Due to the blurry lines around the product management discipline, responsibilities of and expectations from product teams, hiring a product manager can be like buying a book. You’ve read the reviews, the synopsis, maybe even the first chapter. Yet, no matter how much pre-purchase research you do, you can’t read the entire book before making that purchase.

Googling product manager skills or competencies for example will get you feedback like the list below:

• Research (user, markets, industry)
• Prioritization and roadmapping
• Design knowledge (knows what good design looks like)
• Documentation (PRDs, user journeys, battle cards etc)
• Data analytics
• A/B testing
• Ability to take ownership
• Business development
• Budget and resource management
• Strategic thinking
• Communication and negotiation

This list can go on.

There's a ton of literature on how to hire great product managers discussing perspectives such as– core competencies, cultural realities and personalities, mindset and attitude, interview and screening processes, etc. ‌

‌These perspectives, however, don’t help in answering the high-level question– what type of PM should you be looking for?

The product is not stagnant as it spans across a lifecycle, and its needs vary across the PLC stages. Having been privileged to help build and develop product teams across several organisations, we've identified a key ingredient for finding the right PM– the understanding that products have different needs across their lifecycles.

In choosing the right PM fit for a product, it’s important to ensure

1. alignment between the organisation and individual on vision, goals and expectations,
2. alignment of organisation culture and individual personality fit,
3. and most importantly, as I’ve come to realise over the last few years across different roles as individual contributor and people manager, alignment of the product stage and the product manager / product team.

To achieve this alignment, we’ve taken a top-down approach to finding Product-Manager-fit that has helped us build great product teams for our clients.

First, we define a detailed job description based on–

1. what your product/team requires at that time. Products require different team dynamics as they go through their lifecycle of ideation to sunset.
2. your organisation’s dynamics with respect to the product team. For instance,

  a. How much authority and/or autonomy does your product team have?

  b. Does the product team feed into engineering or is it the other way around?

  c. Does your organisation have chief level sponsor for product management?

  d. Is your product team responsible direct sales, presales or sales support?

Answering the first question helps to determine at high level, the kind of product team you need to build. Answering the second question helps you design detailed expectations including core competencies, hard and soft skills, technical skills, background, experience, and most importantly, detailed job descriptions.

In trying to answer the question of what your product requires at each stage, it helps to take evaluate the goal of each product stage. ProductPlan does a great job of highlighting this as seen below.‌

‌The product evidently has different goals and needs across this journey to help it achieve and/or maintain success. So why approach building PM teams from a one size fits all perspective?

We identified 4 characterisations for product managers across the stages of the product lifecycle.

1. The Curious PM – this PM is all about the WHAT and WHY. They’re neither ashamed nor proud to ask tough and seemingly stupid questions. In truth, there is no stupid question anyway! The great thing about a curious PM is that they stay on trend, they learn effective research methods and are very data-driven.
2. The Resourceful PM – the resourceful PM is that PM that finds a way around stuff. They don’t necessarily know the answers right off the bat, but they’ll keep trying and ‘harassing’ people until they figure it out. This PM is a great addition to any growing team. This PM is your go to guy for just about anything! This is not because they are absolutely great at everything (is anyone really?) but they understand their ‘limitations’, so they advocate for and leverage collaboration to achieve results.
3. The Networker PM – this is your PM for opening doors and windows and maybe even cracking ceilings! They’ve built great networks across industries and markets over the years and they’re able to leverage this network to make things happen. It’s key to note here that the value of this network is mostly subjective and should be evaluated in line with the needs of the product.
4. The Executor PM – there is no success without execution. Execution PM gets the job done. They move mountains to make things happen and they’re happy doing it. Thier excitement is contagious, and you can easily tell they love what they do. Although as the PM grows in their career, the explanation is for them to become more strategy focused than execution focused.‌

‌We ran a quick poll asking about 30 product leaders in Africa what they look out for when hiring product managers. We asked them to choose between Curiosity and Resourcefulness.‌

‌The result was a landslide in favour of curiosity. It is interesting to note that most of these product leaders chose curiosity even though we deliberately provided minimal context in the poll. The participants are leaders and hiring managers across multiple industries including fintech, logistics-tech, health tech, edtech and ecommerce, with portfolios of products across different PLC stages.‌

Our PM vs PLC model highlights the product’s needs and the product manager best suited for each stage.

1. Development & Introduction Stage– at this stage, you’re experimenting. With agile frameworks, development and introduction are simultaneous and the goals for the product at this stage mostly revolve around shipping and early adoption.

What kind of PM does your product need?

Your product needs a PM who is extremely curious and is willing to question the status quo. They should also be resourceful and have some network depending on their level of experience. As products at this stage are more common in startup environments, where you typically lean product management teams, curiosity is even more important as the PM’s curiosity will become a driver for other skills they need to succeed. They should question and be genuinely interested in understanding everything from plan to process to execution.

Tell-tale signs of the Curious Product Manager

• They ask for clarification when they don’t understand the question
• They are always interested and excited
• They are self-motivated
• They know about random details, even those unrelated to their jobs
• They hold their own in conversations

2. Growth stage – at this stage, you’ve launched and are working towards growing adoption and generating ROI. The product needs to stabilise in terms of process and product-market fit. The model highlights resourcefulness as most important for this stage. The product team is expected to grow in seniority and experience alongside the product itself and the team’s dynamic should reflect this in order for them to achieve the expected impact.

What kind of PM does your product need?

Your product needs a PM that will move mountains to make things happen. As described above, the Resourceful PM doesn’t always know all the answers, but they are willing to keep trying out options and asking for help until they find a solution. This is the PM that will open up new revenue lines for your product, get  competition data no matter how difficult to achieve competitive advantage. They will find ways to motivate their teams, and relevant stakeholders to ensure their product receives the attention and priority it requires. They are also climbing up the ladder and building networks to support them and grow their products.

Tell-tale signs of the Resourceful Product Manager

• They are confident but not arrogant
• They are open minded and explorative
• They are proactive
• They are resilient
• When you ask, can we get this done? Their answer is always, YES!

3. Maturity stage – a mature product is one that has reached steady state. You have achieved market recognition and competitive advantage; you’re not spending as much on marketing or growth tactics. The product has reached its plateau.

What kind of PM does your product need?

A product at maturity stage needs a strategic PM. Just like the growth stage, this PM needs to be quite resourceful but more importantly, they should have built a good network that they can call on for help and direction. They’re experienced enough to understand the big picture and are always plugged in.

Tell-tale signs of the Networker Product Manager

• They are great listeners
• They ask questions
• They’re not easily flustered
• They have a can-do attitude
• They are authentic

4. Decline stage – at this stage, there are multiple options for the product. It can be diversified, repositioned or sunseted. You need a PM here that has access to markets, information, people and other resources to help determine the next steps for the product. This PM is more strategically inclined and is definitely quite experienced.

What kind of PM does your product need?

A product at decline stage has similar needs to one at maturity stage. The key thing here is having someone at the helm of things who is well informed so they can make strategic decisions on the next steps for the product.

The Executor PM is not mapped to a specific stage because curiosity, resourcefulness or network without execution is zero. The model assumes all PMs are executors and / or have executors within their teams.‌

The PM vs PLC model does not discount any skill across the product lifecycle, but helps product leaders zoom in on the high-level requirements for their product teams at each stage of the PLC.

It is important to highlight that adopting this model without–

• correctly identifying the product stage,
• realistically identifying the must-haves and nice-to-haves in candidates, and
• creating environments that allow candidates to flourish during the hiring process,

–may not achieve optimal results.

Overall, we acknowledge the fact that building a team is an art that takes time, patience and commitment to perfect.‌

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ProduqtEdge partners with organisations to deliver value-driven and innovative products by empowering their product teams. Want to learn more about what we do, we are just an email away.

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