Mindset change to switch to a PM role
There are many of my friends and colleagues, who are in different roles but want to switch to a product manager role. While there are certain certifications such as CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) PSPO (Professional Scrum Product Owner) to help you understand the basics - Roadmap management, Backlog management, etc., there are seldom articles written about the mindset change to make the switch. Having been in several roles in my career (engineer, technical lead, project/program manager, scrum master, and now a product manager), I empathize with them and want to help you with the same from personal experience.
Switching from engineering role to PM
In the engineering role (Regardless of title), you are concerned with the HOW to execute requirements. Many of my engineering friends want the requirements clarified at the story level and are very uncomfortable with uncertainty. Many of them are far off from the realistic situations. For example, engineers have asked me things like if they have used a device for over 24 hours a day.Since it is impossible to have 24 hours a day,it is something that shouldn’t happen. (Of course, engineers should have error-handling in their code but for product managers, the goal is to focus on the realistic situations.)
You will have to prioritize engineering upgrades and architecture upgrades BUT not design them. Your job is to understand the gravity of the situation and prioritize them appropriately. Your job is to deliver business value to customers continuously while ensuring that the engineering architecture is still robust.
Switching from project/program manager/scrum master roles to PM
In these roles, you are concerned about PROCESS and TIMELINES. You might be across multiple teams instead of one. Depending on industry, you were earlier depending on the product manager for requirements and engineers for timelines. In many organizations, the change management and release management tasks are also for these roles. Mostly, you are not used to uncertainty in this role because you want to know dates by when the MVP will be complete.
So, now if you want to move to a product manager’s role then understand the other roles a little better. My assumption here is that currently even as a project/program manager/scrum master, you have a high level idea of the product. Focusing deeper on requirements and working with engineers on feasibility will help you define a feasible MVP.
Switching from a business analyst to PM
This is the closest role that I can think of, which helps you transition to a product manager. Many companies do have this role even though in the agile framework, they don’t have this role. Practically speaking, there are cases, where deeper analysis is needed. So, in this role you might already be connected to commercial teams, engineers and helping the product manager define the MVP. You might be comfortable with the discovery process.
Final Thoughts
DISCOVERY is one of the key things you will do as a product manager. You ’d talk to customers, users and learn about their pain points. In other words, you will have to keep an open mind and be comfortable with uncertainty. You need to engage with different commercial teams like marketing, sales, etc (depending on your industry) and most importantly customers. Remember that your job is more COLLABORATIVE in nature than a single function. You can use your skills from your previous roles to transition into your product manager role. You need to TRUST other functions to do their job otherwise it isn’t possible to do your job. Work with your program/project manger/scrum master to develop checkpoints so as to NOT miss critical things. The common thing for all of the above switches is that you were responsible for one function only but now you have to get the product to the finish line and beyond!