The Secrets of Product Management Podcast by Nils Davis: tips for product managers, covering storytelling, go to market,innovation, resumes, job interviews, PRDs, working with developers, persuasion and influence · Nils Davis

148: How To Improve Your Fundamental Product Management Skills

·21 min·1 clip

Teaching new product managers to ask good questions is more important than teaching them technical answers.

1. The Secrets of Product Management podcast episode 148 is about how to improve fundamental product management skills and characteristics. 2. Host Nels Davis, the podcast creator and author of The Super Product Manager Handbook, uses Carl Volotti’s LinkedIn question as the starting point. 3. The episode asks what the first skill for a new product manager should be and whether product management traits can be learned. 4. Nels Davis says the first skill he would teach is inquiry, especially the ability to stay in problem space instead of jumping into solution space. 5. He says the five W’s and one H, plus two, are a practical way to ask better questions. 6. He gives X-versus-Y prioritization as a concrete example of how a new PM can start making decisions. 7. He also asks what happens if X is wrong, whether Y can still happen later, and whether the decision is one-way or two-way. 8. Nels Davis says a new product manager has a kind of free pass to ask naive questions and learn from documentation, Confluence, or tribal knowledge. 9. He says drawing a customer or process flow can reveal that no one had previously articulated how the flow worked. 10. He describes repeating the description back, asking clarifying questions, updating the diagram, and getting feedback until the picture is clear. 11. He asks whether empathy can be taught and says LinkedIn responses, plus Udemy courses, suggest that it can be improved. 12. He links empathy to understanding the customer, salesperson, and developer, and to helping with motivation. 13. He lays out a taxonomy of product management capability that includes skills, characteristics, aptitudes, and strengths. 14. He names persuasion and influence, curiosity, a growth mindset, numeracy, technical credibility, communication, mental flexibility, and empathy as part of that list. 15. He cites Carol Dweck’s Mindset as the source for moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. 16. He says not all aptitudes can reach mastery, but weaknesses can be improved or mitigated by partnering with people who have complementary strengths. 17. The tone is practical and instructional, with a solo-host format and many examples from day-to-day product work. 18. The pacing is conversational and reflective, and Nels Davis repeatedly points listeners to assessments, books, and courses. 19. Product managers who want a framework for self-assessment will get the most from it. 20. Listeners looking for a dramatic story or a guest interview may skip it.

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