How to transition from UX Designer to Product Manager
In their 2019 trends survey, the Product Management Festival found that the transition from UX Designer to Product Manager represented nearly 2% of all transitions into product. How can designers maximize their skills, focus on their skills gaps and get their dream product job?
What skills do UX designers bring to product management?
There are two main reasons that there are considerable numbers of UX designers who make the transition into product management:
Proximity to product roles
Shared skills
When it comes to shared skills across roles, the following are perhaps most relevant:
Good understanding of user experience
Have a customer focus
Creative design thinking
Requirements gathering
Understanding the user’s needs
What skills gaps might a UX Designer have?
Of course, being in a different type of role doesn’t expose you to the full range of skills that are required when you’re in an alternative position, and the following are the most typical skills gaps for UX Designers:
Understanding system interactions
Workload and feature prioritization
Gathering user requirements and writing up these requirements
Stakeholder management
Handling day-to-day decision-making that affects the work the team is working on
How to fill a skills gap
When it comes to findings ways to fill skills gaps, there are a few areas in which UX designers can work to gather the necessary expertise, including:
Taking on the role of scrum master — which will assist with understanding more of the technical challenges and handling day-to-day decisions
Work alongside a product manager — which will expose them to decision-making and more strategic thinking
Manage your design backlog like a product backlog — which will provide experience in writing user stories, prioritization, and decision making
For many of these steps, the important thing is to speak to others in the business and find opportunities to help them and gain the experience needed to fill the gap.
Talk to the existing product management team and, of course, your line manager, to find the moments to pick up new skills that will count towards your future product role.