Skills for [Platform] Product Managers
Some important ones
I've held onto this content for the past month, and every time I wanted to publish it, I felt anxious and pulled it back. Not because I didn’t think my writing was good enough, but because I believed my experience wasn’t quite there yet to advise on a topic like this.
Upon reflection, this August marks my 6th year working as a Product Manager and my 5th year in a Platform role. So, I figured if the last few years have been beneficial for me, perhaps I should write something for folks beginning their journey in Platform or considering a role as a Platform Product Manager.
We often discuss the role itself, how it differs from other Product roles, but rarely do we delve into what it takes not only to be a Product Manager in this space but a successful one. If you're thinking all roles are the same and require the same set of skills, I'm here to tell you - that's not always the case. Now, let me explain why.
You are managing complex systems; you need to think in systems
Systems thinking allows you to see the big picture, understand how everything ties together. It enables you to comprehend how different products like infrastructure, data, and developer tooling interact and influence each other. This understanding helps you make more informed decisions that consider the broader impact, both on engineers and the wider company.
Systems thinking also enables you to identify patterns and trends in the overall system.
This can help you optimise your product areas and understand where the opportunities for improvement lie. It’s also super beneficial when you have to balance short-term versus long-term, helping you identify bottlenecks in different parts of the system and unblock flow more quickly.
If I think about my own career, this is one of the skills I've tried to develop the most, and I've also used it the most. I highly recommend Donella Meadows - Thinking in Systems as a good way to get started on this.
Managing up
At any given time, you have at least three senior stakeholders to consider, depending on the size of the organisation: The Product Senior Stakeholder (often a VP or above), The Engineering Senior Stakeholder (often a VP or above), and a Senior Stakeholder focused on Operations and or Customers (often a VP or above).
Knowing how to manage their expectations based on what they care about the most while abstracting from technical jargon is, I would say, vital for your role. Why, you might ask? Because:
You have to clearly understand the business strategy and goals of the organisation and ensure that the platform team's initiatives align with these overarching objectives - impact to the bottom line, my friend.
Demonstrate how the platform contributes to the scalability, efficiency, and long-term success of the organisation.
Effectively communicate the technical aspects and value proposition of the platform in a non-technical way.
Translate your roadmap into business impact, emphasising how the platform enables faster development, reduces costs, and enhances overall go-to-market.
No one said it was easy, but it is the best part of the job. It’s the part I enjoy the most, and it’s something I've spent years trying to improve and refine.
I am still learning, and I usually try to steal ways of thinking and framing from totally random people, like Rick Rubin.
Build Relationships with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and Designers in the Organisation
If by any chance you are sitting there, in your ivory tower, thinking you only need to interact with engineers, I am here to tell you to drop a few levels down and hear me out because I was there once.
While building relationships with engineers is crucial and a must-do for any Platform Product Manager, it's not enough. Building a great product takes a great team, and a great team knows that they need to collaborate.
In a complex environment like software engineering, various teams and people are involved - it’s not just you. They all have their priorities, roadmaps, things they care about, and things they don’t care about. The Platform team might just be on that list.
As a Platform Product Manager, you have to make an active effort to:
Build Shared Understanding: Collaborating cross-functionally enables shared understanding of technical constraints, flow, priorities, and the most valuable thing to be working on. This alignment ensures that product decisions are well-informed and feasible within the context you are in.
Communicate Effectively: Establishing strong communication channels with these functions helps bridge the gap between product vision and technical execution. It helps with adoption too and understanding your users from a different perspective. You can also mitigate against any types of conversation that steer towards Platform being a blocker - which is, in my experience, very common, unfortunately.
Align on Roadmaps: Aligning your product roadmap with the other product roadmaps is essential for successful execution and identifies areas to unblock or collaborate on. Achieving common goals is the common factor here.
Get feedback from everyone, not just engineers: Product Managers and Designers can provide valuable insights on how their team operates, market trends, business objectives, and customers. Collaborating with them allows for getting this feedback into the development process, resulting in products that better meet user and business needs - impact on the bottom line, my friend. 😊
And finally, although this is a given, but alas, I feel compelled to include this: truly be user-focused.
The argument "build it, and they will come" doesn’t apply in the platform space anymore. It’s expensive, clunky, and quite frankly outdated. If you are an organisation that has already invested in a Platform Product Manager, then this one is for you.
Prioritising user needs and understanding their pain points is essential for creating products that genuinely address both internal and business problems. Products (be them IDPs, Developer Tools on their own, even Infrastructure) are more likely to be adopted quicker and have a much bigger impact on the company than buying an off-the-shelf Platform as a Service Solution.
If you have been reading my newsletter for a while, you know that I usually say that Platform teams are foundational for every organisation that wants to scale in an efficient way. So, to use a favorite analogy of mine, build your house foundation in the same way that you would build your house. With the same focus and care for the people that will end up living there.
See you next Friday!