He explained that learning everything possible out there about product management is just the very start. Its something every eager product manager has to go through; and it does take 2-3 years go through all of the available material (whilst also maintaining a healthy work-life balance).
Once you have learnt everything and had a few years of on-the-job training you realise there’s something that no book, teacher or conference can actually teach you.
How do you actually get a team of cross-functional people to build amazing products?
Every team is unique and has different dynamics. Every person on the team is also unique and not the same as anyone else you’ve worked with before. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to leading teams to build products. The only true way to learn this is by doing it, again and again, with different products, in different industries and markets, and with different teams. With big teams, small teams, remote teams and co-located teams.
Practice makes perfect in product management. This can take decades to master. Even industry veterans are still learning new things about how to lead a team to successfully build great products. Even after being a product manager for 25 years, you might only be 50% of your way to being a very good product manager; the journey in product leadership and mastery is essentially always on-going.
