 Hi, my name is Michael and I'm a Seattle based product manager specializing in machine learning and currently working at Google where I focus on a lot of the core infrastructure products My goal today is to help you understand What the unconventional path to product manager may look like and how you can be successful at transitioning from Any point in your career or any career at all a two-product management at any time We will break down this journey into three core topics that I have outlined here in the slide The first will be domain specialization and how you can leverage that into product management The second will be product thinking and the third will be how to kind of put those things together and really start off or kick off your PM career All right fun topic first up is domain specialization To start off this section, let's get into what I mean by domain At a high level what I mean is that domains are where you are Perceived or you perceive yourself as having a certain level Expertise or knowledge that you would state is higher than the general population At your company on your team within your peer group or something similar Some examples of domains would could be finance legal HR business intelligence supply chain and As an example if you know More about Excel and you find yourself consistently helping others find shortcuts or answers to queries They have regarding how to do a certain thing in Excel or even how to do something at all Then you my friend are a domain expert when it comes to spreadsheets And sure it may not sound like much and you might go. Oh, I can get a spreadsheet. So what does that have to do with product management? But that can certainly help you enter the world of product management For tools software and products that are like spreadsheets Whether they're hosted services software or whether they're a little bit more physical and they could even take on the looks of books With domain expertise you can transform it in a way that will help you execute and learn as a PM The first is that is That understanding that you sit at the center of tools experience and business No matter what company you work up when I say tools what I mean is that it's not really the tools you use But it's really the tools that you help create or a part or a part of creating And it doesn't even have to be software It could simply be an excel workbook It could be a report It could be a graphical image that you drew up on paper or something that you did digitally Or it's even just a process that you're a part of that could be considered a product as well The next thing is experience what I mean by that This is the experience that the other person or user Is receiving from the output that you've delivered the thing that you have contributed to or are sending out to somebody for somebody to look at How do you ensure this experience is the right one and a positive one for the end consumer or user Experience boils down to a couple of things The actual movement of the user through the product and the things that they encounter as they're trying to accomplish their goal But just as important are the emotions of that user as they're going through the product? How do they feel? What are they thinking? Has their goal changed as they are going through the product because of how it's designed and What is their definition of success? As in what in their head are they measuring to themselves to say yes, this is doing exactly what I needed to do Lastly in all that you do there's some marginal impact of what you're doing to the business Even if you don't feel it directly You're doing something Think about how you and your role contribute to this business impact And how you create or help align minds within your company or your team To create or contribute to the overall strategy of that business More importantly getting a feel for what the company strategy is Or figuring out how you can further contribute to defining that strategy Is all part of is all part of product management as well and are great next steps My path has been unconventional and has taken me through many different companies until I finally landed in product management I started off in equity research went to finance and some data and analysts consulting And then I finally entered conventional tech when I was recruited to join pros Which is an AI focused commerce software company after a year and a half I was then recruited back to consumer goods where I worked at Nike And then now i'm at google which is honestly my dream company and i'm still to be here Did I always want to become a pm? Not really but when I did it did take some time for me to formulate a plan and then actually execute it and Get into product management And this process took I don't know how long you think it might have taken me six months three months a year Well, I'm here to tell you It took me two years That's right It can feel like a long road ahead, but the outcome can be extremely rewarding if product management Is the kind of career that you want to have I will add the note though that although I had a plan and active goal of doing something like A product manager or getting into product management like roles. I also had a little bit of luck Thanks to all the wonderful recruiters and connections and friends that I've made on linkedin Which is a professional networking platform that I highly recommend you sign up for if you have not already But we'll get to more on that in the last section when we talk about getting into product management and starting your career Next up is product thinking and how you can leverage it in your day to day as an aspiring pm or a new pm within any industry When I teach product thinking I use what I call the big four What are those you might ask well the first is users Who are the users of your product or the product? And why do they use it? Keep in mind that it could be an individual user Or it could be a group of users We have a bigger product or a more attractive product to the general population And you usually group those people or users into segments People as in who are the people who are the people that are involved in creating this product? And how do they do it? In addition thinking about the tools that are involved will be helpful as well as in what tools do those people use to help create this product And the business what is the business of this product? How can it grow? Why was it even created? For what is it doing for the business? And what's keeping it around now and we'll keep it around five years from now That's a great thought exercise that I would apply to any product that you encounter on your day today And then lastly but not least are the outcomes. What does this product deliver for people? What type of experience is it creating for those individuals? And how does it help these individuals accomplish their task or goals? How does it change the way these consumers function? And how would it would they have functioned without this product? What is the value proposition of this product? Most importantly though as you're going through your product thinking exercises Keep asking why when you're examining a problem Or a request or any types of queries that come your way regarding creating something the product the business strategy the users etc And really drill down to the root cause of that problem because that's what you do as a product manager You drill down you work forward to a solution that satisfies the users the goals of the business The goals of the people who are involved and deliver amazing outcomes for the world and the user segments Have a strong vision Where would you like to go? Where would you like that product to go? A year from now five years from now 10 years from now What do you want it to do for people or users or what do you want it to do for the world? An example I'll use of vision a good vision is googles which is to provide access to the world's information in one click Now a vision can be very simple. It doesn't have to be Grand or five sentences It can be a simple one Let's take a sidewalk for example That's a product. It does something for users just created by something and it costs money and product And that product is something that we may all have used at least once or at least are or are aware of when when we're driving down the road So what would this vision look like? I had to guess And imagine one I would say that it would be The vision is to provide safe access to the world Now next time you walk down the street and look at a sidewalk You might think How has this product achieved such a vision at least the one that michael talked about in his webinar And what user segments has it focused on what user segments are still missing from its product proposition and value proposition When you've understood the user's needs the problem space created a vision You're doing product thinking and that's what product managers do But in addition to all this You really also have to think about the data that you're getting out of that product and the research that you're doing to determine What you need to work on next to make that product a masterpiece Let's say that you're going through some market research about a couple of requests that you've gone And request one seems to resonate more with large customers And maybe that's where You want to focus While request two seems to resonate with smaller customers And you're thinking as a product manager and also a business strategist that oh if The larger customers are the ones that are giving us more money and paying more money for our product Why not focus on the larger customers? Because if they're going to be able to bring more revenue We do the thing that they're asking for that resonates further with them then The probability of them churning down the road will be less But then as you're analyzing the corporate strategy and the goals that the business is trying to achieve you realize that The fastest growing segment is small to medium-sized customers And therefore that's where the biggest opportunity actually lies And so based off of that previous data point you might actually want to focus on a request two and not request one So the more data you have the more you can tie in with users outcomes business strategy and so on The better you will be at prioritizing the things that you need to do for your product You can have all the data in the world And sometimes at the end of the day it will come down to gut feel So it can get complicated very quickly But that's what product managers are for and that's what we love to do Lastly to think about how a product may work in the real world Or with potential users think small Products start off small to test assumptions And if those assumptions are a success they can grow massively So you don't have to go big or go home. You can start small The initial concept is what you're trying to test And within that initial concept there are some things that you want the user to confirm or deny that will help you decide Which path to go forward Let's use a sidewalk for example. Do you think sidewalks were such an obvious hit with governments and federal agencies that they were developed all over the country at one time simultaneously? At least in the united states During the 19th century They were tested in congested parts of the country to see what the overall impact of installing these sidewalks would be One of the key data points that was leveraged was automobile and pedestrian accidents And the data that they got back then in the early 1900s was that there was a 50 to 70 reduction in crashes involving pedestrians pretty amazing Furthermore, what if I told you that sidewalks existed 6,000 years ago But then sidewalks actually got reverted back to shared roads during the medieval period because they just saw Horses and carriages and people just simultaneously sharing the same road because nothing was going too fast So that goes to show that you might have a great idea And you might be but you might be thinking too far ahead where the market conditions themselves cannot support the idea that you have yet so don't lose hope To summarize product thinking What it's doing is taking a formulation of users The people that are involved the business and outcomes that the product wants to deliver and determining What is being worked on? Why it's being worked on? When it should be worked on and lastly Where it's going to be going into the future All right onto topic number three starting your p.m. Career from an unconventional role A friendly reminder that you are your biggest product And as soon as you start thinking that way You're already thinking like a product manager So how can you get started in product management with your domain or non-pnm experience? Well by leveraging points of PMing that exist within your current role and highlight highlighting That as well to potential employers or the roles that you're applying to You are a p.m. That's what you do in your role even though it's not your official title So show employers and companies out there that you're capable of thinking like one Have you participate in prioritizing anything getting stakeholder approval? Leading discussions or designs of a product or being part of the definition of a strategy That's all product management type work I can tell you that I did all those things before becoming a product manager And people do these things all the time but never put any thought about how these things could be related to product management I'm here to tell you that they are And as of right now whether you're a financial analyst a data analyst a contact center representative you are doing product management work Next is showing passion within Or within the the path to product management You know find a project that you can work on outside of work document a problem Determine the requirements create it create a prototype It doesn't have to be something that's fully functional or that can be deployed to some endpoint where then it's hosted on some server That somebody can access and actually play around with it can be a back of the napkin sort of thing And then share it out to real potential users find them on social media find them on various forums And try to iterate and grow that product or concept into something that's a little bit more tangible You're doing it today, but continue to take time to learn about product management as well Find great educational providers like product school And so many other they're out there on youtube and various media sites or educational websites that have exploded over the last few years Lastly put it all together By showing potential employers Or current or current employers that you want to transition to a product manager role That you've done your product like work You're passionate about product You have ideated defined and launched some kind of product And lastly you continue to learn about product management And how and what it takes to become a great product manager And that's really all you need people will notice That you're Shaping yourself in a way that is fit to be a wonderful amazing product manager Here's an example timeline here of how you can transition into a PM role start off by revamping your resume You know creating a one or two year goal resume even to have that vision clear in your mind of what you want to do You know take some product management courses thereafter And you know add some of those learnings and new lessons to your skills or publications You know, which is what I recommend after Learning about product management is really trying to teach it yourself because for me teaching is the best way to learn And then interact with other PM's seek guidance up in within your network about what it takes to be a great product management and then Apply what you've learned and get through those interviews and I'm sure an offer is coming down the road for you Thank you and have a great rest of your day Please connect or follow me on linkedin if you have any questions whatsoever I'm happy to also help out and provide any feedback on resumes or thoughts about how you're trying to get into the product management space