67: Making an Internal Transfer into Product Management

How To Succeed In Product Management | Jeffrey Shulman, Red Russak & Soumeya Benghanem

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board member Red Russak welcome Bryan Cottle (AWS), Scott Wofford (Amazon), and Joan Barcelona (Box) as they discuss how you can make an internal transfer into product management. If you’re someone who is interested in jumping into product but not sure if you should apply for internal opportunities, the three panelists for this episode will share to you some great tips on how you can do so and why it’s easier to transfer internally into a product role.

Disclaimer: All opinions of the speakers are their own.

Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.

What to Listen For:

• 00:00 Intro
• 05:55 Internal transfer vs. transferring to a different company
• 07:13 How to transfer internally into product management
• 08:46 Demonstrating that you understood the product
• 10:51 Other things you can do before transferring internally
• 13:18 When and how to talk about your goal to be in product
• 16:53 What experience can you highlight?
• 22:03 Assessing the PM role
• 26:14 Tools and resources to help skill development
• 28:53 Project manager to product role
• 31:34 Think about your North Star
• 33:39 Degree or certification to help get into product
• 41:52 Book recommendations
• 43:23 Final thoughts