Product management is a strange discipline.

The activities and work that product managers are responsible for are constantly changing. It is one of the least defined roles in the organization. Product management is not a school specialty, and most product managers end up working in a variety of subject areas. So whether you’re a computer science, industrial design, English or political science major, product manager is a role you can consider moving to.

Your growth and success as a product manager depends on many different factors. As a product owner, you wear many hats — design, engineering, legal, sales, marketing, etc. People want to continue to acquire information in these areas and, through learning, solve complex problems.

Ultimately one of the essential qualities required to become a product manager is a person’s curiosity and desire to learn.

Your growth as a product manager depends largely on your love of learning.

Continuous learning

Growth is learning.

As mentioned above, many product managers come from an area unrelated to the products they manage, so continuing to learn the important tasks and requirements of becoming a product manager to jump in and take on the responsibilities of their role. The job provides ample opportunity for product managers to grow and learn, and they must take advantage of these moments. Acquiring new skills and knowledge helps people define new product ideas better and collaborate more effectively with cross-functional colleagues in the organization.

The activities and work that product managers are responsible for are constantly changing. You must have knowledge of technology, design, leadership, people management, negotiation, organizational communication, etc.

Learning becomes a framework

When thinking about growing as a product manager, you can think of learning as a combination of three key areas: learning = (knowledge * skills) + capability

Knowledge (acquisition)

Knowledge can be thought of as any information we get. It is considered a theoretical understanding of a concept or topic. It could be information you get from books, magazines, online videos, college courses, blogs, etc.

For product managers, this includes:

• Learn about the latest technology trends like machine learning and the Internet of things
• Proficient in user experience research
• Design knowledge and understanding
• Analysis and A/B testing
• Familiar with economics
• Accumulate field experience and market knowledge
• Master business fundamentals

Skills (practice)

Skill is the application of theoretical knowledge we acquire, developed through practical training or experience, it is the ability to apply our knowledge.

For product managers, this includes:

• Communication, prioritization, negotiation, leadership, etc
• Ability to use design, analysis, and project management tools
• Conduct user research
• Relationship and team management skills
• Story writing, function definition
• Effective collaboration

Ability to

There’s a fine line between ability and skill, but there’s still a line. The main difference is that ability is innate. So while we can improve our abilities, they are still considered innate and internal rather than learned behaviors.

Competence, while important, is not the key factor in learning and growing as a product manager. Ultimately, what makes the biggest difference is how we deal with new knowledge and acquire new skills.

Become a product manager

When it comes to our career development as product managers, continuous learning becomes important. However, we often don’t have the time or framework to understand where we need to prioritize our learning.

We can draw the product management growth chart based on the four quadrants of learning:

The first quadrant

High knowledge; low-skilled

In this setting, individuals focus on acquiring new knowledge, but not necessarily improving their skills through constant practice. As a product manager, studying in the details of this quadrant helps you gain insight into one or more concepts in a particular area of knowledge. In addition, it often helps to develop a subject matter expert.

PMS in this quadrant tend to acquire expertise in their respective fields and have keen insights to build products that are specific to that field.

The fourth quadrant

Low knowledge; Highly skilled

This is usually seen when individuals spend most of their time developing their skills and execution. They tend to neglect to acquire new information and are not focused on learning about new areas and topics.

As product managers, people in this quadrant tend to accumulate and develop skills in different areas of product management. This learning helps product managers grow into effective individual contributors.

Organizations tend to rely on such product managers to drive and execute major initiatives across the company.

In the second quadrant

High knowledge; Highly skilled

This is the sweet spot for learning. Being able to master new skills while taking the time to build your knowledge is definitely the best way for a product manager to grow.

You’ll more easily execute and build expertise to lead higher level business strategies.

The third quadrant

Low knowledge; low-skilled

Ideally, as a product manager, you should not stay in this quadrant. But hopefully, given the nature of the role, you always learn on the job in some way.

Growth requires learning.

As you can see, both components of learning are important for growth. Focusing on one area and making sure you continue to learn will affect your growth trajectory as a product manager. As we consider growing as product managers, continuous learning will ultimately help us improve our ability to deliver better products.

The above learning framework is not limited to product management. I encourage everyone to look at their discipline within this framework, and you’ll notice that long-term growth and success require similar intent.

By Parv Sondhi

Translated from:Medium.com/agileinside…

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