 Hi everyone, welcome to this session today. We would be talking about transitioning from a dev to a PM role. But before that, a little bit about myself. My name is Suleyna Singh. I am a product manager at Microsoft. I'm working in Azure observability, but overall I have 13 years of experience in the tech industry. A little bit about my journey as well. I am an electronics engineering graduate. And after graduating, I joined the software development as a developer. And I have worked in different spaces in different companies, but very exciting for each of them. And then I went on to get a business education. I got a one year MBA. And post MBA, I have been working as a product manager in companies like Cisco and right now in Microsoft. In today's session, what I would like to cover is, talk about different types of PMs, what they really do and which type of PM would you be interested in based on the skills, the challenges and what each of these PMs do. I also talked about having a business education. I got a one year MBA myself, but is that something that is really needed to become a PM? So that's also something that I'm going to talk about. And I'm also going to share a plan that you can build as you are thinking of transitioning from a dev to a PM role. Okay, let's start. First thing is like the different types of PMs. I know this is not a full list because depending upon the industry, the domain, the size of the company, there might be many different types of product managers there. But in general, I have tried to classify them in three. The first is the technical product manager. So the technical product managers are more like domain experts or product experts and more often than not, a technical background is required or preferred. TPMs also work very closely with the internal technical team or engineering teams. And the main focus is on product features, delivery and execution. The second type is the product manager. And here the focus is mainly on product planning, roadmap prioritization. And a product manager works both with internal engineering teams as well as with customers. The third type is growth hacking or customer experience, a product manager. You can also think of it as a GTM. Of course, they don't mean the same. But and depending upon the size of the company, you might have different PMs for each of these different areas. But in general, they are mainly a very heavily customer facing. So there are lots of customer interactions. They work with many non-technical teams. For example, your marketing or sales or other functions. Of course, for smaller companies or startups, the PMs might have to beat the marketing or sales themselves. But for bigger companies, there are teams and the PMs work very closely with them. They also influence the product roadmap because they are customer facing. They bring those insights back to the product. Another way to think of PM classification is whether it's an enterprise product or it's a consumer product. So enterprise products are the ones that you sell directly to the enterprise. And consumers are directly to consumers like end users like you and me. So typically for an enterprise product manager, they have a few very important customers who they work very closely with. So the problem discovery is a little simpler because you know what the customers asks are. What are they asking about? So it becomes easy to understand which features to build in. But in this case, the buyers and the end users can be different. And as an enterprise PM, it's very important to serve both. Focus prioritization. So like I said, in case of enterprise PMs, you know what customers are asking. So it becomes, you know, it's very important to prioritize in a way that meets your customer needs rather than building something. And then, you know, your customers are pissed off. And then stakeholder management is also important because in this case, more often than not, you have your marketing and sales team who might have a relationship with your customers. So it's, you know, it's very important to, you know, manage all these different stakeholders and keep them all aligned. Coming to consumer PMs. In this case, problem discovery is not that easy because, you know, you have a wide set of users but which are the features that, you know, are most important or can help in your product strategy is something that you have to find out or, you know, based on your intuition or data driven. So here is where your data driven decision making becomes very important. So you focus, you rely very heavily on data. And in case of consumer PMs, you can be a little, you know, experimental and fail fast. These are great ideas to execute in consumer PMs. Now, having talked about different types of PMs, there are a few things that all PMs regardless of where you are, you need to do and know a few things like product strategy roadmap, prioritization. How do you prioritize the features for a product? Customer advocacy. So you have to be the customer voice and customer empathy is a great quality as a PM. And in internal business meetings, let's say with your leadership, you have to represent the product team or the technical team. But when you're meeting the internal technical team, then you have to represent the business side of things or you have to represent the customer. So both becomes very important. And then product requirement document, these are something that, you know, you need to know. Okay. Do you need a business education or MBA? The short answer is no. So that is out of the window. But if you are considering an MBA or business education, it might help you give you a wider perspective or it can also help you build your network. And especially in, if you're thinking of, you know, growth hacking or GTM kind of PM roles, then also MBA might be helpful, but it's not something that's mandatory. Okay. Now that we have covered some basics and if you're with me thus far and if a PM role still excites you, then let me share a few ideas on how you can build a plan to transition into a PM role. First, you have to find the type of PM role that you're interested in, what aligns with your skills and aspirations. I talked about each of the different types of PMs. What they do is that something that you also want to do. For example, a customer facing PMs talk a lot to customers. Is that something that you like doing? Then that's something that you have to find out. A tip there, you can start with a TPM role because you have the advantage of being the technical expert. And once you are a TPM, then you can explore or transition into other types of PM roles. You can explore these other types. Another thing which is important is try before you buy. You're basically leaving your engineering career and trying to transition into something that's very new. So it's very important to get a feel of what a PM really is. And I just left a tip over there. One thing you could do is you can volunteer to appear on a customer call. You can say, hey, I would like to join the customer call as an SME or a note taker. Just to get a feel of what PMs really do and to find an alignment of the type of PM role that you want to get into. Next is prepare. So there are many concepts that PMs know about. I talked about a few of them, product strategy, roadmap, product design. So take baby steps. Try to learn each of these concepts and one concept at a time. And when you are a bit comfortable, the next step is to prepare. And there are many different types of interviews based on the type of role that you're applying. So for example, if you're applying for a TPM role, then system design is something that is expected. And you would get the questions on that. And for in general product managers, you get questions on product sense, product design, execution. These are all framework based. And I will leave some resources towards the end of the slide which can help you get started. The second type of interview is more behavioral. Like this is your examples, for example, tell me about the most successful project that you have done. So think about these examples. And once you are comfortable with this to practice more interviews, it's very important. I cannot stress enough how important mock interviews are. They really help you. They help you get your best foot forward when you're going to a real interview. Third is to find a mentor. It can be a mentor in your team, in your company or outside your company or a friend or somebody you look up to. But mentors can really help you as you navigate in your transition from a deaf to a PM role. And I know it's hard to find a mentor, but I have realized more often than not if you reach out to people and seek help, people are really happy to help you. So if there's a PM in your team or somebody you know who you like and you can just try reaching out to them and say, hey, I want to be a PM. Can you help me? Can you be my mentor? And you know, you would be surprised. You know, maybe, you know, they would be happy to help you. So do try that out. It's very important as you are transitioning. You won't feel alone in this journey. The last one is, brave it till you make it. I know it can be a little contestable, but I really think this is important because at this point you're not a PM but you want to be one. So you have to convince others that you are the right person for the job. So do keep telling that to yourself that this is what you bring to the table. But once you are a PM, this does not apply anymore. Once you are a PM, then you have to bring your authentic self. You have to learn, you have to hustle, you have to do it and be authentic and hopefully you enjoy the whole process. So that was it. In short summary, I have four steps which, you know, you can see if, you know, if you can build a plan around it. First is to find the type of PM role you're interested in, prepare a find a mentor and then brave it till you make it, but not after that. And as I said, a few resources that can help. There are some books which I felt, you know, have helped me a lot and, you know, these are good starters. I've left some books from TP for TPM as well and there are a bunch of online resources that you can go to. These are more from, you know, preparing for interview as well as mock interviews. So there are a whole bunch of resources out there that you can try. So with that, we are, you know, we are coming to the end of the session. Thank you for listening and speaking around and hope you have a good day and good luck for your journey. Thank you.