Product Management skills are a piece of cake!  

The above statement is true in one sense, that is if your cake has 10 layers; each layer a different flavour sponge that has a different filling, and once eaten you actually realise your perfectly layered cake should have been square shaped rather than a circle!  

A lot like making a cake, the Product Management career requires multiple skills, patience, and love.  Yes, you read that right, love. If you love the product you are working on, then it’s more than likely you will succeed in making it a truly awesome experience for the target customers.  

User / Market research

Before you want to make a cake, you will more than likely do some research around the type of cake you want to make and who you are aiming at tasting your delicious creation. Research - this can help you understand the market problems and competitor information. It can be practical in terms of going out to clients and visually learning how to use the product and it might also take the form of desk research, using the internet / google to find out useful background and context for your plan. The latter is usually less exciting but can prove valuable when time is allocated to really deep dive into the data you want to find. 

Organisation in ambiguous scenarios

Let’s think about what you do when you are ready to bake a cake, you ensure you have all the  ingredients and equipment needed to carry out the bake. Being able to organise yourself to prepare for the bake is key. Organisation doesn’t come easily for everyone and being in product management it is vital that you can organise day-to-day tasks to take control of teams that you feed  information and work into. This particular skill can be built on as you start your adventure in the  product career path. In my opinion, it is one you should focus on quite quickly as it will serve you well as you progress. Product Managers are responsible for organising their own time and in some cases the time of many other stakeholders across the business. They play a key part in getting all the right people in the right place at the right time. The organisation also helps with the ambiguity and change you have to deal with in the role too as it's fairly unstructured and autonomous. 

Planning & Communication

Next comes the careful measurements of each ingredient, ready to mix them in the right order. This  is where the planning element comes in, to ensure you have the right amount of each ingredient and  instructions to mix, you will have pre-planned the list of measurements and the order in which you  add them to the bowl. Stay with me, I haven’t gone mad and confused cake-making with product  management, don’t panic! Planning is another key skill required throughout your product career.  You will be responsible for planning the delivery of key work for the business and ensuring it meets  the time scales you have provided or in some cases been allocated. Planning also includes iterations of work, what you are going to deliver now as part of a first release, and what will follow as  enhancements. This will ensure clear communication when it comes to expectations from the key  stakeholders both internal and external.  

Problem Solving

Ah, the mixing element, some may say the easiest part, and if you’re lucky enough you will have an electric mixer to do all the work for you. In my opinion, the electric mixer takes out the passion and love from the bake. For me sometimes there is nothing better than easing some stress by manually beating up some ingredients. Product people are passionate about their jobs and in some roles, you will be lucky enough to have a business analyst to help out. You will need to enjoy solving customer  problems and be passionate about the solutions you deliver to the target market; it will make telling  the story around the deliverable much more relatable and exciting for stakeholders. Passion can drive success and innovation when working as part of a team to get under the covers of the problems customers experience. 

Patience

Following the mixing stage comes the actual bake in the oven, you pour your mixture into the relevant cake tins, set a timer, and wait. This involves patience. If you take the cake out too soon you could end up with an undercooked centre, too late and you have a dry sponge! You will need to ensure you have a level of patience and understanding as part of your product adventure. It is critical that you can exercise patience in the role.  

Patience is defined as the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve  perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect/anger;  or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties.  

Being patient will aid you in the daily challenges you come up against and the different personalities  you get to experience throughout your career.  

Strategic thinking

Once ready the cake can be removed from the oven ready to be filled and decorated. As part of your research and planning, you will have determined a strategy for implementing your design. Again, this is another skill that can aid you in your day-to-day product management role. Strategy gives you  the high-level goal and direction, and often, it's consistent (it doesn't change too often). Tactics  then are the low-level set of choices that get you there - and these can change or have lots of options, as long as they work to get you to that goal. Sometimes as you start, it may be that you  are not involved in many strategic conversations however use your autonomy to start exploring this skill in the daily work you are part of. Throughout the creation of your cake, you may have been referring to an action plan which kept you on track for completion of the bake. This can relate to creating a roadmap driven by customer problems and market needs to input towards the strategy driven by the business goals and product vision. It is worth being mindful that plans change from time to time, and this is ok as long and the pivot reflects the needs of the business.  

Resilience

Finally, you have your completed cake, at this point you probably feel very proud of your  achievement and are in great anticipation to taste your creation. Imagine taking a bite and it not tasting quite right. At this point the disappointment may start to sink in however I doubt the  experience would stop you from ever baking again. This is where resilience comes in. Resilience can  provide you with a protective factor to deal effectively with times of change, high pressure, and stress – all of these you will experience as part of your role. The important part to remember is how  you can learn from these experiences and take the key learnings forward with you.  

In summary, although there are many other skills required as part of the product management role, I wanted to touch on some of the key skills I feel are relevant to the role from my experience. So yeah, Product Management – it’s as easy as baking a cake!

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To pick up on certain product management skills in a short 2 month program, check our Flagship PM School course here.

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