Career advice for product managers (from someone who has spent a life in Product Management)

Kieran

I have been fortunate to gather experience from a lot of different roles throughout my career. In the rear-view mirror, I was able to see a clear pattern emerge. I now know that when I look at an opportunity I should reflect on the skills required. I should seek roles that maximise what I both enjoy and have an ability for. This has proven to be more important than stretching me out of my comfort zone for my career.

Key points:

Figure out what you are good at
Figure out what you enjoy
Assess role opportunities against these two if you want to be happy and play the long game

A wise person seeks to find a pattern for success. They are able to apply historical patterns and those that they observe in others to their own circumstance. Knowing that they cannot be all things to all people and that whilst they can get really good at a small number of things, they cannot master everything. They understand that they are more likely to improve in things that they enjoy.

A brief overview of my career journey

When I look back at the various roles I have taken on throughout my career there is a pattern. This pattern wasn’t always clear to me. Early on I was studying Engineering (I specialised in Software Systems). I wanted a job that I could do during the break period. One that might lend itself to some part-time work during the semester. And a place to work that was more of a traditional office environment so that I could better adjust post-degree.

So I started out in an operations centre, initially in the call centre. I was able to apply some basic technical skills. This made the job more efficient and so I shared this with the team. Eventually, I did plenty of other roles around the operation and implemented tools to make things easier across the board.

Once I finished my degree the roles I interviewed for didn’t really seem all that appealing to me. I found them restrictive given the freedom I had grown accustomed to. Narrow in scope given the breadth of responsibility I had managed to obtain.

I ended up seeking a more suitable role within the same company. This led me into the technology team as a test analyst.

Over the next few years and including an interstate move I transitioned from testing to some more technical work. Then onto analysis both technical and business in nature. I then moved out of technology and into a business role owning Projects and Implementations. Again this grew and I found myself taking on increased responsibility until I had picked up the rest of the Operations function along with our small Technology team.

From there I pivoted to create a Technical Sales function (essentially pre-sales) and then on into a Product role. At each point driving into more senior roles and building into Strategy and Marketing activities. Before I got involved with the product agency I held global Product & Marketing roles with material Strategy components.

Hindsight can be helpful to connect the dots

What I realised partway through this journey was that I was often frustrated with dealing with things at the point I was at. As a test analyst, I thought I would be better able to avoid the costly issues found there if I was involved earlier. This was ostensibly true in each role which drove me earlier and earlier in the timeline of a business.

As I look back this makes sense to me. I also see a pattern in that with each change I leveraged more of the skills I enjoyed and/or were good at. When I didn’t enjoy a particular role I often realised it required many of the skills I was either not good at or didn’t particularly enjoy. Sometimes this was the role and other times it was the circumstances but the outcome was the same.

Ask yourself what you enjoy in your career

When figuring out what roles I wanted to do and what I was not so keen on I thought about what I liked. You work a lot of hours. Many of us spend more time at work than the standard 40 hour week’s worth. Technology has made us available around the clock and we often spend more of our waking hours interacting with work colleagues than our family. It is, therefore, more important than ever to like what you do.

Not only this, but you are also more likely to apply yourself more to things you like which in turn will improve your mastery. Studies also reflect that happiness affects your health.

It’s not about ruling out roles that include some things you don’t like but rather finding a role that maximises the thins you like and minimises the things you don’t.

A good start for this is to make a list of skills and rate each one for how much you like them. Let’s say -5 for hate and +5 for love it.

Ask yourself what you are good at in your career

Often we are skilled at things that we don’t necessarily love. This is likely through natural talent or just a history of necessity. It is often common for us to like the things we are good at and indeed be good at the things we like. Perhaps a cause and effect as you are more likely to do the things you like driving you to practice them.

Things you are good at are also marketable when looking for a job. they will make you good in a role if you are good at the skills that the role relies on.

I believe that people often spend to much time trying to improve their weaknesses. They would be better off on most occasions to invest in their strengths and maximise them. Sure, if there are things you really don’t like and you are terrible at them but they are required to function then you need to get them up to a passing grade. But you are not likely to ever be a master in that skill and any attempt will likely be both a waste of time and a terrible experience.

Again, take the same list of skills and rank them for how good you are at them. -5 being really poor and +5 being exceptional.

Take a step back to make a choice

I advise you to take these numbers and skills and plot them on a graph. You will likely see skills landing in all four quadrants. The quadrants being that you:

Both enjoy the skill and are good at it
Enjoy the skill but are not good at it
Don’t enjoy the skill but you are good at it
Neither enjoy the skill nor have any ability for it

My advice is to focus on the first quadrant her when assessing a new role opportunity for your career. Sure, each move should include some things that take you out of your comfort zone, where you have the opportunity to grow. But your focus should be on the things you are good at and you enjoy.

Just think through the skills and activities that will be the main focus of the role and overlay them with this graph. If you find that most are in the top right (your first quadrant) then you should strongly consider the role.

By avoiding things that, in particular, lean towards the fourth quadrant you will avoid a whole lot of pain for yourself. These sorts of experiences often stunt your growth rather than improve it. You may enjoy a good pay bump for the role but in the long run, your salary often suffers. If you don’t perform you don’t get rewarded over time with bonuses or increased salary or new opportunities.

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Combine your product management experience with continuous research and learning

Kieran

You have heard us talk about our pillars of Product, Process and Proof. the What, How and Why of good product management. We didn’t land on these randomly. Our experience and our education got us here.

Lessons I have learned as a Product Manager over the years

Kieran

I’ve lived in Sydney for most of my professional life, having lived in Melbourne before it. For most of my career I’ve travelled around and had regional or global roles. This international experience has given me visibility to what’s happening around the globe and perspective on what’s happening here at home.

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