Main takeaways: - Role of ‘Product Manager’ varies a lot depending on multiple factors. It’s important to be aware of this variation, especially as an early-career PM to be able to make the right decisions. - There are common elements to a product role. There are (soft) skills you can improve on which will help you throughout your PM career. The best way to improve these skills is to find learning opportunities to refine these skills. - Product Management role is not-so-easy to fit in the dichotomy of good and bad, right or wrong. Product work is a multi-faceted decision-making process that doesn’t always have a clear winner. - The first rule of learning Product Management is doing Product Management. It’s not a job with an easy learning process. People from diverse backgrounds can and are encouraged to get into Product Management.

1. What Is Product Management?
by Intercom Product Leader
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6. What is Product
Management?
Shilpi Agrawal

7. About Me
Hello! I’m Shilpi 👋
I’m a Product Manager with Intercom.
Previously, I have worked with startups like
Mohalla Tech (ShareChat and Moj), VMock.
I also had a brief stint as an Associate Consultant
at Zinnov Management Consulting.
You can find me @shilpiagrawal55 on Twitter or
on my website iamshilpi.com

8. What am I going to talk about?
● What is Product Management?
● Product Management Skills
● Variation in Product Management Role
● Frequently asked questions
This webinar is designed for aspiring and new Product Managers.
Anything shown is for illustrative purposes to convey the bigger story.
This is not an exhaustive ultimate definition guide to Product Management.
Rather, this is how I think about Product Management and think may be useful
to share for the benefit of aspiring and new PMs :)

9. Generally speaking,
Product Managers do not really code…
Product Managers do not really design…
Product Managers do not always write SQL to analyse data…
Product Managers do not really make engineering capacity plans…
Product Managers are not focused on marketing or sales alone…
Product Managers do not always QA their launches…
Product Managers do not make pretty slides like consultants 😬…

10. Then what is product management, really?

11. What is Product Management?
Product Management is about defining the product and ensuring its success.
PMs do many things which require many different skills.
There’s more. PM role varies a lot. Knowing these things and skills is required but not
sufficient information to join / aspire to join any company as a Product Manager.
Wait…
Is it oversimplification?
Possibly!
So let’s get into the details!

12. PMs do many things which require many different skills
Customer Research
PMs understand and
consolidate customer
requirements and pain points
from different feedback
channels (customers
interviews, sales, customer
support team, feature requests
etc.)
Competitor Research
PMs research to understand
the market and competitor
landscape.
They build an understanding
of where their product should
aim to meet the industry
standard and where they
should aim to differentiate.
Strategy & Roadmapping
PM aligns with company and
overall product strategy to
prioritize the problems to be
solved in the product roadmap.
They ensure the most
impactful problems are
prioritized to ensure business
and customer success
Analytics
PMs effectively use data and
form insights about their
product.
This is then taken as an input
to their decision making to
uncover product opportunities
and pain points.
Define the problem
PMs define the problem
statement correctly after doing
their research (customer
research, competitor research,
analytics input)
Before arriving at a roadmap or project / feature, PMs typically do -
After arriving at a roadmap item or project / feature, PMs typically do -
Define the scope
PMs gets into the feature
details and ensure teams
constantly fight to scope
smaller to learn faster. PMs
ensure that important
Launch
Ultimately, PMs ensure the
team is shipping the right
things.
PMs leave no stone unturned
to get things done to ship.
Deliver & measure outcomes
PMs ensure that the product is
marketed effectively, has
expected outcomes (adoption
etc) and is sold effectively. If
the outcomes are not as per
expectation, then the PMs find
the root causes and fight for
outcomes

13. Generally speaking,
Product Managers do not really code…
…but interact with engineers / coders on a frequent basis to ensure the team
is building the products right
Product Managers do not really design…
…but interact with designers on a frequent basis to ensure the product
designs are solving for most important customer pain points
Product Managers do not write SQL to analyse data…
…but interact with data scientists / analysts on a frequent basis to ensure the
correct use of data to drive success

14. Product Managers do not really make engineering capacity plans…
…but interacts with engineering managers to ensure right things are
prioritized and scoped to maximise impact from limited capacity
Product Managers are not focused on marketing or sales alone…
…but interacts with Product Marketing Managers and Sales team to ensure
the products tell the story you want to tell and are able to sell themselves
Product Managers do not always QA their launches…
…but ensures that quality of product is good for their customers to be used
Product Managers do not make pretty slides like consultants 😬…
..oh well 󰤆

15. Source : Tweet by Shreyas Doshi
PMs do many things which require many different skills

17. Ideally, you would think all
PMs do all things..
..and possess all the skills

18. Practically, PM role depends…
Depending on somethings, a PM can be doing lot more of customer research
than analytics and may need much more of commercial sense than other skills
For illustrative purposes only

19. What does the PM role depend on?

20. PM role varies a lot depending on the these factors
Reiterating that Day to day Product Manager role varies a lot.
Knowing what is product management and the skills it takes is required but
not sufficient information to join / aspire to join any company as a Product
Manager.
What all factors influence the PM role?
Business
Model
For eg. Is the
company B2B
or B2C?
Industry
For eg. Is the
company
FinTech co.?
Company
Size
For eg. Is this a
startup, mid-size
company or
large co?
Product Size
For eg. The
product you’ll be
managing - is
this used by 100
people or
100000?
Product
Stage
For eg. Is this
the product’s
start phase,
growth phase or
end phase?
Team Size &
Composition
For eg. Does
the team have a
PMM?
Who is the
customer
For eg. Which
region the
customer
segment belong
to and how they
behave?

21. For instances...
A PM with a B2C company may run more large scale experiments than a PM with B2B company. A PM at
B2B may be closer to Sales than a PM at B2C.
A PM in Social Media industry may be more focused on increasing DAU/MAU/Engagement/Retention
while a PM in e-commerce industry may consider revenue as a north star. A PM in Fintech may work more
closely with Legal and Compliance department than a PM in EdTech.
A PM with a big company may need more communication, influence and alignment skills than a PM with a
startup. A PM with a startup may need to wear multiple hats than a PM with a big company.
A PM working with a new product may need to do more research about the market and take more riskier
bets than a PM working with an already established product.
A PM with fully-functional autonomous team having all skill set may not need to QA their products.
A PM working on problems faced by customers in specific geography like India may deal with different
cultural and behaviour nuances than a PM working on global products.

22. So, is REAL answer to What is Product Management.. 😛

23. Frequently asked questions
Seems like a lot of skills needed to become a PM. How do I acquire these skills?
Firstly, acknowledge that nobody is perfect and you will have some skills better honed and others
require more attention and developing.
Identify the ones you’re good at and the ones you need to improve.
Now that you’ve identified this, how to you improve certain skills which needs improvement?
By pushing yourself in uncomfortable opportunities to improve those skills!
● Don’t think your influential communication is up to mark and you get nervous? Speak in a
webinar! (hehe)
● Don’t have any product sense as you have no prior experience? Take up an opportunity
which lets you work with someone who does and you can learn from!
Personally, I think the only way to learn product management is by doing product management
󰤆

24. Frequently asked questions
I have experience working in XYZ and looking to move to PM role. Do companies hire people like
me for PM role and can I find success in this role?
It depends. You can probably answer this yourself if you dig a little deeper and get specific. Like we said,
PM role varies a lot. Different companies hire people with different background to fulfill their unique need
for product management.
Do you think you have some skills needed in PM role because of your previous experience?
Do you think you can develop other important skills needed in the PM role?
If so, find the right companies who would be open to hire you and go through the process. Improve your
interview skills. Be ready to tell them why do you think you can do the PM role and what are your strengths
and growth opportunities!
Finding success in this role is totally up to you and how you define success :)
Same answer applies to fresher looking for PM roles. Find the right opportunities by checking companies
and their requirements and APPLY. Don’t let rejection deter you. Take it as a learning experience,
improve your interview skills and keep applying. Rejection is an integral part of life.

25. Frequently asked questions
How do I prepare for PM interviews?
Develop your PM skills. Understand how best to tell your story. Take the interview as a two way
street - understand what is expected from the role at that particular company.
There’s tonnes of materials on the internet to prepare for PM interviews.
Books : Cracking the PM Interviews by Jackie Bavaro, Decode and Conquer by Lewis C. Lin
Youtube Channels : Exponent
Communities : Product School, The Product Folks, Creators of Products
Follow amazing product folks : Shreyas Doshi,
Shreyas Doshi : A thread of resources for aspiring and new product managers

26. Thank you so much for listening in!
If any of you amazing people want to join an amazing mission
at Intercom - have a look at intercom.com/careers. We’re
growing and would love to hear from you!
To get in touch with me, you can visit my website
iamshilpi.com
You can also send me a DM on Twitter (@shilpiagrawal55) or
shoot me a mail at shilpiagrawal555@gmail.com.
I would love to hear if this was useful or not. Feedback is the
oxygen for growth and I’d love to hear from you lovely people
😇

27. Part-time Product Management
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