Devika Nair

For Product Management, my general advice is to experiment with it. Try to understand your customers and market, define the product vision and work through requirements for your features. You can also go through exercises with side projects.

For Project Management, I don't have personal experience, but I would say try getting hands on experience alongside your current role is the best path.

Two constant challenges for me in any product role has been finding the right way to say no. This could be to your customers asking for a particular feature or your organization that has decided to prioritize certain aspects differently. 

The best way to overcome this challenge is by having your facts and data clear. For example, it is easy to convince leadership about your prioritization rationale if you have data to back up your claims, whether it is potential revenue or customer impact.

My approach is usually to have a initial wireframe to convey your ideas. The UX team needs to have sufficient understanding of the customer journeys and need to be involved early in the product definition/creation phase. Start with your vision document and a wireframe and spend some time discussing the details. Involve them throughout the product definition and execution phases to ensure you remain on the same page. 

PMs in most technical organizations work with technical teams, so the difference really stems from the customers of your product. Technical PMs typically work on technical products. Typically, your customers are a technical audience (e.g., developers) and you need to have the tech skills to communicate with them.

If your question was about Tech Product Management, it is a solid understanding of the product vision and direction. A tech PM is able to be the voice of the customer in front of engineering or the voice of engineering in front of marketing. 

They are able to represent the best interest for the product in front of any audience.

I don't think I've had a single surprise across my various tech product management roles. 

In general, I would say my most surprising aspects when I moved to a product role has been the amount of work that goes into non-engineering aspects. For example, how much influence marketing or finance can bring into the success of a product. Partnering with these organizations taught me a lot since I came from an engineering background.

Yes. If you are willing to transition, its simplest if there is a role in your organization. I am assuming this question was about TPM = Program Managers rather than product managers. 

If the question was about tech product managers, the focus should be on understanding the product and customers rather than execution.