Over the years, the growing population and economy of Africa and the world, in general, has resulted in massive technology infrastructure updates and a huge uptake in digital products. Who is going to lead the change? Product Managers.
The Product Manager's role revolves around initiating, designing, planning, developing, launching, and iterating digital products to solve specific problems. However, it takes a lot more than just understanding the technical know-how to be a highly effective product manager. Sadly though, many aspiring product managers lack mentorship opportunities to help them nature their skills and grow in the field.
Here’s the good news, ADPList has come to the rescue by providing a platform open to Product Managers worldwide to book sessions with mentors.
I spoke with Charles Kithika, a senior product manager at Microsoft, to learn about his experience starting out and the skills he has gathered over the years that have helped him stand out.
I am a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft and work with the Azure Active Directory platform. I started off my career in software engineering and transitioned to product management in 2015. My experience in product management has mostly been in the startup space.
This year marks 6 years of experience as a Product Manager, so yeah, we didn’t just wake up here, it took years of learning and unlearning and I am glad I trusted the process.
Family has always been important to me and thanks to the unfortunate situation created by the pandemic, I get more time to be around my family. We love drawing, playing board games, puzzles and cards.
The right team will find you and give you an opportunity even when you feel like you don’t deserve it.
My first full-time role came a week after my last exam at university. I was simply having a conversation with a friend who was an engineering lead at a startup and I mentioned a few coding skills I had and that I was open to new opportunities. He invited me over to his office for an interview, I passed and here we are!
I was very fortunate to be in a team that invested in everyone’s unique skill sets. On my first day at the job, I learned how to ask for help from others and not to obsess with fixing everything myself.
I also learned the importance of teamwork in software engineering. It’s not a one-man show. The skills I learned over the years as an engineer has helped me even as a Product Manager. I appreciate the process that goes into solving an engineering problem because I’ve been there.
I’ve had many challenges as a Product Manager and I am certain others in the same role can relate to this. Despite this, I have no regrets about transitioning into product management.
A couple of years into my product management career, I experienced a lot of challenges with the strategy of the product I was working with. All indicators pointed to a need for the product business model to pivot. However, that was a very difficult decision for the stakeholders.
Every time I approached my stakeholders, I made sure I had the relevant data to back up my proposed solution and this made things easier. This data-driven approach set the ball rolling towards meaningful conversations that resulted in the strategic decisions of the product at that time.
We underestimate how much we need data. This particular experience will always be a remembrance of why data is our best friend.
Exercising patience while influencing stakeholders has never been easy. It usually takes a long time before an initiative you are driving is finally accepted and adopted.
I’m proud of everything I’ve laid my hands on because I gave it my best each time. I could say that the Cheki product was my favorite though, especially because I worked with an amazing team to overcome a lot of challenges we were solving for.
The majority of my mentoring sessions involve discussions on transitioning into product management and why my mentees want to become Product Managers. I spend a lot of time demystifying what exactly a Product Manager does and the foundations of product management. I also engage mentees on how to develop their product management skills and interview prep.
Over the course of my product management career, I have learned from many mistakes I made. I would like future Product Managers to be aware of these mistakes to save them a lot of time and effort.
As a mentor, I appreciate mentees who are able to identify product management skills they would like to improve on and need support to develop.
My perception of mentoring is that it should be a two-way transaction. I learn a lot from my mentees. The traditional form of mentoring has set expectations that a “junior” can only learn from a “senior”. The vice versa is also very possible and it is something I look forward to when engaging my mentees.
Everything revolves around your customer so be obsessed with them. Empathize and exercise the right product mindset to solve problems they are experiencing through your product.
One of the main responsibilities of a Product Manager is to influence stakeholders to go in a certain direction (without exercising authority). Developing the ability to understand and know your stakeholders, how they work and their personalities will go a long way in helping you succeed in your Product Manager role. So yes, you
definitely need to be people-oriented.
Every successful product is an accumulation of multiple design iterations and product decisions. Product Managers play a big role in determining what decisions need to be made and how they should be implemented. It is important to measure the impact of these iterations and decisions as your product grows and ensure that they are aligned with the product strategy.
Product Managers should not wait for “big” wins to celebrate and should start surfacing the small wins to the right stakeholders as frequently as possible. After all, it’s the small decisions we make daily that result in big successes at the end of the day.
“Until the Lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the Hunter.”
Never stop learning.
Companies will hire you as a Product Manager based on the value you bring to their product. Normalize conducting a self-assessment of your skills regularly and investing time to add value to your current skills even when there’s little to no motivation.
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Having trouble getting into a PM role? Not going through your interviews successfully maybe? Or you’re simply curious to have a chat with a PM to know whether it’s the perfect fit for you.
Whatever it is, it always feels nice talking to a professional, and Charles is more than willing to chat with you and get you to the next level of your career. Feel free to book a session with him on ADPList 👉 here
Until next time,
Keep smiling and never stop creating!
