You are the intersection of UX, Biz and Tech.

Product management has become one of the most sought after careers in the last few years. Though it is still not taught as a course in most universities you can still learn to become better at your job by doing two things: building actual products and reading/learning from the best in the industry.

I am assuming you are already a PM somewhere and building awesome stuff. So let us focus on the second part.

As a PM you should be aware of the overall Macro view of the broader market while having a strong grasp of the Micro (how to build your own product).

Macro: How AI is evolving, future of mobile, autonomous vehicles, shift in usage of various platforms etc.

Micro: Your own tech stack, working with data, ability to understand if the latest feature was a success based on various metrics, leading a team and increasing collaboration, latest SDKs (if you are an app PM), design trends etc.

In spite of being busy with your day to day work you must still block an hour in your calendar where you read various blogs, books to become better at both of these. If you are early in your career where individual contribution matters a lot you might be better off focusing more on the micro while your upper management drives the long term vision.

Here is an example schedule:

  • (Micro) Monday or Learning Mondays: Learn SQL, GA, Data warehousing, APIs, UI/UX
  • (Micro) Tuesday: Do a product critique, Analyze competitor apps
  • (Macro) Wednesday: Big topic day where you select a particular field such as AI, Autonomous vehicles etc and read as much as you can
  • (Micro) Thursday: New technology updates/ latest tools/ Plugins/ SDKs to make your as well as your team’s life easier
  • (Macro) Friday: Read blogs of industry experts

Here are a few blogs/sites to follow based on how much time you have:

Specific topics to follow depending on your role: Google Devs update, Android News update, Webmasters, Growth.

This is a follow up to my earlier post on the best books you can read as a Product Manager.

*Julie Zhou has written a post on how to build products using the Micro and Macro approaches.

You should definitely follow her here: https://medium.com/@joulee.