Today we're talking about the things that I wish I knew before I became a product manager and one big red flag you should be aware of. Everything in product management is not as hunky dory as it sounds on some of our favorite podcasts and LinkedIn followers’ profile.

Let’s explore more into what it means to be, a product manager. The ones who haven’t yet tasted the elixir being a PM or an APM, must have heard about how amazing the role is and all these incredible networking you do, how you get to work with different stakeholders to launch products and features into the market and so on. But not everything about product management is so awesome and, in this article, we would talk about the things that I wish I knew before I became one

1. You just never have time!

So firstly, when you start any new job, you usually have time to set up coffee chats/ or a one-o-one’s with your colleagues and teammates and slowly as you ramp up especially as a product manager you will realize soon that if you don't start to manage your calendar, it’s like saying goodbye to each minute of free time you have, including having no time to think and innovate.

Here's something that you can do to help you with it if you're feeling like you really don't have any control over your schedule.

First, you don’t have to attend all meetings. I can relate to initial FOMO when you join a new team and you want to know the entire scheme of things and become more hands on to your job, but FIGHT that feeling!

Second, try to find chunks in your calendar, current week, next week or even in the future, where you let’s say, have a couple of hours without meetings, block it and mark them as personal time, where you'll finally be able to do some work. It’s your time to concentrate, finish those pending documentations, revisit those draft PRDs or strategy presentations due for upcoming leadership reviews or simply draw your upcoming product/feature’s wireframes.

I personally also recommend blocking your lunch time and make it visible to others, this might seem like your calendar is always full.

However, this gives you control of which meetings you want to schedule during your personal time. Moreover, you need some fuel for that PM brain!!I hate having lunch during one of the calls. Food is essential - Its why we work in the first place right?

2. You can’t say “NO”!

Specially if someone needs my help or request something and I know plenty of product managers were just like me and can’t say ‘No’. But there's a big problem with that. Product managers oversee different parts of the product or different features and depending on the size of the product and of the company, you can even be a product manager for a like button on a profile page or handling an entire card authorization platform with trillion dollars’ worth of daily transactions. Now cross team PM’s can come to you to support their product by promoting it on yours or ask you to sit in meetings where there is overlap between your products. On top of all that, your product head/leader is also asking you to incorporate a new use case in your product that directly hampers some other feature’s metrics, and you can't really say yes to all of them. You know that saying ‘No’ to one is going to be very tricky!!!

In reality, this will constantly happen to you as a product manager but not just from other PM’s but almost everyone. What you can do is to learn how to say no early in your career otherwise your backlog, your features, priorities and even your relationships can be a complete mess.

You can explain to them why you are not going to include their request in your backlog or at least why it won't be included right now. Focus on your communication on how you are saying no. Most likely you'll have to work with them soon again and trust me, they will remember !!

3. People Think You do Nothing!!

Forget people, even my Mom doesn’t!! It sometimes gets impossible to measure your accomplishments and your own progress as a Product manager. We read all the time that product managers work cross-functionally with engineers, designers, marketing, customers and any other role in order to scope a new product or a feature.

But what exactly did the product manager do in the lifecycle of a product, we don't code, we don't do the design, we schedule a meeting and wrote a document. How are you supposed to add that to your resume??

I remember the first time that a college junior moved from an operations role to a product management role at a multinational bank I worked at, the first thing he asked me was how do I know what I am supposed to do next? Frankly, I think I still don't know!!

In product management there are certain things that you know you must do for example competitive analysis, user interviews, creating documentation, creating user stories and depending on your team, some project management work to make sure things are progressing well.

But ultimately you didn't code or create the design or didn't send the marketing campaign, but you are certainly responsible for the full product lifecycle and the success of the product.

As a PM your job is to drive the product, add clarity, remove any impediments and make sure that what the team is working on is solving a customer problem. Your product or feature is aligned to the metrics your team is tracking -like increasing number of users or revenue or customer satisfaction.

Best advice I got early in my career was to start tracking and celebrating the small things you can accomplish like getting a sign off, a happy customer review or even a very smooth stakeholder meeting. With time, you will realize that when the product or feature is launched there were a lot of things that you did, to get to that point and that you'll be able to add to your resume.

Product management isn't easy nor is it as glamourous as recruiters nowadays claim it to be. But at its core, the PM role is strategic, empathetic and managerial. It's what companies are looking for in product management interviews.

If you enjoy talking to people, analyzing data, and working with numerous teams at one go, this career is the right one for you.

Being a product manager means wearing a lot of different hats and managing each one effectively. Building products used by millions of people all over the world can be exciting and even fascinating and this feeling is what makes you a great Product Manager.

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