What do you think is top 3 skills a PM should have acquired to move to director level?

1. Storytelling. You need to be able to tie many disparate pieces of product work - user needs, business goals, technical limitaitons, competitive landscape, innovation opportunities - into a coherent, compelling narrative. A director can fill in the blanks in the following sentences with ease: "This year, my team is trying to achieve _____ because our comany needs to _____. In order to reach our goal, we need resources of ______ , focus on ______ and ______ and support from ______." 2. System t ...Read More

So it starts with foundational product management knowledge. Typically those folks who get promoted to Director are the top product managers in the company. That's basically just a necessary but not sufficient condition. You need to be an excellent individual contributor PM in order to mentor and develop your team as a director. Second, to make the jump to director, you need to have shown your ability to think about business outcomes and deliver results. This should be true for every PM, but I t ...Read More

The 3 top areas I think are: Leadership and team management Managing a team of product managers, as well as collaborating with cross-functional teams across the organization is key. Provide feedback on all aspects of strategy and execution is key to becoming a leader. Hiring and onboarding PM's is key. Setting strategy and vision for the team Build a vision that the team rallies around, decide on the org structure, OKR's that your team will drive and ensure that aligns with long term company str ...Read More

My answer to this depends a lot on whether the "director" title includes people management or not. Personally, I believe that it should, and that the IC (individual contributor) track should only use the titles PM 1-3, Senior PM, Staff PM, Principal PM, Distinguished PM, etc. But I don't make the rules for the industry :-) and I recognize a lot of organizations use "director" to mean IC as well. I am going to answer the question assuming you mean that it includes people management. Accordingly, ...Read More

The PM-Director role can differ from company to company. Based on my experience, at the Director level, one becomes a people manager managing an area of the business. I see a good Director of PM who understands the changing landscape and has a POV about how your company should navigate the change. So here are the top 3 skills I believe a PM should acquire to move to a Director level: Consistently delivering results that positively impact many customers and iterating on them with a long-term visi ...Read More