Top 5 Challenges Surfaced by Berlin’s Product Community

What are the challenges PMs are currently facing and what are the best practices to overcome them?

Photo by airfocus via Unsplash

Let me be upfront: five years ago I was a lawyer turned product and I was overwhelmed. It seemed product managers struggle despite following much of the best practices associated with product management, myself included.

Five years later, after growing with three startups, I was privileged to guide dozens of other product managers in 1:1 mentoring sessions. As I was concluding my last session, I’ve taken the time to reflect on the main topics that were raised. It then became clear that multiple PMs had similar challenges of which I’d like to share — ordered by the frequency of them being raised:

1. Establish a healthy Product <> Engineering culture
2. Stakeholders Management & Communication
3. Decide what to build next
4. Improve your product skills
5. Transitioning and nailing your first PM role

I’ll elaborate on each one, adding my take and approach to solving them.

#1 Establish a healthy Product <> Engineering culture