The Future of Product Management

[MUSIC] This is Alex Mitchell from the Go Tech yourself channel and today we're talking about the future of product management. So pretty extreme title there but a lot of things are going to change in the future of product. Well some things are going to kind of stay the same. So this is a little bit about me. I'm the chief product officer of a company called ICX Media. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Medium where I write a lot about product topics like this. I have a newsletter and then I also have a few books on product management on Amazon. So please check those out and please do subscribe to this YouTube channel. Really appreciate it. Trying to get it off the ground. Please give a like on the videos. Share it with friends, family, people you're quarantining with. Really appreciate you sharing the channel and this video. Thank you. So we'll jump right in and the future of product is changing pretty dramatically. And so this post in this video originally came from the place of the coronavirus forcing a lot of different changes on our world and that obviously impacting technology, that impacting the world of product managers. But you know what there are many other kind of macro trends that are really affecting the way that the product manager of the future is going to look. And one of the things I think you can do to kind of trust me here or build some trust with me here is look back at Ben Horowitz's post good PM, bad PM from a little bit more than 20 years ago. And you'll see some of the terms he uses there are really dated and you don't hear mentioned in tech anymore. But other parts of it other paragraphs you know could have been written by someone yesterday and are still incredibly relevant. So you know I'm trying to look you know out in the future here five, 10 years and predict some of the things that are going to change in product and some of the things that are going to look pretty pretty similar to what they do today even that far out. And so with that you know it's jumping to an actual you know kind of breakdown of those changes and what's going to stay the same. So first here with the things that change so one of the things that the you know coronavirus is definitely added you know I call it kind of fuel to the fire was the trend that was already happening for remote work. So you know the change here is remote work is going to get you know accelerated. It's going to move even faster more people are going to work remotely more people are going to stay working remotely after the coronavirus dies down here. And one other piece is you know remote work for developers was you know getting pretty common a lot of companies you know had substantial parts of their developer workforce remote or or completely remote with their developers. But remote product manager was a rarity. And that's one of the big differences that's going to change here in the future is that's not going to be a rarity as much you know they used to be the feeling that and I had this feeling too. How can a product manager a person who's responsible for engaging in a ton of stakeholders doing a lot of ideation doing a lot of planning and road mapping and goal setting. How could they be effective in a remote setting. And I think you know we're all learning this still but there are a lot of different ways that product manager can still do a great job as a remote product manager. Actually written a blog posted about this and you should go check out. And then another thing I'd recommend checking out is a book that came out a couple years ago by Jason Fried, founder of 37 signals you may know base camp called the remote office not required. And he just kind of breaks down all of the you know kind of misconceptions about remote work and why they either aren't true or only partially true or you know just kind of why when you look at it and you zoom out remote work is is so much more efficient. You know he's a little bit biased that's the story he's he's kind of pushing but you know it all kind of tracks back to how remote product managers won't be rare in the future that is going to change. Another big change is more changes as we get into this new world and we look ahead five, 10 years. Now one of the things that's been a consistent part of our development as humans or development as technologists is changes come faster. So change is just always accelerating. So you could have said maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago the pace of change might have been generations. You know new technology would come out it would be it would live for almost a generation before you know another new piece of technology disrupted it. You know maybe as you got into the 70s, 80s, 90s you're talking decades potentially when you move from you know mediums of music for example kind of going from the record player you know two tapes to CDs to MP3s even in that curve there you talked about you know going for for 10 years 15 years the time and then at the end you know as we went to MP3s we got to streaming pretty quickly after that and so the pace of change is is always accelerating and so the product manager of the future needs to be ready for that environment where change is in months instead of generations and how do you even prepare yourself for that? We'll talk about that a little bit more as we go through here but I wrote a book published last December called Disrupting Yourself and a lot of it is about how you can prioritize learning how you can identify what new skills you're going to need very quickly how you can go out there and get those skills and how you can just be ready as these changes just keep coming faster and faster. It's a whole mindset that you can develop that's related to thesis of disrupting yourself so check that out and you'll be ready for these more changes that are going to come faster and faster another thing that changes is that you know companies are easier than ever to found they're growing faster than ever before and they're dying faster than ever before so you know all of these things are kind of undeniable truths if you just look at the numbers it all comes from you know the barriers to entry are much lower than they ever were you can go and find kind of all the pieces you need to create a startup whether that's the legal documents whether that's the independent contractors you need whether that's the you know people you need to write the code whether that's all the plugins that you can just kind of piece together to build your first product really really makes it fast and quote unquote easy still not easy but easier to found that company and then once your company's founded obviously we're in a little bit of a break here with coronavirus but scaling that company you know is faster than ever before concepts like blitz scaling you know where we're going to kind of grow ahead of perfect product market fit we're going to try and capture you know kind of market you're going to create more network effects than our competitors that's a major trend that's happening and what that forces is winners and losers happen fast and it puts pressure on the product manager to make quicker decisions with less information that really are just riskier you know riskier faster lesson formed you name it that is a big thing that's changing as we go into the future here of product management you're going to have to make decisions on less and less information because you're competing on speed in many ways with a lot of other companies out there another undeniable change for the future of product management is internationalization I really like this quote from microverse microverse is a YC startup in kind of the peer coding code school and peer code review landscapes are going to helping new developers by pairing them with others and helping them kind of work together to improve their skills and their quote is talent is evenly distributed around the world but opportunity is not I really like that quote and I really believe in it as you look at you know parts of Africa or you know parts of Latin America you see so much talent that really just hasn't gotten tapped into yet and so as you look you know five years out ten years out of the future of product management when you combine it with you know the rise of remote work you know I'm pretty confident in saying you know all product management of your are guaranteed to have some elements of diverse and distributed teams you know certainly within the US very very likely international reaching into Africa reaching into Latin America that's just going to be the best way to work it is the best way to work now if you can find the best talent around the world and put it together on to your team it's kind of undeniable that it's better than just finding you know the people in your your local city who are looking for a job which is kind of in the traditional way so internationalization only integrates more with the life of the future product manager so those are a few of the big changes that happen in the future product management so what stays the same you know one of those things that five ten fifteen years gonna look pretty pretty similar to how they look today so the first one is that you know great product managers of the future are still going to be extreme generalists is my term and so what that means is they're going to kind of have enough skills in many many different areas that they can lean into they can flex into those areas they can go very deep they can learn more in those areas but really they're only specialists in a couple but they're able to identify whether not a specialist or where they need new skills or where they see new problems come up that need you know new education for them and they're able to kind of jump into those areas very quickly so extreme generalists with that ability to rapidly specialize so you know just a few things that the product measure the future will still have to worry about. Of course, technical trade-offs, you know, quality of design, working with designers, customer feedback, and needs, go to market, growth, you know, much, much more. Those things are going to stay the same. So, you know, if you want to be a great product manager the future, be great today at being this extreme generalist. Another thing that stays the same in the future of product management is prioritization. That's going to get no less important. In fact, it's probably going to get much more important, right? You know, it's already important today, but with all of these new opportunities, with moving quicker, you're going to have to say no, at least 10 times as much as you say yes, maybe it's 100 times in the future. But you really always need to be aware of all these trade-offs, aware of these opportunities, prioritizing in your head before ultimately you communicate to the team or communicate to others. That's not going to change in the future of product management. You are still going to have to be this prioritization machine. Another thing that's not going to change is you're still going to have to be passionate about your product. You know, we're going to be successful in the future. You know, I call this, you know, evangelist of your product. You know, people can feel it. Your team can feel it. Your company can feel it. Your customers or prospect customers can feel it. You know, when you're passionate about the problem you're solving. It's important though, you want to make sure this passion doesn't cloud your judgment. You know, doesn't push you into ignoring objective data or ignoring a ton of feedback from your customers or from, you know, your employee users support team. But be passionate about your product. That's something that will still certainly be important. We'll still say the same in the future as we look 15 years, you know, as we look in 15 years back on this list, a pretty confident passion for the product and as a product manager will still be very, very important. Another thing that'll still be important is an adaptive focus. And so what I mean here is the ability for a product manager to shift between the past, the present and the future. So what was important about the past? What can we learn from it? You know, historical data, data trends. What have kind of gotten us here? You know, where did we fail? Where do we succeed? The present? How are we performing today? You know, what are we hearing today? What are people like? What don't they like? What are the pressing issues? What are we trying to build? And in the future, you're kind of looking into the horizon. What are those opportunities for us? What are the opportunities even to stop doing things in the future potentially? So this kind of adaptive focus in these three areas, being able to shift fluidly between them, is still going to be immensely important for future product managers. This is not going away. Although you may have to move quicker between these these decisions in these areas, you know, five, 10, 15 years from now, we're still going to be thinking with this adaptive focus. A final one that's not going to change is the constant learning. So I mentioned this briefly before with disrupting yourself. But if a gap comes up in your skill set and a gap will come up, you know, now it'll come up more frequently in the future as things kind of evolve even quicker. It's your responsibility as a product manager to fill that gap. You won't know everything. You're still going to be that extreme generalist. So you need to identify those gaps faster. You need to fill them faster. You need to learn faster. The good news is there are better resources than ever and more free resources than ever to fill those gaps. So it's not all scary. It's just something you need to be aware of as you move into the future is we are all constant learners and it's going to just only get more important to be that constant learner in the future. So with all this in mind, what are some of those ways that you can adapt to this future of product management? Some hidden this one home a lot, but learning is probably the number one, number two, and number three thing you can do to be ready for the future. So I'm, you know, kind of promoting this disrupting yourself book that I wrote, but honestly it's going to give you a ton of ideas for ways you can adapt in what I call the new economy here. So I wrote this book before the coronavirus and it's kind of crazy that you know, it was a little bit predictive, it seems, of this new economy that we're all in. I didn't expect it to maybe come quite so quick, but it it certainly has and it certainly will change a lot of the ways that things work. So, you know, lean in here, kind of challenge yourself to learn faster, to learn something new, to push your boundaries and you will be successful in the future. Another way to adapt is really just to keep reading and listening to others. You know, everyone who is pretty successful in this world has done a great amount of reading and listening. They're listening to, you know, not only customers, they're listening to competitors, they're listening to very smart people in their field or outside of their field. So I pulled together a list of books for product managers and some audio books as well that can kind of help you navigate the different parts of product management, get on top of your game regardless of this pace of change. So for example, measure what matters. Kind of focusing on setting goals the right way. In the future, 5, 10, 15 years from now, yes, maybe those goals are going to have to be shorter term. Maybe things are going to happen faster, but setting goals won't go away. Or evergreen, where Noah Fleming talks about the importance of retaining customers, instead of just winning new customers. That's still going to be important 5, 10, 15 years from now. So these books are evergreen as well, you know, although they were written in the past couple years, you know, when these are 10, 15, 20 years old, they're still going to have great messages for you as a product manager of the future to listen to. If podcasts are more your thing, I've also pulled together a list of great podcasts to help challenging, sorry, to help challenge your brain. You can find these in the notes of this video, and I'd highly encourage, you know, find your favorites from this list, subscribe to a few, you'll really enjoy these and they'll keep you adapting for the future. Another great way to adapt is to just keep building, keep trying new technologies, keep building new things with friends and co-workers. That will push you to keep learning faster, to keep aware of the competitive environment. And it doesn't always mean building digital products. And that's what the first thing, the product manager thinks of is that's what building is. But it can mean building your brand, you know, it can mean what I'm doing right now, you know, presenting to you on a YouTube channel. You know, you can do that, you can write, you can speak at meetups. Those are all building. You're building yourself, you're building your brand, you're building, you know, something for the future and building your brain. You know, I've linked in a post here about other ways to kind of build that product manager brand. So check that out, keep building that will help you keep adapting. Also, you've heard this from me before, if you've read any of my posts or you've listened to my YouTube videos, but finding a great mentor is also a way to adapt for that future of product management. Although, you know, your mentor may be older, may have, you know, more product experience, more historical product experience, finding that relationship from someone who's been successful in this field, they've seen a lot of change in the time that they've been in the field and can help share some ways that they've managed that change. So find great product managers, find great founders, you know, meet with them in person if you can or virtually or come in these days. And I've also linked in if you, you know, don't have maybe great connections on LinkedIn or other sources, check out mentor crews or growth mentor. I've had great experiences with both. I'm actually on both as a mentor out there to kind of help people tackle, you know, new startup ideas, tackle breaking into product management, many different areas. People like me are out there, you know, looking to help for either free or or very near free. So check those out. There's definitely a great way to adapt for the future. So I'd love to hear what you think the future of product management looks like. I've obviously put out, you know, a few ideas here on what things I believe are going to change and what things are going to stay the same. But really, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. I'd love to hear from you on Twitter. You can see my handle here. Please share. I really enjoyed a comment so far and it definitely keeps me thinking too. So thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to another go tech yourself production and please check me out in all these places. And if you didn't, please click that subscribe button. I really appreciate it and it helps me. Hi, this is Alex Mitchell taking a quick break from the content to tell you about the modern product manager. If you're enjoying this content, you will definitely enjoy what you're going to find at the modern product manager. It's a collection of free resources for product managers, aspiring product managers and really anyone interested in technology. You can find content from the modern product manager on YouTube in a great weekly newsletter, a blog, free interview questions and much, much more. Check it out at themodernproductmanager.com and I'm sure you'll enjoy the content you're going to find there.