9 Skills a Product Manager Must Have

What if you could conjure up a new car with the snap of your fingers? Or create the latest smartphone with the tap of a button? That is the kind of efficiency that people dream of, but since technology isn't quite there yet, manufacturers still rely on product managers to help bring these products to life as efficiently as possible. 

What it means to be a good product manager

At Gocious, our product roadmap management software is designed to help you hone your skills intuitively and ultimately help you manage your product portfolio more effectively. That said, your professional skills alone are an important baseline for your success. 

Here are 9 skills a product manager must have to be successful

1. Master the Art of Time Management 

As a product manager, you are likely working on multiple product lines at any given time, managing multiple team members across departments, which can lead to disorganization and missed steps if they are not monitored closely. It's important to foster effective time management skills so you can touch every product line and engage with your team regularly.

2. Put On Your Problem-Solving Hat 

When it comes to product development, there is always room for error as new parts, models, and features become available for your product lines. When your team is hit with an unexpected issue, it's helpful to know how to communicate and find out what happened so you can come up with the best solution, whether the product is in the testing phases or in the hands of the consumer. 

3. Communicate With Your Team Effectively 

A product manager is similar to a project manager in that communication plays an important role in pushing objectives through the pipeline. You're responsible for touching base with everyone involved in each product line, which can be overwhelming without the right tools and support. 

With our collaboration features, you have the capacity to quickly align your team members no matter where they are in the world, to review status updates, collaborate on new ideas, and discuss workflows.  

4. Work Well Under Pressure

Consumers are always looking for the next best thing. So when preferences change and your products need to be updated on a strict deadline, it's your job as the product manager to pivot. It's your duty to get the ball rolling on who needs to be involved and in what capacity. 

Your priority is to ensure the job gets done as quickly and efficiently as possible without sacrificing the quality or usability of the product. It helps to be a cheerleader in these situations for the team members you are managing through these quick changes. 

5. Keep Your Work (And Your People) Organized 

Organization is key in this industry as there are so many moving parts at play for both software and physical product development. Think of yourself as the captain of your company's ship; with Gocious as your command center, you can keep ideas, documents, and people all in one place so you can quickly reference product roadmaps, visualizations, conversations, and more.

Keeping your work organized and staying in touch with your team will help you be a more proactive product manager.

6. Be Confident in Your Decision-Making 

When you are the person overseeing the planning and coordination of multiple product lines across different industries, people will likely turn to you when they have questions about their tasks and responsibilities. A product manager is someone people can trust to make a call and do what's best for the company's project success in the long run. 

No matter where your teammates are in the world or which industry they are building a product line in, it's important to be able to listen to people's concerns and make informed decisions about how to address their problems in a diplomatic way that people can trust.

7. Get To Know Your Target Audience 

Whether you are helping put together a new vehicle model, perfect a piece of machinery, or build any other type of product, it is important to know who you are developing the product for. Knowing who the user is will help you make the best management decisions to benefit your target audience. 

For example, knowing the type of consumer who will be buying your product once it's in-market will help you determine the best price to sell for, which product features to highlight in consumer-facing marketing materials, and more. 

8. Flex Your Multitasking Capabilities 

If you want to be a successful product manager, you must be able to wear multiple hats and be in various places at once to keep your product roadmap on track. 

From optimizing market needs and expanding market reach to updating product features and communicating changes with your team and key stakeholders, people rely on you to oversee it all while managing team members and timelines simultaneously. 

9. Always Be Thinking About the Future 

The world of product development is constantly evolving as technology advances, and consumer preferences change, so it's important to always be thinking ahead while overseeing the planning and coordination of your organization's product development. The ability to forecast potential shifts in market needs will help you visualize feasible solutions for any outcome. 

At Gocious, our industry-leading product management software allows you to create detailed product visualizations based on your product development roadmap, which makes it easy to incorporate proofs of different features and parts that could be added or removed to suit current market needs. 

Become the Best Product Manager You Can Be With Gocious by Your Side 

By now, you have likely determined that you already have the skills it takes to become a successful product manager, so it's time to take your wealth of knowledge and talent to the next level with the help of Gocious product roadmap management tools. 

We've taken the most valuable aspects of typical CRM software tools to create a platform that focuses on managing products from concept to completion rather than those that already exist in the marketplace, catering to companies that value strategic thinking, collaboration, alignment, and innovation. 

Level up Your Product Management Capabilities

At Gocious, our product roadmap software brings every aspect of product management to one user-friendly dashboard that allows you to:

• showcase your strategy 
• analyze product lines
• track custom KPIs
• spot gaps and opportunities
• increase continuity and transparency, and
• measure product progress.

If you are curious about what product roadmapping is about and how our product roadmap management tool can work for your business, please reach out to us and schedule a free demo so you can check out our product roadmap management software for yourself!