Business and Strategy Skills for Product Management

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "What are the most important business and strategy skills for a product manager to have?" including reviewing a laundry list of skills, including:

• being a curious empath
• basic financial literacy
• maturity
• discernment
• impartiality
• patience
• ability to ask critical questions in an open and unbiased way
• understand the market the product serves
• customer discovery
• basic financial literacy
• the ability to speak truth to power
• understanding how the business operates
• threat/opportunity modeling
• active listening
• storytelling

With a deep dive on how to understand the market the product serves/customer discovery and speaking truth to power.

Listen to our conversation on the poll question "What type of expertise is the most important for a product manager in a strategic role?" Where Joy defends her no-vote as product management is so multi-dimensional and cross-functional, there is not just one, and Market and Persona Expertise takes the poll.

Get our take on the following questions:

Why are business and strategy skills important to product managers?

Why have business and strategy skills been neglected in product management?

And get our Lightning Round answers to "What is the best way for a product manager to build their business and strategy skills?" With a good yes-and flow around the importance of mentoring.

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by regular panelists Jason Vincelette, Joy McCaffrey, Paul Hurwitz, and Rob Barkman.