Microsoft is a dream company for many IT professionals. Why?
Because Microsoft has built great products!
And today, I am fortunate enough to interview Dr. Bart Jaworski, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft.
Before jumping to the interview, let me give you a brief introduction of Bart.
Who is Dr. Bart Jaworski?
Bart Jaworski is a product management teacher & senior product manager at Microsoft. He has 10+ years of experience in Product Management and have worked with several brands like idibu, StepStone Services, OLX Group & Microsoft. He holds a PhD in Automation & Masters in Computer Science.
Bart Jaworski is very active in product management community & loves to share his knowledge with product management aspirants. He has a YouTube channel, a Udemy course & a Medium Blog on Product Management.
Interview with Dr. Bart Jaworski
#1. From a support manager to a product manager, how did the transition take place?
First of all, you need to realise that transitioning to product management from a position that is not close to a sitting product manager is a difficult one. It will be even harder if you decide to jump directly into product management from your current position just by taking courses, reading books, and educating yourself.
Product management is still a management position and it requires proper experience for you to become an effective and successful product manager. Thus your best shot is to simply talk to your manager and/or HR and disclose your ambitions and carry your goals.
You will either work for a company that will support its employees and helps you make the transition over months; perhaps years or it’s time to find a company that’s willing to invest in their employees.
I went from an IT technician to a support person and support manager, only then to transition to project management and from there to product management.
Thus in your company, it might be that you will have to make a stop as a designer, QA, developer, or some other position that will get you closer to observing how product manager works to also take on those duties in due time.
You would like to read my blog on “Why is it so hard to land a Product Management position?“
#2. What is the difference between a product owner, product manager & business analyst?
If you go by the scrum guide, the official source of the agile scrum, product owner and product manager is essentially the same position.
However, in practice, the product owner will usually be a junior product manager that has limited decision-making capability, watches over a smaller part of the product, and coordinates his or her efforts with the actual product manager who is his or her manager.
A business analyst on the other hand is a person who helps the product manager answer the questions he or she may ponder. The business analyst knows the company’s analytical suit and how tracking works. BA is able to make detailed data analyses and make product changes suggestions based on the data gathered.
#3. What are the top 3 skills one must have in order to become a product manager?
I don’t think there is a universal selection of free skills that any product manager has to have initially.
Whether you come from a design, data analysis, or client support background you have a unique skill set that will help you in your day-to-day work and you will have to learn what’s missing on the fly.
I would say that communication skill differentiates an excellent product manager from a mediocre one, but there’s one more thing that really will help you out in the beginning.
You need to realise and accept that you can’t please everyone and you can’t do all the product changes you are asked for. You are destined to disappoint someone.
Your job at its core is to make the best product calls that will satisfy the most stakeholders and give you and your users the optimal product value.
With this mindset, you avoid many of the difficult situations a product manager can face, such as overcommitting and not being able to say no when one clearly should.
#4. What are the top 3 tools that Bart Jaworski would recommend for product managers?
In terms of tools, I think it’s good to have some basic Photoshop skills to be able to quickly illustrate what you mean when describing your ideas to developers and other stakeholders.
It’s good to be proficient in data analysis tools such as Power BI, Adobe analytics, or good old plain Excel.
Finally, a personal Trello board to keep ideas, small tasks and other long term commitments in a Kanban board will go a long way to help you manage your time and the fact that you have more to do than you can realistically do in your 8-hour working day
#5. Microsoft is a dream company for many product managers. How did you crack the interview at Microsoft?
Honestly, I have no idea.
It wasn’t either more difficult or easier than an interview process for any other company. Perhaps my strong suit here was the fact that my breaking from a self-taught product manager in a startup to a more classical and traditional product management career in a corporation, took two years.
It was a time of disappointments, failed dreams, but also lots of learning how to crack any interview. I was getting better with every single one, understanding what skills am I missing and working later towards getting them.
I also learned how to answer the more tricky questions. Not sure if everyone needs to go through two years of learning cycle how I did, but I teach my students to brace for failure and treat any job interview as a learning exercise and be happy from every additional step of the recruitment process that they pass. This can be a marathon but every marathon can have a successful ending!
#6. How does Dr. Bart Jaworski spend his time when he is not working?
I’m terrible at relaxing.
If I’m not working I’m probably thinking about work or trying to force myself into a more relaxing state, by trying things I used to enjoy before I started loving my job and my side gig.
I guess that the only way I truly rest is when I’m able to completely disconnect from the net and hike high mountains and enjoy the views. I also enjoy walks and drives with an audiobook which helps my state as a reader as I am terrible with reading anything that’s on paper.
I wish I could teach myself game development or animation for relaxation, but that’s yet another activity I would have to take in front of the computer screen and I have enough of those as it is.
#7. What according to Bart Jaworski is the future of product management?
I think that the best practices that are already known to product management will simply escalate and polish.
I’m happy to observe the trend of companies switching from a business-centric approach to a user-centric one. That means sometimes making stuff that you can’t prove will increase the metrics.
Instead, it will simply make the product work better, look nicer, work quicker, or have some fun elements or minor improvements that separated won’t really mean a lot. However, as those pile up they will create great products that are better than the sum of its parts.
#8. One message by Bart Jaworski to the aspiring product managers?
Always ask “Why?” before doing anything.
Happy to be part of it and it won’t be a great discovery to say that we are a global tribe and younger members need to learn from the “Elders”.
So far I managed to get 28 people hired since I started teaching product management and I’m excited to see more and more people landing their dream jobs with my help.
However, I know a person who at the same time, managed to help more than twice the number of people and I would suggest you next talk to Shravan Tikoo, who is also an inspiration for my efforts.
Conclusion
Thank you so much Dr. Bart Jaworski for your precious time & sharing amazing insights on Product Management. This will definitely help a lot of product management enthusiasts.
Dear readers, if you need any questions for Bart, you can comment below. Alternatively, you can also reach out to Dr. Bart Jaworski on his LinkedIn
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