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Some of the best Product Managers I’ve worked with people with Engineering or Comp Sci degrees who had been mediocre devs for one reason or another. That said,

Some of the best Product Managers I’ve worked with people with Engineering or Comp Sci degrees who had been mediocre devs for one reason or another. That said, is there any type of programming are you good at? What actual work have you done? Have you shipped an iPhone app or launched a basic website? Were your comp sci courses brutally hard and you spent hours working at them and barely eked out a degree? I’m asking because you just may be failing because of anxiety, not “stupidity”.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
How does one train to be a Product Manager?
- ct520 8y ago
  PMP cert seems to be a defacto certificate I see thrown around in the field. (besides all the scrum stuff)
  - fein 8y ago
    At the time of this reply you've been downvoted a bit, and that is ridiculous. No, not everyone requires certification to be a PM, but many places do, and in many cases it helps get past the resume filtering process. So get a PMP cert if you want, or don't and find a company that isn't going to discriminate on the lack of a certification. It costs a bit of sanity and $500 some to pad PMI's coffers, but its basically paying $500 for your resume going to the top of the stack. Sucks, but it is how it is for a large enough number of companies to matter. "Defacto" may be the wrong word, perhaps "ubiquitous" would be more correct, but your point is valid.
    - ct520 8y ago
      Gotcha and agreed. My lexicon seems to be regressing rapidly with age :(
  - sixdimensional 8y ago
    PMP is for project management, relevant to product management, but perhaps a particular set of tools within the broader domain of product management.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Thank you!
- sixdimensional 8y ago
  I recommend materials or coursework by Pragmatic Marketing (https://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/ https://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/), if you can take their class. It was kind of accepted as one of the standard training courses for this role in industry at several companies I either worked for or interviewed with. This particular PDF [1] really helped me understand the roles better. I also read the book "The Product Manager's Survival Guide" (ISBN-10: 007180546X) and found it to be a pretty good basic introduction, when I needed it. Lastly, nothing beats having cross-disciplinary experience by chance in any job. What lead me into product management was always "getting stuck in the middle" because I was equally capable of being technical as well as talking with a user and understanding their needs. I was more of a Technical Product Manager, however, than a pure Product Manager (an important distinction). [1] This is a legit download - "The Strategic Role of Product Management" it's a link to a PDF on the Pragmatic Marketing website - https://cdn.agilitycms.com/pragmatic-marketing-v2/SRPM_PM1805.pdf https://cdn.agilitycms.com/pragmatic-marketing-v2/SRPM_PM180...
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    I took that course and recommend it highly. It’s how I was going to answer this question but yours is VERY complete :-)
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Thank you!

toomuchtodo 8y ago

How does one train to be a Product Manager?

ct520 8y ago
PMP cert seems to be a defacto certificate I see thrown around in the field. (besides all the scrum stuff)
- fein 8y ago
  At the time of this reply you've been downvoted a bit, and that is ridiculous. No, not everyone requires certification to be a PM, but many places do, and in many cases it helps get past the resume filtering process. So get a PMP cert if you want, or don't and find a company that isn't going to discriminate on the lack of a certification. It costs a bit of sanity and $500 some to pad PMI's coffers, but its basically paying $500 for your resume going to the top of the stack. Sucks, but it is how it is for a large enough number of companies to matter. "Defacto" may be the wrong word, perhaps "ubiquitous" would be more correct, but your point is valid.
  - ct520 8y ago
    Gotcha and agreed. My lexicon seems to be regressing rapidly with age :(
- sixdimensional 8y ago
  PMP is for project management, relevant to product management, but perhaps a particular set of tools within the broader domain of product management.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Thank you!
sixdimensional 8y ago
I recommend materials or coursework by Pragmatic Marketing (https://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/ https://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/), if you can take their class. It was kind of accepted as one of the standard training courses for this role in industry at several companies I either worked for or interviewed with. This particular PDF [1] really helped me understand the roles better. I also read the book "The Product Manager's Survival Guide" (ISBN-10: 007180546X) and found it to be a pretty good basic introduction, when I needed it. Lastly, nothing beats having cross-disciplinary experience by chance in any job. What lead me into product management was always "getting stuck in the middle" because I was equally capable of being technical as well as talking with a user and understanding their needs. I was more of a Technical Product Manager, however, than a pure Product Manager (an important distinction). [1] This is a legit download - "The Strategic Role of Product Management" it's a link to a PDF on the Pragmatic Marketing website - https://cdn.agilitycms.com/pragmatic-marketing-v2/SRPM_PM1805.pdf https://cdn.agilitycms.com/pragmatic-marketing-v2/SRPM_PM180...
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  I took that course and recommend it highly. It’s how I was going to answer this question but yours is VERY complete :-)
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Thank you!