The scope of a product manager
What are the boundaries a PM could face when working within a product.
This is the first “informational / broadcasting” post of all I’ve written so far, but it’s inspired in the number of personal and group reflection about things that have been accomplished and things that want to be accomplished in the upcoming year.
I would like to focus this time on the personal dimension, and especially when it comes to ask yourself the following question, “Am I going to be promoted on my next performance review?”
There are many signals that could lead you think that you can aspire to a PM position if today you are an APM or Junior PM, or become a Senior PM one if today you are a PM.
Some of them are:
Great feedback from peers and stakeholders about your work
Your team is very vocal when you are pulling away in many directions
Customers feedback based on interactions you have with them
many more
Although there are companies that based the progression of their PMs on the aforementioned bullet-points, I’m almost sure that is not a leading indicator of promotion, nor that you’re ready for taking on the duties the higher position entails.
Disclaimer: there might be some companies that are going to promote PMs if they meet most of the criteria previously mentioned, and certainly is a signal that these companies may not have a well career-path articulated.
On this thread, Shreyas exposes a 2 dimension Matrix that could useful to understand where you are now, and if you think you should move into the next box.
This means that, if on 2022 you have been managing the scope of one single feature where the impact is not as big as other parts of the product, it’s likely you are on the PM2 box and you won’t be progress into the next one. That doesn’t mean, that because of market dynamics or product strategy a new feature you work on, becomes impactful and therefore you can move into the next box.
Assessing your progression based on that matrix is quite useful, but we need to agree on the Unique Impact and Scope meaning in advance, which sometimes is not easy to do.
Another great and easier way to look at promotions is the framework PSHE, that has been commented on Lenny’s podcast by the CEO of Coda, Shishir Mehrotra.
Each of the PSHE letters represent a word, and paraphrasing the author’s article:
E: You’re handed a problem, a solution, a “how” (i.e. set of instructions on what to do”, and you just need to execute. Can you execute with high quality, efficiency, etc?
H: You’re handed a problem and a solution, but you need to determine the how. How do you want the team to run, what are the milestones, which meetings to call, etc? Can you design the right path to bring that solution to life?
S: You’re handed a problem, and you come back with the solution. Can you understand the problem well and come up with creative solutions that work?
P: You’re handed a space, and you come back with the problems. You may have been told to focus on X, but you are able to judge that actually the right problem to focus on is Y.
It’s interesting though, because if you assess yourself against this ladder you can immediately recognise whether you have a chance to be promoted:
Have you just been executing as if there is no tomorrow?
or, Are you handed over a well framed problem with a shaped solution that you have to deliver?
If you were used to do answer yes to 1, but all of the sudden your work started to feel more like 2, well, you may have a chance to be promoted.
It’s true that not all problems and solutions are made equal, so we may have to consider the dimensions of impact for the company and the size of it. Food for though for sure.
Based on the above, do you think you’re going to be promoted?