Skills of a Product Manager

Great products are built keeping the customer's needs and pain points in mind. They solve important customer problems. Building an affable product requires a product manager to understand the user’s needs and expectations. This makes it critical to evaluate how users are interacting with the product. This can be done in several ways - user-focused research studies, surveys, or diving into user interaction data. With proper analysis of the findings from each of these, a PM needs to develop a deep understanding of the customer and use it to build/improve their products. To understand customer obsession, there are many follow-ups that companies do to understand their customers. Like product feedback and reviews, surveys, etc. With proper analysis of the responses received from the users, developing beneficial and satisfactory products for their customers will be much easier and more positive.

Product managers often collaborate with multiple teams - engineering, data science, marketing, legal, etc.—to develop great products. They create an action plan and align everyone to work towards a common goal. This facet of the role is also known as "collaborative product management," where the PM plans, coordinates, controls, and monitors the progress that is delegated across departments. 

Product managers often have to make decisions very early on in the product development lifecycle and sometimes with limited information. The chances of seeing a red flag early on in the development stage are low. The decisions can involve the release of new features, an improvement to existing ones, or financial or resource-allocations. Hence, the right decisions will always save time and money. This particular skill might sound very simple and easy, but in reality, it is not. Because the decision reveals itself, whether it is good or not, only at the end. To make this process, to some extent, error-free, it is advisable to keep everyone aligned about the product and processes, including the team members, while discussing the non-confidential details of the process or product. It is also a chance to evaluate diverse ideas and ensure the product is an outcome of good decisions. Also, the product is the outcome of all the decisions made, so be vigilant.

Technical competence is a core hard skill that differentiates a great product manager from a good one. Having some technical competence will make the job significantly easier. This is not just limited to software products, but all kinds of products involve some extent of technicality, including logistics, analysis, or experimentation. Because everything that we deal with at present, implicitly or explicitly, involves traces of technology. Be it non-software products, technology is involved when trying to analyze the logistics and statistics of the product's reach in the market. And everyone will agree that logistics and statistics are integral for tracking and improvising. For software products, this becomes even more important. Product managers who understand the basics of code development and analysis stand out and are able to partner with the engineering and data science teams effectively.

Ambiguity often intimidates product managers because they deal with complex product problems. Ambiguity in a product is the presence of more than one interpretation of information, leading to confusion. Hence, dealing with this ambiguity upfront is significant for a product management team. This fallout is majorly due to improper communication. In fact, ambiguity is one of the four pillars that make the working environment and decision-making challenges. These four pillars are summarized as VUCA - part of four that leaves with conflict when a product is developed. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity These factors need to be managed at every step in a product manager’s role. Despite taking up less space in the graph, eliminating these four factors makes the attempt to develop the product successful. Therefore, a good product manager always has an eye to ensure that VUCA is shielded and forsaken. 

The quality of a leader defines the success of a team. Leadership is an umbrella term. Under leadership, there are many qualities like vision for the team, fairness, optimism, focus, intuition, and a relentless pace towards growth. When it comes to facing an issue, a good leader will either communicate it to the desired person or provide a real solution to it. Such qualities will motivate and drive the team.

Misinterpretations are never advocates of growth. Communication is key because often, a PM has to collaborate with multiple teams, deliver presentations to stakeholders, and interact with customers to understand the product usage. They are also responsible for writing product specifications and requirements documents that contain ideas from conceptualization to launch of the product, along with KPI measurement. This document is often referred to by multiple teams that work closely with the product managers. Communication skills also come into play when discussing product initiatives and priorities. It is how a PM will convey their thoughts to the team. Effective communication is defined by ABC, which stands for It should define the ABC of effective communication, which is accuracy, brevity, and clarity. When a conversation meets these factors, there are negligible, less to zero chances of misalignment. An effective way to develop communication skills in product management is to converse with the customers and the team often.

Domain knowledge is always dynamic but critical to developing successful products. This means it is essential for a good product manager to be aware of all the recent trends in the market and gather information about competitor products in the market. Knowledge about the current affair in the market will give a flair advantage to spiral up the business of the product because existing trends reflect the customer's priorities.
Getting hooked up with the latest market developments in their domain news around the world will definitely benefit a PM to understand the user preferences and develop business skills to navigate their job much more effectively. ad-hoc trends. 

Apart from the above-mentioned skills, there are also a couple more that will help a PM in the expertise of product management.