A Letter To My Younger PM Self
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Get a 50% discount (Today only) on the Tacit Edge PM course by former VP of Product at Morgan Stanley & team when you use my discount code VAL50.
PMs at Microsoft, and ATB, have positive reviews about the course. I also learned a lot from the course.
If I could go back in time to advise my younger PM self on mistakes to avoid, here is what I would say
Dear PM self,
Product management often involves managing People, Products, Priorities Customers. Everyone has an opinion of how the product should work.
Here are 5 lessons you must learn early :
1. Manage up effectively
2. Prioritise! Prioritise! Prioritise
3. Keep Stakeholders aligned
4. Focus on details
5. Plan for failure
1. Manage up effectively
Most managers give you free rein in the first few weeks of working with them. If you don’t manage up effectively, you get micromanaged.
Here are signs you are not managing properly
1. Your manager frequently asks for updates
2. Your manager does some of your tasks himself.
3. Your manager asks what you are working on.
Here are some strategies I learned:
A. Agree on a Communication style: On very important projects, managers tend to panic if you don’t regularly update. Agree on a regular communication style i.e. Email or Slack message. Also, agree on an update frequency i.e weekly or bi-weekly
B. Communicate blockers early with solutions
2. Prioritise! Prioritise! Prioritise!
There are always 1 million things to do! Identify and prioritize the levers that drive the biggest impact on your KPIs.
3. Keep Stakeholders Aligned
PMs are the glue that connects different departments on multiple projects. Your stakeholders are driven by their KPIs. Your goal is to ensure the product helps stakeholders meet their KPIs.
Keep your stakeholders aligned always via writing. Send meeting notes after a decision has been made.
4. Focus on the details:
Large projects could fail because of little details. Take notes of the minor details that could delay the product launch.
5. Plan for failure:
No project goes 100% according to plan. identify and Mitigate your risks.
Above all keep learning! Here are a few resources that I found useful
When you are ready, I can help you in four ways:
Give you solutions to 7 popular PM interview questions using frameworks from PMs at Google, Microsoft, Amazon PMs
Give you 4 case studies I submitted to hiring managers that got me offers from different companies. (20+ people have purchased )
Give you free resources (worth at least 3500$) that helped me transition from customer success to Product Management (liked by 900+ people
Give you a sample resume used by PMs to land a Microsoft offer. (liked by 2000+ people)
PM Resources
1. Tacit Edge: Highly rated by PMs at Microsoft. is offering 50% off on PM courses using my referral code VAL50 https://bit.ly/3Q0EKJC
2. Product School: offers 4 free micro certifications including Product Strategy and Roadmapping https://bit.ly/3t1hW56
3. Pendo: Offers 4 free Product certifications including AI for PMs https://bit.ly/3LGemTS
4. Product School ebooks: Get 10+ free ebooks https://bit.ly/3OzHnlS
Other useful resources
1. Aakash Gupta: shares insights on product growth and becoming a better PM https://www.news.aakashg.com/
2. Lenny Ratchisky: interviews product leaders and founders to share their experiences working on different products https://www.youtube.com/@LennysPodcast
3. Pawel Haruyn: shares insights to become a better product manager https://www.productcompass.pm/
4. Product School: Interview product leaders from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc on different product management topics https://www.youtube.com/@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco