How to Become a Product Manager/Transition to Product Management (20 Tips)

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Written by: Madalyn Miki

If you are interested in transitioning to product management, here are some tips on how to do it.

Note: The numbers are arbitrary. They are just numbered for convenience.

1. Create a strategy for your career transition.

  • Treat your career transition like a product. If you were the product manager for your career transition, what do you need to do?
  • For example, create a Lean Product Requirements Document (PRD) with the goal, objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and activities. After you created a strategy, execute it and measure your efforts quarterly. What worked? What didn’t work? How will you improve? Just like losing weight, you need to have a strategy.
  • How to Define a Winning Product Strategy
  • Six Strategies on How to Become a Product Manager

        “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” – Alan Lakien

 

2. Read books related to product management.

 

3. Read posts written by experienced product leaders.

 

4. Listen to podcasts or watch videos related to product management.

 

5. Attend live events and network with people on product teams.

  • Women In Product are a group of women product leaders working at a variety of Silicon Valley tech companies. WIP hosts an annual conference and monthly events to help women excel in product management and leadership.
  • Advancing Women In Product aims to help foster and develop the next generation of women product leaders. They provide quality events that focuses on developing key skills to be a successful Product Manager.
  • Women In Product Slack Group is a good place to ask experienced women product managers questions, practice interviewing, and discover other resources.
  • Meetup.com may have product management events in your area. Create an account and search for “product management”. Then, attend the meetup in person.
  • After the event, meet the speakers and thank them for the advice they gave.
  • For every person you meet, think about how you can offer value to them. Give before you take, because you might just be able to network your way into a Product Manager role somewhere.

 

6. Soak in as much free product management resources as you can.

 

7. If you are currently working at a company, transition within the company.

  • One of the easiest way to become a Product Manager is to transition within a company.
  • Speak with people in your company that are product managers or on the product team, and let them know that you are interested in product management. Invite them to coffee or lunch and see if they would be willing to offer advice.
  • Work on side projects within the company that is related to product management. Show your worth by adding value, even before asking to become a product manager.
  • Once people know what you are capable of doing, transitioning to a product manager role will be natural.

 

8. Work on your own product or project as the product manager (either with a team or by yourself), from ideation to execution.

  • After you read and learned a lot about product management, then you need to put it into practice.
  • For example, create a strategy for your product or project, conduct research and validate your idea by talking to your target audience, test your prototype (paper or digital) with your target audience, collect feedback, build and launch the product or project, and measure the results.
  • You learn the most when you are actively working on a product or project.
  • Measure results afterward so you have something to talk about during your interviews.
  • How to Build Rockstar Products

           

9. Volunteer at an organization and do tasks related to product management.

  • By volunteering, you might get job opportunities and it may lead you to a Product Manager role at that organization.
  • Code for America is a non-profit organization that works on local issues to help make government work better for everyone, and there are pro bono projects to participate in and grow your skills (onsite opportunities).
  • Taproot+ is where you can find pro bono projects to participate in (onsite and remote available).
  • Volunteer Match allows non-profits to post pro bono opportunities. Start by choosing the cause and filter that you like (onsite and remote available).
  • Catchafire allows non-profit organizations to post pro bono opportunities (onsite and remote available).

 

10. If you have a great idea and need developers, participate in hackathons.

  • For example, search “hackathons” in Meetup.com to see if there are hackathons in your area. You can also host your own mini hackathon by inviting colleagues.

 

11. Conduct informational interviews with experienced product managers and product leaders.

  • There are a lot of product leaders with years of product management experience and may offer words of wisdom that will help you with your journey.
  • Offer something invaluable to them in return and/or treat them out to coffee and/or lunch.
  • Focus on building the relationship long term, not just to use someone for your own gain. People want to help you, they just don’t like being used.
  • Make sure to follow up later and thank them once you landed a product management role.

 

12. Think like hiring managers and research on what hiring managers look for in product managers.

 

13. Practice interviewing for product manager roles by practicing with product managers.

 

14. Give back to the community by helping other people that are trying to become product managers.

  • Don’t wait till you are a product manager to give back. Add value to other peoples’ lives and it may open doors to new opportunities.
  • Once you land a product management role, don’t stop helping people just because you got what you wanted.
  • Being generous, encouraging, and supporting people goes a long way. Give more than you take.

 

15. Critique products that you love and don’t love by writing posts about how to improve them.

  • Make sure that your posts sound positive and that you are offering value to the products.
  • By critiquing products, you may understand the user’s pain points more and better understand what the job of a product manager is like.

 

16. Practice public speaking and exude confidence.

         “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” – Yoda

 

17. Learn how to pitch ideas, negotiate, improve communication, and lead with influence.

 

18. Take free/low cost online courses for a more structured learning. Then, put what you learned to practice.

  • edX, Coursera, Udemy have courses related to product management.
  • Put your product management skills by practicing it, because it speaks volumes compared to just learning it.

 

19. Everywhere you go and everything you do, think like a product manager.

  • For example, one time, I went to the San Francisco Passport Agency to get a new passport, and noticed that a lot of users (people needing to get passports) have a lot of pain points. There were problems in every step of the way. I talked to the users near me, talked to the government employees, and even drafted out the pain points and offered some simple solutions to the government employees.
  • By thinking like a product manager constantly, you just might come up with great ideas to solve real user pain points. And who knows, your ideas might be the start of a new company or product.

 

20. Measure the outcome and results.

  • For example, if your goal is to network with people, how many people did you meet? How many of those new relationships had quality discussions? What are the results? What are your next steps?
  • If a task is too big, break the task into smaller steps so they are achievable.
  • Celebrate the milestones, be grateful on how far you have come, and what you achieved so far. Don’t forget to thank the people that helped you along your PM journey.

 

If you do most of these tips, you will definitely gain knowledge on how to transition to product management and your chance of success will be higher. You got this!

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

 

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