How to make an internal switch as a Product manager?

This is a special edition based on the interview with Eva Hongyan Gao , Head of Product at ESG Software, Germany. She is a seasoned product leader with multiple years of experience working in product across tech companies.

We sat down with Eva to uncover the insights on how can you become a product manager in your current company, with whatever background you’re coming from.

Let’s dive in!!

Q: How can someone from a different department (e.g., development, design, QA, marketing, or sales) show interest in becoming a PM within the company? What skills are essential for the role and what gaps might they need to fill to become a product manager?

Eva: Let's start with marketing, which is actually where I transitioned from. It's an interesting transition because in marketing, we already have a natural sense of data analysis, understanding, and persuasion skills. These are all very useful when you become a product manager. You have that affinity to data, and you know you need to convince many people with that data. That's a lot of what marketing does - wrap up information, package it, and convince people to purchase or sign up.

On one hand, it's a very natural transition. On the other hand, there's a potential risk when transitioning directly from marketing. The main challenge is the marketing mindset. We have this finalizing mindset where everything has a deadline. But in product management, there isn't really a point when a product is "done." You release something, and then after a couple of weeks, you revisit it based on data and customer feedback, then optimize and release again. This mindset shift can be a bit of a leap at first, understanding that everything is a living document that needs to be continuously iterated and analyzed.

Moving on to design, particularly user experience design, the transition to product management is quite straightforward. UX designers have already been doing user interviews, design thinking workshops, working with prototypes, and discussing directly with the engineering team. The challenge for UX designers transitioning to product management could be adopting a more end-to-end approach. In product management, you need to understand the business goals and how they relate to the product. You'll also need to engage more deeply in the sales process and have different types of customer interactions post-release.

For engineers transitioning to product management, there's definitely an advantage in understanding the technical feasibility of things. However, there's a significant mindset shift required. As an engineer, you're used to having context and data presented to you by the product manager. As a PM, you'll need to gather all that information yourself, talk to customers, internal stakeholders, and do market research. It can be overwhelming because there's no single person to offer all the answers anymore.

QA professionals transitioning to product management have the natural advantage of understanding the platform better than anyone. They're skilled at finding bugs and understanding desired behaviors. The challenge for QA professionals would be expanding their focus from specific behaviors to the overall user experience and developing a broader, more horizontal perspective that considers all aspects of the product lifecycle.

Regardless of the starting point, anyone transitioning into product management needs to understand business goals, develop an end-to-end approach, adapt to continuous iteration and analysis, be prepared to engage directly with customers in various capacities, and broaden their perspective to consider all aspects of the product lifecycle.

Q. How can someone currently in another role within the same company assess their current skill set and translate well into product management?

Eva: Well, this really depends on the role and the organization. Let's think about an ideal case where the organization is very open to internal shifting. They offer internal job opportunities and recruit internally first. In this scenario, you'd want to look out for internal job ads and then talk to the hiring manager and the team. Even in this ideal scenario, it might not happen on your first try because maybe that team is looking for someone entirely different than you. They might be looking for a specific market domain expertise rather than different perspectives. But don't get discouraged - just continue going for that role.

On the other hand, if the situation is less ideal and the company isn't openly recruiting internally, opportunities may still come up. In this case, keep in touch with the product department. And don't just focus on the product department, but think about who communicates and collaborates with them the most. For example, in B2C it might be marketing, while in B2B it could be sales and marketing. If you understand what kind of product people these teams want to interface with the most, you'll have a better way of presenting yourself.

You can say, "Hey, I understand your pain points when you communicate with sales" or "I understand the missing pieces in the process." For example, the customer support team may be receiving a lot of tickets but not be able to respond because the product management team is swamped with existing initiatives. If you recognize this gap between support and product, and you have a plan to address it, that could be a great entry point.

You might propose something like, "I have a plan for implementing a process where I could have a weekly review of these requests and be able to respond to customers faster, without taking up too much of the product manager's time." This approach gets you into the process, even if the title isn't directly 'product manager' right away. Once you're interfacing between the product and another team, you're on the right track. Step by step, you can work your way into a full product management role.

Q. What strategies should a product manager use to transition into a new domain within the same organization? How can they overcome the challenges of unfamiliar territory?

Eva: That's a great question because you're really dealing with two aspects here: the domain knowledge you must know, and the product you must be familiar with. You can't do without either of these.

For domain knowledge, as a product manager, you're expected to be a generalist. You can't just work on one area, like energy, for your whole life without working on something else. That's a given, at least from my point of view.

The structure we have as product people is that whenever we want to understand something new, let's say blockchain for example, we ask a couple of simple questions to get the bigger picture. We ask who it's for, what's in it, and why.?

So, start with the key personas. If there's nothing existing, great! That's your opportunity to create the personas. Ask why these personas want to do this job and what their biggest pain points are. If there's no existing documentation, that's your chance to contribute.

You could say, "Hey, look, I've done the market research. I've talked to existing customers and internal stakeholders. These are the key personas, these are their main pain points, and this is our product offering. I found out that maybe we need to offer more on that end or slim down resources on this end." Feel free to suggest things.

When you're new, people give you the benefit of the doubt. You can say, "I'm new to this department, I'm just making some suggestions based on a fresh pair of eyes." People will usually give you the opportunity to express yourself, and you can't make too many mistakes if you're new to the department. I would turn that into an opportunity.

If they already have a list of personas and understand the why and what, that's great. That's like onboarding within a week. Then, just click around in the product. For each persona, understand their job, pain points, and your offering. Try to click through one user journey per persona. If you can find someone to give you a demo or if there are demo recordings available, watch those.

The rest will come in time as you interview customers and get your hands dirty with actual initiatives. But those first steps are straightforward.

If you're an aspiring PM, it's better to go into an area you already know. Usually, when you go to a new department, you have something to offer. It's either that you know the market really well and just need to understand product management methodologies and the product workflows, or you know the product very well from working in customer support or implementation consulting, and you need to broaden your perspective on customer and market perspectives.

The very first few steps should be easy and replicable, and then the rest will come in time. That's how you can effectively transition into a new domain within the same organization.

Q. How can someone best articulate the value they bring to a product team, even if they're coming from a different department?

Eva: Yeah, I think I've recently experienced this situation with someone who was very motivated to join our department from a different one. What they did was really effective. They went on the internet and searched through a lot of existing examples and reports about our industry. Then, this person constantly asked questions to me and the team, saying things like, "Hey, I read this report and have these questions."

Read full article on Substack