Break Through Your Three Career Levels

Hello Product Folks!

As product leaders, we're in the business of crafting amazing experiences for our users, we’re artists working on canvas and bringing things to life.

But as our careers progress, so do the emphasis of our roles.

Do you know which career stage or season you’re in today?

Let's explore three key stages in your journey as a product manager and see where you fit in.

1. Foundation Building: Just like watching kids grow, we start with the basics. Remember when you first picked up a pen? Similarly, in our career, we focus on mastering the essentials of product management.

2. Iterative Growth: As our skills mature, so do our approaches. Think of this phase as your child progresses from coloring to drawing. Here, we focus on iterative problem-solving, making incremental improvements to enhance user experience.

3. Strategic Leadership: At the peak of our careers, we become visionaries (not desilusionists 😃 ). Imagine your child becoming an artist, envisioning entire masterpieces before even picking up a brush. As product leaders, we shape the future direction of our products and organizations.

   
   Understanding your current stage is key to prioritizing the right tactics for growth.

By knowing where you stand, you can chart a clear path forward and continue to evolve as a product leader.

1- Enhancing the Canvas

• Let's talk about the first level of our product management journey
  
  Remember your first product role? It's like coloring within the lines. I started my first product role, shaping a database product. My focus was on refining and enhancing existing features to improve the user experience and customer needs.
  
  Though my impact was significant, it was within predefined boundaries.

  
  Most of us begin here, making small yet impactful changes to established products. With time and experience, we evolve to tackle more significant challenges and shape strategic product themes.

  
  Understanding where we start sets the stage for our growth.

  
  Embrace each level of your journey, knowing that every stroke enriches the canvas of your product career.

  
  So keep painting…And focus on:

  
  ✅ Executing OKRs and delivery
  ✅ Learning design principles and frameworks
  ✅ Using data to inform features

2- Mapping the Canvas

A few years ago, I led the charge as a Snr product manager.

My team’s OKR was to meticulously craft a roadmap, addressing every nuance and user challenge. Here’s an example of an OKR hierarchy.

• I loved it so much! Deciding on the roadmap wasn't a walk in the park though. With legacy and existing constraints in the backend, we had to navigate a maze of complexities to create and merge multiple data pipelines to reach our product goals.

  
  By working closely with the engineering team, we overcame each challenge and made sure our goals aligned with the company's vision and objectives.