SHOULD PRODUCT MANAGERS BE TECHNICAL?
Happy new year everyone. Last year was an amazing and exciting experience, got to help build and scale a few start-ups, consulted on a few products, advised some companies, traveled, and started building something. With all of these going on, I was unable to write frequently, which was upsetting but also gratifying because I was fully involved in my work and gained expertise in critical thinking and added experience in my craft.
I previously wrote about this subject here. I previously argued that product managers shouldn’t necessarily be technical, a position I still maintain. However, after spending the last two years as a product lead at various organizations and managing different product teams, I now believe it is crucial for product managers to possess some fundamental technical skills. This will enable you to advance more quickly and sustain you in product leadership roles where you will be in charge of an inclusive, cross-functional team.
Some basic technical abilities a Product Manager should possess;
Testing APIs using postman
Updating documentation on GitHub, Gitlab, or any code repository tool
Forking
Database management via SQL
Basic knowledge of some software development tools like VS Code, Heroku, and AWS
Benefits of having technical knowledge as a PM
It aids in your comprehension of resource needs, durations for development, how to construct your roadmap, as well as how to manage stakeholder expectations.
It generally improves your knowledge of your products and how to manage them.
It makes it easier for you to discern whenever your engineers or developers offer you erroneous planning or resource estimates — or even slightly overestimate them.
You’ll gain the support of your technical team, which is generally very important.
It aids in your better understanding of your industry, market, and the ever-present risks and new technologies.
How to grow your technical knowledge
Learn basic programming languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript and build a simple project.
Learn the fundamentals of APIs, get acquainted with postman, and understand the status of various codes (200, 300, 400, etc.).
Learn how to manage databases with SQL
Familiarize yourself with cloud servers (AWS), database tools (MongoDB), and hosting services.
Take technical certification courses. I advise taking the AWS cloud foundation course for beginners and interesting Microsoft and Google cloud courses.
Product management has other outlets like Growth PM, Technical PM, etc. This article is targeted at product managers who wish to advance to the role of product lead and consider managing a multi-disciplinary team.
My podcast for the week is Pivot by Kara and Scott (Listen here)
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