Nice work! My big takeaway is the one truth for me which is business impact/customer value always wins. That in the end is the job. Good design, luck, timing, market forces, great data strategy, execution are all components. Whatever you build has to move the needle, even if it's not in pure revenue terms, it has to be valued externally. The magical "So what?".
Most curious about how Covid and remote + hybrid work has potentially changed any of this. Plus a few leadership changes and curious if that changed anything.
I share this article quite often with PMs or prospective PMs who are looking for their next gig.
Hi Lenny. Very interesting perspective. Can you share the questions you asked to determine the responses? Was it just a 1 to 10 scale on the particular attribute?
I have one correction note - the CEOs also need to do impeccable stakeholder management. Actually, even more than the PMs.
It is a myth that the higher you are in the ladder, the fewer stakeholders you need to bring with you onboard. It is actually the opposite - as a CEO, you have the most stakeholder management work in the company.
Great newsletter this week! I really enjoyed it, and I shared it with friends :-)
My biggest takeaway was that "keeping stakeholders on board" is almost as important as showing significant business impact when it comes to rising in the ranks at the company.
I suspect the age of the company has something to do with the influence a PM has. Companies that have been around for awhile may have been late to adopt a product mindset.
In the "Getting promoted" section, how to interpret "Make their manager happy"? Feels like it's asking the question again: _how_ do you make your manager happy? (shipping a great product, hitting goals, etc.) Or is it to be taken as needing to play a game of politics?
Great insights! Thank you for conducting the survey and sharing the results with us! One question I have is how comparable the results from different companies are? For example, if a PM of Company X rated Strategic Thinking as the top among all the options and gave it a very high numeric rating, while another PM of Company Y rated Strategic Thinking as the least important among all the options and gave it a very low numeric rating, it doesn't mean PMs in Company X do Strategic Thinking more often or more seriously. This is one caveat I have found. Still, this is very helpful!
Yes, but how could the self-reported data/info from different companies be compared? If person 1 rated strategic thinking in company A as 4.5 out of 5 (not sure the exact questions asked, just assume this one) and rated technical savvy as 2.5 out of 5, and person 2 rated strategic thinking in company B as 3 out of 5 and tech savvy as 3.5 out of 5, it doesn't mean strategic thinking in company A is more important than strategic thinking in company B, as there is no standard to standardize the rating across different companies. We can only draw the conclusion that in company A, strategic thinking is much more important than technical savvy; in company B, strategic thinking is slightly less important than technical savvy.
The way the survey worked (check it out here: https://lennysan.typeform.com/to/uXQI1tFD) was each responder was asked to pick the top three skills that were most important at their company, not rate each skill individually. So what we end up with is the skills that matter most across all companies, according to the responders. Still not necessarily 100% accurate (no survey it) but still a valuable insight.
Thanks much for sharing the survey and your insights! This is def. very helpful. I have learned a lot from the survey results. Appreciate your initiative. Just that when I was looking at the comparison among different companies, I found it hard to compare across them. For example, strategic thinking might be in dark blue color in company A while in light blue color in company B. However, strategic thinking might be valued more important in company B's hiring compared to company A, but it's hard to be reflected here, since different areas were ranked/picked only at each company level. However, I couldn't think of a better way to survey it though, as unless someone has worked in more than one company and conducted the survey for more than one company, it's hard to have an objective cross-company comparison. Just want to confirm whether my understanding is correct, and to see if anyone can think of a better way to survey it.
Totally right. The idea with that chart is to look at what skills the company "spikes" on. What matter most to the company. Less so how that company compares to another company on each skill.
Such great insights here! I’m wondering if you are open to sharing the survey out to smaller companies where less formality/structure/process exists? This could be a great tool for stakeholders to use in order to align on expectations and priorities for their PM, especially when expanding into that area for the first time.
Absolutely. Anyone could have taken the survey (and hundreds of smaller companies did), but I didn't share the names of companies with just one responder.
Nice work! My big takeaway is the one truth for me which is business impact/customer value always wins. That in the end is the job. Good design, luck, timing, market forces, great data strategy, execution are all components. Whatever you build has to move the needle, even if it's not in pure revenue terms, it has to be valued externally. The magical "So what?".
Great article/survey. Any chance of running a refresh?
What do you think might have changed?
Most curious about how Covid and remote + hybrid work has potentially changed any of this. Plus a few leadership changes and curious if that changed anything.
I share this article quite often with PMs or prospective PMs who are looking for their next gig.
great point! On the remote piece, maybe I wait until end of year to run it again once companies have settled into a rhythm. Great idea!
Hi Lenny. Very interesting perspective. Can you share the questions you asked to determine the responses? Was it just a 1 to 10 scale on the particular attribute?
Yes, here's the original survey: https://lennysan.typeform.com/to/uXQI1tFD
Very insightful. At right on time for our Company. Thanks! :)
Great article! Would love to see how this develops over time.
I have one correction note - the CEOs also need to do impeccable stakeholder management. Actually, even more than the PMs.
It is a myth that the higher you are in the ladder, the fewer stakeholders you need to bring with you onboard. It is actually the opposite - as a CEO, you have the most stakeholder management work in the company.
Great newsletter this week! I really enjoyed it, and I shared it with friends :-)
My biggest takeaway was that "keeping stakeholders on board" is almost as important as showing significant business impact when it comes to rising in the ranks at the company.
Very interesting insights! Thank you so much for your efforts. Though I don't think I saw the survey form, some thoughts came up reading this:
(1) These are less than 2 responses per company. So the entire data point will only reflect what these two think. Heavily dependent?
(2) In Skills Most Valued, both hard and soft skills are weighed similarly? As a result, empathy comes among the last two :(
(3) How can so many say Hit Goals is NOT a criterion to get promoted?
(4) Interesting to see some of us PMs think we run the show and other non-PMs think we don't ;)
(5) Suprised to see Tesla more on Hands than Head!
Thanks again for this!
How relevant is this survey in 2025?
Good question. Maybe a good time to re-run this...
Thank you. Looking forward 😁
Surprised that empathy is rated so low (unless people are including it in product sense). Low empathy = low user engagement and adoption.
The only reason it’s rated that low is because everything above it is even more important. It doesn’t make lower ranked items aren’t also important.
And these aren’t totally apples to apples comparisons (e.g. to be good at product senes you need to have strong empathy, like you said).
thank you for the amazing results
I suspect the age of the company has something to do with the influence a PM has. Companies that have been around for awhile may have been late to adopt a product mindset.
In the "Getting promoted" section, how to interpret "Make their manager happy"? Feels like it's asking the question again: _how_ do you make your manager happy? (shipping a great product, hitting goals, etc.) Or is it to be taken as needing to play a game of politics?
The latter, is my take
Interesting compilation. thank you for sharing.
Great insights! Thank you for conducting the survey and sharing the results with us! One question I have is how comparable the results from different companies are? For example, if a PM of Company X rated Strategic Thinking as the top among all the options and gave it a very high numeric rating, while another PM of Company Y rated Strategic Thinking as the least important among all the options and gave it a very low numeric rating, it doesn't mean PMs in Company X do Strategic Thinking more often or more seriously. This is one caveat I have found. Still, this is very helpful!
It's all self-reported
Yes, but how could the self-reported data/info from different companies be compared? If person 1 rated strategic thinking in company A as 4.5 out of 5 (not sure the exact questions asked, just assume this one) and rated technical savvy as 2.5 out of 5, and person 2 rated strategic thinking in company B as 3 out of 5 and tech savvy as 3.5 out of 5, it doesn't mean strategic thinking in company A is more important than strategic thinking in company B, as there is no standard to standardize the rating across different companies. We can only draw the conclusion that in company A, strategic thinking is much more important than technical savvy; in company B, strategic thinking is slightly less important than technical savvy.
The way the survey worked (check it out here: https://lennysan.typeform.com/to/uXQI1tFD) was each responder was asked to pick the top three skills that were most important at their company, not rate each skill individually. So what we end up with is the skills that matter most across all companies, according to the responders. Still not necessarily 100% accurate (no survey it) but still a valuable insight.
Thanks much for sharing the survey and your insights! This is def. very helpful. I have learned a lot from the survey results. Appreciate your initiative. Just that when I was looking at the comparison among different companies, I found it hard to compare across them. For example, strategic thinking might be in dark blue color in company A while in light blue color in company B. However, strategic thinking might be valued more important in company B's hiring compared to company A, but it's hard to be reflected here, since different areas were ranked/picked only at each company level. However, I couldn't think of a better way to survey it though, as unless someone has worked in more than one company and conducted the survey for more than one company, it's hard to have an objective cross-company comparison. Just want to confirm whether my understanding is correct, and to see if anyone can think of a better way to survey it.
Totally right. The idea with that chart is to look at what skills the company "spikes" on. What matter most to the company. Less so how that company compares to another company on each skill.
Such great insights here! I’m wondering if you are open to sharing the survey out to smaller companies where less formality/structure/process exists? This could be a great tool for stakeholders to use in order to align on expectations and priorities for their PM, especially when expanding into that area for the first time.
Absolutely. Anyone could have taken the survey (and hundreds of smaller companies did), but I didn't share the names of companies with just one responder.