Tools for a Non Tech PM?

4 months back, A friend picked up a Product Management Internship, which is going good and has been a great learning experience. But she doesnt come from a tech/ engineeeing background, for which she have read alot of spaces where they say Non Tech PM struggle alot. Can you guys please help me identify some tools/ skills that can help her hone her technological aspect?

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While you can spend time learning aspects of software development (like coding MOOCs), there’s a lot to be said about googling terms and asking questions. And more googling.

It takes time but I would focus more on building conceptual knowledge rather than the particulars like React vs Angular.

It also depends on your type of product and your role. You want a “good enough” level of knowledge if you aren’t a TPM or in a super technical product realm. You probably should know what APIs are conceptually.

Lean on your technical partners and ask questions. Your job is to frame technical decisions where the team helps you understand tradeoffs like consequences of shortcuts and potential dependencies. Not make the technical decisions outright.

If for example you were more focused on derisking whether customers care about feature A. you might tell the team, we just need a “good enough” facade to test this; we’re not ready yet to build out some bulletproof scalable system. But once you were ready to pursue that feature in earnest, you may say to the team so the initial scope is X but we have the potential to add Y and Z. How does that factor into how you’d build this knowing that potential route? Focus on which decisions are irreversible (or very expensive to refactor).

Good product people minimize how often they hear “well if you told me we were going to do that earlier, we wouldn’t have done it this way!”

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What @potatogun said, but also recommend this course: https://pll.harvard.edu/course/cs50s-computer-science-business-professionals-0

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