The 5 Different Types of Product Managers

Which one are you (or do you want to be)?

Almost every time I do an AMA, speak at a conference or teach a class to aspiring Product Managers, I get a form of this question:

What skill sets do you think are mandatory for Product Managers in technology?

The question is a good one, but is far too broad for a tweet-length reply. For that reason, I’m dedicating this post to starting the conversation.

First, we’re going to take a step back and look at the different types of Product Managers I’ve seen in my career before sharing the skills (while not quite mandatory) that I see as incredibly important and correlated with success as a Product Manager.

Keep an eye out too for an upcoming talk at Product School’s DC launch on the topic and a webinar that goes into even more depth!

Finally, I’ve borrowed parts of this blog post from my book, Building Digital Products (2nd Edition). If you’re an aspiring, a new or even an experienced Product Manager looking to level-up, I’d suggest grabbing a…