How do product management skills change as you get more senior in the role?

At every level, the core PM competencies of driving clarity and alignment through clear communication, delivering measurable outcomes for the business and influencing without authority remain the same. But the ambiguity within you are required to clarity, the impact of the outcomes you drive and the seniority of the stakeholders you influence increase as you become more senior. If your are a people manager, the size of the PM team, and the diversity of PM roles within the team, increases as you ...Read More

When you're first starting out in product, you're building your product tool belt and the focus is on execution, customer empathy, technical depth and collaboration to drive a (measurable) outcome. As you become more senior, being able to drive a strategy based on a deep understanding of users, the market and being able to effectively prioritize to drive the biggest business outcomes becomes critical. Being able to align with cross-functional stakeholders and leadership is a huge focus. This req ...Read More

There is a a shift from from execution to influence & strategy. Earlier in your career you are often helping drive the product to launch and collaborating with a large group of stakeholders to make it happen. As you become more senior, your role shifts to influencing product strategy based on your experiences from the market, competitors, and customers. In this phase you have to be effective at defining and articulating the strategy, then influencing across the organization to adopt, and the ...Read More

A year ago, I would have said that the more senior you get, the less execution-oriented you will get and more problem/opportunity-oriented focus. It will become expectation that your time, energy and outputs are oriented around identifying what opportunities to pursue that will move both your customers/market and business forward. While this is still mostly true, I believe that this shift is starting to happen earlier and earlier in the PM career ladder. With the emergence of AI tools that help ...Read More

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 ...Read More

Thank you for your question.  A lot of this comes down to the expectation of your organization for your role, but at a high level, product management roles can be seen to consist of three main areas of focus: strategic (e.g., determining how you will win in the market and the path to get there), operational (e.g., the processes and determination of how you will execute to meet current goals and achieve strategic plans), and tactical (e.g., doing discovery and writing requirements to build produc ...Read More

As you progress through the PM ladder, the TL:DR is that you will be less in the weeds with the day to day functioning of your squads but rather be working on long term planning and strategy on a larger scope to deliver business goals. Some examples: PM 1,,2, Senior PM - Prioritization for 1+ squads, scrums, JIRA hygiene, align with team goals, quarterly planning Group PM - 1-3 year strategy, people management of PMs, larger scope with 2-3 products in the portfolio, ideation, opportunity sizing ...Read More