I’ve written before about the importance of storytelling skills for product managers. It’s the one skill that product management teams in India have not focused on much. While we test for analytical skills at academic qualifications, we don’t test for storytelling skills in product management interviews.
As I’m building my team, I’m really looking for the following skills in candidates:
How good are they at:
- Storytelling – Can they pitch their idea? Can they weave a cohesive story around their idea?
- Writing and speaking skills in English – A great product manager, who is hard to follow when speaking or in her written words, will not be able to lead very well nor motivate
- a team.
- Love for technology – can the candidates demonstrate a love for technology and a good understanding of SDLC, etc.
Going back to storytelling… here is a good post to help you pitch your ideas. I’m also linking to a couple of sites that have pitch decks from various startups that you can review to see how entrepreneurs pitch their ideas internally or to VCs.
- http://www.pitchenvy.com
- http://jonbischke.com/2009/11/13/a-dozen-of-the-best-start-up-pitches-on-the-web/
- Snapchat’s pitch deck: http://www.scribd.com/doc/235629204/Snapchat-business-deck#scribd
I love Jack Dorsey’s presentation skills. This particular presentation at Stanfords scorner website is really engaging and inspiring. This is how we should aspire to tell stories
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2635
–Anubhav