In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando explore the trend of product management specializations.
We discuss the various types of specializations emerging, the factors driving this trend, and the pros and cons for both product managers and organizations.
We also share practical advice on how to navigate your product management career path amidst the pressure to specialize.
Whether you're a product manager feeling overburdened or an organization considering specialized PM roles, tune in for insights to help you make informed decisions.
0:00 Podcast Intro
0:11 Topic Intro: PM Specializations
1:53 Types of Specialization
4:14 More Examples
5:51 How Did We Get Here?
9:11 Scope Creep + Lack of Support
11:04 Agile Contributions, or Not
12:10 Future Podcast: Adding People and Teams
12:54 Technology Specialization
14:33 Changing Tech Stacks/Skills
16:30 Unburdening Yourself, Preview Edition
17:59 Pros & Cons
20:28 Pros of Not Specializing
23:04 Corporate is Weird
23:49 Context Switching
25:52 Autonomy of Leadership
26:52 Choosing to Specialize
30:04 Build Support Structures
31:40 Justifying Promotions
33:37 Final Reactions
35:07 Wrap-Up
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00:00:01 --> 00:00:10 welcome to the Arguing Agile Podcast, where Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando argue about product management, leadership, and business agility, so you don't have to.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:17 I was on LinkedIn and I was noticing there were quite a lot of product management.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:22 Gurus, self professed, of course who, were espousing.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 I don't use the word espouse very much.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:29 They were espousing the need for product management specialization.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:35 So, we need a very specific skill set not Liam Neeson's very specific skill set.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 But we need a very specific type of product manager.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:50 And I look at posts like that and I have to ask Do you really need a product manager who's done eight years of like this specific widget product management, especially if you say eight years of that and not really much else.
00:00:50 --> 00:01:08 So I started reading around and in our messages back and forth and the prep for this podcast, I sort of started coming to the realization that this might be in effect of overload on the position of product management.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:13 So we decided that we want product managers to be the CEO of the product.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:22 we want them to be responsible for the, the P& L and and we want them to be responsible for the strategy the future and the day to day working with the development team, the tactical.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 So we want them in the strategic world.
00:01:24 --> 00:01:25 We want them in the tactical world.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 We want them doing demos.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 We want them marketing.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 We want them doing you know, product marketing activities.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 We want them in UI UX design.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:34 We want them doing discovery.
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 We want them to wash our car.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 We want them to rotate our tires and Right.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:42 You know, to to, to wrap all of our Christmas gifts does seem like a lot, doesn't it?
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 It's it does seem to be getting excessive.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:44 Yes.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:52 so this is where a lot of the discussions around, you know is the role of product manager becoming overloaded?
00:01:52 --> 00:01:52 Yes.
00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 Comes into the picture.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:53 Right?
00:01:53 --> 00:02:03 I think the answer to that is yes, because I will give you a list of some of the product management specializations that I have either seen people label themselves as.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:08 Or I've seen active job posts recently looking for these types of product manager.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:27 And for the purpose of this, we're going to exclude the type of product manager that is like the original product manager, as I've understood it as Marty Kagan and people like that tell it is this person was basically a relabeling of the general manager for the company when a company has like a pure software company where the whole company is one product.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:27 Right.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 That kind of company, only when they introduce another product or whatever, you know?
00:02:31 --> 00:02:31 Yeah.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:46 So ignoring that type of PM, like a general man PM as a general manager, you have obviously growth PMs and technical PMs are the first ones that you'll see all over the place, because the growth people especially are trying to make a name for themselves It's the marketing activity of re segmenting the market.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 You know oh, oh, it's like, oh, all of the razor blades that have two blades.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 Those are all old and those are all over there.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 Everyone's got to have three blades now.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:55 It's a new market.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 Six now, but yeah, I see what you're saying.
00:02:57 --> 00:02:58 Definitely.
00:02:58 --> 00:02:59 The more the merrier.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:00 Eighteen blades.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 there's a certain time when resegmenting just doesn't work anymore.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:03 That's right.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:04 You know, that's absolutely right.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:11 So I think some of this is as a result of the role of the product manager becoming overloaded, overburdened, whatever.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 And a certain portion of this is just.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:22 Trying to find more niche, more nuance in the product space on the part of the recruiters, or the companies that are hiring and we need this.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:33 But at the end of the day you don't really have that kind of availability of product specialists in the market with the depth that's being asked for today, right?
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Which we know has been increasing in terms of years of experience needed.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:36 Yeah.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:40 So how many times can you go out there and find somebody who has.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:51 a specific niche in product for example FinTech, we talked about this earlier, FinTech product manager with eight years of experience, pretty rare, not impossible, pretty rare.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 And then you're asking them to come and work in manufacturing.
00:03:54 --> 00:04:03 And, and on top of that, you're saying, well, we don't really have funds for another specialist product manager who perhaps specializes in internationalization.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 So we want a FinTech product manager with a specialty in internationalization.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:14 Now you're getting even more, you know specific to the point where it becomes hard to find these unicorns, right?
00:04:14 --> 00:04:19 You know, the funny thing is you might not even be asking for a specialization, but you might.
00:04:19 --> 00:04:30 Be interviewing people and saying, oh, this person's only ever been a data pm or this person is coming from a company where they were a mobile PM mainly, but we are more B2B, or whatever.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 Like internationalization is a good one.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:33 Globalization iss a good one.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:37 Really, like if they don't, specifically what I'm saying, if they don't specifically put it in the job description.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 They probably are thinking it in their head.
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 That's what I meant by the recruiters looking for it from that angle.
00:04:43 --> 00:04:50 This is that whole conversation about you can come from the business domain, you have the domain Domain knowledge and experience.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:51 Yeah, domain knowledge and experience.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:53 Or you can have product knowledge experience.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:54 This is exactly what I mean.
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 when I say that to people, yeah, that's perfectly valid.
00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 I think so.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 There are a lot more right where that came from.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:05 We talked about a couple isn't this a yellow data PM is it would be, it would have been the next one on my list.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 I think we pretty much talked about most everything else in here except for, Okay.
00:05:08 --> 00:05:14 Data PM and an AI ML PM or a data science PM or whatever you want to call it.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 Those are the only two other specializations that people would say, No, Brian, you're wrong.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:22 Those are very specific and they have their own needs.
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 are they really that specific?
00:05:24 --> 00:05:28 To the point where, at the exclusion of the others, that's really what I'm asking, right?
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 So maybe you need certain knowledge.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:31 Right.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:37 But that knowledge perhaps could be gained by somebody who doesn't have it, but has core product skills, right?
00:05:37 --> 00:05:46 So as long as you have core product skills, I think some of these, I'm thinking through this now, I think some, maybe most, maybe all of these could be learned if you really wanted to learn them.
00:05:46 --> 00:05:47 Somebody learned them for the first time.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 So, I mean, it's possible.
00:05:49 --> 00:05:50 We know that it's gotta be possible.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 Yeah.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 How did we get here?
00:05:52 --> 00:05:58 That's, that's where I want to launch into, because like this, subdivision of sub sub species of, product managers.
00:05:59 --> 00:06:10 I kind of think specializations are kind of silly in and of itself, from the perspective of I don't want to hire somebody with 8 years of PME experience that basically could do any of these jobs because I don't want to pay that much.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:20 But, if I can find a person that has only one of these categories but has a deep understanding of it, maybe I can just lift that and they'll be good enough for what I need.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 You know I'm looking for a GM, basically.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 I need a GM to run my whole business.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:30 Maybe I can hire someone with two years experience and I know they're not GM material, but I can grow them over two, three years with my business.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:35 And then by the time they have five, six, eight years experience, they'll be, ready to run my segment of the business.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 You bring somebody up from within the business that way.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:42 I have to think that they would be a pretty good candidate because they stayed with you this long, right?
00:06:42 --> 00:06:46 They must've learned a lot of stuff if you gave them the latitude to learn at least.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:53 So yeah, while there's these specializations, It's really the same genus you're still a core product person at the center of it all, right?
00:06:54 --> 00:06:58 And as long as you have that hunger to learn about these other things, It's definitely doable.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:16 I think the industry as a whole perhaps is going down the wrong path by carving out these specializations We've got probably about a dozen of these that we talked about earlier but in in two three years time I can imagine there being more Especially with the new markets you know, that are fueled by AI, ML, et cetera.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:17 Yeah.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 You're going to have more nuanced positions being advertised.
00:07:20 --> 00:07:21 People saying, Hey, I wear this cap now.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 You know, so I'm a specialist, right?
00:07:23 --> 00:07:29 Well, you can, you could bolt on AI to any of these like, Oh, I need AI fintech, AI B2B, AI, whatever.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:33 Now you're hyper specific on paper, but yeah.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 And actually, is it really, I mean, what are you really getting for that?
00:07:35 --> 00:07:49 I have to wonder if this is not disguising a larger problem of why are companies seeking these ultra specialists and not just growing leadership in house themselves that can take over this side of the business?
00:07:49 --> 00:07:53 Well, I can tell you, for starters, growing somebody in house takes time.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:53 Right.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:53 Yeah.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 And people don't want to spend the time.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 They just want immediate results, immediate gratification.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 so welcome to the, how do we get here category?
00:08:01 --> 00:08:06 the number one thing that I want to talk about in the how do we get here category is why are people not just growing their own leaders?
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 I mean, they're looking to hire the current market.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:16 what companies are looking for in the current market is they've stopped looking for these one year entry level, one, two year experience PMs.
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 And they started looking for these eight year, more senior PMs.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 That's the whole market kind of shifted that way from what I'm seeing anyway.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:33 And I think that's because The companies don't want to take time to grow these people or they don't want to play the roulette game of will these people eventually turn into what I need them to turn into and they don't want to wait.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:41 It's an unknown While the experience level demanded has gone up, What I haven't seen is salary levels aren't really commensurate with that.
00:08:41 --> 00:08:47 They're still looking to pay to your experience, And still demanding, maybe because it's the nature of the job market right now.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 Definitely an employer's market and maybe that's why they're doing that, right?
00:08:50 --> 00:08:51 We've seen that before.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 the companies right now are using market pressure to their benefit.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:54 Right.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:59 But the market pressure is everything's gotta be faster the delivery's gotta be faster.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:00 Discovery's gotta be faster.
00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 Servicing your clients gotta be faster.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 how fast is the appropriate turnaround?
00:09:03 --> 00:09:10 Once you've discovered an idea, like I don't know, but I would assume it's much faster than it was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:11 Yeah, I agree.
00:09:11 --> 00:09:11 Absolutely.
00:09:11 --> 00:09:22 And the other thing is because they're not investing, like having funding more positions like this, they're just layering on top of the existing product people where you've got to do all of these things, right.
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 Which brings us back full circle to how we introduced this topic today.
00:09:25 --> 00:09:26 Right.
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 You've got to do X, Y, Z, and then some, right.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 And so now of course that person's overburdened.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:34 You can't do everything as well if you have to keep doing all of that.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 And the other side of it is the organization really supporting you.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 Well, that's, I mean, let's put that one on the parking lot for when we talk about cons.
00:09:41 --> 00:09:47 The pros and cons sections of this, this specialization happening.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:48 I mean, a con, definitely.
00:09:48 --> 00:10:03 Is corporate America's dual, I was going to say their bipolar disorder of being both, they're shifting from scope creep to the things that they want from the position and they don't do, this is not just product management, this is every position that I've seen.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:15 they use scope creep and lack of support together to try to get you to do more work for less money or to try to get the team to do more collectively with less people which basically ends up being less money.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:15 Right.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:16 Yeah.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:21 So this scope creep and lack of support, it's like, it's like the, the, also it's like the if you ever work for a.
00:10:21 --> 00:10:28 Narcissist or if you're work for someone who is a I don't know full of hot air Let's say that someone who is a not, not a particularly competent leader.
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 They will use a fear and doubt.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:34 Fear and doubt is their weapon on either side to try to keep you in line, fear and doubt.
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 So it's scope, creep and lack support work together for this.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:38 Definitely the one, two punch.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:39 I agree.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:39 The one, two punch.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:46 we'll talk about this more in the con section, but it's something to be aware of, of the, Oh, we got all this market pressure and we got to move faster.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:46 And.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:52 there's no money for this or another one that I've heard is you got to justify why we need more people for this.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 You got to justify why we need more people.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:55 It's so ironic, isn't it?
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 I mean, the justification is you're asking me to run faster.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:03 that should be a leadership expectation it should be a leadership request, but yeah, it's funny how they turn that around.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:04 It certainly is.
00:11:04 --> 00:11:09 Although I would say at that level or even PMO and whatnot, they would say like, well, these agile ways of working.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 Are contributing to this type of need for specialization?
00:11:12 --> 00:11:17 and I think to a certain degree on the superficial level, maybe they think they have a point, right?
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 Because they don't really understand agile ways of working, right?
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 So they're gonna say, we need to do all of these things.
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 And yeah, that's contributing to this.
00:11:24 --> 00:11:30 But it's because of their fundamental lack of understanding of agile ways of working, I think, right?
00:11:30 --> 00:11:34 If you're doing it right, it's actually better, To get all of these things done.
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 You don't need to necessarily add people to a certain degree.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:48 So I'll give you an example, If you're doing things like checking signals, right out in the market, do you need to add somebody on your team to do that full time or can your existing product people do that?
00:11:48 --> 00:11:49 Person even right?
00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 Should they be doing that?
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 Like if they're a true product person, they should be doing that.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:59 They shouldn't really just have their ears to the ground and just eyes down on the machinery working and stamping widgets out.
00:11:59 --> 00:12:00 I mean, this isn't new.
00:12:00 --> 00:12:06 Market pressure, yes, it's always been on an accelerating scale for, I don't know, as long as we can remember, right?
00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 Is that going to change?
00:12:07 --> 00:12:08 I don't think so.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 I think that's going to get worse and worse.
00:12:10 --> 00:12:16 I mean, you also just identified a topic for a future podcast, which is when do you need to add people?
00:12:16 --> 00:12:21 Because if you're going through the interview pipeline right now and you happen to listen to this podcast randomly, first of all, thank you.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:22 Thanks for coming.
00:12:22 --> 00:12:23 Like and subscribe.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:44 But second of all ask the question, how do you know when it's time to add a new person to the team or to spin up a new team and watch as they are flabbergasted and if you want to see somebody trip over themselves answering a question, because how do you know it's time to add Team members or a new team because the dividing and growing over an organization, Oh, scaling PM.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:45 We didn't talk about that one either.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 I'm a specialist in scaling your organization.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:53 you're about the only person that could tell me that, that I wouldn't dig in and be like, wait a minute, what are we talking about here?
00:12:54 --> 00:13:03 The other one about specialization is the what people will say when they say we need somebody specific because everyone, every company thinks what they're doing is like so unique and so specific.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 They'll say, Oh, the complexity of the technology.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 We can't find anyone, anyone that's worked in our stack.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:14 We can't find anyone who's worked at this specific AI is perfect for this AI.
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 They're perfect for this biggest culprits of thinking.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:26 You know, we're going to grab a model off the shelf a model that thousands of people have used like completely not new tech at all.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:27 That's right.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 Cause we've grabbed a model off the street.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 And upstreet, is that where models are now?
00:13:32 --> 00:13:38 and we've slapped in on our product because our investors told us we need more AI in our products.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:39 So there you go.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 If that's what they're looking for, we can satisfy that in that, right.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 tech complexity drives people.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:54 It basically is the, it's the, I've fallen and I can't get up of the I'm going to scare you into buying this product by showing you a commercial of old people falling down and saying, look, this could be you.
00:13:54 --> 00:13:59 this could be people that you care about is that you're using tech complexity to say, no, you need a segment.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:03 it's even sketchier if they're asking for your money at the same time.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:04 Well, they typically are.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:04 Right?
00:14:04 --> 00:14:04 Yeah.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 So, yeah, you want to get ahead?
00:14:06 --> 00:14:07 Look at your competition.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:08 They're using all these tools.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:08 Yeah.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:09 I agree.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:14 You know, I think there's a lot of that going on right now, especially in the AIML data science space.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:20 I mean people will listen to this and might say well, Brian, you're being disingenuous sometimes there are really new technologies.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 There are really new technologies out there.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 But we're talking about product here, right?
00:14:24 --> 00:14:25 Yeah, we're talking about product, though.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:32 I mean, if you get one of these eight year product managers that we're talking about, one of these senior PMs, out of one of these other , not even specializations, just industries.
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 They should be able to adapt to a different tech stack.
00:14:35 --> 00:14:45 I mean, a tech stack holding a PM back, I can't that's difficult for me to I might be wrong on this, I'm willing to be challenged on this in the comments, throw a comment at me.
00:14:46 --> 00:14:54 But that's a tough one for me, again, cause I've, in my career, I mean, I remember working on AS400 IBM Series I mainframe.
00:14:54 --> 00:14:55 Sure.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:56 Working on green screens.
00:14:56 --> 00:15:03 I worked on those when I started my career, we were in Windows 95 and Windows nt and I worked on Linux Systems.
00:15:03 --> 00:15:03 Sure.
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 You know, networks, you name it.
00:15:05 --> 00:15:05 Like tech stacks.
00:15:05 --> 00:15:15 I remember working in QA at one point when we would hire people I would want to vet out their personality because if they were kind of just chained to one thing or they didn't want to be learning on a regular basis.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 I knew they wouldn't last in our environment.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:29 So I would tell them in the interview, Hey, like the typical QA people, we place a lot of emphasis on, and a lot of importance on learning and skill development, because most of the QA analysts that you see here, they're going to turn over their whole skill set in three years.
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 Look at all the tools they use.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:45 Will be completely different in three years That's a tough thing to say to somebody All of the tools and technologies that you use three years from now will be a hundred percent different And I can't tell you what they're going to be because we'll find our way into it, that's quite a claim, but it's a valid one.
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 I mean that actually did happen faster than three years, but yeah exactly.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:54 So yeah, I think at the core of it if you're looking for somebody with eight years of experience in a specific.
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 Niche that we spoke of earlier.
00:15:56 --> 00:16:03 Well, they're not gonna have it in a I M L or data science, possibly because these aren't eight year old mature areas to begin with.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:09 But if somebody says I'm a product person and I have the aptitude to learn, I'm more invested in that person, right?
00:16:09 --> 00:16:15 And just then somebody who says, Well, I'm a pick one of those nine things or 10 things that we talked about.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 I'm a fintech person, and you know, I can do a I in fintech.
00:16:19 --> 00:16:20 It's like, that's great.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 That's only a small piece of what I'm looking for today.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:23 I don't know what I'm going to need in the future.
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 I'm going to need a product person to really take this and run with it.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 So the other side of that coin is exactly the, we talked about earlier.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:30 healthcare is another one.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:44 So the other side of the coin is as an organization, if you're recruiting for these types of product specialist roles, you need to make sure that you're doing this with intent and not just because you're jumping on the bandwagon, right?
00:16:44 --> 00:16:49 And then the other is, are you going to support this person or are you going to just say, well, since you are this.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:58 You know this specific insert niche here type of product person the minute you're going to ask them to do something else They're going to keel over because that's not what they do, right?
00:16:58 --> 00:17:30 You still have a void and you don't have budget to hire another person well, well the other issue and we'll get to this a little later in the podcast probably one of the what to do if you're caught in this situation where you're the quote ceo of the product but also You got to run to this person for budgeting and run to this manager for hiring and that manager for hiring this other thing, you better inform these stakeholders before you make changes because they have the ability to torpedo your stuff, and you can't hire people and somebody else determines when people leave and join your team and when to take people away from your team yet, CEO of the product anyway.
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 I was like, that tangent was way too long.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:33 I forgot where I was going with it.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:43 If you're in one of these specialized roles, you probably are there because you've, you've done something about being overburdened and you've gone to a specialized role to get away from being overburdened.
00:17:43 --> 00:17:47 And now you're finding that you're getting overburdened again in the new role.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48 So that's not great.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:55 I mean, you really need some strategies to basically unburden yourself if possible and to try to evade getting overburdened.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 we'll talk about that when we're in the conclusion sections of the podcast.
00:17:58 --> 00:17:59 Yeah, exactly.
00:17:59 --> 00:18:10 but I feel there are pros and cons, of being in this product manager role where you're dealing with a lot of different things it seems like you're overburdened, but if it's acceptable for work-life balance for you.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:15 If it's not burning you out I was gonna say you have some real strong pros that we can talk about.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:16 I like the cons, obviously.
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 We've talked about the scope creep and the lack of support together.
00:18:19 --> 00:18:20 That's not going to go away.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:22 It's not going away.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 Cause that, is just Western culture, corporate America at work full time.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:30 they are trained to do that in their MBA classes and they're going to try to do it.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:38 They do budgeting once a year and it takes an act of Congress to get them to change their one time budgeting that they did once a year, a year ago.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:42 and they don't have the ability to course correct right and how do we know that COVID was going to happen?
00:18:42 --> 00:18:47 And between those years, we got to stick to those budget numbers until we are all underwater or whatever.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 You know, we decided what we're living in this house and we're not moving.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 And the flood water is rising and rising.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 Like, when are we going to leave at one point?
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 At what point are we not going to stick to that decision?
00:18:56 --> 00:19:01 Anyway, that was Brian's side tangent on why yearly budgeting is insufficient and stupid.
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 Bring us back to the pros and the cons.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:11 One of the pros has got to be, one of the pros of working in this mode where You are kind of jack of all trades, right?
00:19:11 --> 00:19:12 You're overburdened.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:30 If you can survive not being kind of like just simply not being burned out One of the biggest pros has got to be personal growth because you are learning so much right by doing that Yeah I feel like that has A finite lifespan though, because you will then get very quickly from overwork to overburdened to burnt out.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:37 So if you can kind of stay within that, just shy of burnt out, take your breaks, whatever else you'll learn a lot, right.
00:19:37 --> 00:19:41 And that will do wonders for you yourself as a professional, as well as your resume.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:42 I would say this.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:47 you also have a lot more at bats than other people to grow your leadership skill.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:55 So that is up to you to mess up or to learn from but you have a lot more at bats in this position to grow leadership.
00:19:55 --> 00:20:14 You have to be a specialist in product management rather than we just hire somebody in this GM role that we obviously need you got to do the PNLs and you got to do the marketing and you got to, Have a three year plan and you got to have a strategy, but you got to keep your eye on the tactics and you have one foot on that boat and the other foot on the dock or whatever, like all these euphemisms or whatever that we wrap around PM.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:15 I mean, this is just business leadership.
00:20:15 --> 00:20:16 That's all it is.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 Business leadership, except without the equity.
00:20:20 --> 00:20:24 Uh, But yeah, like if I don't know what happened to that being a company, man, like that went away.
00:20:25 --> 00:20:28 You know, it's been replaced with this list that we're talking about.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:33 what are some of the other pros of being a generalist?
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 not being too specialized in this way.
00:20:35 --> 00:20:50 Well, if we're going to go back to the design thinking, system thinking, holistic thinking type of view you need someone with a lot of skill to, if you're really going to be a system thinker, like you can't be a system thinker and not understand deep in the technology.
00:20:50 --> 00:21:05 you can't be the golf swing guy that I was explaining on the two podcasts ago or whatever where he didn't, he just couldn't, he was an executive, but he just couldn't, anytime you would talk technical, even slightly technical bent even like talking about which HDMI port to plug in the HDMI.
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 Like he was out as soon as you started talking technical, anything, he was.
00:21:08 --> 00:21:09 100 percent out.
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 You, that guy will never be a system thinker.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:13 I've worked for that guy.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 So usually they just say, Oh, that's technical.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:17 I'm going to bring my architect in here.
00:21:17 --> 00:21:17 right.
00:21:17 --> 00:21:18 No, I agree with you.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:23 I think people should have enough knowledge to stand on their feet and talk about it.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 that doesn't mean they have to be so detailed.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 Cause you do need those architects for that level of discussion.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:30 But yeah, I absolutely agree.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:36 To me one of the pros is depending on where you are in your product career is to be able to have options.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:42 So if you're a generalist and you're doing all of those things, your options are practically unlimited at that point.
00:21:42 --> 00:21:47 If you're already in one of these niche areas, you're stuck there, right?
00:21:47 --> 00:21:52 And for you to get out of that bucket and jump into another bucket, It's hard.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:54 It's hard because you've got to now somehow.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:58 profess enough knowledge about that other vertical expertise, right?
00:21:59 --> 00:22:00 And you haven't learned it.
00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 Yeah, that is a hundred percent true.
00:22:02 --> 00:22:09 I mean, if you're going to label yourself as a AI FinTech AI specialist, product manager, I mean, that's great.
00:22:09 --> 00:22:14 And that career fields specialization might be wide enough for you to.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:23 work forever in it assuming that AI doesn't dry up overnight and everyone's like, yeah, we added AI to all of our products and we saw no bottom line margin increase.
00:22:23 --> 00:22:29 We're kicking this stuff to the curb, which I don't expect to same thing with the technical, I don't see that going away anytime soon.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:34 You know, a lot of people that hire product managers, especially for the first time, they have difficulty talking to their development teams.
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 they're looking for someone, so they're going to hire a technical.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:43 Product manager thinking that that will because the person is more technical than your general product manager, they will have a better opportunity.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:44 That's what the business thinks.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 I mean, they're not basing it off of anything.
00:22:46 --> 00:22:46 Sure.
00:22:46 --> 00:22:47 That's just that's what they think.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51 Yeah it's the same thing with a lot of these other categories.
00:22:51 --> 00:22:51 Honestly.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 Another, another con would be context switching.
00:22:54 --> 00:23:14 Like this is one of those ones that along with scope creep and lack of support together, if you can get good at dodging the one, two punch of those two things you're going to get beat up by context switching to these are all the things that honestly, this con list is just all things that are going to burn you out and either force the company to say, this person is not as starry eyed as we want, we're going to force them out.
00:23:14 --> 00:23:23 And replace him with someone I was going to say younger But yeah, that's a podcast that a lot of people probably want us to do but I've been resisting for a while.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 corporate America, they're so weird.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:28 they want someone with eight years experience, but they don't want anyone over 50.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:29 This is so strange.
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 Like you want a 25 year old with eight years experience in A.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:33 I.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:33 M.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:33 L.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:35 health care product management.
00:23:35 --> 00:23:36 There you go.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:37 That's exactly what they want.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:37 When A.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:37 I.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:38 M.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:38 L.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 wasn't even around before they could grow a beard.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 this is the same thing as wanting agile experience.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:46 Well, they say must have 20 years agile experience and be in your twenties.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:47 Come on, right?
00:23:47 --> 00:23:47 Yeah, it's the same thing.
00:23:48 --> 00:23:49 That could be a whole podcast by itself.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:57 But yeah, I mean, that context switching getting beat up is, I mean, if you're doing marketing activities, if you're doing business leadership, basically business leadership, okay?
00:23:57 --> 00:24:10 If you're doing marketing activities, you're cross team coordination and all that, everything that's involved in there, you're building a strategy, you're coming to consistent with stakeholders, and you're working with development teams, and customers, and customers, And you're refining backlogs and doing everything we normally talk about.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 You're doing, I mean, you're doing an incredible And now you're doing it for two teams.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 So basically you're doing two jobs for the company for free.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:20 The amount of context switching now, just between strategy and team level.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:21 Just that context switching.
00:24:21 --> 00:24:22 Incredible.
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 That's an incredible limit on context switching.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28 So would you want to fly on a plane or a pilot switching context like that all the time?
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 I don't think I would take my chances driving seriously.
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34 That's a lot of context switching in the cost.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:39 You know, I mean, hopefully most people recognize that the cost of context switching between two things.
00:24:39 --> 00:24:41 The overhead there is 20%.
00:24:41 --> 00:24:41 Yeah, right.
00:24:41 --> 00:24:42 And this has been proven.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:46 So some smart people did the work and they said, that's what it is, 20%.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:53 So if you're context switching between three things, 40 percent and so on, how many things can you switch context between anyway, at that point, right?
00:24:54 --> 00:24:59 That is just the cost, but there's also this idea of when you switch, it's not just the cost.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:03 It's also that time when you switch, you're not doing something productive.
00:25:03 --> 00:25:04 Yeah.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:06 So that cost is actually higher, right?
00:25:06 --> 00:25:06 Yeah.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:12 We're going to have a whole session just on context switching or something along the lines of context switching.
00:25:12 --> 00:25:15 I don't know, basically being ineffective because.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:17 You're doing so much context switching.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:22 You can be really good at your job of product management, but I mean, there's, enough stuff I can, or whatever I wear.
00:25:22 --> 00:25:27 This whole podcast is wrapped in product management, but it really could have been any role we could be talking about right now.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:31 I can just layer on additional duties until you're basically useless.
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 And then start blaming you.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:34 For being useless.
00:25:34 --> 00:25:42 You should have pushed back more on us, or you should have raised your hand and said something, or you should have, you can tell from experience I've been there too.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:46 So the minute you actually do raise your hand, you're not a team player, right?
00:25:46 --> 00:25:46 That's right.
00:25:46 --> 00:25:49 So yeah, you're going to get 3.
00:25:49 --> 00:25:50 5 on that performance review.
00:25:50 --> 00:25:52 If you didn't you're not getting five stars this year.
00:25:52 --> 00:26:08 The other pro before we leave the pro and con category, the other pro is if you want that autonomy that is normally afforded to leadership, you can kind of go where the most burning problems are, you can go and put out the fires when you need to or you can jump from strategy to strategy, or pivot, or whatever.
00:26:08 --> 00:26:10 That is a pro of being one of these specialists.
00:26:10 --> 00:26:14 Because again, the company is expecting you to be an expert in these fields.
00:26:14 --> 00:26:22 So they're going to trust you and give you more autonomy than maybe they would a generalist, or maybe they would somebody who's not a product manager, even a developer or something like that.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:23 Yeah.
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 I'd like to believe that's a hundred percent true.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 I think from experience, it's, you've got to be able to.
00:26:27 --> 00:26:32 You know, grow a spine and seize the autonomy because they don't come out and just say that.
00:26:32 --> 00:26:35 So yeah, but, but the opportunity is there for you for the taking.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:35 Right.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 And you're able to easily do that compared to the other situation.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:40 So I do agree with that.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:44 Since we've been talking, I wrote down healthcare and government as more specializations.
00:26:44 --> 00:26:46 I'm sure I'm missing specializations.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:52 If you can think of any other product management specializations while we've been talking, throw them in the comments.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:57 What to do when you're overburdened as a product manager?
00:26:57 --> 00:27:02 obviously you see the market reacting with being overloaded, specialized specialization.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:04 It seems to be a way out of being overloaded.
00:27:05 --> 00:27:09 Well, these other tasks Hey, I'm not going to do, I'm not going to do GM product management.
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 I'm not going to do technical product management.
00:27:11 --> 00:27:13 I need to focus on like technical is a great one.
00:27:13 --> 00:27:14 I'm not going to do technical product management.
00:27:14 --> 00:27:15 I need to focus on growth.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:17 I need to do more marketing activities.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:18 I need to do more of this and that kind of stuff.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:31 Like specialize to get away from the stuff that you don't want to do anymore or I mean, maybe not that but specialize to make sure that your talents are going into Number one what you're good at number two what you enjoy yeah, I agree I think that is the other side.
00:27:31 --> 00:27:37 So this is the part of the podcast where You'll be able to take something, hopefully, and put it into practice, right?
00:27:37 --> 00:27:38 That's our hope.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 So yeah, specialize.
00:27:39 --> 00:27:39 I mean, by all means.
00:27:39 --> 00:27:44 If you're specializing, then you're not being overburdened through being a generalist across the board.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:45 That is true.
00:27:46 --> 00:27:50 But at the same time, I wouldn't get too comfortable in that specialty, if you will.
00:27:50 --> 00:27:57 So I'd say, yeah, definitely specialize, but keep that resume updated and look around, look left and right, see where the opportunities are for you to go.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:06 Maybe you're specializing in an area because the real area that you want to be in, that you aspire to be in is not available to you at your present company.
00:28:06 --> 00:28:06 Right.
00:28:06 --> 00:28:07 And that's okay.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 That you can treat that as a plan B for now.
00:28:09 --> 00:28:10 That's okay.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:10 Yeah.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 I would that specialization thing.
00:28:12 --> 00:28:17 I like, it's also what, like you mentioned earlier, it could turn into a trap where now it's trapping you.
00:28:17 --> 00:28:29 Because if you are a healthcare hardware, PM If you're in the healthcare devices space, now you want to jump to enterprise security or something.
00:28:29 --> 00:28:29 Yeah, exactly.
00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 Like you're going to have a heck of a time escaping the orbit.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 Of where you're at, because they're going to look at you as a health care.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:36 Well, you're a health care guy.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:38 You get labeled, don't you?
00:28:38 --> 00:28:45 So, I mean, once you go down that road, unless you're willing to be creative about what you put on LinkedIn or whatever, you're going to be in that orbit.
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 Just be mindful of that trap though.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:47 exactly.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:52 So maybe you really want to be in software and you can't because you work at a, Healthcare devices company.
00:28:52 --> 00:28:52 Right?
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 So what do you do in that situation?
00:28:54 --> 00:29:01 I'd be looking to make sure that you learn about software, first of all, so you can have a meaningful conversation at the minimum.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:05 But maybe your devices do use some kind of firmware, software, etc.
00:29:05 --> 00:29:06 try and get ahead of that.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:08 So you can have a conversation about it.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 Well, that goes along to continuing your education.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 I don't mean education meaning like formal education.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:21 I'm not saying go out to get your MBA or whatever But continuing to educate yourself on basically what I was saying about the three year technology turnaround.
00:29:21 --> 00:29:22 Like continually.
00:29:22 --> 00:29:36 Re educating yourself on what's in the market, what the trends are, what the new technology is, using it, figuring out how to pull it into your day to day actually use it day to day, not just taking a class occasionally, actually pull it into your day to day somehow.
00:29:36 --> 00:29:37 I think AI is a great example of that.
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 You have to do it judiciously, obviously, right?
00:29:40 --> 00:29:49 If you're in the healthcare devices market, you could still use AI for analytics, You can give it a whole bunch of data and say, find me the meaning out of this data.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 And it's going to do charts for you, for example, right?
00:29:51 --> 00:29:53 It's going to do all of those kinds of things.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:54 So yeah, I agree with you.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 Stay educated on these things.
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 Not necessarily formally educated, but learn about these things.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:04 And the other thing is connect with people that are in the space that you want to be in.
00:30:04 --> 00:30:08 Well, along with connect with people, I would formalize that.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:16 How I would formalize that and wrap it up for our conversation is, I would say you need to build a support structure around whatever you're doing.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:21 So if you're in healthcare devices, like healthcare and hardware is your specialization PM.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:21 Okay.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 We'll build a support structure in the healthcare field.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:29 You know, hardware PMs field, basically start building that network, whatever it doesn't have to be hyper specific.
00:30:29 --> 00:30:30 It could be outer rings.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 Maybe start linking up with all the rest of the PMs that are in that market.
00:30:34 --> 00:30:35 But build your own support structure.
00:30:35 --> 00:30:40 So there's two sides of this that I think there's building a support structure, Inside of your organization.
00:30:40 --> 00:30:46 But when I'm saying it, I'm thinking about building your own support structure outside of the organization, your own, truly your own.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:51 So that when a company decides one day it's downturn in the market stock went down 20 cents.
00:30:51 --> 00:30:58 That you don't get you don't lose your whole network because your company decided they just they, they wanted to give somebody a bonus and it wasn't you this year.
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 Like I, I'm, I think you can do both.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:07 I don't think it's super difficult, but if I had to prioritize one, I don't know, I don't know which one I think I might prioritize outside of the company.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:08 I definitely agree.
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 I mean, outside first and then inside as well.
00:31:11 --> 00:31:12 So it's not, it's not.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:23 Either or necessarily right inside because You can definitely forge opportunities to create a support structure for the other PMs and act as a mentor or, you know seek mentorship, right?
00:31:23 --> 00:31:26 Maybe there are people that are more senior than you PM wise, right.
00:31:27 --> 00:31:31 That was interesting because they don't even need to be PM mentors.
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 I mean, a lot of what we talked about today was leadership.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:36 Yeah, they can be leadership mentors as well.
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 It really is like, what do you need mentoring in?
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 You know, what, where are you looking to go?
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42 A lot of that we can't we can't generalize it.
00:31:42 --> 00:31:49 We need to be tailored to one person, but figure out what, like you, like assessing your role, like the role that you're in.
00:31:49 --> 00:31:53 The things that you do day to day and how they've you know, how they've grown over time.
00:31:54 --> 00:31:59 Like most people don't even take a step back and say like, Hey, What am I doing today that I was not doing a year ago?
00:31:59 --> 00:32:00 Right.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:09 And then looking at the diff because usually with the corporate America comeback, we'll be like, well, if you want a bonus, you've got to justify why we're going to pay you X percentage more money.
00:32:09 --> 00:32:17 you gotta be working the new job first before we give you to a new, yeah, there's a lot of gaslighting stuff I've heard over my career with corporate America which is nonsense.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 all you should say is like, Hey, I've taken on these new responsibilities.
00:32:20 --> 00:32:26 There's these jobs that I'm looking at that are commensurate with my job role and these new responsibilities I'm doing.
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 Here's what the pay ranges are.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:35 You know now please pay me like that, that's because you've done more work than HR and everyone involved in this conversation is ever going to do.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:39 they're trying to do the same thing they're doing from day to day without any additional stuff.
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 And they hope that you're going to go away and just take it.
00:32:41 --> 00:32:42 I agree with that.
00:32:42 --> 00:32:50 And I also think to just to extend that they're going to do what they're, is you go and say, look, I've done all of these on my own and I believe I should be paid fairly.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:51 So pay me and they're going to go, Nope.
00:32:52 --> 00:32:53 And you're going to go, okay, I'm going to leave.
00:32:53 --> 00:32:54 that's what will happen.
00:32:54 --> 00:32:58 Unfortunately I think there's enough evidence out there for me to say this.
00:32:58 --> 00:33:00 With some authority that that's exactly what will happen.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02 they will not give you what you're looking for.
00:33:02 --> 00:33:04 You will leave, they will hire somebody else.
00:33:04 --> 00:33:06 And they will pay them what you were asking for.
00:33:07 --> 00:33:19 Or they will hire multiple people because again, the one, two punch combination is lack of support, additional job duties, scope creep that you don't find out as this is a typical thing in corporate America, like you don't find out what somebody did until they're gone.
00:33:19 --> 00:33:35 I remember many times somebody would leave and they'd get replaced by two people because they were doing so much and also with an advanced level of skill because they'd been in the position for a while that one person cannot do their job, Now you've got to hire two people basically to replace one advance.
00:33:35 --> 00:33:37 We're seeing that all the time.
00:33:37 --> 00:33:37 Definitely.
00:33:37 --> 00:33:41 This, I mean, there, there's a lot of reasons that we just outlined in the podcast.
00:33:41 --> 00:33:43 About why specialization happens.
00:33:43 --> 00:33:46 I mean it could be a tactic but it cuts both ways.
00:33:46 --> 00:33:53 And I, for me personally, it's a tactic that I would deploy as a short term measure.
00:33:53 --> 00:33:53 Yeah.
00:33:53 --> 00:33:57 I don't think I would look at that as this is what I want to be for the foreseeable future.
00:33:57 --> 00:33:59 It'll just be, here's what I'm going to do now.
00:33:59 --> 00:34:00 I really want to do this.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:00 Yeah.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:01 That's just me though.
00:34:01 --> 00:34:01 Yeah.
00:34:01 --> 00:34:08 I mean, like for me, I would rather brand myself as an experienced senior PM really, then go down the specialist route.
00:34:08 --> 00:34:15 I mean, if I did go down a specialist route, I could go down the technical route, the data or platform or mobile I've worked on all those.
00:34:15 --> 00:34:21 But I don't know, just by boxing myself into one of these specializations just doesn't seem I don't know.
00:34:21 --> 00:34:22 It seems scary for some reason.
00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 I don't know why it is scary.
00:34:24 --> 00:34:26 But again, you've just got to be astute about this, I think.
00:34:26 --> 00:34:27 So if you saw.
00:34:27 --> 00:34:37 Hypothetically speaking, if you saw a job that specifically focused on, let's say, the government side of things, your product, you could shape your resume up that way for that job.
00:34:38 --> 00:34:44 Likewise, with data side of things, for example, or quality or whatever, pick something that you're good at, right?
00:34:44 --> 00:34:48 But if you have not worked in the space, then just be careful because you can't really focus on that.
00:34:49 --> 00:34:50 Fake it like that.
00:34:50 --> 00:34:51 Although we know people do.
00:34:51 --> 00:34:51 Sure.
00:34:51 --> 00:34:52 Yeah.
00:34:52 --> 00:34:52 You shouldn't do that.
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 So we've never worked in a global company in your life.
00:34:55 --> 00:34:57 You can't say I'm a a global product person.
00:34:57 --> 00:34:59 It's like, no, it's a small globe.
00:34:59 --> 00:34:59 Yeah.
00:35:00 --> 00:35:00 Yeah.
00:35:00 --> 00:35:02 Leave that to the people that play golf with the CEO.
00:35:02 --> 00:35:03 Yeah, exactly.
00:35:03 --> 00:35:04 Well those guys.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 They just walk in, they walk on air, basically.
00:35:06 --> 00:35:07 That's right, that's right.
00:35:07 --> 00:35:08 . Absolutely.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:10 That's a weird ending as I know.
00:35:10 --> 00:35:14 And if you're not, then everybody else, make friends with the CEO and play golf with them.
00:35:14 --> 00:35:15 That's right.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:20 And keep that resume updated because you never know when you'll be in a golf game and need a resume for a VP of product job.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:21 Exactly.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:24 Well, let us know what you guys think about this topic and others.
00:35:24 --> 00:35:28 You know just down in the comments below we'd be happy to at least consider them.
00:35:28 --> 00:35:29 And don't forget to like, and subscribe,
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