When I enrolled myself in the Product Management certification program, I was conflicted if my decision was appropriate. I took a leap of faith to proceed with the certification and conditioned my mind to the possible outcomes of learning about product management:
Possibility 1: I could shift my career into Product Management and leverage my past experiences in creating user-friendly products
Possibility 2: I could optimize my customer-centric technical writing skills through these learnings, which includes better-defined techniques to research, analyze, apply design thinking, and make relevant content strategic decisions.
During my pursuit of the certification in Product Management, I realized that there were many similarities between product managers and technical writers.
This page is about my inference on the striking commonalities between these two professions. Before I list the similarities between these two professions, let's understand what their roles are:
Product Management is a function that guides the engineering team to create or enhance the product from the point of ideation to launching the product in the market. As a Product Manager's role intersects between Technology, User Experience, and Business, they work with cross-functional teams to develop, enhance, and launch the product.
Technical writing is a function that simplifies and documents complex processes into instructional and user-friendly content. Technical writers are usually part of the product development team as the product documentation ships along with the product. Technical writers also work with cross-functional teams to collate information, validate the accuracy of content, and publish product documentation.
Similarities between Product Management and Technical Writing Professions:
Research and Analysis: While Product managers monitor the market, develop competitive analysis, execute user research, and perform user analysis to produce an easy-to-use product, technical writers research the product's functionalities and perform audience analysis to simplify and customize the content as per the user requirements. They also analyze the support tickets to decipher how to make the content more straightforward and understandable for the customers. Product managers recommend UI and UX improvements based on the user persona, and technical writers recommend simplified tooltips and other microcontent, enabling the customers to accomplish product-specific tasks.
Building Strategies: Like how a Product manager builds strategies to improve the usability of a product, technical writers create plans to improvise content that can enhance readability and reduce support calls.
Communication: The primary function of Product Managers and Technical Writers is to communicate effectively. Their roles demand active interaction with their teams, stakeholders, and customers. They should be adept at influencing and convincing their peers with their ideas and strategies and foster innovation. Written communication is equally imperative to both these professions as they need to convey their views eloquently and clearly through product artifacts.
Collaboration: Both Product Managers and Technical Writers need to understand the domain they are working in and demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills. Product managers are responsible for the successful launch of the product. Hence, they need to work with various cross-functional teams, motivating them to build a product that meets customer requirements. Similarly, technical writers need to collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather and process information to produce user-friendly documentation. Hence, product managers and technical writers need a strong mix of soft and hard skills (domain knowledge).
Feedback and Prioritization: Product managers receive a lot of input on enhancing the products, while Technical writers receive feedback on simplifying the content further and fixing technology or language related accuracy. Based on the priorities and relevance, both these roles will have to decipher which feedback needs to be taken into account primarily while deferring others to a later point.
Resolver of User Pain Points: The Product Manager aims to provide an easy-to-use product that resolves concerns related to user requirements through a simplified and intuitive interface. Likewise, when a customer experiences difficulties while using the product, technical writers help by providing instructions through their documents on how to use the product efficiently, thereby reducing the cost incurred in support calls.
Although there's a lot more to pursue in the role of a product manager, the skills mentioned above and their associated experiences are a good starting point. In addition, constantly learning and consistently thinking from the customer's shoes will sharpen the skills of a product manager. Product Management is a brilliant career option that technical writers can alternatively consider to intensify their career journey. While I wish myself the very best in my quest to become a product manager, I hope to influence your thinking about product management positively.
This is an excellent synopsis. Thank you.