The Long Game in Product Management
The power of patience in reaching long-term goals
You feel good about your work. Your product is doing well. Lots of collaboration with your product team. You deliver on your commitments.
A product manager doing similar work got promoted and you didn't.
What does this mean for your long-term career goals? Nothing!
Let's think about being patient in reaching your long-term product management career goals.
Reflect on Readiness
Consider the skills that are needed for the next level. If you were promoted to the next level, what do you need to do more and what do you need to do less?
Make a note of the activities that product managers are doing at the next level. As product managers progress in their careers, they spend less time on execution tasks such as writing requirements. Since they have mastered the execution, then they are spending less time on those tasks.
As you reflect on the skills for the next level, you can see a pattern of growing your experience into multiplying your expertise with others. The pattern to follow is:
Learn a skill --> communicate about it --> teach it to multiple people
The table below shows key skills progression for different product management levels.
Operate at the Next Level
Don't let anything stop you from operating at the next level! You have the time to figure out how to do the job at the next level.
A good step is leading a meaningful project with more senior people. Here are a few example projects:
Volunteer to present your product in an all-hands
Write an overview of the solution that uses your product by working with marketing leaders
Create and maintain an internal website with inside information on your product
Hold an open house video conference for internal teams to learn more about your product
Learn about your product financials by working with your finance team. Become the go-to person for financial questions. Work through your product financials and teach the rest of the team. Questions to ponder:
How does your product forecast relate to the total market?
How much of your organization's revenue is related to your product work?
What is your point of view on the financial forecast?
Is your market growing? Why or why not?
Consider how to manage your time at the next level. Key points to consider are:
Handling deadlines
Keeping momentum on multiple initiatives
Breaking large projects into smaller steps
Focusing on deep work to produce at the next level
Operate at the next level to be prepared for the next level!
Relationship Building at the Next Level
Meet colleagues across your organization on side projects and events. This expands your operational skills and gives you inside information on your organization.
Stay updated on new product management frameworks and approaches by talking to product people in and out of your organization.
Communicate to your product team about what you learn. Connect your big-picture learning to your product.
Make opportunities to build relationships.
Conclusion - Patiently Grow Your Product Management Career
You drive your long-term career vision. Patiently adding skills is better than a giant career leap before you are ready. Taking a long-term view of your career with incremental growth is better for you and better for your organization. You can drive your growth by:
Learning the next level and building key skills
Contributing at the next level
Building relationships to understand the big picture
Embrace patience as your guiding principle in your long-term career vision. With patience, you can persevere through challenges and be ready to seize opportunities on your career journey.
Want to know what happened after a recent article? Premium subscribers get the inside story of a recent newsletter. Last week’s backstory was how I keep myself on track with Principal Product Manager skills. Characteristics of a Principal Product Manager
Connect to Amy on LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram and X/Twitter