Valley Chai

while hiring for product managers, i encountered several questions over the years about what questions you ask in an interview. well, i have never been able to pin-point what traits, skills or experiences would make a well rounded product manager. the closest is this blog that aptly says “as a PM, you’re expendable“. a product manager can make a vast upside difference if he/she is competent, but teams that hire a pretender pay the price of not realizing that upside. so here are my own notes that have stood me in good stead over the years.

Communication

• Ability to convey a new concept
• Thinking-on-the feet, dealing with unfruitful conversations
• Pithy concise communication, prior preparedness on the topic
• Projected persona on the phone, and in person

Personality & Leadership

• Confidence in relating to engineering managers
• Personality - shy? extrovert? mr-know-it-all?
• Handling of confrontational/hostile situations
• Eagerness and prior evidence of continuous learning
• Cross-functional motivation, powers of persuasion
• Credibility as leader of virtual team
• Work ethic - over-achiever? diligent? hard-worker? smart-worker?
• Manageability – dependable? needs direction? attention-deficit?

Product Management Skills

• Recognizing product value, pricing/monetization concepts
• Ability to translate a business model or concept to a 10-slide deck
• Translating problem statements to requirements
• Translating a concept & requirements into features
• Judging engineering feasibility and difficulty
• Judging time to develop and time to market
• Extent of focus on quality, usability
• Extent of focus on customer-centricity and customer satisfaction
• Market awareness

Innovation

• Big thinking
• Taking initiative
• Problem recognition
• Simplicity and elegance of solutions

what do you want to see in your product manager?