The 4 Most Important Communication Channels for Product Managers

As a Product Manager, you know that one of your primary core qualifications is simply being a good communicator. The PM is often the center of communication between almost every discipline at the company (engineering, marketing, sales, customer support, etc.). It falls on his or her shoulders to ensure that key information and discussions are flowing across all of those teams. With a myriad of communication channels available, it can sometimes become unclear as to where we should focus our efforts. In this blog post, I categorize some common methods of communication and highlight some essential skills that you can develop to be as effective as possible when using them.

User Stories, Product Requirements, etc.

Arguably, your most important role as a PM is to make sure that your engineering team understands what products and features need to be built. This usually manifests itself in the form of user stories or product requirements.

A few things to keep in mind when communicating product requirements:

• Make sure requirements are understood. Sit down with your engineering team or engineering manager and make sure that what you have provided is clear in their minds. Ask questions like “how will we know this is complete?” or “how will we test that it meets the requirements?”. These secondary questions ensure that everyone is on the same page.

• Write them down! Put requirements in a document, a tool like Jira or Pivotal, or scribble them on a Post-It note. Several times I’ve got myself in situations where details got lost because I only verbally explained a user story to an engineer.

• Keep it concise. It’s a fact of life these days that people don’t like reading long documents. Being able to write clearly and to the point is a skill upon which we can all improve. After writing any user story or requirements document, ask yourself “can this be more concise?”

Chat Rooms

I am a huge proponent of using chat rooms in day-to-day communication, regardless of the size of the team. We use a product called Slack (https://slack.com), but HipChat, Campfire, or many other tools will get the job done as well.

Advantages of using chat rooms:

• Start a group conversation with anyone in the company...without having to schedule a meeting! Meetings can be a huge time-suck, but chat rooms are an unobtrusive way to carry on discussions and distribute information.

• Information can be archived for long periods of time. If someone on the team is on vacation, they can easily catch up with the conversation when they return by looking at the chat room history.

• You can easily organize conversations by topic. Start a room to discuss a bug or have an on-going room to ask questions about your product. Just make sure that the purpose of the room is always clear and enforce good etiquette.

• Chat rooms can be fun! They don’t have to be all business and no play. Start chat rooms for personal topics: lunch ideas, weekend plans, photos of kids. This is the “water cooler talk” of today’s businesses...ain’t nothing wrong with a few GIFs to lighten the mood. :-)

One-on-one conversations

The importance of one-on-one conversations can never be understated, but the reasons for their importance is sometimes misunderstood.

• Having one-on-one conversations is your best tool for forging personal connections. Having strong connections with your teammates will let them know you are approachable, trustworthy, and honest. So in your one-on-one conversations…be approachable, trustworthy, and honest!

• It’s your time to answer the questions that your teammates were too shy to ask in public forums. Some of the best questions are the ones that are hard to ask. Get your colleagues comfortable asking them directly to you.

• Be careful when having discussions that affect the rest of the team. If you and a colleague make a decision in a one-on-one conversation, be sure to communicate it to the all the affected stakeholders via one of your other communication channels.

Speaking to groups (in person or via video conferencing)

As a Product Manager, you need to get comfortable speaking to groups of your colleagues. This is one of the most effective ways to ensure everyone is receiving the same message. It is also your opportunity to get the team excited for your products and features.

When speaking in front of groups:

• Rehearse! Prepare your presentation ahead of time and practice it. Stand in front of a mirror, present it to a friend, perform for your dog...whatever the method, make sure you practice!

• No one wants to hear you read the words on your slides. Keep text in presentations to a minimum, and keep the focus on you. The slides are only there to support your talking points. If you need verbose documentation to circulate after your presentation, include it in the notes section of your slide deck.

• You are excited for your product--show it! Be as enthusiastic and energetic as you can. Remember, your audience wants to be inspired; they are rooting for you!

I find these methods effective, but let me know which work for you. Remember: Don’t get discouraged, communication is hard and you can only improve by doing it!