Its a rare individual who is both a star techie as well as a star manager. Both of these skill sets require different competencies and personality traits.

A Product Manager requires communication, team building and change management skills while pure techies primarily are sole contributors who may work as part of larger teams. However, thats not to say that a pure techie cannot "learn" management skills and make this move a sterling success.

Unfortunately, there is a propensity in most organizations to promote their "stars" to management positions without adequate training and support. This way an organizations loses a star techical resource (who is now over burdened by management tasks) and an gets an ineffective and stressed manager in the bargain.

The toughest expectation from a product manager is to work with various stakeholders (senior management, consumers, etc) and manage their expectations. People can be illogical and have diverse agenda's - all of which require a clever juggling act. There is seldom black or white in management....only shades of grey.

However, technology is all about being exact and precise.

posted July 11, 2008

Techies can be excellent project managers if they have a keen 360 degree perspective. Techies tend to know the scope attributes of a project or task within a project. It is imperitive for prioject managers understand what needs to be done, but projects depend on people too. People and leadership skills are imperative. Most project problems stem from people problems, so one cannot rely solely on the technical aspects of a project.

A good project manager will tend to understand the entire stakeholder dynamics of a project. They can articulate the objectives of a project from the individual stakeholder pool. Part of the stakeholders are the techies, the other part are composed of all the other role players inside and outside the project. Project managers know what needs to be done, can manage the people aspects of the project, they can set project goals and objectives, and they tend to foresee issues before the become real problems.

Can a techie do this? My answer would be, "Yes".

Simon Dekker
(909) 215-5756

posted July 11, 2008

Since the requirement is for products that are aimed at non-techie end consumers, my preference is to go for good Product managers. As mentined by lot, all techies cannot become good product managers.

If a candiate has all the skill sets for product management except technology, but excellent communication and analytical and mapping mind, the candidate is fit for product management.

eg: Product managers for networking products/Banking are expected to be equipped with the technology to understand customer requirements, competitor features etc. It makes their jb easier , therwise always a technical lead has to accompany him for all customer presentations.

for products in the fmcg sector, Product managers need not be equipped with technical details.

Again the selection and application criteria differs a lot in India and rest of the world. In india, there is always much importance is given for Technical qualification for product managers while its is not so in the west.

posted 12 months ago

Hi Anant -

Techies can be sucessful Product Mangers and I believe that if they have all the necessary ingredients for a PM(for that specific role) they can be your best bet.But this doesn't negate the fact that a PM can be non techie person as well. It is all about what the position/role demands/expects.

Looking at your specific situation I think you should be looking for the right person and that specific PM attruibutes u need. The resource can be techie guys as well if he fits into bill.

2 key attributes I would look for in a product manager include
Good communication and a Strong leadership.

posted 12 months ago

As a onetime techie who's now a PM, I actually think there are two things that you need to focus on: 1) Communications skills-- you have to be able to write things like whitepapers well for your customer audience, do powerpoint presentations in front of small or large groups, etc. and 2) putting yourself in the customer's place and identifying with their concerns, so that you can think about product strategy in an informed way, come up with use cases that fit real customer requirements and design features around them, etc..

posted 12 months ago

Its a very interesting question.
See there is no boundary defined if a particular set of people can do a job or not. There is nothing that a techie cannot do or vice versa.
There are very specific ingrediants to what the job requires, and if an individual has these ingrediants that irrespective of his background a person can do the same.
One of the most important aspect I see to be a Product Manager is to understand the customer and market and their requirements. My experience with working with some Product Managers from technical background has been that they are very good at their own product, but what they lack is the knowledge and understanding if the particular product fulfills customer requirement or not.
Being a Product Manager myself, my focus has always been how to fit in the product that I have into the customer requirement. And that has really helped in forming my product which is acceptable.
Also very important is to realize that the role of Product Manager is to bridge the gap between the customer and the engineering team. No person other than the Product Manager can do so.
So 2 most important ingrediants for being a successful product manager are
1. Customer/market orientation
2. Communication

If a person posses these 2 qualities, I think he can be a successful product manager.

posted 12 months ago

Hi Anant,

As a previous techie and a current product Manager, I would say it works. Yet it really depends on the capability to grow out of the fun of doing every thing by hand and learning to enjoy orchestrating a team. Being a techie is like being a player and being a product manager is like being a coach,not all players are coaches.

Having a technical background, and managing a tech product can be beneficial,but try to resist the temptation of getting into all the deep details.

Just like Mrinmay mentioned,there are key skills to learn, like estimation, people management and team building, negotiation and project management in order to be a successful product manager.

Regards,
M. Dawood

posted 12 months ago

Hi,

Having done both and several other things as well I can categorically state that a "techie" who is business savvy and can handle the translation of requirements to and from a non tech user community can be an ideal product manager. Someone has to link potential buyers/users and their needs to the technical developers and keep that ship on course.

What I do not believe in the "cradle to grave" mentality that most organisations expect product managers to have. From experience I know very well that the qualities of a product manager to get a new idea into the starting blocks and then run the first "100 meters" with it are abosutely not the same skills needed to steer that product through its life and retire it properly.

So many enterprises spend dollars on training and team building and completely forget that the team skills needed change over the life of a product or service.

As a product manager you typically have all the responsibility to deliver to forecast, timeline, cost, profitability etc .......... and no real power to make it happen. Depends upon your company, I know at DEC it was fun and hell at the same time.

Nigel

posted 12 months ago

Dear Anant,
This is an interesting topic. I will try to answer your question citing example of my industry. I work in an automotive industry (OEM) which is in a continuous process of developing new products(have to be developed with a lot of technical skill) and the end customers are highly non technical.
the product development process which is managed by the project manager and involves discussions with various departments, designers, testing engineers.So unless the manager is technically sound enough to understand the complexities of the processes involved and technical details, it becomes difficult for him/her to manage the entire development program.

What companies usually do these days? they normally identify the individual having technical knowledge along with leadership skills and give them proper management training. when these individuals come out of the training process they prove to be good mangers for technical projects.

Best regards,
MOHIT RASTOGI
TATA MOTORS

posted 12 months ago

Product managing is primarily a matter of coordinating timing so things come together in front of the customer (product with ad with service with promotion campaign events, with web presence etc.). The primary skills are peaceful-suave-presence under-pressure--handling diverse departments and firms with aplomb. The key mental skills needed are social skills of salving egos and verbal skills of making precise the assumptions in and around messages (reading subtexts, not being stupidly literal).

Unfortunately engineers, all of them, are terrible at these matters. So if you are talking about techies moving into this job, you are talking about techies who are BECOMING completely different than themselves. Such people exist but they are 1 in 10 million. It is far faster, easier, and safer to hire someone with the appropriate skills--usually females make the best product managers, as males pull rank and intimidate people into deadline compliance but at a cost of insuring future project undermining by the egos thusly deflated.

Links:

• https://www.youpublish.com/richard-tabor-greene
• http://www.scribd.com/people/view/310309-richard-tabor-greene

posted 12 months ago

I think some of the issues are related to the business end of being a product manager. Tasks like creating product prices, doing business cases, are sometimes skills that pure technical folks have not honed over a long period of time. Clearly these are skills that can be picked up, but sometimes require the employee to take an outside class or refresh their Excel skills.

I also think technical folks/engineers are often in jobs where they have been asked to scour all their knowledge to come up with an answer. That often involves a lot of trial and error and moving through various cycles to get to the final answer. At some level, good product managers often have to make decisions, large and small, which require fast action and or just making a judgement and moving on. While it is not impossible for technical folks to have this mindset, it is again another skill that is oftentimes different than being in a purely technical role.

posted 12 months ago

Jeff and his helpful web site ask.gooproductmanager.com has recently covered this topic in a number of related posts and answers.

The short answer is "possibly" for many of the reasons given in favour of a technical grounding. But a good technical grounding won't make a good PM because, frankly, the primary goals of the PM are customer, market and product. Very little in those spheres require truly technical skills. That said if the product is technical in nature (or the level of customer demand is) then the PM has to know enough to be credible and understand the stakeholders. However the web site has already covered this ground and it seems a shame not to re-use it.

posted 12 months ago

Hi Anant:

Good Techies can become successful product managers only when they have the ability to think like customer.Product Manager needs to understand customer needs and wants.This will help him to transfer those into perfect technical requirements and pass it on to design team.

As he is aware of the customer requirements,the same can be passed on to this team with good blend of communication.However i feel that a if a technie need to be a good product manager he should have good communication skills also.

posted 12 months ago

It's all been said very well. The possibility is there, if the candidate has the potential skills to understand the consumer, customer, pricing, marketing, etc. As has been said, the role various across industry and company from a basic 'co-ordinating the process' role to full on Category Management that is like running a mini-business.

I started life as a Fabric Technologist and moved through supply chain / sourcing roles before becoming a PM. I also did a degree encompasing technical and business subjects. I have found this all to be hugely beneficial to my PM roles as I have a good understanding of how the product is built and the other business functions. I suspect, however, that there was always a PM in me waiting to get out! As a Category Manager I now manage a team covering PM, Supply Chain, Product Developers, Marketing and Design and my experience in other types of role makes this easier as I know some of the 'language' of all of them. However, the bottom line is that the candidate must have the inate abilities required to get in side the head of a consumer, translate their needs into a product / range of products and then manage a complex process to get that product to market successfully.

posted 12 months ago

Anant,

They can if they can cross over from the mindset of being a "product expert" to one of a "market and customer expert." Unless of course, you want your PMs to be just glorified presales engineers.

But, I will assume you are talking about a more professional PM who is responsible for things like the product roadmap and maybe even the P&L for the product line. If the techie can't accept that the customer/prospect opinions are more important than his/her own, they will never be able to develop products that customers want to buy.

I highly recommend the Pragmatic Marketing "Practical Product Management" course www.pragmaticmarketing.com for anyone looking to go from a technical position to a Product Manager role. It will help them understand the role of the PM and accept the reality that they are now in marketing--regardless of where they sit in the org chart.

posted 12 months ago

In my 15+ years in product management, I can tell you that techies can be good product managers IF:
1) They learn to listen to the customer. But by "listen", I mean true, active listening. Listening to what the customer is saying, and not saying. Asking "why" until they have a deep undestanding of the customer and the customer's business
2) They have a passion for business, not just technology. Whether you build a gadget, gizmo or widget is not the issue. The issue is solving the customer's problem so well that they pay you enough to achieve profitable growth.
3) They have empathy and understanding of other "silos". All you need is one functional area to be mis-aligned and the product can fail. The product manager has to be customer-focused by somewhat neutral towards internal operations. All functions are important. This is a hard one for many people to overcome.
4) In many PM roles, the PM is expected to be both the Internal leader and the External face. This latter aspect requires being a bit of an extrovert... speaking with clients, partners, participating in press and analyst briefings, public speaking, etc. A real introvert would struggle in most Product Management roles unless they're clearly defined as Inward-focused only.

I could go on-and-on but that will do for now. Feel free to contact me directly at mkerman@cuspstrategies.com

Links:

• http://www.cuspstrategies.com

posted 12 months ago

Anant,

As I read the answers already posted, I felt I had to chime in. I have a Consulting business whose main thrust is helping companies bridge the gap in communication between techies and non-techies. Since I have been, and continue to be, both, I think my answer will come as a surprise. I do not think techies can become good project managers for the simple reasons of how they are wired. Techies are looking for data to support their hypotheses, whether or not they are in the 'true' science fields. Non-techies, on the other hand, are driven by bottom line data. Techies want to know 'why', non-techies want to know 'when' or 'how much'.

Can you teach a techie to do a non-techie job? Possibly a lower level one. Can you teach a non-techie a techie job? Same thing, possibly at a lower level. What I advocate in my business is to embrace the differences and understand the motivation behind each of these two people.

In short, from my experience it is best to keep techies in techie jobs and non-techies in non-techie jobs. I will be posting an article on my website on the dual ladder system, which was developed to address your question directly. It should be up by the end of this week.

Best of luck,

Kurt C Schneider

Links:

• http://www.TechBridgeWest.com

posted 12 months ago

This question begs a host of clarifying questions -

1. What is a "techie"? Is a "techie" a heads down developer/coder that can write susinct, efficient and flawless code? Is a "techie" someone who can architect a network infrastructure and map subnets to deliver effective and efficient bandwidth utilization? Is a "techie" someone who can configure a specific software application to perform unique business tasks?

2. What is a "product manager"? Is the "product manager" somoone who translates user requirements into development specifications and then manages the implementation of the modifications/upgrades? Is a "product manager" somone who owns the product and is responsible for identifying and growing market share for a particular product?

The point is this - a label has very little to do with competency. Calling someone a "techie" and someone else a "product manager" has little value unless the labels have a specific context.

So - the answer is less sexy than we would all like. The success of any person depends solely on the competency, potential and dedication of that individual. I have met incredibly talented engineers that can schmooze with customers as well as any sales person. I have met product/project managers that are simply not suited to team play and ought to be individual contributors.

If you want someone to manage a product directed towards non-technical end-user consumers - then irrespective of thier technical competence - that person had better have their thumb on the pulse of your customer base. If not - they will fail.

posted 12 months ago

There has been an ongoing debate around on whether a software project manager should be technical. I have worked with project managers who are technical (a part of them is still a developer) and project managers who are non-technical (people who know how to get things done, and not exactly how to do it).

However, one sure thing is that a project manager must know the processes involved in executing a specific project. A project manager in construction Industry should know the process of how buildings are constructed and similarly a software project manager should know what the software is all about, how is it built and what processes are involved.

In this context, I read an interesting post by Johanna Rothman on her blog where she states -

"Project managers need to understand enough about the technology so that they can make tradeoff decisions (or help product owners make tradeoff decisions) about what will actually make it into the release. The more PMs understand the product under development, the better decisions they will make–or guide the project team to better decisions.

Here are the two extreme situations I would like to avoid: the un-knowledgeable PM and the PM who would rather be the architect. I’ve worked with several organizations who thought that PMs in other industries, such as event planning, would make great PMs of software projects. Nope. Not a chance. The PM needs to understand the process of the project. And in addition to the process, understanding enough about the product and the tools can help a PM assess risk and manage it during the project.

In my experience, the PM as architect is just as bad. This PM understands the process and the technology and ignores the work of the PM. If the PM is focused on development instead of managing the project, the project suffers as much (although differently) as if the PM was ignorant of the project."

As Johanna suggests, a lot also depends on the kind of team matrix and size of project/product as well. If a project/product manager does not understand nuances of technology but is proficient in management, overall processes, execution methods and scope, it helps to have people in the team who can take up complete accountability on technical aspects of implementation.

Read the full post from Johanna Rothman at: http://www.jrothman.com/weblog/2006/06/project-managers-and-technology.html

Links:

• http://www.jrothman.com/weblog/2006/06/project-managers-and-technology.html

posted 12 months ago

A great product manager MUST be able to determine a target market and have a thorough understanding of that market - their wants, needs, value, motivation for buying, who is the economic buyer - all market needs. They then must be able to relate their company's offering and insure differentiation against the competition. They must also be able to deliver positioning and messaging in their audience's language - not technology speak. A good product manager must be able to do this and motivate a team to deliver. Some techies can, but not many, so you need to look at that individual rather than make a generalization.

posted 12 months ago

Yes, techies can be successful product managers. Sometimes physical features on a given products encourages the consumer to purchase. Look at the iPod for example. Music could long be copied into a mp3 format and there were players before Apple entered the market. But the way the iPod functions made it enticing to consumers that other players could not duplicate.

The automobile is another example of how technical prowess affects brand and increases consumer demand. BMW has great examples of engineering features and design that could come from manager who are not only savvy about the automotive market but are also understands the mechanicals of an automobile. The twin turbo arrangement on the 3.0L 6 cylinder used in the 1 and 3 series vehicles address turbo lag (The immediate lag of response when the gas pedal is pressed) typical in a turbocharged car. BMW owners are car enthusiasts, so a good technical manager would press hard to offer this feature as part of a product development proposal.

Furthermore a technical-based manager would help develop the feature in a proprietary way. In simple terms, he/she would insist on features which would give the company a further advantage if patent protection were applied to the feature.

A key factor would be a company that is comfortable with technology, as well as an environment that support technology as part of an overall corporate strategy.

Hope this example helps the dialogue. Great question!

Pierre

posted 12 months ago

HI Anant,

Very thought provoking question, based on my experience in High Technology field where most PM are Techies the simple answer would be yes techies can be good Product Managers. However, like many other experts have mentioned lot depends on the Market and Customer needs as the Product Manager needs to strike the rigth balance between his offering and customer's needs.
Another key requirement of being a Product Manager is FAB means the PM should be able to simplify the product 'Features' and sell based on the customers need or 'Application' so the customers focus remains on what 'Benefits' he can derive from the product. Which brings us to the concept of Solution Selling whereby the seller can expect premium and not just offer the product as a commodity with price as focus. So in High Tech field an Engineer can better understand the Features or USPs and then convincingly propose to customer for an application. In Low-Tech market or consumer segment as well a Techie can do this job but since the market is so vast he also needs excellent communication skills !

Looks like there is no rule of the thumb answer but based on the context or market / product a Techie can become a good PM finally in todays world communication skills are MUST have skills to be on the top and keep selling yourself or your product.

Trust this reply covers some more aspects untouched by previous experts.

posted 12 months ago

Hi Anant,

I think that engineers can make incredible product managers; some of the best product managers I have ever worked with have come from engineering.

Good product managers have skills and experience from three different domains: engineering, business and user interface design. Each product manager will have a different mix of these skills, and will likely favor one over the others. The key to building an effective product management team is to make sure that you get the right blend of these disciplines within your team.

As long as the former engineer does a great job understanding the product's users and can effectively communicate the user needs to the rest of the product team, then that engineer's deep understanding of how products can be implemented will be a great asset to the overall product management team.

Jim A.

posted 12 months ago

Of course they can. ;-)

That doesn't mean they all will. Being a techie that moved into product management, I can attest to some of the complexity. As a person with an analytical mind and knowing what is possible with technology, I have a tendency to answer too much on behalf of my engineering staff. At the same time, I will at times push the agenda of the engineering staff too far on the stakeholders. So this balance becomes the most crucial piece to success.

As with anything else, a great method for managing yourself is to develop consistent and repeatable process. I did so by developing a strategic and tactical road-map for all of my products. The strategic roadmap was driven by stakeholders overall corporate goals. (i.e. increase revenue, maintain customers, etc...) and the tactical was driven by a combination of the strategic road-map and the requirement for continual base product improvement (typically driven by engineers). This methodology allowed me to leverage pre-set goals from both sides to manage change to the road-map. It created an objective platform by which to understand and negotiate.

posted 12 months ago

They can, but only if they take a different view of matters. They have to look at the overall picture, and begin to understand the business side of the project.

In my own experience, I started out working in a financial software support group. I was fairly technical but able to move up to manage because I took the time to understand the business part of the environment. I also had to look at everything and everybody's needs. I have seen so many who could not do that and were not as good as they could have been in management roles.

Converting to a different mindset mande all the difference in my career.

posted 12 months ago

Techies can be excellent project managers if they are well-rounded in other areas such as organization and communication.

Many techies are very well-organized - or learn quickly that organization is crucial to project completion and ongoing management. Techies understand the importance of schematics and attention to detail and good documentation.

However, without good communications skills, even the best techie will likely struggle with project management. It's not enough to understand systems, accuracy, thorough testing and deadlines. The communication skills necessary to work effectively as a team leader or understand customer expectations are just as important if not more so than the technical skills.

An individual who understands the technical end of a project and can communicate it effectively with their team and/or the end consumer is likely going to enjoy the most success in project management.

posted 12 months ago

Dear Anant,

Short answer is yes ... but at the end of the day good PM should always remember: Customer first, Customer and Business rules. All necessary Management and Project Management skills (including communication skills) are usefull but without customer/business minded approach both "techie" and "non-techie" PM can end up with well engineered, PMI (you name it) controlled product disaster:)

All the best,
Tomasz

posted 12 months ago

Anybody can acquire any skill. But the person first has to believe that is is possible, and then work on the probability of his acquiring the target skill (by, say, reading books or attending seminars etc.).

Links:

• http://linkedinsense.wordpress.com/

posted 12 months ago

Anyone can do anything provided they have the
Knowledge qualities (learning & unlearning qualities)
Leadership qualities
Situation Analysis Qualities and most importantly
Adjusting the leadership based on the Situation and Knowledge

posted 11 months ago