Setting up goals & executing
How I pivoted from Product Designer to Product Manager
If I had a way to describe how my career development journey has unfolded thus far, It’d be that it unfolded better than expected... and then some. That said, I wanted to explore how and why that is. I’ve been thinking about this for the past year but I now think I have a framework that explains it, or at least in part. The process I outlined is no way novel but not something I see written about often.
What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to talk through this framework that I subscribed to because it’s worked for me. I wanted to share this with you in hopes of it helping you at whatever capacity.
For those of you who want the summary of this blog post, it’s the following framework:
Establish a Goal 🎯
Research & Connect with Mentors 🧑🏽💻
Outline Plan of Action 🛠
Continue self-education 📚
Evaluate/Iterate 🔁
A little bit about myself — from the age of 16, I knew I wanted to be engaged in the tech scene but I wasn’t entirely at what capacity. In college and even after, I dedicated myself to exploring different career paths. Thus far, I’ve managed to…
Work at creative agencies as a UX/UI Designer and Assistant Project Manger
Worked at larger, fast growing tech company (Spotify) as a Product Designer
Work at a startup with roles ranging from business oriented roles (i.e. sales and marketing) to product oriented roles (i.e. UX/UI design and Product Management)
My most recent milestone was breaking into product management. I’ve been wanting to accomplish this for the past 2 years and was able to do so earlier this year. Whether it is breaking into Product Management, Product Design or into tech generally, I used this same framework:
Establish a Goal 🎯
I believe it’s important to establish a goal that you can say you’ve achieved or not, simply black and white. I think it's very uncomfortable to do that, especially when you’re early in your career or are in the transition to a new career path. This was the case for me. More important than getting the goal “right”, I believe you need to dedicate yourself to an objective over a period time.
2 years ago, I decided that I wanted to become a product manager because I wanted to be a leader, driving product development. I dedicated my efforts towards that. Even though I knew product management was hyper competitive to break into, I still made it my goal.
At the time, I was in my final year of college, having just completed my 6 month product design internship at Spotify. I wasn’t entirely sure what exact skills or experiences I needed so I learned about the role as much as possible.
Research & Connect with Mentors 🧑🏽💻
As a first step to my research, I held informational interview with product leaders of all levels — Associate PMs, PMs, and Director of Product and more.
I wanted to understand…
What these product leaders’ career path looked like and how they got to where they were
What roles did they have prior to product?
What skillsets did they have develop prior to product?
What resources did they utilize to better position themselves?
What they recommendations do they have for me to do to achieve my goals.
In 2020 alone, I held around 60 informational interviews with product leaders. In a nutshell, I was able to understand things like…
There are plenty of different skillsets you can capitalize on to break into PM
UX Design skills go hand in hand with product management
Product development and leadership skills need to be proven in previous roles
There are specific skillsets that cannot be developed by self education
With like this information, you’ll start to see trends in how these product leaders broke into their product roles and/or what they recommend you in doing as next steps. You’ll naturally start to paint how you can navigate your own career path moving forward to get to your goal.
Outline Plan of Action 🛠
While this may not be a step by step process, this could easily be understanding what experiences and skillsets you currently have, and what you skills you lack/need to acquire in order to best position yourself. Some questions you may ask yourself:
What experiences do I currently have or don’t have?
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
Where can I start to develop my missing skillsets/experiences?
What resources do I have available to me right now that I can use to better position myself?
When I started planning how I’d break into product management, the only relevant skills I had were my UX design skills. However as a product leader, a good portion of your contributions is project management related, specifically in how you execute, manage and successfully ship products. Based on my research and informational interviews, some of the experiences I needed to have under my belt was leading cross-functional meetings, carrying a project along from beginning-to-end, collaborating with internal and external stakeholders and more.
I want to make this important note before moving on —you don’t need your dream job to be your next role. You may realize that you need to work in different roles and gain new experiences before landing your dream job.
Prior to my first product role, I landed an assistant project management role at a creative consulting agency. I viewed it as a stepping stone to my first product role. Understanding the type of project management experience a product manager needed, I asked to spearhead meetings, coordinate with different internal stakeholders to give them updates and more.
While it may be quite frustrating but detours to “sharpen your axe”, per se, may be necessary. I know I wouldn’t have been successful in my first product role if I didn’t have this project management exposure.
Continue self-education 📚
Whether it be continuing to connect/discussing with mentors or reading online material, I believe it’s necessary to continue to learn and as as habit. I think you need to be constantly picking up new knowledge about the product management role and downloading new knowledge in the industry that you want to work in/interested in. Most important than gaining new knowledge, how are you going to use the new knowledge coming in to help you best position yourself?
As I was continuing to learn about product management, I was constantly evaluating and thinking how I would tell my story and how to best position myself when I go into interviews. If I was asked this behavioral or situational interview question, how would I frame my answer to best demonstrate my capabilities as a product leader? If I was asked a question about a skillset or experience that I didn’t have (or that I don’t have extensive experience in), how would I answer that question? If I was asked about recent developments of a particular vertical, can I refer to an article to show I’m doing my homework?
Personally, I would even continue to network and find product leaders so I can practice how I’d respond to “tell me about yourself”. As these product leaders wanted to learn more about me, I was practicing how I demonstrate my product background, communicate the silver lining and share my Plan of Action.
Evaluate/Iterate 🔁
Out of all the points that I’ve written so far, this is by far the most important. You need to be constantly evaluating your Plan of Action. Why or why not isn’t my plan working? Do I need more feedback on my Plan of Action? Have I structured my day where I’m progressing at a steady pace? While you don’t want to be overly pensive, you do need to think of your plan critically. Simply put, the foundation of this process is based on iteration and constant reevaluation.
I think you should also give yourself a strict timeline and outline a Plan B. Truthfully, prior to the assistant project manger role, I had given up on searching for product management roles. With my qualifications at the time, I knew I wasn’t competitive in the market for even the Jr./Associate Product Manger positions.
After an extended period of time, you will unexpectedly catch a break and you’d have achieved your goal. My first product role came rather quickly and somewhat unexpectedly. More important than that, as soon as I offered the job — because I’ve been learning about it for 2 years, I understood what made an effective product leader, and understood what skills I had and what I needed to develop — I showed up to work knowing the type of value I could bring to the table. It then became a question of identifying and executing when the right opportunity came up.
And with that, I hope you found this article useful! Please feel free to connect with me on Twitter @JericoLumanlan. My DMs are open!