Thank you so much for joining me today um And attending this Amazing Woman Tech Global Conference. I am super happy and I'm super excited to be here today and to share my knowledge with you. So thank you so much.First of all, for joining me today and we are going to talk about product manager's role, expectations, myths and reality. I hope you will enjoy this presentation, several words about me. Uh I am a product manager at intermedia at the moment I started my journey um more than 15 years ago as a Q A engineer, I was a Q A lead. Then I moved to project management. I was also a presales engineer and now I'm a product manager. So feel free to join me um on Instagram or linkedin. I have added the um codes here. So feel free to join me. OK? So let's talk about myths and expectations about the product management, about about the product manager's role and hope at the end of the session, we will learn more about who is a product manager. What are the most common myths? And if you want to start your product manager's journey, I hope it will inspire you and just prove that everything is possible. Let's start. OK.

So let's talk about the probably the most common uh myth about product management, the technical background and uh I mentor and coach people and I hear it a lot that people say, well, I need a technical background to be a product manager. If I don't have the technical, technical background, um product management space is closed for me and which is not true. And I would like you to believe in yourself. Um bu leverage your skills, your experience, your expertise and this is how you can enter the product management space.

So technical background is not like a ticket to the product management space, that's not true. And yeah, that's, that's a myth and I hope to like erase this myth. So if you have or don't have technical background and you would like to be a product manager, just go for it, right? Uh Because you need to follow your heart and don't listen to other people that say that there are like obstacles that you will never not to, you will never be able to tackle. That's not true. Just believe in yourself be you and everything will be ok. The next expectation or myth that I can hear also pretty often regarding the product management interviews and um the expectation is I took a product management course, I learned a lot about this space and I'm ready for the interviews, which is actually not exactly true because like answering the interview questions is a separate skill, right?

And knowing about product management, knowing what product managers do will not prepare you for interviews. In order to be successful at interviews, you need to prepare, you need to um look for the most uh commonly asked questions. You need to understand the type of the questions you will be asked during the interview. You need to understand what is expected from you and how you will be evaluated during the interview. So it is a skill, it can be learned the the amazing part of it. But again, um you need to prepare. So product management space is super competitive at the moment, it is a hot topic. So getting prepared will provide you a chance to enter the space. If you don't prepare, you don't really have any chances to enter product management world. So don't be shy. That's totally normal. Prepare for the interviews and move forward. OK. The next interesting and a very common mm myth or expectation that there is some kind of ideal product manager. And maybe you um heard somebody talking about product management or their role as a product manager in the company and you are inspired by this person and you want to be that ideal product manager. But in reality, there is no ideal or uh the one product manager, this role is pretty broad and it depends on multiple uh you know, aspects, whether it's a start up or whether it is an enterprise, will you be A B two BC B, two B product manager or B two C product manager?

What's the domain um that you are operating in? There are lots of, lots of other, uh big and small uh aspects of the product manager's job that will change it a little bit. And again, you can be a perfect match for the company. A but you will not be a perfect candidate for the company B and it's totally OK. Right. So don't try to be um an ideal product manager, don't create that picture of ideal product manager. Just understand that there are a lot of uh roles, product management roles. You just need to listen to yourself and understand what will work for you. What is your, you know, what makes you happy, what inspires you and according to your personal needs to your strength, you will find the perfect role for you. And again, it can be an api product manager, it can be an A I product manager. It can be, I don't know, gaming product manager, right? So there are a lot, a lot of uh roles out there. Don't try to put the product management role in the box, right? And don't try to be that perfect ideal product manager. Just find what works best for you decisions. Again, um I can hear a lot that people say that when I will be a product manager. I will build a product I dream about. So this is my goal, but in reality, it is not about you. It's about your customers and your customers can be like completely different, right? They cannot share your ideas, your values, they can have different needs.

And you need to think that it's not about you, it's about your customers. You need to create a product for your customers, not for yourself, right? And if we are talking about the decisions and decision making process, it is super important to remember that you never will be alone isolated. As a product manager, you always operate in the team, you have stakeholders, you have your customers, you have your uh colleagues, right?

So you will never be in this situation where you are the only person who makes a decision regarding your product, right? So there will be other stakeholders that will influence your decisions and you need to think about uh about another people around you to actually make a great decision. It it is not like a downside of the product management. It is um it is something that will help you be a product, be a better product manager and make better decisions, meetings. Um I will not be living in a meeting room, right? So uh I see others attend a lot of meetings. That's not for me, I will strictly cut off the meetings. I will be involved in the product, I will be, you know, working hard, but no meetings is not my thing. Unfortunately, the reality is that a product manager is a communication hub. That's why you, as a product manager will have a lot of meetings to make sure that everybody is aligned. Everybody understands the strategy, understands the product, understands the decision making process of yours, right? And that's why, you know, a lot of meetings, this is a part of your daily life. That's, that's it. But again, it's not a bad thing after all. So you just need to make sure that every meeting you have is uh something you absolutely need to have failures.

OK? So I remember myself uh thinking that I will do my best to avoid failures. I will work hard. I will be super smart and this is how I will try to avoid failures. But the reality is I eat failures for breakfast and you as a product manager, we will probably doing the same. And if you don't fail, it means I don't know you don't do anything or you don't try hard enough. Mm Because product manager role, this is the role where you do a lot of experiments, right? You create a lot of ideas, you test ideas and most of the ideas will never work and that's OK. But fail fast. Try new things. Experiment, explore research. This is what product management is. So don't try to avoid failures, try to fail fast. Try to learn from your failures and move forward the next one people management. So the expectation I will have a team and this team will support me. Yes, that's true. But in reality, you need to build a team, you need to earn their trust and after that, they will support you. So as a product manager, you are about people, you lead without authority, you manage people even they are not your direct reports, you build teams, you build partnerships.

This is how you create the best product possible because the product cannot be built without a team and people use everything for product manager. So please don't forget about that and take care of your team, take care of your um colleagues, so they will support you and they will help you to build a great product. The next one, the hardest part about the product manager's job. So I thought that the most difficult, the most hard part is to apply a specific framework at the right time. You know, keep everything in your mind, keep track of metrics, write specs, you know, have uh everything under control. But in reality, the hardest part is empathy, right?

To empathize and to feel people that are not like you understand what drives people, right? What motivates them people management. It is not an easy thing to do. And the most hard part after you fail after you have a bad day, keep your heart and mind open don't like, don't close yourself in a, in a shell when something goes wrong, when something goes out of schedule, out of plan, right. It, it's difficult to do, but in order to be a great product manager, you need to keep your heart and mind open and that's it for today. I hope after this talk, you will be ready to start your product management journey. I talked about the most common uh myths and expectations regarding the product management role. And I hope you will start your journey in product management. And yeah, I, I hope I inspired you a little bit. And uh if we have any questions, that's the perfect time to ask you a question and I will try to answer everything. Let me check. OK. The first question, can you suggest some certifications, which would an add on for an experienced it professional looking for a transition to product management role? Thank you for this question. This is actually uh a pretty common question regarding the transition.

Um I would say that it doesn't matter what certification you will take. Um more uh what's more important for you is to understand how would you leverage and position your experience and how you show that your past experience will allow you to be a great product manager because the certification, for example, in your CV will not play a huge role.

But what's more important is how you build your network, how you talk to the uh hiring manager during the interview. How do you prepare for the interview? So that is more important than certification. And if you have one, that's awesome. But just remember that it will not provide you the, you know, the ticket to product management. I hope I answered your question. Ok, let me check whether we have any other questions. OK. We have another, another question. Will documentation be involved in product management? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Um The volume of the documentation will be different. Um mm depending on the size of the product you will manage, but having a documentation is a must. Uh we are all people, we can do things and after I don't know, six months, we will forget about everything. Trust me. Sometimes I found articles um my own articles regarding the product and I realized that I don't remember how I wrote this is was it me? So yeah, documentation is important but uh it depends on your company. Uh You know what, what types of documentation you will be producing as a product manager. Uh It can be requirements, it can be visions, it can be specifications, it can be Jira tickets or tasks for the developers. So it depends a lot. OK. The next question, how can become PM uh without prior experience, just remember that everybody at some point didn't have an experience in product management, right? You need to start and um you just need to um look at yourself as a product, right? So what are my strength? What experience can be leveraged for me as a future product manager, how I can show to the company that I will be a perfect match for this position. So think about your experience and it doesn't matter what kind of experience you have, uh you just, you can leverage every experience. So I remember a person who was um a dentist and then he transitioned to product management and he could leverage his previous experience as a dentist.

You know, when he was talking about the product management role and why he's a perfect candidate. So the key is to learn more about your experience, think how can you apply it to the particular position? OK. The next question, how would you differentiate between product manager and product owner role? Um Yeah, that's a great question. And actually sometimes there is a different, sometimes there is no different at all. Product management role is pretty broad, you can be named in a different ways.

But in general, I would say that the product owner is more focused on the technical part and helps the development team uh to, you know, to plan the prints um to produce the detailed requirements and product manager um is mostly focused on the business side of the product can be more outside facing person.

Sometimes uh they work in pair product owner plus product manager. In this case, product owner is more technically, um focused and pro product manager is most like customer focused. But again, I saw product owners uh who actually like act as product managers. It's just, it's just the title, right? So you need to think about the uh functions and what you will be doing. Sometimes there is no difference. OK? I think, I think that's all. Thank you so much for joining me today. Um Our time is up. Thank you again and please let me know if you have any questions, feel free to um to reach me out. I will be happy to talk to you. Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here today.