How can you get promoted as a Product Manager without being the most experienced on your team?

Promotions aren’t just about experience—they’re about demonstrating potential and enthusiasm. To stand out, immerse yourself in understanding your company’s business model, market dynamics, and customer needs. Show a strong enthusiasm for learning by staying updated on industry trends and proactively seeking new skills. Volunteer for projects that broaden your experience around product management and highlight your dedication. Be a problem solver who identifies pain points and proposes solutions. Regularly seek and act on feedback to continuously improve. Demonstrate leadership by taking initiative and leading by example, even without a formal title. One’s attitude, effort, and commitment can outweigh years of experience.

I find the 7 principles listed here a bit hard to act on. Instead, how about 1-2-3. 1) Can do attitude. If a project seems to be 90% impossible, can we focus on executing on the 10% chance? 2) Know your product. Well. Very well. 3) Communicate - succinctly and briefly. With a smile of course!

A little over the top, but the reality is; - Treat the job as though it was your business and your life depended on its success - Realize that bluster and bs take a back seat to knowledge and results - Treat people with respect - Have an outrageous sense of humor

Learn 3 basics things about Product: - What you are trying to solve with that product - How you want to solve it - For whom you are solving it for These 3 basic questions should always come to PM's mind and the answers should be ready with logic. PM also should understand the languages of all stakeholders i.e. PM should understand businesses' asks and interprets that to tech and translate the same with compliance and risks.

building, a product is a job which needs passion. I have seen organisations transiting on their demands of experience Vs Freshness as to get right market fit MVP in times of AI. Age of internet was a like normal wave where you can float and still part of the growth, but in today’s age of AI - the wave is of Tsunami. You need things beyond experience. You will need Product managers which are ready to build products with speed, available resources but, can last & sustain and update. I’ve not witnessed this pace of change ever in past. Hence experience helps but being the most experienced is not the merit any more

Desde mi experiencia, la comunicación asertiva y la empatía han sido claves en la construcción de productos de forma colaborativa con los diferentes equipos involucrados. El enfoque de tener al cliente en el centro de las decisiones permite que las iteraciones de los equipos se minimicen, al tener un entendimiento claro de los objetivos desde un principio y acudiendo al empoderamiento y autonomía de las células de trabajo.

As the leader of a Product Manager team, the number one skill I look for when hiring new PMs is cross-functional team leadership. You can develop and demonstrate these skills by: - Volunteering to project manage a cross-functional team initiative. - Seeking out a business problem that requires multiple organizations to build the solution and leading the execution. - Build a relationship with a Product Manager at work and offer to assist them in a cross-functional team effort. - Looking for opportunities to volunteer, participate, lead, or project manage cross-functional initiatives outside of work. For example, non-profits frequently look for people to help plan fundraising events."

Demonstrate your collaborative skills to lift up other members of your team to reach great results. As a coach and mentor you can add value without being the specialist, but a team need both profiles. A team is as strong as the individual members but the capacity to integrate the skills and to create additional value beyond the technical expertise is very valuable.

Somone who has already emphasised "we" instead of an "I" gets qualified for new role. Product manager should demonstrate how he/she is capable of enabling the cross functional teams to efficiently contribute is vital for this job.

1. Product Manager is the key brain behind the product. So, you have to be on top of the overall market space, need, demand, business model, execution strategy and growth plan. Ensure that you connect your team members keeping those in mind. 2. As a Product Manager, you have to maintain very open and clear communication line with Technology, Sales, Customer Service, Operations, Marketing and Finance department. Product managers cannot work and be successful in silos. 3. Product managers have to work in agile and flexible format with team and stakeholders. Without appropriate collaboration, this cannot be achieved. You have to be solution-focused and result-driven within specified time.

If you have less experience in functional product management, overcompensate by gaining an extreme amount of knowledge about your customers and end users. Understand your customers and users both in their general context (overarching needs, pain points, goals both within and outside of your immediate product category) and in the context of your product (conduct user research, develop hypotheses based on analytics data, etc.). This knowledge will make you, your team, and your product better, and set you apart despite having less experience in hands-on product management.

For a Product Manager, mastering the art of problem extraction and leveraging application usage insights are pivotal for success. Firstly, problem extraction involves honing the skill of discerning users' concerns and identifying pain points. This would help enhancing product relevance and satisfaction. Secondly, monitoring application usage provides valuable data that unlocks profound insights. Analyzing how end users interact with the product offers critical information about feature popularity, user behavior, and potential areas for improvement.

Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. Deciphering customer signals from the noise, and consistently unlocking and delivering high impact opportunities. Advocating for yourself is also key. You care more about your career than anyone else.

En mi experiencia, creo firmemente en el feedback constante, tanto de mi equipo, mis líderes y en casi todas las instancias de mi vida, porque creo que eso te permite estar en constante aprendizaje y desarrollo. Es por eso, que desde el área de desarrollo de producto es muy importante, tener al cliente en el centro de las decisiones y contar con su feedback constantemente, para encontrar mejoras y soluciones que le agreguen valor real al final del día. En la actualidad, la dinámica es muy alta y lo que hoy resuelve un problema de una forma, mañana puede convertirse en un problema si no se entienden las diferentes dinámicas que tienen los clientes y su interacción con su producto.

Product management is all about solving problems, and expecting the unexpected. It requires the ability to continuously adapt and adjust to emerging information. The key is focusing on the solutions rather than the problem, but also ensuring you take the team with you. It is important that the whole cross functional team is aligned.

Being agile and quickly able to move through changing priorities demonstrates a strong foundation of product management. As the world is ever changing, it’s important for us to change with the changing world, it’s about trying to be better than existing products out in the market within the same market segment. Constant research and data driven insights provides you clear vision on what is the need of the hour. Prudent risk taking behaviour and managing complexity and uncertainty demonstrates how great of a product manager you are.

Instead of just identifying problems, be the one who proposes solutions. This proactive approach demonstrates your capacity to handle higher responsibilities.

Picture a rigid product strategy. Through consulting insights, the team embraced adaptability, staying ahead of market shifts. This proactive approach ensured product relevance amidst evolving customer needs and industry trends.

Stay one step ahead of the strategy: Engage with senior leaders regularly to validate your assumptions and ensure your focus matches the company's direction. Bring order to chaos: You must be calm when facing the unknown. Your teams will look to you, focus on solving the first problem. Then the next. Prioritize the right work and validate as you go along. Manage upwards: Focus on proactively setting expectations with your manager. Anticipate problems from leadership. Keep your house in order such that you make their life easier. Most of all - when escalating problems- always have a solution / suggestion in mind.

Start demonstrating your competencies of a Product Manager. Show you can think, approach, work and solve problems at work like a PM. I am not referring to using frameworks here but get the right mindset and aptitude. Take up a project, go and support the product team (usually very often under staffed), get a high visible project off your manager's hand. If there are core PM competencies that you feel you need support with, check out experiential programs like PMDojo Product Accelerator to upskill and get real experience and confidence. Stay curious, stay humble.

Speaking from my personal professional journey, aspiring product managers can stand out without being the most experienced by adopting a continuous learning mindset and a passion for cross-functional collaboration. Invest in self-development, apply newfound skills to your work, and showcase a fact-based executive presence. Steer clear of short-term distractions and office politics, maintaining an unwavering focus on understanding and meeting your product and customer needs. It's the dedication and strategic application of skills that can elevate your path to promotion.

This one drives me crazy...YOU have to take charge of your promotion. Make sure everyone knows the contributions you have made...make sure everyone knows the impact to the business you have had...and make sure your boss knows that you are driving for a promotion. You and your boss should have had several discussions about this months and months beforehand so that you are clear as to what you need to deliver and/or areas you need to grow in to earn that promotion. So, with your boss it will be clear, and if you've done enough self-promotion, when your boss puts your name forward for a promotion, everyone around the table will be supportive because they know what you've done and the impact your work has had.

Track your progress and measure your impact. Communicate your achievements and impact to your team members, managers, and stakeholders. Highlight the value that you are adding to the company.

Think of yourself as a product. Your role as a Product Manager addresses specific problems and adds value to the organization. Reflect on the problems you solve, the value you bring, and the methods to track and validate that value. Communicate your product's value effectively, identify areas for improvement, and implement strategies to increase its overall value. Building your personal brand is crucial – showcase your skills and, if necessary, seek new opportunities for growth. Apply the same strategic thinking to yourself as a strong product manager would to their product.

Feedback is a gold mine. It means that you will dig up dirt as well as gold. Focus on the areas where you found gold before. Seeking feedback via polls and surveys helps you collect data. However, 1-1 feedback and team retrospectives enable you to gather insights and stories. Ask your reviewers, "What improvement do you seek in me to run the product vision?" "What was the one initiative that helped you the most?" Open-ended questions are excellent for provoking creamier thoughts.

1) I think keeping a constant touch with your internal and external customers could be the first step 2) Asking right kind of questions at the right moment is very important as far as seeking feedback aspect is concerned 3) Closing the loop - which is the actions we have taken to incorporate that feedback. It is important to share progress with the person who has given the feedback- even if that means that there is no movement as say some other higher priority tasks have come up

In addition to personal development, effective product management requires a keen understanding of market dynamics and user needs. A successful product manager must align their professional growth with industry trends, emerging technologies, and evolving customer expectations. By staying attuned to the broader business landscape, a product manager can ensure that their skills and strategies remain relevant, fostering a holistic approach to product delivery and success.

Something we learned at our last startup. You may be blocking feedback without knowing it. At one point we decided to create an actual no-reply@our-domain.com email. This little act opened the floodgates to the best feedback we ever received to better our platform and offer premium value to our customers. The people who read your marketing and notification emails and then hit the reply button to tell you stuff, hold them dear. They are a gold mine and their feedback — Gold!

The key here is to realize that your professional identity is itself a product. The clients are your managers (until you're a founder), and the key to building a great product is processing feedback and deciphering signal-to-noise ratio. To integrate this mindset into not only your direct product development, but also into your professional approach and execution is intrical in standing out. Learn to approach all feedback as signal, not criticism. The trick here is figuring out what the signal indicates, and realizing that that indicator may not even be obvious to your critic - but, ultimately that is the skill of a product manager: to understand what the client needs, not just what they say they want.

The formula here is simple. The fastest way to get promoted as a product manager is to demonstrate measurable success managing your products and be a person everyone enjoys working with because you make them better!

Know your numbers! You may not know all the "why's" and "how's" but make sure you know the "what" and "where". Where are your sales and margin dollars coming from? What is on an upward trend and what is on a downward trend? Where are the complaints coming from? It will take time and miles to be the technical expert and understand the whole customer base and your competition. But you can get command of your current situation by diving deep into your numbers. This will also help you to prioritize where you put your efforts. Pruning and growing is a continuous process. You will get noticed if you can identify where to focus your efforts vs. mastering everything.

Be ready to do anything and everything! This is your chance to own something and take it to the next level. Know the “Why”, always map everything to the “why”. Be ready to handle big picture and ground level details at the same time. From debugging that little loading issue to actually talking long term strategy and ROI

Since leading without authority is one of the key aspects of PMing, the way you communicate your thoughts and plans and how did you arrive at that conclusions matters. When everyone in the team sees that you have clarity on the product vision, they'll be more receptive to your decisions and ideas and ultimately leadership.

Impact is more valuable than experience. Demonstrate measurable value to the customer and the company in a consistent way. Find ways to improve the overall product practice. Learn continuously. These things will take you further than experience.