How to Become a Product Manager in 2021

Technical Product Managers

Technical project managers have a background in computer science and are involved with the delivery of tech products, such as IT software and development tools, to the market. They analyze market trends, identify product requirements, and work closely with the engineering and other development teams to ensure such requirements are met.

Internal Product Managers

Internal product managers work on managing products for internal use— that is, the products your co-workers will use. Internal product managers play a key role in maintaining core technologies that employees need in big companies.

Consumer Product Managers

Consumer product managers work on consumer-facing products. They evaluate customer pain points and determine how to reduce those pain points with a new product.

Product Strategy

As a product manager, you’ll be in charge of setting the strategy for product development. This will outline your target market, buyer personas, and how you plan to launch and scale your product. This strategy will guide the entire product development process and give team members an idea of what their role in the product development process will be. You should be able to craft an effective strategy and work with other team members to ensure you cover all essential bases.

Product Design

You don’t need to have technical design skills to succeed as a product manager, but you should know the fundamentals of product design. You should be able to put together a rough plan for the design of a product, which can then be shared with the design and development teams.

Product Lifecycles

The product lifecycle is composed of four main stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. You should know what these stages mean and how to allocate resources based on the stage a product is at.

Value Propositions

As a product manager, you will need to have an understanding of value propositions and customer pain points. You should know how to define a value proposition and explain to your team how the value proposition relates to the main development goals of a product. You should also be able to conduct basic market research.

Data Analysis

Product management is metric-driven. You must know how to use data analytics tools such as Mixpanel, Google Analytics, or Tableau to analyze a product’s performance data. You should also be able to use that information to make better decisions about product updates. While you may have a data analyst who performs this role, you’ll still be in charge of assessing KPIs.

Problem-Solving Skills

The main goal of a product manager is to ensure a product solves its target market’s specific problem. To do so, you must experiment with different solutions until they find one that works. You should also be able to solve any problems that arise during the implementation phase to ensure everyone remains on track.

Communication and Teamwork

As a product manager, you’ll communicate with other members of your organization daily to manage other employees and share information about deadlines and priorities. As such, you must work well with others in your team, delegate responsibilities correctly, and ensure everyone is on track to meet the team’s goals.

Creativity

Product managers often need to come up with creative solutions to difficult problems. Although you’ll have to follow certain processes during product management, you’ll need to think creatively when coming up with the design and feature set of a product.

1. Attend a coding bootcamp specializing in product management.
2. Earn a degree in business management or computer science (for technical product managers) from a traditional university.
3. Learn product management through self-study.

1. Choose a product management career path.
2. Learn about product management through a bootcamp or university.
3. Refine your technical skills.
4. Craft your product management portfolio.
5. Create a product manager resume
6. Begin your job search.
7. Prepare for your technical interview.

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track the job outlook for product managers, other job sites do. For instance, LinkedIn reports over 109,000 open product manager jobs. Technical product management jobs are also expected to grow as companies develop more technology-based projects.