Text Bug (The QA Tester) + Product Management Questions

by Joseph D
(San Jose, CA)

I was wondering if you had any advice on a technical skillset I could develop for eventually becoming a Product Manager. I'm currently localizing products as a QA Tester, but am interested in continually greater contributions to a project.

I seem to be heading towards a marketing direction, which seems to be an aspect I should also learn about if I want to eventually manage my own product. But yeah, any advice you could share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

Joseph

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Hi Joseph,

If you want to become a Product Manager, I would recommend that first you should gain a clear understanding of the full product lifecycle for the type of products you want to manage. From inception and design through hardware sourcing, firmware and/or software development and integration, through QA, into Operations and logistics.

From a skillset standpoint, I would recommend becoming an expert in the type of product you want to manage. What is it you want to create? Software? Consumer electronics? Web services? Think about the field you want to work in to begin with and learn as much as you can about it.

Being a Product Manager will have some challenges that will apply to any project, but each specific product category will provide its own unique opportunities and challenges. The sooner you know what they will be for you and understand how to work around them, the better.

Also add Technical Writing to your skillset. In order to clearly communicate your product vision, you must be able to write production and technical docs that your team can use. The better you are at writing these specs, the more effectively you define and deliver your vision, the more quickly you will be able to achieve a finalized product that matches what you planned.

Since you are currently working in QA, you should take every opportunity to use that position to your advantage. Look for how QA interacts with its Product Managers. Look for the ways in which Product Management enables QA to do its job and very critical (for yourself) about the things that Product Management could do (better, differently, or at all) that would make QA more effective.

The best Product Managers I have worked with are not only pleasant and effective; they also got their projects done with the least cost. They were very effective at clearly defining and delivering their vision, working equally well with each part of the project team, and identifying challenges before they affected the schedule or the codebase.

In summary I would suggest that for technical skills, you should learn technical writing and about your projected project type. Learn the role of each part of the project team – learn from them what they need to be most effective in their jobs, and then figure out how to deliver that.

If there are any experienced Project Managers who read this, hopefully they will weigh in as well and give you the benefit of their expertise. I welcome input from anyone that believes that can provide insight.

Hope that helped, Joseph. Good luck in your journey into Product Management!!
~Phil

P.S. Thanks for the heads-up on the typo. :)
I removed it so the post would remain focused. but I really do appreciate you pointing it out to me!