On the 26th November, GetLinks hosted a Product Manager Live Panel Discussion which featured:

• Teeraphat Achineethongkom (Champ) – Senior Product Owner at Sunday Ins 
• Wasin Petcharat (Kaeng) – Product Director at Bitkub Blockchain Technology
• Nuttee Sakkullapat (Tee) – Head of International Platforms at Ascend 
• Prin Muangsin (Mint) – Co-Founder & COO at Adaptivity

Moderated by Pichaya Srifar – CTO & Co-founder at Getlinks 

Let’s take a look at what kind of sharing our panelists gave about the skills Product Managers should have and are there any tools that can help PMs with the product life cycle. 

From Your Experience, What are the Skills that a PM Should Have, No Matter What Industry You are in?

Khun Champ: Firstly, having effective communication skills is crucial. No Matter internal, external or with regulators,it is important to portray your direction as clearly as possible. In order to communicate externally, make sure that we always know who we are talking to, what are the details of the issues that might be occurring and clearly on how that person can help tackle the problem. There are no fixed formulas to solve problems. They always are spontaneous, emphasizing the importance of effective communication. 

Khun Mint: As Product Managers, we are like the facilitator that holds the flag and leads the way. Even though we might not have to be a part of the higher ups, As a team member, we have the responsibility to take the team in the right direction by making sure everyone knows their part and keep on motivating them to give it their best. 

• • Systematic-thinking: As the facilitator, I advise PMs to enhance their ‘systematic-thinking’ skills. This is when processes are planned out and structured, allowing risks to be prioritized and managed. For instance, frameworks like scrums and hybrid systems or some companies might go fully agile, depending on the nature of the team.
  • Organising skills: We facilitate the team by being the mediator to minimize waste and inefficiency. This is when good organizing skills come into play. Firstly, resources need to be thoroughly planned to make sure that most members are able to work at their best ability. PMs mitigate the problems.
  • People Skills: We have to work with a lot of personalities. One thing that people often look over. It is about taking care of yourself and the team’s physiological health. Sometimes we will have to act as a shield that protects the team from the pressure and come back to discuss with the team on how the pressure could be solved. Systematic thinking can then be implemented into this by analysing the cause-and-effect for better execution in the future, etc. 

Khun Kaeng: I think we should also mention “Passion and Perspiration.” If we truly enjoy what we do, like and take time to know our products inside out, customers will feel our sincereness. Our passion will motivate us to keep improving the products whether it is from users’ feedback or just with the heart of wanting to put the best into it. This is a very important soft skill to have which might be even more important knowing all the theories in textbooks. 

Khun Tee: For us we specifically look for candidates with good critical analysing skills. As a good Product Manager, we will have to know how to actually manage the products. This does not mean that everything is done when launched. But the launching is the starting point and PMs will have to be responsible for the launches until the very end. We will have to keep analysing how to grow our user base, how to keep the users’ satisfaction and how to further improve the launched product/ service. 

Any New Technology/ Innovation that Helps PM with the Product Life Cycle?

Khun Kaeng: As for Product Managers, working tools can come with both advantages and disadvantages. The common ones include Jira, Slack or Github and GitLab. These tools are known to support PMs on product management whether it’s planning or communication amongst the team, which are seen as the advantages of using tools. However, when we become too reliant and focused on the tools, we tend to forget the nature of our product/service. This often leads to the wrong tools being overused. Sometimes we might need only traditional tools like Excel for organising data. If we do not become too dependent, the company can truly enjoy the flexibility that comes with the advancements. 

Khun Tee: In relation to product analytics, the well known one would be Google Analytics. It is one of the programs that Product Managers should know to enhance their performance. Big corporations also use analytics tools like Adobe, Mixpanel. Marketing engagement tools are also important as well. Braze, Branch and AppsFlyer are the common ones that look at the marketing attributions or Facebook SDK and Google Ads Inventory that looks over all paid media. Even though these might not be a requirement, not knowing these at all might not be a good thing for product management. In the internet era that information can be accessed online, it is best to at least get to know these tools through resources e.g. 101 tutorials on Youtube.

Khun Mint: Slack is one of the most common communication tools I know. However, in the new normal, we are starting to standardise Video Conferences. Google Meet/ Zoom are now being widely used. However, I want to point out that there are some people who are used to the traditional way of work. For example, some people in my company still use the most common ones in Thailand such as LINE. This becomes a problem when we combine our work with our private space. I advise everyone to separate the tools you use while working and another for private use.

Khun Champ: Mainly, PMs will have to do a lot of data analytics, research, benchmarking and projection. Sometimes, complicated management tools might not be necessary for these processes and they might just end with Google Sheet/ Excel. These are the tools that are common and easy to use in our daily routines. This can also include slides, powerpoint, etc. 

However, this is not all. Our panelists also shared their company’s insights as well as their product managing experience in the tech industry. Check out the full live to learn more about becoming a product manager in different tech industries. 

Watch Full Live Here: https://www.facebook.com/GetLinksInc/videos/438887380952052

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