So you want to be a Product Manager?

Transcript

1. UX Australia 2019 (AUUXAU2908A) Main Room, Day 1 – 29th August, 2019 IVY HORNIBROOK: So, you want to be a product manager? Come to a UX conference and propose you're all secretly harbouring a desire to change your career! But in the conversations that I've had already today, many of you have said, "It's something I thought about. I'm not sure. Is it the thing for me? Would I be good at it? Would I enjoy it?" So I hope this talk gives you some of those answers or some of those questions to think about. So who am I? My name is Ivy Hornibrook, I'm a product manager by title and chosen careerism I'm a former UX hybrid but a human-centred designer at heart. I run two book chubs, product book club and UX book club and I have taught a few classes on moving into product management. What that means is I've had a lot of conversations with designers, thinking about I've heard of this thing called product management or I work with a product manager, I want to think about it a little bit more. So firstly good news; UX designers make great product managers. If I were to draw a radial diagram of product management skills, it would probably look something like this. A mix of hard and soft skills covering problem definition, user research, going around data, agile delivery, business, leadership. And if I were to over lay what a UX designer might have in skillsets, it's pretty close. This might not be your skillset but I'd expect any design er to be strong in problem definition and research, definitely in hypothesis testing and in communication. It's these skills, these skills of focussing on the problem before the solution, these skills of not being afraid to contest the problem, to reframe it, to think about what those constraints actually might be, to look at the entire user journey and the context end to end. Those are the skills that make the best product managers. In fact, after UX Australia last year I was having an argument with Ben who's here in the first row: A product management just UX rebranded? When I was preparing for this talk, there seemed to be lots of contention to what are those core skills? Because, didn't IDO say that the centre of design is the intersection of desirability, feasibility and viability. It sounds an awful lot like what Kagan said which is product management is about discovering a product which is valuable, viable and feasible. So if the roles are so similar, why do so many designers hate it? The first clue - have a look at my calendar. For those of you who work with a product manager, you probably get a sense they're busy. Often, I don't feel I have enough time to give to the questions, the thoughts, to work with all of those in my team. A lot has been made of Paul Green's article of managers - manage schedule versus make a schedule and as a product manager you're firmly in manage a schedule. You work in chunks of one-hour blocks. I answer Skype managers en route to the bathroom and my most immersive time is frequently done in the company of others. It's probably what I miss most, being able to immerse in a problem, being able to take that time and think, to properly synthesise the research or to have the brain space to actually step back
2. UX Australia 2019 (AUUXAU2908A) Main Room, Day 1 – 29th August, 2019 Page 2 of 3 and reframe the problem. But those impacts on time and those demands of time are not just about how I work but also in all of my skills. As a designer, you gradually develop mastery of urcraft but as a product manager, I flit across the surface all all of these different skills. Always the beginner, never really having the time to develop that deep level of mastery. Probably the thing that's most jarring if you move from being a designer to a product manager is that your ultimate responsibility, the way that you justify your decisions, is your company's bottom line. (Inaudible) hates the words users. I don't know how he feels about the word customers but he was definitely right when he called Facebook a factory. This is one of those central tenets of product management. There's a reason why designers are human centred, that product managers are customer- centric, and I'd rather it's the same reason why UX Australia has been having the ethics in technology conversation since at least 2015. But product has only started to have it maybe in the last 12 months when it became bad for business. So why do it? It paints a pretty dire picture. Well, if you heard through the reasons that I've talked through so far, and they didn't quite ring true with you, if you looked at my diary and thought, "Wow, variety. Every day must happen at so much speed. No two days lookalike," if you looked at the breadth of product management skills and thought, "Wow, there's so much to learn. I can't wait to dip my toe in different things," and if you looked at that idea of business responsibility as simply is it simply another design problem with additional constraints? Then maybe it's the job for you. And maybe you have a secret desire, like me, to use the mechanism of business to make an impact on the world or the role of a product manager to maximise the impact of design. But be honest; do you enjoy being a novice? Think about yourself and what you bring to work. Would it frustrate you to never have that mastery of a craft? How do you work best? Do you want blocks of uninterrupted time and space to observe and to think? Or do you prefer to go through every single day at speed? And what is it that motivates you? What is it that you want your work to contribute to? What are the reasons that you're in the careers that you've chosen? So, I'm not sure. Only you can answer that question. Do you want to be a product manager? If you do, I'll leave you with some tips on how to get started. Take a look at your skills. See where you match to this diagram. What are your strengths? Where might you have places to learn? Then immerse yourself. There's so much great content out there and it's a really welcoming community. There's plenty of places to learn. Find the right fit. Your strength as a designer will be in solving the problems well or finding new ways to solve existing problems. That's not a business advantage in every organisation. Think of the business models where that makes the difference. And, finally, wherever you are, just start doing it. You don't need a title to do a role. If you work with a PM, seek them out, find someone you trust. Let them know it's something you might want to try on. If you don't, chances are you're already doing a lot of the role anyway so be the obvious choice when your organisation creates its first product manager role or you decide to go elsewhere and you can
3. UX Australia 2019 (AUUXAU2908A) Main Room, Day 1 – 29th August, 2019 Page 3 of 3 say that "I've already done it." So, UX designers make great product managers. I hope some of you do consider this to be a career you want to choose because you make the best product managers and we need more of you. Thank you. (Applause)