Superpowers for Product Managers
Key skills for product success
Do product managers need any superpowers? Isn't the job about bridging customer needs to engineering? Product management is a challenging job at any level. Each organization has different expectations of its product managers.
Despite the challenges and organizational differences, there are three superpowers that successful product managers have. Developing these superpowers increases your value as a product manager.
You won't find these superpowers in a job description. Instead, you find them in product managers who are sought out by the product team for collaboration.
Product managers are expected to have these skills:
Prioritization
Understand customer needs
Writing requirements
Data-driven decision making
Systems thinking
Collaboration
Let's discuss how superpowers elevate an average product manager.
Superpower 1: Empathy
Understanding the perspectives of customers, stakeholders, and product team members is key to success in product management. Empathy, or the ability to walk in someone else's shoes, is key to building rapport. Picking up on the feelings of others reduces friction in getting things done.
A few examples of empathy in action are:
Describing a customer's problem well enough for engineering to design a solution
Understanding your stakeholders’ business objectives and leading decisions that support them
Providing air cover for engineering to rework a key part of the product
Scheduling a requirements review when the product team can focus on it
Empathetic product managers make decisions that best serve the team ahead of their needs.
Superpower 2: Strong Communication Skills
Almost every product management task depends on effective communication - both written and verbal. Being able to communicate ideas, gather feedback, and align the product team is critical for product managers.
These strong communication skills come into play daily. Examples of this superpower are:
Customer conversations that provide new product insights
The product team understands the intent of your requirements
Financial health decisions are accepted
Leadership in meetings to reach the desired outcome
Collaboration across the product team
Strong communicators inspire teamwork on the product.
Superpower 3: Resilience
Product management can be a challenging and high-pressure roller coaster of a job. With tight deadlines, changing priorities, and setbacks, product managers need to stay motivated and optimistic.
Examples of resilience in product management:
Keeping product momentum through a re-organization
Absorbing engineering feedback and coming back with results
Learning from a lost sale and preventing another loss
With resilience and persistence, product managers face adversity and bounce back.
Conclusion - Bring on Your Superpowers and Elevate Your Contribution
Product managers at any level can hone their superpowers to deliver innovations in their products. Elevating these skills turns product managers into exceptional leaders.
The superpowers to develop are:
Empathy for customers, stakeholders, and the product team
Strong communication skills
Resilience
Embracing these superpowers leads to better product results.
Superpower articles in Product Management IRL
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Patience is a big one, too. As much as we'd like to do more, most of the job is about prioritisation which means some of the cool stuff we'd like done will just need to wait. Can be excruciating!
Totally agree! Somehow all the times I think about that topic, I have the feeling that combining those superpowers with life experience, broad knowledge and being a generalist make you a better PM.