27: Transitioning from an Individual Contributor to a Manager

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Poorvi Shrivastav (HubSpot) to talk about how to smoothly transition from being an individual contributor to a leadership role. Aside from the tips and guides one can learn and practice while in transition, never lose focus on putting people first.  

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
• 01:29 Transition from an individual contributor (IC) to Manager
• 07:43 Who directly reports to you?
• 08:51 The biggest transition from being an IC to a manager
• 11:02 3 things you need to succeed in the management role
• 16:20 Be very clear about the credit that belongs to you
• 20:13 Tips on how to transition in your first few days
• 25:29 Focus on outcome, but think about the process too
• 31:11 How to ace an interview for a leadership role
• 41:20 When you start leading a team that you are part of
• 47:38 How do you manage delegation?
• 50:00 Transition from an IC to management course
• 52:02 Focus on people first