Principles of Product - Everyone Fakes it till they Make it in Product

As a product manager, I need to fake it till I make it, as the only way to learn the role is by doing.

I remember the first time I summoned 10 engineers - an entire engineering team - into a meeting room.

It was my first-ever story walkthrough as an Associate Product Manager. I had landed a job at a massive technology machine with dozens of products each with multiple development teams. I had been given my first feature to work on and told which team could execute the development.

I painstakingly reviewed my user story, rehearsing how I would explain it ad nauseam. Then the call, I led the engineering team through the work I prepared.

And…I totally sh!t a brick.

There’s a recording of this story walkthrough that I never watched. I try to block the performance out of my mind almost immediately afterward.

I would present my acceptance criteria - statements of facts - as questions. I was seemingly begging an engineer to interject just how foolish one of my specs was.

I would overexplain. I would backtrack. I would call my writing dumb before I let the engineers process what I was saying

It was messy, and I got through it.

Over the years, I would have hundreds more meetings like this. The more I conducted them, the better I got. I would become more efficient, and know when to allow time for commentary, when I should debate, and when I should defer.

I overcame my insecurity to now I act as a full-on collaborator with my development teams. They regularly come to me when they are confused, sometimes for work I have absolutely nothing to do with.

What I went through is a rite of passage for all product managers. To become the confident generalist giving commands to experts.

How I did so is a process all must go through to become A players in the Product Org.

I faked it till I made it.

Why it’s difficult to build confidence as a Product Manager

Product Management is not for the weak. You will be humbled on a day-to-day basis.

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