AMA: Cisco Director of Product Management, Neil Kulkarni on Product Management Skills

While I do not have context to answer what hurdles you are encountering in your interviews for the role, here are some aspects to consider that might help you: 8 years is a long span to move away from a specific career path and want to switch back - are you able to articulate the rationale of why you transitioned to product marketing when you did and why you wish to switch back to the product management path? Are you able to articulate what perspective, skills and knowledge you gained during this transition away, that will help you bring an unique perspective, as you transition back into product management, and how does it apply to the specific role/position you are interviewing for? At the end of the day, getting accepted into any role is dependent on finding a good match between your goals and aspirations and the skillset and knowledge the position demands. If you are convinced and are able to convince the interview panel on these aspects, hopefully things will fall in place. All the best !

Great question ! My perspective on this is - it depends. It all depends on the expectations of the specific role and team you will be part of. Product Management as a role is far from standardized. You will find difference in how product management as a role is practiced in different companies and at different grade levels. Now, if you ask me which aspect I give more weight to when I look for PMs, I would say generally the soft skills, as those are harder to learn quickly. However, its also important to see if the candidate has interest in the domain, have they made the effort when preparing for the interview and can he or she highlight examples/display potential to learn the domain and technical knowledge needed to be successful in their role.

While this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, here are some aspects of experience and skillset that fall between table stakes and highly desired category: 1. Good presentation and communication skills 2. Self driven individual 3. Leadership skills 4. Examples of making an impact on the business, overall business acumen 5. Examples of decision making and rationale of making those decisions 6. Critical and logical thinking ability 7. Grit and resiliency 8. Domain knowledge 9. Examples of stakeholder management and execution track record 10. Self awareness and approach to handling failure/setbacks

Love this one, as I have experienced this myself along the journey so far. Broadly speaking, scope and responsibilities are what changes the most as you get more senior in your role. Yes, along with those comes broader context, broader influence and potential for broader impact (both good and bad) - based on the decisions you and your teams make. Specific to skills, I would say as a product manager, the north star goal is usually being able to make decisions for delivering products and solutions, that maximize value creation for your target customer, while also capturing that value in $$ for your business to grow ! While that is easier said than done, the skills to make that happen lie in your business acumen, your understanding of your target customer segment and your ability to convince your stakeholders on the path to execute to that goal and vision you set ! Since product management is a role that expects influence without authority, the skills you need to develop with seniority need to be, your ability to expand your influence across the business and across your stakeholders.

Speaking from personal experience, people generally work for their managers and less so for the company itself :) Don't get me wrong, the financial aspects and the financial wellbeing of the company you are part of matters ofcourse, but the equation you have with your manager matters a lot as well. What that translates to is, the equation and alignment you have with each individual in your team, is critical to retaining talent. Generally speaking, people thrive when they feel they are learning something new, growing and gaining skills and getting recognized for their efforts - compensation and otherwise. If a balance can be maintained, where while delivering all the outcomes the business demands, the employees get to grow and learn new skills - it should help retain good talent.

For any career transition, it comes down to being clear in your mind and being able to articulate answers to the the following questions 1. "Why" are you seeking this transition ? 2. "What" skills from your previous role will prove favorable as your make this transition and what skills might prove unfavorable ? For example: On the favorable front, knowing how engineering works might help you know the process and collaborate with empathy for your engineering team. However on the unfavorable front, engineering is typically more deterministic, logical and seldom very ambiguous. Product management on the other hand has a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty built into the role. Are you ready to embrace this shift in thinking and approach ? 3. Which new skills do you need to build when you make this transition ? Eg: Engineering role might not typically deal with Product Marketing, Sales, Legal etc. Product Managers need to. What skills would you need to influence and collaborate successfully with these expanded set of stakeholders ?

The answer to this question falls in the category of "it depends" :) Let me give a few examples where different approaches would help drive the decision making. Example 1: You are trying to build a new solution/product that has no precedent within the company In this example, you would need to use data to make the business case, however you would also need to make some assumptions around adoption, relevance to customer verticals and likely competitive analysis to guide the narrative. This is an example where you are not using any historical baseline data from within the company, but using sales inputs and maybe market analysis to help drive decision making Example 2: You are trying to launch a new generation of product which would be successor to an existing product as an incremental upgrade (think iPhone 10 vs iPhone 11 etc.) In this case, you likely already have baseline data to make decisions around demand forecast, pricing strategy, global revenue split etc. This is an example where most of your decisions would be data driven to the extent possible. Ofcourse, this could also be the case for software feature enhancements or products that reply on user interactions, dwell times etc. to make help drive decisions. One golden rule with regards to using data is - don't get caught in the analysis paralysis cycle. Time is of essence while driving business, especially in a competitive market. Hence, take calculated risks and try to use data to back those up as much as possible or guide decisions wherever possible.