A brief guide on how I continue learning as a PM
Learning never stops - it's the nature of the job
Let’s be honest, there is a ton of content out there about…everything. Product management is no exception.
One of the central goals of my newsletter is to ensure I provide real, practical, easy-to-digest takeaways about product management and the process of building software so that I can have a place to reference all I have learned thus far while helping others who may be just starting out.
Through my own learning endeavors, I’ve realized that a lot of articles focus on fancy frameworks and include terminology that makes authors seem like they are in the top 1% of product managers. While we should all strive to be that (I certainly do!), that is not what I am trying to accomplish in my newsletter. That’s why in this week’s article, I wanted to provide a quick outline of how I continue learning to be the best PM that I can be. Below are 3 areas that I feel comfortable speaking to.
Twitter
If you follow the right people, any time you log onto Twitter is is a chance to learn about how PMs at great companies build great products. Here are some people that I follow who consistently tweet about all things product, some who have been working in product longer than others (shameless plug: here’s my Twitter)
Andrew Nguyen (Head of Product, Mobile @ Zappos)
Pranav Pathak (Product Leader @ Booking.com)
Will Lawrence (PM @ Facebook)
Shreyas Doshi (Product @ Stripe)
Teresa Torres (Product Discovery Coach @ Product Talk)
Casey Winters (CPO @ Eventbrite)
Ravi Mehta (former CPO @ Tinder, ex-FB)
Marty Cagan (Partner @ Silicon Valley Product Group & Author of Inspired, which I highly recommend)
Online courses & certifications
I really want to emphasize that the consensus in the product community seems to be that experience is the best “certification” you can have. If you are someone who is trying to land your first product gig and are thinking about how you can stand out, I’d recommend 10 times out of 10 that you offer to intern somewhere for a few months instead of receiving a certification. I think some online courses and certifications are great to brush up on certain skill sets (i.e. how to really practice an Agile development process, how to evaluate engagement and retention and implement a strategy for improving, etc.). In the fall I took Reforge’s 6-week Engagement & Retention series, which was amazing and I highly recommend it. While they went through valuable frameworks and case studies, the biggest value I received from it was teaching me how to think like a great PM — the questions to ask, when to ask them, and strategies for improving KPIs.
Practicing self awareness and always asking questions
I practice self awareness and reflection on a daily basis to try to be better at what I do. Are there certain concepts that engineering is talking about that I’m not knowledgeable of (and do I need to be knowledgeable about them to add value to conversations and to our customers)? Are there gaps in communication across the company that I am best positioned to handle? Are there areas of the product I manage that I need to better understand?
Whether via a Google search or in Facebook or LinkedIn product communities, I’ll frequently ask questions and search for the best answers to these types of questions. As I said above, there is truly no shortage of product management content out there. The trick becomes being self-aware. You don’t need to learn things that you won’t actually apply on the job. And you won’t apply things on the job if they aren’t needed at your organization at a given moment in time.
Leave a comment below if you have any questions about product management learning resources!
