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Aniket Pallav

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Written 28 Oct, 2013. 1,217 views.

Downvote Comment

The reason for choosing to become a PM and then remain a PM for some time

are different for me.

I was a developer before I did my MB A. When Ken Norton wrote these lines he

 was describing why I became a PM :)

I loved the technical challenges of engineering but despised the coding. I

liked solving problems, but I hated having other people tell me what to do. I

 wanted to be a part of the strategic decisions, I wanted to own the product.

Marketing appealed to my creativity, but I knew I'd dislike being too far

away from the technology.

(How to hire a product manager — by Ken Norton   )

However, less than a y ear into my first PM stint I was feeling frustrated because

I realised I lacked the muscle in the organization to do anything. And if you

 want to see something take the shape you have in your head you have to havepower.

Less than a year out of b-school, I was wondering if I should cut my losses and

do something else. But slowly I started realizing a few things.

1. I was actually working with people. For long, in my head, I ha d classified

myself as an asocial beast. But, hey, here I was getting people from 4-5

different teams to work towards something.

2. I realised that in 8 months I knew more about legal, finance, professional

services, sales, customer support, engineering than other people outside

those teams. This in turn, made me realize that each of these facets carry 

different risks for the product and I can be the person who sees and

mitigates those risks.

3. True success is bigger than any individual. Yes, you might have been

overruled in the color decision but if it made it better, it was for good.

4. My colleagues. I worked in small PM teams with folks who would just push

my thinking every day. You feel like an incrementally smarter fool at the

end of every day.

 And p ost the first year, these are the things tha t have kept me in a PM job.

 

Sriyansa Dash, PM for 5 years

5 upvotes by Phrederick Hume, Pranshu Nahar, Asham Vohra, (more)

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Written 21 Oct, 2013. 907 views.

Downvote Comment

For me it's the sheer joy of shaping a product and see it grow in front of me.

Product managers are also creators and if your creations are good enough then

 you can change the world. N eed an example? We need to thank p roduct

managers of Quora for creating this amazing platform for having a creative

discussion like this. I rest my case ;)

 

Antony Chacko, UX Designer, Product Strategist, SEO

Upvote   Share

Written 17 Oct, 2013. 2,791 views.

Downvote Comment

I remember this very clearly, my first mentor literally talked me into it.

It was at the end of my summer new hire training class at Sprint for future

Sales Engineers. They had employees from various 'hiring' departments come

and talk about their jobs. My future mentor, Marc Langston, came spoke about

product management. He opened with "I'm gong to tell you why product

management is the most important job in the company" and then proceeded to

make his case elegantly.

My reaction was two fold A) This guy is really cool B) That's the job for me. As

a sweetener I soon learned his team also happened to work the closest to where

my then girlfriend/future wife lived. (DC versus NYC)

I was first in my training class so I'd have my pick of the positions available so

it was a safe bet I'd get this gig. (Basically a junior product manager) What I

find interesting to this day is no one else really wanted this job. There were two

open PM positions (one for new tech and one for old tech) and everyone

 breathed a sigh of relief when I picked the new tech role. The second position

 was picked well down the ranking and I'm pretty sure that choice was solely 

motivated by location.

 

Ian Withrow, Been a PM for awhile

3 upvotes by Philipp M. W. Hoffmann, AZ Zaidi, and Anjana Rames.

Upvote   3   Share

Written 16 Oct, 2013. 985 views.

Downvote Comment

Personally, I wanted to help build sh*t and I wanted to be close to the product

that customers used. Marketing was a little too far removed and Engineering

 was a little too close a nd technical. Project management was close but similar

to Engineering it was too much process in the day-to-day and you get lost in

the weeds. Product management was more where you end up when you don't

quite fit in any of those buckets or are looking to influence the big picture while

still being close to the product itself.

 At least that's my journey.

 

Kris Zanuldin

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