Skills, Qualities I look for in a Product Manager

I have spent quite some time, fighting product-building battles from trenches. In the process, I have got a liberal dose of mud, sweat, bloody wounds & scars. In these battles, the soldiers in my battalion were Testers, Designers, Developers, and very importantly Product Managers.

Sometime back a founder asked me about the skills/qualities he should look for in his Product Managers.  So here is what I jotted down at his request.

- Ability to observe the Market and find a void/opportunity in the Market.

- Ability to sense the changing trends in the Market.

- Ability to see a Market Need which may have been fulfilled by others, but can be fulfilled better by us.

- Ability to ensure Need/Solution fitment.

- Ability to explore and carry out SWOT analysis.  Each situation does not ask for every aspect of PESTLE analysis, but taking a conscious call is critical.  

- Ability to gauge ** whether we can make money ** out of it.

- Ability to sell the Market Need internally in our own organization and get some budget/funding to build SOMETHING to fulfill that Market Need. A truckload of funding appears better but it can be actually dangerous as well.

- Ability to curtail the ambition and build that tiny, small, crippled-down, crude, unpolished, basic version of the solution (aka MVP) for that Market Need and showcase it to the Market and seek feedback, so as to Validate our hypotheses.

- Ability to decide (based on the feedback) whether to  (a) Continue or  (b) do Course Correction or  (c) Pivot  or (d) Drop the idea.

- Ability & willingness to accept the fact that Product Building business is sprinkled with many unknowns, half-knowns, and less-knowns.

- Ability to maintain the rhythm of ship-small, ship-often to tackle the risks arising from half-knowns and less-knowns.

- Ability to sense risks before they hit us.

- Ability to be extremely stingy and identify **that** specific portion of work that will give the highest RoI. (Here are my thoughts on how to be a stingy PO. It needs some practice, but it is possible).

- Ability to be a bit thick skin if you are shunned by prospects/market/anybody (which you will be from time to time).

- Ability to read the pulse of Market/Cust/Prospect/Competition/Sales/whatever.

- Ability to inspire and make the entire team your equal partner in the battle.

- Ability to choose between right and right (making a choice between right and wrong is very easy).

- Ability to be honest, open, & candid and own the goof-ups made by you.

- Ability to remain curious and keep eyes and mind open to seek new ideas.

- Ability to gather data, analyze data & use data. (Cust Acquisition Data & Prod Usage Data being the most critical).

- Ability to convince others when your answer is NO.

- Ability to say NO, even if others are not convinced.    

Product Managers typically have a mountain of backlog in front of them. So, this last one is quite a crucial quality for any Product Manager….
- Ability to decide  ‘what_is_needed_now’ & ‘what_can_wait’.   (in short,  WNN v/s WCW )