Moshe Mikanovsky

Learn what the competition do was mentioned here by a few contributors. One caveat here to remember - the fact that they are doing it doesn't mean any of their clients and users are using it. Unless you have validation that your users need it, don't just be a copy-cat.

It's not really about "talking to customers and users" - although that has to happen... it is more about seeing how they work, and deeply understanding their pain points. Just talking with them is not enough. They might skip things that are really important. They might suggest solutions instead of talk about the problems. See and observe what they do, how they do it, and then make sure you understand why they do it that way.

There are many ways to network with professionals, but don't limit yourself to one. Try different things and see what works for you. Also, don't limit who you network with - you never know where you will learn something new or make a good connection that can help you in the future. The most important aspect of networking in my mind is to keep it unassuming and without expectations to get anything out of it, but rather, see how you can help others. Connecting for the purpose of helping others goes so far!

Like many other industries, I would try to do the job of other stakeholders for some time, in order to get real empathy of what it takes to be them. To learn what drives the Sales team, try to sell something. To learn the challenges Support is facing, pick up support calls and try to help clients, and so on. Only when you try it yourself you will have a deep understanding of their perspective, and will be so much better perspective to deal with their needs.

Like any other tool, it is not about the tool but about how we use it. Specifically with ALM (which I usually don't really use as a term, but it seems that the industry does?) if we create bad user stories, we will produce bad products! Indeed, if we do our job right as Product Managers (so we discover the right problems to solve and work with our teams to discover the right solutions for them), and have great writing skills, we can then hopefully define clear and consistent requirements!

As human beings, it is inherit in our experiences that we only have one POV - how we grew up, where we live, our environment that we are familiar with, our psyche, the things that interest us etc. When we try to solve a problem for other people - which is the core of what Product Management is all about - there is no way we can understand it all with our narrow POV. If we wish to really solve that problem, and create value to many people, we got to be humble about our ability to know all POVs, and be open to many other POVs that together can provide us with a clearer understanding of the problem (if one exist that is...) That's where diversity plays a huge role - getting as many POVs as possible.