WHAT MAKES AN EXCELLENT PRODUCT MANAGER?

In less than 10 minutes, this article will help you in answering some questions you may have on how to become an excellent product manager.

Before I proceed, who is a product manager?

A product manager according to Product HQ, is a professional who connects business strategy, design knowledge and customer needs in order to develop a product that is relevant, feasible and valuable.

Product managers are visionaries and as such, they have the capacity to examine the market, understand what needs solving, and lead cross - functional team responsible for bringing the idea to life

It should also noted that PMs work at the intersection of users and customers, businesses (Sales, Marketing, Legal) and the developer team.

As such, every product manager need to have or cultivate these three super powers which are Emotional intelligence, Core competence and great Relationship management.

Let’s attempt to briefly understand why these super powers are of utmost importance

• Core competence : As a PM, you need to have a solid grasp of the foundational requirements of this profession. Some of these skills include knowing how to carry out deep dive research, conducting customer interview while asking the right questions, feature prioritisation and Roadmap planning, translating business-to-technical requirements and vice versa, performing market assessments, defining and tracking success metrics just to name a few.
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) : Empathy is at the forefront of understanding customers, and coming to terms with the fact that each customer is unique in their own way. As such, the best PM gather inference not just from answered questions, but also from body language, voice tone while answering each question and connecting with customers' emotions.

Having a high Emotional Intelligence helps with navigating both internal and external stakeholders to achieve the sole aim which is to ship a great product.

A PM would often be faced with uncomfortable situations. Understanding how to approach each peculiar problem in the best way possible makes it pertinent to sharpen your Emotional Intelligence skill. And it consists of these four domains namely: self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management (which would be covered in this post).

• Relationship Management : As a PM, you are at the center of it all as you are in communication with different stakeholders. It becomes a necessity to know how to manage relationships by forming vital and trustworthy connections with all parties. You can't underestimate how important this skill is as it helps in the case of conflict resolution, successful negotiation and working with others towards a common goal.

Having the backing of the internal and external stakeholders is the recipe to great success in not just leading and inspiring a team to shipping world call product and feature, but also saving the company headaches in the long run as is the case when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Do have a good read. Will you like to read more articles on Product Management?

I would be talking extensively on emotional intelligence domains and competencies to have as a Product Manager in my next article.