Episode 5: Leveling Up from Associate Product Manager to Product Manager
Top 7 Tips + The Tale of Two Associate Product Managers
We will be discussing how to start elevating from Associate to Product Manager to Product Manager. Let’s level you up!
Stepping up from an Associate Product Manager to a Product Manager is a journey of accumulating knowledge, demonstrating leadership, and cultivating a deep understanding of both the product and the market.
Here are the 7 key actions you can take to make that leap:
Take Exceptional Notes
Summary: Become the knowledge practicitioner for your team.
Tactic: Diligently document conversations that have to do with user stories directly as a comment within Jira (for example), proactively offer to capture comprehensive meeting minutes, and seek clarity post-discussions from the folks that talked the most in the meetings so you can have the space to ask questions and learn more. Your notes should not just recount but also interpret.
Remember: "You get to be the one who captures the notes and forms the story"
Always Have an Agenda
Summary: Transform every interaction into a meaningful stride towards an outcome.
Tactic: Shape each meeting and casual conversation to yield tangible results, be it building connections or generating ideas.
Just grabbing coffee with a colleague? The outcome should be a stronger network, learning about what they are working on, and providing an update and a few questions to get guidance on. Leverage this ‘coffee catchup’ to have compounding value.
Having an ideation session? The outcome should be 3 ideas that have the hint of value for the business and customer while also being perceived technically possible. Pitch decks on the way!
Remember: "Every conversation should move the needle."
Write Pitch Decks
Summary: Cultivate the skill of storytelling through strategic proposals.
Tactic: Develop decks that provide fresh perspectives and invite collaboration. Approach with a story, suggesting co-creation rather than dictating solutions. Need some direction on how to write a proper pitch deck? Check out Product Protégé Guide. When you talk to a co-product person; approach them with curiosity and explain how the features that you’ve seen work in your respective area may have some value in theirs.
Remember: "Weave a story that invites, not imposes."
Data is Your Oxygen
Summary: Let data drive your decisions and strategies.
Tactic: Immerse yourself in understanding site tagging, data flow, and analytics. Make it your mission to detect trends and translate them into actionable insights.
Data Tagging - Understand how data is tagged on your digital property and ensure when you request, you do it in a way that allows the analytics team or developer to run with your request without hurdles.
Data Flow - How does data flow from “Hey can we tag this” all the way to “production”… understand this process and also recognize how to collect the data once it is available.
Data Analysis - Do you know what ever Adobe eVAR represents? Do you recognize all the different new features in you analytics platform that could help you? Do you have a weekly dashboard you view to understand the health of your product? If the answer is no, make it a yes and get help from those who do understand to help get you there.
Remember: "Data is your narrative’s pulse—keep it beating."
Know Your Timeline to the Next Step
Summary: Recognize and maximize the potential of your tenure timeline. Each Associate Product Manager, on average, will have 4-8 quarters to do quarterly planning and to get their feature/function worked on. Tenure for associate product managers is 12-24 months on average.
Tactic: Utilize each quarter as a crucial chapter to showcase your growing influence on the roadmap and your prowess in storytelling and presentation.
Remember: "Time is a stage—make your performance count."
Do Your Job Exceptionally Well
Summary: Should have probably been listed #1. Excel in your current role as a foundation for future leadership.
Tactic: Focus on removing barriers for co-creators, refine your skills, embrace learning, and lead with empathy and flexibility.
Schedule 1:1s with your co-creators outside of typical agile ceremonies
Take free online courses that help in digital analytics, product management, story telling, and strategic leadership.
Spending time with the customer? Write a blog post about it and share it with your team and leadership. This will spur conversation and possibly some next steps for your roadmap.
Lead with a smile
Remember: "Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready”
Understand Idea to Production
Summary: Master the product lifecycle by learning from every role.
Tactic: Initiate conversations with all stakeholders in the release process, piecing together their unique contributions to the big picture. If there is not a great process in place, volunteer your time to mind map out the existing process based on your interviews and gather a few folks to help connect the dots and improve things. Be the person that tactically takes charge and improves the end to end process. Need help understanding a framework to start with? Check out the Product Protégé Guide and the E3 Framework.
Remember: "From start to finish, know where you are and every next step"
Tale of 2 Associate Product Managers
APM 1: Bob's Struggles and Opportunities for Growth
Bob is an Associate Product Manager at a Pet Supply Distributor with an eCommerce presence. Aspiring to be a leader on a product management team, Bob joined the team six months ago but is struggling to keep pace. He understands the customer well but spends an excessive amount of time writing user stories, often lacking clarity in what he seeks to achieve.
Bob’s job is owning the “Product Detail Page” on the eCommerce website. Bob's intense focus on just the Product Detail Page has limited his view. He rarely discusses broader aspects with co-creators like developers, QA, and analytics teams. His work, while appreciated for its focus, misses crucial elements like new navigation impacts and potential synergies with the Home Page team’s work.
For example, Bob has been seeing a dip in recommendations being engaged with on his product detail page while at the same time the Home Page product team has unleashed new recommendation strategies that are working well (and could work for the Product Detail Page too if Bob was paying attention!)
Strategically, Bob needs to elevate his thinking, considering business success alongside customer needs. When the team asks why they are doing a certain feature, Bob refers to one or two customers that requested it. Even though his team reminds him millions visit the website everyday, Bob continues to refer to the one or two feedback requests as to why priority has been provided for the features he is bringing the team.
Without formal training in product management, Bob does enough to get by, but his output on the Product Detail Page is seen as merely average. To reach the next level, he needs to develop a clear vision and strategy for his area, improve his communication skills, speed up refinements, and allocate time to up skill in analytics and user story writing.
APM 2: Alyssa is the Associate Product Manager working to Level Up.
Alyssa is an Associate Product Manager at a Pet Supply Distributor with an eCommerce presence. Aspiring to be a leader on a product management team, Alyssa joined the team six months ago .
For the past six months, Alyssa has dedicated herself to learning as much as possible about the customers, processes, and people involved in her role. She frequently took notes during meetings and followed up with emails to participants, asking, "I captured these notes; do you think I'm missing anything? Also, can you explain what XYZ meant? I'm still new but eager to learn quickly!"
This approach led to people recognizing her efforts and requesting her notes for their meetings, thereby fostering relationships where Alyssa could guide the narrative through her diligent note-taking, inject inquiries, and initiate follow-up actions.
Alyssa also realized she was receiving feedback about inconsistencies in her user stories. She proactively sought out resources on YouTube and Google to improve her skills. Her team noticed her progress over the months, and she was eventually asked to conduct a "Lunch and Learn" session on effective user story writing.
She took feedback as a gift (and didn’t regift it!)
Every Monday, Alyssa reviewed her weekly workspace in Adobe Analytics to observe trends. This routine, taking just ten minutes, proved invaluable when she noticed an abnormal decrease in visits to her product list page. Investigating further through session replays, she discovered an issue with the search box: users were clicking but unable to type. The text, unintentionally changed from black to white in a recent release, was not visible. Alyssa swiftly coordinated with the development and QA teams to identify and rectify this oversight. The prompt fix prevented a significant disruption in customer experience and business operations, earning Alyssa recognition and an award. During the award ceremony, her colleagues highlighted her helpfulness in advancing meeting discussions and her consistently positive demeanor.
When quarterly planning came up, Alyssa came prepared with her pitch deck and her smile first attitude. When it was her time to present options to consider for which features to build, the leadership already knew her, knew her reputation of effective writing, and appreciated her preparedness with pitch decks and open questions to discuss. Her idea was not only chosen, but the leadership team provided her with autonomy to take it from idea to production and only requested to be pulled in for support and to review the results. Alyssa was well on her way to becoming a product manager!
Wrap Up
Bob needs guidance to enhance his vision and strategy for the Product Detail Page. He must engage more with co-creators for a holistic view and faster iteration. Improving communication, particularly in user stories and storytelling, is crucial for Bob. He should also dedicate time each week to develop his skills in analytics, story writing, and strategic planning.
In contrast, Alyssa demonstrates that being effective doesn't necessarily require an immense amount of time for each task. Her effectiveness stems from her comprehensive understanding of the process, data, and people involved. By investing time in these areas initially, Alyssa has experienced compounded growth and success in her role.
Morale of the story here, front load your efforts in understanding the process and the people that get it done, and that will serve you well as you work to grow to the next stage.
Until next week! May your signals of success be strong and your level of effort be low!
