It’s a start of a new year, 2017 to be exact, and you might have decided that 2017 is the year you jump into Product Management. Excellent choice (I’m biased, of course)!
Getting into Product Management is not easy. I often joke that it’s simpler to become a doctor or a lawyer than to become a Product Manager. Unlike law and medicine, there’s no formal education program (yet) that will guarantee you’ll become a Product Manager. In other words, to get into Product Management, you have to be in Product Management. No company out there will just hand the reins of their product’s future, and most likely company’s future, to just some random person who applied to their PM job posting and somehow got through the HR interview.
Product Management is one of the most difficult positions out there: not only do you need to find out what the market needs and deliver it, but you also have to consistently manage/handle everybody who has an opinion on what you’re doing and what you should be doing…in the most delicate, diplomatic way possible! And that’s not even the crux of being a PM, so what is? Your ass is on the line every single day!
Although it can be stressful, I think it’s the most fulfilling position I’ve had, and it’s something I can see myself doing for the next 5 to 10 years easily!
So how does on get into PM? There are two ways I’ve seen it done:
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