According to product management statistics, the demand for product managers has doubled in the last five years in the US alone. 51% of the product managers work in the technology industry followed by 11% in financial services and 5% in the healthcare industry. This data clearly shows that a vast majority of product managers are working in the IT industry alongside CIOs.
Gone are the days when IT departments used to stay isolated and were only responsible for ensuring security and optimum functionality of devices. Today, they play an active role in leading digital transformation initiatives. With more and more businesses ditching traditional approaches and adopting product based methodologies, this has led to the rise of cross functional teams.
This means that business and IT professionals would be working in the same team to achieve a common goal. This means that product managers must have a combination of both soft and hard skills to succeed. On the flipside, IT leaders should also understand the qualities that make a product manager successful.
If you are an IT leader who is interested in learning about it then this article is for you. In this article, you will learn about five unique qualities that make product managers stand out.
5 Qualities That Makes Product Managers Special
Here are five qualities that make successful product managers.
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Empathy
Empathy is not just a skill required to succeed as a product manager, it is a leadership trait that makes all the difference. Sadly, most product managers and even leaders don’t exercise it too often, which leads to their downfall.
According to Charles Paumelle,Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Microshare summed it up brilliantly when he said, “Empathy is essential because product managers need to always keep in mind the raison d’être of their products — who will use them, and why will customers change habits to adopt a new product.” According to him, “Too many products fail, despite being technically brilliant or aesthetically beautiful, because they serve no unmet need and therefore find no customer adoption.”
Shane Quinlan went a step further and suggests that empathizing with customers is not enough and you have to go above and beyond that to succeed as a product manager. Explaining his point, he said, “You also need to understand, balance, and mold the perspectives from multiple functional areas — dev, stakeholders, design, etc. — and personalities.Whether you call that EQ or something less buzzy, it’s the soft skills that make great product managers”
The good news is that even if you don’t specialize in empathizing with key business stakeholders, you can slowly but surely learn this skill and get better at it. Your goal as a product manager should be to make everything more simple and easy for end users.
Instead of looking at customers and other business stakeholders from a business perspective, think of them as a family member or your best friend. How would you explain your product to your best friend or your mom or dad? Adopt the same approach when explaining your products to your business stakeholders and you will succeed.
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Communication Skills
The primary job responsibility of a product manager is to maintain sanity in a cross functional team. Your goal is to make them work together towards achieving a common objective. Managing different individuals with different perspectives coming from different backgrounds and having different skill sets is not easy. To do this effectively, you need to have exceptional communication skills.
As a product manager, you will coordinate with engineering departments and make sure that they understand your requirements. Sometimes, you might also have to deal with angry customers who are venting their frustration. That is where strong communication skills can come in handy. Similarly, you might be at the stage presenting your products at conferences and you are also the one presenting your case in front of board members and C-suite executives. All these require great communication skills.
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Decision Making Capabilities
Product managers who empathize with stakeholders develop a better understanding of emotional challenges they encounter. Combine that with actionable insights and data, product managers can also keep a close eye on analytics as well. This puts them at a great position when it comes to making the right business decisions at the right time such as opting for cheap dedicated hosting. That is where their decision making skills can make them shine.
Instead of wasting too much time in analytics or looking at the nitty gritty of the product, it is important for product managers to make quick and accurate decisions. This can even give you a competitive advantage and put your business one step ahead of your competitors.
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Flexibility
Luke Gannon, product manager at Neo4j thinks that flexibility is crucial for the success of product managers. According to him, “You have to learn to be flexible in order to get over any hurdles, like late delivery or bad enablement content. It’s important to focus on the overall goal while still recognizing that the plan you built initially may need to be shifted over time in order to achieve the vision.”
The pace at which things change in a product life cycle forces product managers to be flexible whether your product is a software or hardware like cheap dedicated server los angeles. If you have a rigid approach to product management, you are bound to fail. The more flexible a product manager is, the better they can deal with emerging challenges and respond to ever changing market demands more efficiently. When you are working in a rapidly evolving industry like technology where Cloudways Reviews is replaced by Vps singapore, you have to be flexible and nimble to respond to emerging challenges in a much better way.
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Analytical Skills
I have already mentioned analytical skills multiple times in this article already. With data at the heart of enterprises, a product manager can not succeed if he or she does not possess top class analytical skills. Product managers should have an analytical mindset and combine it with the enthusiasm and drive to take the organization forward in order to succeed. Don’t forget to add the creative touches as it can truly make you stand out.
Which qualities differentiates great product managers from average ones? Share it with us in the comments section below.
