Effective Communication for Product Managers
Mastering communication for PMs
Effective communication for Product Managers
Communication is an essential non-technical skill for any Product Manager (Check out this post to learn more about essential non-technical skills for product managers).
For a product to be successful, a product manager coordinates with different parties. To communicate effectively with the different stakeholders, a PM must employ the following communication principles:
Understanding the audience
Awareness of context
Clear style of communication
In this article, I will dive deep into how each aspect is crucial for effective communication:
Understanding the audience
A PM deals with various stakeholders at different levels of the product lifecycle. Each stakeholder has their own needs and to communicate to all of them correctly, here are some helpful tips:
Understand your audience’s needs and take note of them
Keep in mind the context of each stakeholder/audience and communicate accordingly.
Awareness of context
Similar to understanding your audience, context matters and the following questions need to be considered:
Timing: At which point should I communicate to this stakeholder? It’s important to be aware of the timeliness of communication to be relevant and get the desired output of the communication
Objective: What am I trying to achieve with this communication? It could be an update or a request. As you initiate the communication the outcome of the communication must be clear.
Clear style of communication
Communication should be direct and the recipient should easily understand your goal. To achieve this it’s important to employ a structure to articulate your message.
For example
If you’re getting buy-in for a new product or service and you’re selling the idea to a stakeholder, you can do the following:
Start with the objective of the communication
Explain the benefits
Current state
Conclusion: Improving the current state of your idea
Bonus tips
Actively listen: Communication is a two-way street. As you convey your message, be open to feedback and suggestions from the stakeholders
Be transparent: Be open and direct with both successes and failures. This builds trust and you get buy-in even when facing a challenge.
Conclusion
Effective communication is a muscle that every PM needs to hone to be successful. To do so, you must understand your audience, be aware of the context and finally convey your message in a clear and structured way.