FAQ: What Skills Should a Data-Driven Product Manager Have?

Product managers use data in a variety of ways. It's an important tool across many layers of decision making. When you need to explain why you've made a decision, it's much easier if you have the data to back yourself up.

Common metrics that Product Managers need to track are:

• Monthly and Daily Active Users (MAUs and DAUs)
• Customer Conversion Rate
• Churn
• Customer Retention
• Net Promoter Score
• Customer Satisfaction Score
• Customer Lifetime Value
• Customer Acquisition Cost
• Monthly and Annual Recurring Revenue

The metrics you need to track will depend on the questions you’re asking and the answers you’re looking for. But in general, the right metrics can help you keep tabs on the overall health of your product, and help to to measure success.

Sql is a query language used primarily for Accessing data. Python opens up more options for experimentation. It’s important to only pick up one at a time.

Sql is the most useful for data beginners, as it helps you extract the data you need in a very simple and methodical way. If you’re interested in coding in general, python can be fun to play around with as it’s more multi-purpose. Find some free, introductory classes for both python and SQL.

It’s true that some entry level Product Manager or Associate Product Manager roles will require more data skills. This could be because:

• The company has no Data Scientist , and so relies more heavily on its Product Managers.
• The company has a data product .
• The company is specifically looking for a Data Product Manager , even if they don’t know it!

Product Management job titles are constantly changing depending on the industry, the company, the team, and can even be re-defined by the Product Manager that steps into the role. A PM who happens to be a whizz at data can morph into a Data PM by lending their skills to the role.

If you’re a bit of a control freak with data, you’re a natural data manager. If you want to be the one who owns and manages data, you’re destined to PM life. If you want to be the one who Leverages data, you’re destined to PM life.

• Your relationship with your data scientist has the potential to be highly collaborative. But be careful. Data management is not your job, it’s theirs.
• Use your relationship with your data scientist as an opportunity to learn more.
• Even complete Newbies at data can have a great working relationship with data professionals.

All paths lead to product, but data is an especially good one. Look for companies who are looking for data PMS. Alternatively, look for associate product manager (Apm) roles. If you haven’t worked with a product team yet, there are ways to grow your product experience. You could try taking part in a Hackathon, or building your own side project. Or help us take your product management career to the next level, as we build the product Manifesto together.