What accomplishment in your product management career has brought you the highest level of satisfaction and joy? Can you narrate why?

The real joy is when you see people are using product build and envisaged by you and impacting their lives in the positive way.

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What aspect of product management did you struggle the most with? How did you overcome it?

Most struggling aspect of product management is juggling between never ending priorities across the functions. This drained out a lot of other PM folks too. Best way to keep up with this is to be customer centric and always build for the customer and not for the business. In the long run this strategy helps you end up building the right product with correct priorities.

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What's one common myth about product management that you find common among aspiring PMs?

There are many myths about aspiring PMs but the one which I encounter the most is "If you know data analysis, then you are a good fit for PM".  80% PM interviews I do, most of them coming from the data analytics field and they think PM is a natural progression. Though there is nothing bad in it but PM role is much more than that data analysis. Getting forward looking data insight is one important aspect of it.

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What are some common pitfalls that product managers must be aware of?

Never forget who you are building for. PMs should constantly remind themselves of this because when they are engrossed in the product building clear focus can help avert some common traps. Few such common traps are biases which the PM should be aware of. Special mention to cognitive bias, IKEA effect and Focusingillusion.

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If not product management, what career would you have picked? Are there any complimentary skillsets that you see between being a PM and your alternate choice?

Theatre. Best complimentary skillset is storytelling.

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What is something about product management that you wish you knew when you started out?

There is no IC role in PM :)

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