How senior product managers think differently
I often got asked how a product manager could get promoted to a more senior level. The truth is, getting a promotion is often a complicated game. Yes, your skills and achievements play a role, but so do other factors such as how much your manager cares about developing talents, how good and tenured your peers are, how political the company is, etc.
So this article isn’t about how to get promoted to senior PM, but about how to advance your thinking and become a better PM. Anyone can think like a senior PM regardless of their title — and just because one has the senior PM title, doesn’t mean they truly deserve it.
The diagram below shows different ways you can “do product”, depending on how clear you are about the problem and the solution. To advance your product craft, you have to be comfortable operating at all levels of clarity, and learn the different tools you can use in each situation. When the problem has already been well-defined and the solution has been agreed upon, your focus is to execute it really well. This is usually the main playing field of a more junior PM. Senior PMs have to master this aspect too, of course, but they could choose to be less hands-on.
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