage stakeholders at all levels (see - Part #6 How Everyone Can Get Involved in Agile). Other methodologies you’ve worked with could be used to aid in you demonstrating your ability to manage development teams and business stakeholders.
Your answer to the interviewer could include some of the following Do’s and Don’ts:

• Do not be intimidated,
• Do not make commitments or promises before you have had the opportunity to analyse and estimate the request.
• Do not be afraid to escalate to your line manager - see Being up front during an interview .
• Do ask for time to review the question.
• Do include other stakeholders – perhaps in a workshop to scope and confirm the work that needs to be done.
• Do give a timeframe when you will report back your findings with options.
• Do ensure that the technical team are fully involved in discussions before you make a proposal.

Things to be considered when you give feedback to the business stakeholder:

• Breaking what was being demanded into bite size chunks and estimating each chunk in order to give feedback on how much resource would be required to meet the deadline. refer to: How d' you eat an elephant
• Explaining what could be achieved with the current resource within a required timeframe.
• Referring to the technical team’s currents commitments and giving the option for less important tasks to be substituted for what is currently being asked.
• Suggesting that if we hired X amount of contract resource then we could possible meet the required deadlines.
• If the request seemed large – then time might be required to do research with the aim of estimating the amount of additional effort required to meet the request.
• If the request seemed small – then consider offering overtime so to meet the deadline.

Remember it's your logical thought pattern that your answer will be judged on.
See other Interview Questions for Product Managers

Moving from Technology to Product Management to increase business skills

Bikram Gupta has been been in Product Management for over 3 years he has worked in various markets and technologies such as: Telecom/Wireless, Data Networking, and Security domains. Bikram describes himself as a “knowledge worker” at heart; he’s passionate about exploring different lateral business roles outside the sales funnel. Bikram used to authors a blog entitle "Thoughts on Product Management"

#1. What’s your academic background/training?
Started working in IT with a Mechanical engineering graduation course. I obtained further knowledge in computer architecture, system programming, and Internet technologies through work experience and reading. Product Management skills were obtained through a combination job experience and reading.

#2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I worked in various roles in R&D; in development and QA, both hands on and as a project leader.

#3. What companies have you worked for?
Currently with McAfee, and prior to that worked in Lucent and IP Unity Glenayre.

#4. What inspired you to become a product manager?
I wanted to be an independent business professional. Having Technology & programming skills were not enough. I firmly believe that sound business skills can be obtained by working in various lateral product management roles – so I decided to switch to product management.

#5. How did you make the move from being a developer to becoming a product manager?
I suppose it was a combination of good luck and the interviewer being able to see the potential with in me, I would like to think that she saw that I had good systems thinking skills that could be applied and adapted to the product management role.

#6. What do you like best about your job?
Being able to take business decisions and being accountable for them.

#7. What do you least like about your job?
When I find myself questioning the fundamentals of how things are getting along and not having all the power or authority to make the necessary changes.

#8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
I am an avid reader and I have a background of working in various domains.

#9. Describe your Product Management job in one sentence?
Defining the right product(s), ensuring it is build right and position it right.

#10. What’s your dream product to manage?
An open standard based personal assistant, which can be your second brain.

#11. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
Cross-functional communication (and I would emphasis listening skills), reading the market correctly and then quantifying it coupled with good domain/technology knowledge.

#12. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Good relationship and mutual admiration.

#13. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Spend time with family, and then read, read, read....and then read some more.

#14. What advice would you give some one who wants to become a product manager?
It’s a passion. It’s your love for the product, people and company and so obviously you want to do is what’s best for all these. It should be simple so keep it simple.

How Product Managers can push back at an interview

Interviews are about persuading the interviewer(s) that you are the right person for the job. That you will be able to deliver the goods even when the going gets tough. A question that I like to pose to perspective Product Managers to determine if they can deliver in the face of adversity is:

OK here's the question - followed by a possible answer:

"What would you do if you were invited to a high level business meeting with the Sales Director, Head of Business Development, Director of Product Marketing, CEO and other senior stakeholders… The Head of Product Marketing gives a power point presentation on a new (on-line) product. The presentations concludes that the launch, of this new online product (that by the way is nothing like the company has done before) will be launched in three weeks time. After all, the CEO says, it's just another website."

What the interviewer(s) are looking for:

#How would you, as the product manager, manage upwards?
#Do you have the product management skills to communicate at the CEO/MD level?
#Are you able to push back in a diplomatic way?
#Are you able to manage expectations?

Suggested thoughts that need to be projected are as follows:
It’s important to be in tune with the commercial aspirations of chief executives and senior stakeholders. You need to demonstrate that you share the vision and will be an asset and not an obstacle to achieving the ultimate goal. However – and here comes the but – BUT you need to be able to positively steer the thinking towards realistic time frames and firming up on the unknowns [power point presentation are generally shallow]. Details need to be properly defined – here you have the opportunity to demonstrate [to the interviewer]:

• your skills in creating a road map –


• that flows into a project backlog –


• that divides down into a set of user stories -


• that can be estimated in terms of complexity and


• time to complete.

Sets of user stories can be grouped together as themes for a programme of sprints which will eventually give a picture of the size of the project. If your more acustom to a water fall enviroment then talk in terms of product plans etc...

Once all of this has been thrashed out you then have the ability to communicate high level estimates for the project and give feedback to the senior stakeholders. This then opens up another round of discussion regarding resources for the project:

• Who? (permanent or contract),


• When (do you need technical resources to assist in the research if research is needed) and


• How much does will it cost (different organisations have different approaches to recharges – central departments or each business unit having their own development team(s).

Ensure that you demonstrate your ability to balance your business and commercial acumen as it’s the combination of 'business sense and technical sense' that makes a good product manager. Remember organisations (and therefore processes) differ one from another - the interviewer will understand this - so it's the logical thought processes and stakeholder management skills you show when answering that determine if you give a satisfactory answer or not.

From Software Engineer to Product Manager to Founder of SVPG - Interview with Marty Cagan

Marty Cagan has worked for several leading Hi Tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, America Online, and eBay. During his career he has performed most of the roles that are key to any technology company: product management, software development, product marketing, user interface design, usability engineering, technical writing, software testing, engineering management, and general management. Marty is a founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group a company that provides services that span the full product life cycle. He also authors a news letter that both informs and inspires. In this interview Marty shares his thoughts on Product Management.

1. What’s your academic background/training?
My education is in Computer Science, and I also did the Stanford Executive Business program. But my real education came from having the opportunity to work for and with from some of the best product minds in our industry.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was a software engineer at HP Labs.

3. Where did you work before you set up Silicon Valley Product Group?
I was previously SVP Product Management and Design for eBay.

4. What inspired you to become a product manager?
I learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter how great your engineering team is if the product manager doesn’t give them something useful to build.

5. How did you make the move from being a developer to becoming a Product Manager.
I found someone that I thought did this job really well, and he pointed me in the right direction.
6. What do you like best about the Product Management job?
Creating products and services that are used and loved by millions of users and customers.

7. What do you least like about the Product Management job?
So many people out there have no idea what product management really is. They think it’s marketing. Little wonder the vast majority of products and services are such dismal failures.

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
If you love technology like I do you can’t help but want to follow developments closely. Also, many of my friends and colleagues are leading engineers and architects and I constantly learn from them.

9. Describe the Product Managers job in one sentence.
This is the person responsible for discovering and defining a product that is useful, usable and feasible.

10. What’s your dream product to manage?
Been there and done that (and extremely grateful for it). Now I love to help others create their dream products.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do the Product Management job?

#1. Willingness and ability to engage deeply with engineers on technology – to understand what’s just now possible.

#2. Willingness and empathy to engage deeply and directly with end users and customers to understand their needs. Especially to try out your ideas on them and not let your ego get in the way of learning, adjusting and identifying the right product.

#3. Willingness to do whatever it takes to get that product shipped.

14. Product Managers come from different backgrounds: what advice would you give someone who wanted to break into Product Management who had an engineering background. How would that advice differ if they did not have a strong technical background?
(That’s a great question and one that I want to think more about and then probably write an article on for my newsletter, as many software developers talk to me about switching to product management. For the second part of that question, for people that aren’t technical, I happened to write about that in my last newsletter: http://www.svpg.com/blog/files/are-you-tech-enough.html)


15. Looking back, as a former Product Manager, what’s the one product (or product range) that has brought you the most satisfaction?
My favorite job ever was at Netscape as the Internet was just emerging. New technologies were being invented almost constantly, combined with daily interactions with developers and customers from startups and established companies all racing to learn how they could use the Internet to help solve long-standing problems. A great time to be a product manager.

Interview Questions for Product Managers

Several months ago I spent a lot of time interviewing potential Product Manager and Lead Product Managers to head up a product team. Listed below are some common interview questions along with some that I hand crafted for the particular PM jobs being advertised at the time. There are no right or wrong answers for most of the questions. The purpose is to find out how a person will operate under different scenarios. I hope these questions will help any one who is preparing for a job interview as a product manager or going for a promotion to a Senior, Lead or Head of product Management position. Periodically I’ll post possible answers or should I say possible thought processes that your future employer could be looking for.

1. Where do you see yourself in three to five years time?
see Where will the product manager be in 3 years time? for my thoughts on how you could answer this question.


2. Why do you want this job?


3. What’s your greatest achievement to date?


4. How do you see the web (or the market space your in) 3 years from now?
   Read Where do you see your product in two years time? for two mini case study answers.
   
   
5. How would handle a senior business stakeholder that demands more than you can deliver with in a certain timeframe?
   # One thing not to do is to exercise your freedom of speech - but to think of all the possible options - read Interview answer to questions regarding demands on development resource for an outline answer to this interview question.
   
6. You, and your team, were involved in a successful launch of a new product that exceeded business expectations during its first phase - what would you do?
   # Read Interview Question: How Do Product Managers Handle Success? for a suggested answer.


7. What is more important to you: being liked or being respected? Why?
   
8. How do you handle stress? Read Product Managers need to reduce and handle stress
See link above for tips on handling this type of interview question.


9. Do you believe in processes? Is there ever a time when you think it’s acceptable to break an agreed process?
Read: 7 things the Product Manager needs to consider when bypassing processes


10. How do you keep up with new and emerging technologies and how do you access and get to understand their usefulness to your product range? see: How do Product Managers Keep up with Technology? for a suggested anwer and how others have Product Managers have answered this question.
    
11. Tell me about a project you have run or a product you have managed through its life cycle? Read How do you demonstrate that you can manage products for my thoughts on this question.


12. What would you do if you went to a high level business meeting with directors the CEO and other senior stakeholders… viewed a power point presentation on a new (on-line) product. The presentation concluded by annoucing that we aim to launch this new product in two months time?
    Read How Product Managers can push back at an interview for a suggested answer.

Interview with a Product Manager

*What’s it like being a Product Manager?

*How do you become one?

*What attributes do you need?

*And what do you need to be able to get on with your development team?

This is the first in a series of interviews with people who have successfully moved into the Product Management arena. Matt Rowe is a Product Manager currently working in online publishing with in the chemical market.

1. What’s your academic background/training?
Australian equivalent of the British A levels which is basically a high school certificate/diploma, external courses and lots of reading!

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was a business/ systems analyst (BA) responsible for specifying and implementing SQL core development and bespoke applications.

3. Where did you work before you worked for RBI?
Monster / TMP Worldwide

4. What inspired you to become a Product Manager?
I had spent seven years in the same company and had little chance of furthering my career any further. I applied for a job as a BA at the Guardian – was interviewed by a Product Manager. His explanation of what he did left such an impression on me that I decided that Product Management had to be my next job.

5. How did you make the move from being a business/ systems analyst to becoming a product manager?
Studied a few methodologies combined with a lucky break.

6. What do you like best about your job?
Seeing ideas become a reality – I get a sense of real of achievement and job satisfaction.

7. What do you least like about your job?
Not always having enough resource.

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
Google (RSS) reader and pub talk.

9. Describe your Product Management job in one sentence.
Continual challenges, ever changing and always rewarding

10. What’s your dream Product to Manage?
Guardian Unlimited it’s an award winning web site. They take a common sense approach to software development – they also know how to keep things simple and effective.

11. How would you describe managing product development before you where introduced to agile?
I’ve always taken a common sense approach, so agile just reinforced this giving more structure to the SDLC.

12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
More focus on the planning.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
To be confident, but not cocky, focused but flexible.

14. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Clarity (and a sense of humour :-) )

15. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Sleeping !