Who do you need to know in your organisation to be quickly be a success
In many definitions of what a product manager does you will find that they get referred to as communicators, or relationship builders, and that’s because they are talking to both sides of the software equation — the stakeholders for requirements and the development teams for delivery.
And when you’re new to a role it can be a bit daunting figuring out who it is that you need to get to know in order to allow you to do your job.
However, there are some key people that it’s useful to get to know in order to smooth your transition into the role.
Designer
Many product managers are capable to knocking up a wireframe to show a new feature, and depending on your background maybe even get a little creative in Photoshop, but what you really need is someone who can take it to the next level.
Product designers will take the understanding of the job that needs to be done that the product team have developed and elevate it to a product wide consistent vision.
Through a design language and design system they can make the PM job easier by find consistent methods for common actions, which in turn makes the life of a developer easier. Once things get easier, you get more value delivered through the system and your stakeholders get very excited by that.
Key elements in building this relationship include:
Clear briefs with an understanding of the goals to be achieved
A view into the future so the overall vision can be pictured
Freedom to be the creative person they were hired to be (not a pixel pusher!)
Support Manager
By support manager, I mean the person who is closest to the feedback being received directly from end users of the product. They might run the call centre, or handle the online chat, but they’re the first place your product’s users turn when they can’t do something and need a little help.
The life of the support manager is full of stress and frustration, which they inherit directly from customers, whose failure to receive their expected outcome results in contacting your support manager and their team.
Understanding the SM’s frustrations is like having a direct dial to your users, which means opportunities to excite and delight with feedback direct from the horse’s mouth.
Key elements in building this relationship include:
Listen carefully
Empathize
Be honest about how long solving their problems might take
Sales Manager
If the support manager is the direct line to what the customer needs now, then the sales manager is the direct line to what the customer is going to need in the future.
They’re out there in the world sharing the joy of your current feature list, and in return, they turn into the recipients of feedback on what your product doesn’t currently do but which the competition is doing, what it doesn’t do but what they’d like it to do, and what it does do but not in the way they want it to be done.
Key elements in building this relationship include:
Listen carefully and distinguish between what the customer wants and what the salesperson wants (they aren’t always the same!)
Don’t over-promise
Prime them with questions you need answers to, so they can be your researchers on the ground
Data analyst
Every product manager needs to be able to do some basic analysis themselves, whether it’s running SQL queries or just getting quite heavy with Excel, as without the data on which to base your decisions then you’re no better than the CEO who sends forth proclamations from their office.
But getting friendly with the data team will help you when you need more data crunching than you can handle, or when your data crunching needs to start looking to the future rather than the past. In these instances, you want to be able to drop by the data desk and have a chat about what you need and why, with the recipients of your request willing to jump in with you.
Key elements for building this relationship include:
Have some knowledge of what you want and why
Have an understanding of the kind of data you’re likely to have available
Give them as much warning to your request as possible, as good data can take time
Lead Developer
For the non-technical PM, lead developers can be the person who highlights the limits of the possible (in a technical sense) and guides you towards a solution that suits the product from a technically sustainable angle.
The good news for non-technical people is that most lead devs have risen to that role because a) they have a great depth of understanding of the technology which you can tap into, and b) they are able to articulate this insight to people who aren’t as knowledgeable. They can typically translate the tech into something non-tech, which allows you to then communicate the information on from a position of understanding and not just parroting phrases.
Regardless of your technical skills, the lead developer will need to be on your side for you to get the most value out of your product. You need them to be onboard with the proposed feature developments, invested in the solution and prepared to go to bat for it with the wider development team.
Key elements for building this relationship include:
Bringing them in early
Listening to their point of view
Ask don’t demand
Delivery Manager / Scrum Master
With this role, we’re talking about the person who gets the team to deliver on their goals and push work over the line and out the door. They’re usually pragmatic people, with a desire to get things done, so you want them to know when to come to you and ask questions, and when to push through and solve the problem.
Without a good delivery manager, your new features can get stuck in the mud and never see the light of day, or they might see the light of day but you just don’t recognize them from the feature you specified at the start.
Key elements for building this relationship include:
Bringing them in early
Share your vision and your boundaries
Keep the door open and communication flowing
The others
Of course, there are others who you need to work with to get stuff done, including your customers! From the DevOps Engineer to the operations manager, the marketing executive to the accounts assistant, and you’ll get to them in time. Once you’re mixing in these circles it’s because you’ve made your mark in your core deliverables and now you need to take the next steps.