Communication in Product Management

Role of Communication in Product Management

84% of Product Managers believe that cross-functional collaboration is critical in leading a product to success. Imagine yourself at a key position in the company, and you’re only fulfilling 16% of your job, will you be pulling off your job effectively? Not quite.

The human mind is systematically designed to generate ideas and communicate them forward and the product manager is the brain of the product, the brain doesn’t work in isolation, it works with logic, contrast and contradiction. How does it achieve it? It compares facts with context.

Context is built through discussion and communication.

Once you truly understand how communication really puts you ahead in your trajectory to success, only then will you be able to truly absorb the importance of it.

Look at it this way, Google launches a product without coordinating with the DevOps team, or Apple launches the new iOS 17 without holding a Key Note. Sounds absurd to begin with. The act of communicating the idea clearly with all stakeholders is necessary to make the product successful. Product Management as a function exists to ensure all stakeholders are synced with each other, and crystal clear on the entire idea, if a single leg of the table is shorter than the others, if not the table the purpose of it might just fall. With ever increasing complexities in our digital products, the role of Product Management has increased its importance manifold.

The role of product management came to bridge the gap between the tech and business functions of a company, their competency lies in clearly transferring all knowledge all while converting it to equally understandable jargons for the respective teams.

The Venn diagram above displays components of soft skills required in Product Management, each circle represents a different impact area and only when a clear balance between all is maintained does the PM actually achieve their job.

The Product journey requires one to excel in intangible skills, while their hard skills play a pivotal role in ensuring the process delivers what is required, soft skills assist in the process being followed efficiently.

Product Managers are accountable not only for deliverance but efficiency in process as well, both going hand in hand with each other.

PMs from all industries share some insights on how effective communication makes an impact. One such PM from WebEngage has this to say.

“Product Management is “Baptism by Fire”. Improving as a PM is a journey of continuous learning and hands-on experience. You won’t become an expert on day 1, but marginal improvements will elevate your skills over time.

1. User Engagement: Actively engage with users to understand their needs and pain points.

2. UX/UI Learning: Familiarize yourself with user experience and interface design to make more informed decisions.

3. Effective Communication: Employ the 5 C’s of communication — Clarity, Coherence, Consistency, Conciseness, and Courtesy — to improve stakeholder relations.

4. Emotional Resilience: The ability to remain calm under pressure is invaluable.

This skill is honed through facing challenges, making mistakes, learning, and iterating.”

Chetan Pujari — Product Manager @ WebEngage

Enhancing Communication Skills

Communication skills are essential for product managers, as they need to convey their vision, strategy, and goals to various stakeholders, such as customers, developers, designers, marketers, and executives. Product managers can learn and enhance their communication skills in various ways, such as:

1. Taking courses or workshops on communication, presentation, negotiation, or storytelling. There are many online and offline options available for product managers who want to improve their communication skills. For example, Product School offers courses on product management that cover topics such as communication, leadership, and stakeholder management
2. Practicing active listening and feedback. Product managers should listen attentively to their audience, ask open-ended questions, and paraphrase what they heard to ensure understanding. They should also seek feedback from others on their communication style, content, and delivery, and use it to improve their performance.
3. Reading books or articles on communication best practices. There are many resources that product managers can use to learn from experts and peers on how to communicate effectively in different situations. For example, Mastering communication: a product manager’s superpower is an article that provides tips and examples on how to communicate with your team and your users.
4. Joining communities or networks of product managers. Product managers can benefit from exchanging ideas, experiences, and insights with other product managers who face similar challenges and opportunities. They can also find mentors, coaches, or peers who can help them with their communication skills. For example, Product Hunt is a platform where product managers can discover, launch, and discuss new products.
5. Practicing communication skills in real scenarios. Product managers should not only learn the theory of communication, but also apply it in practice. They should look for opportunities to communicate their ideas, plans, and results to different audiences, such as pitching a new feature to a customer, presenting a roadmap to an executive, or facilitating a brainstorming session with a team. They should also reflect on their communication outcomes and learn from their successes and failures.

“Start with your needs and pick something with a clear and simple user experience that does what you need it to do well.

You typically need to:

- be able to ask questions

- share ad hoc information in a non-intrusive way

- document and track meeting outcomes

- have transparency and documentation about important decisions

- have a living space for vision, strategy and OKRs (or other goal documents)

- have a living space for discovery findings

- have a living space for the tasks you build now, next and later Expand on that list with your team, then pick the tool(s) that do(es) what you need.

A byproduct of having this conversation will be to have better alignment on your team’s communication and collaboration needs.”

Simonetta Batteiger — CEO & Product Coach @ Inclusive Leaders

When selecting communication and collaboration tools for your team, prioritize your needs and choose a tool with a simple and intuitive user experience that effectively addresses those needs. Essential features include the ability to ask questions, share information, document meeting outcomes, maintain transparency around decisions, and provide a central repository for vision, strategy, goals, discoveries, and tasks. Engage your team in the selection process to ensure alignment on communication and collaboration requirements.

“Collaboration tools have transformed the way we work, allowing for seamless connectivity and idea sharing regardless of location. However, they can also bring about challenges like distraction and burnout. To address these issues, it’s crucial to take regular breaks and assess tools regularly to ensure they work for you.”

Aminata J. — Senior Product Manager @ Amazon

Personally, I feel PMs should read as much as they can, reading helps build clarity in thought and only when you have clarity are you able to really put forward your opinion in an understandable manner.

“I read a lot of books and articles on communication, especially on how to write clearly and persuasively. I also watch TED talks and other presentations from experts and try to learn from their techniques and styles.” — Julie Zhuo, VP of Product Design at Facebook

“I practice my communication skills by giving feedback to others, both positive and constructive. I also ask for feedback from my peers, managers, and mentors on how I can communicate better. I think feedback is a great way to learn and grow as a product manager.” — Ken Norton, Partner at Google Ventures

“I practice my communication skills in real scenarios, such as pitching a new feature to a customer, presenting a roadmap to an executive, or facilitating a brainstorming session with a team. I also reflect on my communication outcomes and learn from my successes and failures.” — Roman Pichler, Product Management Consultant and Trainer

Building Empathy

Human beings have been communicating with each other since the advent of time and birth of life. The toddler cries to convey their message, species more than 2.5 million years old also have traces of speech and communication according to history. Languages, Signals, Speech, Writing they all exist for one reason, to explain the other person. Better usage of words, symbols or signs help in better explanation. The better the explanation, the easier it becomes to take action on.

“Improving communication is an ongoing uphill battle for me too but what’s helped me the most is tailoring the way I speak to the audience I’m speaking to. Most of this has been on the job for me so unfortunately don’t have any resources to share but one thing my senior director told me before I was heading into a presentation was ‘Remember it’s a story to be told’ and for PMs, I think that sums up most of our interaction with the C-suite

We often tend to be data heavy but that’s not something that resonates with audiences that don’t have much time to invest in understanding complicated dashboards and charts.

So taking the robotic part out of our communication and presenting in a conversational manner helps get your message through. One of my professors also told me that the most important thing in these situations is to figure out how the other person can like you because they’re going to be more susceptible to withholding your message as well.”

Daniyal Muhammad, Product Manager @ TripAdvisor

Adaptive Communication

Adaptive communication is a form of communication tailored for a specific situation or person. It is important for product managers to use adaptive communication with different stakeholders, such as developers, designers, executives, customers, etc., because they have different needs, expectations, and preferences. By adapting their communication style, content, and delivery, product managers can:

- Build trust and rapport with their stakeholders, by showing respect, empathy, and understanding of their perspectives and goals.

- Communicate their vision, strategy, and goals more effectively, by using appropriate language, tone, and format that suit the audience and the context.

- Influence and persuade their stakeholders, by addressing their concerns, interests, and motivations, and providing clear and compelling arguments and evidence.

- Collaborate and cooperate with their stakeholders, by facilitating dialogue, feedback, and alignment, and resolving conflicts and misunderstandings.

Some examples of adaptive communication skills and techniques that product managers can use are:

- Active listening: Product managers should listen attentively to their stakeholders, ask open-ended questions, and paraphrase what they heard to ensure understanding.

- Audience analysis: Product managers should research and analyze their stakeholders’ background, needs, expectations, and preferences before communicating with them.

- Message design: Product managers should craft their message according to the purpose, audience, and context of the communication. They should use clear and concise language, avoid jargon and technical terms, and provide relevant examples and data.

- Visual aids: Product managers should use tools like Miro¹, Figma², or PowerPoint³ to create visual aids that help them communicate their ideas and plans more effectively. They should also use storytelling as a way to engage their audience and make them care about the problem and the solution.

- Feedback: Product managers should seek feedback from their stakeholders on their communication style, content, and delivery, and use it to improve their performance. They should also provide constructive feedback to others in a respectful and supportive manner.

It’s important to re-iterate that different stakeholders own separate ends of the entire umbrella, all of them maintain separate KPIs and operate in a synergy.

Each stakeholder requires a different vocabulary to communicate clearly, the customer might not understand what sprint cycles are, or what the product backlog entails because that’s meant for discussion with the tech team. The tech team on the other hand would not be able to grasp how churn rates and ROI are supposed to be calculated.

“Stakeholders usually don’t have the level of insights and details you have and thus, when communicating the strategy, you need to adjust for that. Keep it simple, focus on the goals and output. Stay away from technical details and abbreviations, try to follow the rule of 3 for a slide. If you want to share additional data, include them in the presentation’s appendix.”

Dr. Bart Jaworski — Ex SPM @ Microsoft

The customer success team will always put pressing points of the customer as top priority while the finance team will ensure any calculations on the product reflect accurately. The data team will list all data points they would want to capture with the product where the business team will focus on getting the purpose achieved and feature rolled out.

Each function has a separate need that cumulatively completes the entire product and as a Product Manager, you’re responsible for switching your hats accordingly whenever you sit with these teams.

Common Challenges in Product Management

Product managers often encounter communication challenges that can impact the development and success of their products. One such challenge is working across siloed teams, where different groups have distinct roles and priorities, making it difficult to maintain a unified vision and strategy. Product managers need to bridge the gaps between teams and foster a culture of transparency and trust.

Another common issue is the dependence on engineering resources, which are typically limited and subject to technical constraints, necessitating clear communication and negotiation of trade-offs with engineering teams. Product managers need to balance the needs and expectations of their stakeholders with the realities and limitations of their engineering teams. They need to communicate clearly and effectively with engineers, respect their expertise and feedback, and adjust their plans accordingly.

Additionally, product managers must effectively communicate their product’s value proposition to encourage adoption and onboarding by customers with diverse needs and behaviors. Product managers need to understand their customer segments and personas, craft compelling messages and stories, and design intuitive and engaging user experiences. They also need to communicate their product roadmap to their stakeholders, such as executives, investors, customers, and teams. They need to explain the rationale behind their product decisions and priorities, and how they align with the product vision and strategy.

How miscommunication leads to failures

Miscommunication can cause product failures in many situations. For example, when product managers and developers misunderstand each other about the product requirements, features, and functionalities, this can lead to wasted time, resources, and efforts, as well as poor quality and user satisfaction. This is what happened with Microsoft Zune.

Another example is when product managers and customers have different needs, preferences, and behaviors. This can lead to low adoption, retention, and loyalty, as well as negative feedback and reputation. Google Glass failed for this reason.

How to avoid product failures due to miscommunication

To avoid miscommunication and product failures, product managers can follow some best practices:

• Communicate clearly and effectively with all stakeholders: Use appropriate language, tone, and format. Seek and provide feedback, resolve conflicts, and negotiate trade-offs.
• Conduct market research and user testing: Understand the customer segments, personas, needs, and behaviors. Validate your assumptions and hypotheses with data and evidence.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams: Align the product vision, strategy, and roadmap. Foster a culture of transparency and trust among the teams.

Measure your skills

“To effectively convey your product’s value proposition, consider crafting a narrative that not only resonates but also illustrates how your product aligns with broader contexts. Drawing parallels with familiar products, industries, or real-life stories can make your message more relatable and impactful.”

Mayank Tiwari — Sr. Product Specialist @ Mastercard

Strategies to Improve

“The more important your presentation, the more rehearsals you should do. Yes, in front of a mirror, or a webcam that is recording. Write down improvement points, and improve ONE at each rehearsal. It will never be perfect, but it sure will get good. Good luck!”

Jeremie Guedj — Principal Product Manager @ Meta

Conclusion

“In the end, figuring out how to talk to developers means finding common ground and shared interests, and joining conversations about them. And if you think that software developers need the ability to talk about the business, consider instead whether business people should spend more effort on their own ability to talk about software development.”

Peter Hilton — Product Ops Consultant @ Varias

Communication is essential for product managers to be successful. They need to be able to clearly and effectively convey their vision, strategy, and goals to a variety of stakeholders. There are a number of ways that product managers can improve their communication skills, such as taking courses, practicing active listening, reading books, and joining communities.

Product managers should also use adaptive communication, tailoring their message to the specific needs and expectations of each stakeholder group. This will help them to build trust, rapport, and influence.

In addition, product managers need to be aware of common communication challenges and take steps to overcome them. This includes communicating clearly and transparently, conducting market research and user testing, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and managing risks and dependencies.

By following these tips, product managers can become more effective communicators and build better products.

Disclaimer: This article was written with the assistance of AI, not by AI.