3: Mentoring New Product Managers Through Empathy and Understanding

How To Succeed In Product Management | Jeffrey Shulman, Red Russak & Soumeya Benghanem

Today, in the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, Jeff and Red welcome our panel of experts on product management to talk about mentoring new product managers. They discuss how domain expertise can help new PMs grow in the field, the qualities one must have to understand and build relationships with customers, improving problem solving skills and building frameworks to tackle problems, and the roles senior PMs play in honing younger leaders.

Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.

What to Listen For:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:43 Building empathy and understanding for new Product Managers
• 02:31 Taking ownership and being proactive early on
• 04:06 Understand your customers and build relationships
• 06:52 PM’s must be curious and empathetic
• 08:40 Spend time to learn your product domain
• 13:39 Multiple variables affect what you end up focusing on as a PM
• 16:26 PMs often focus on the solution but don’t spend much time understanding the problem
• 19:01 The most important skill for new PM’s: actively ask questions
• 23:00 Promising books new PMs should read
• 26:40 Tools to help communicate with customers and conduct market research
• 31:27 How do you make problems and their solutions meaningful to the market?
• 35:40 Find a good mentor to guide you along the way
• 36:28 Difference between a mentor and a sponsor
• 38:14 Help coming from a senior product leader
• 42:42 Creating a psychologically safe space for new PMs
• 46:54 Challenges transitioning from B2B to B2C role
• 50:37 Observe patterns and build frameworks to tackle problems
• 51:35 Be that go-to person for the team
• 54:18 Are you spending time listening to your customers?