No one gets a degree in Product Management. Everyone comes from a different career, and needs to learn to leverage their strengths as they come to Product Management.
I’m fortunate at work to have the opportunity to start working with an Associate Product Manager. It’s a new role for my company, and we found a perfect internal hire, Jenni, to take the position. My first formal role in product management was as an Associate Product Manager, so it will be fun to tread old ground and have a great excuse to strengthen my skills. To teach is to learn, and I look forward to sharing that learning in this blog.
Jenni is coming from a role in Customer Research, and thus has many great skills for Product Management, as well as some risks in the difference in careers. As an interviewing exercise, I had her complete the Personal Business Model Canvas as found in Business Model You. I think this is a great exercise for several reasons:
- This exercise is very similar to the Business Model Canvas which is a great tool for a new Product Manager to understand. Thus she learned some Product Management right away in the interview.
- The book is a great stimulation for thinking about an important career change. Product Management is a rewarding but demanding career, and thus a candidate should think critically about how it matches their strengths.
- The canvas gives a conversation piece in the interview for discussing soft skills. For an Associate Product Manager hire, soft skills such as organization, communication, and critical thinking are crucial, as there are no yet hard skills to assess. My previous experience with soft skill interviewing has used TopGrading, and I think the Personal Business Model Canvas achieves many of the same goals in much less time.
So, for the assignment before the interview, I asked her to read the first section of the book (lending her my copy) and create her Personal Business Model Canvas for her current role. On the last page of the first section (page 77), there’s an example of how a canvas changes with a new career. I asked her to do the same and either mark-up her first canvas or make a second for how she sees her Canvas changing with a move to Product Management.
She was very excited to check out the book and explore the framework for helping her think about a career change. She came to the interview ready to share her canvases, and I found the conversation around the canvas very insightful. Highlights of the conversation focused on the Resources, Activities, and Customers panels of the canvas. We came away from the interview feeling confident that Jenni understood how she’d be able to leverage her existing strengths and where she’d need to grow to become a great Product Manager.