From Good to Great: Developing a Diverse Skill Set as a PM
You can’t become an exceptional PM by just being good at one thing.
It’s >16, across these 4 major areas:
- Major Outputs
- Hard Skills
- Soft Skills
- Career Skills
Here are the deep dives to help with each of these areas.
When people ask me what skills should they work on…
Usually, my first question is: “what are you good and bad at?”
Your superpowers are great things to rely on:
- Great at PRDs? Showcase them
- Fantastic at Strategy? Circulate widely
- Corporate Politics Mastermind? Network
Then, everything that’s a weakness is something to work on. PMs can’t afford to be weak at any one thing. Let’s take an example in each category:
Major Outputs
↳ A PM that can’t write great roadmaps isn’t going inspire their team.
Hard Skills
↳ A PM that can’t identify and validate risks every time will ship a lot of insignificant stuff.
Soft Skills
↳ A PM that can’t say No to the CEO and execs will be liked during delivery time, and canned during results review time.
Career Skills
↳ A PM that doesn’t know how to rise up the ladder can be the most impactful person in the company and still stuck in their level.
Mastery of a successful PM career requires just that much breadth.
You can’t be totally T-shaped.
At least in these 16 areas.
