should product managers be technical?

Greetings to everyone in this new year. I had a wonderful and thrilling time last year, as I helped to grow and launch several start-ups, consulted on various products, advised some companies, academia, traveled, and started building something. Because of all these activities, I could not write as often as I wanted, which made me sad but also satisfied because I was fully immersed in my work and gained skills in critical thinking and added experience in my craft.

I have written about this topic before here. I have previously maintained that product managers do not need to be technical, a stance I still hold. However, after working as a product lead at different organizations and leading different product teams for the last five years, I now think it is essential for product managers to have some basic technical skills. This will help you to progress faster and stay in product leadership roles where you will be responsible for a diverse, cross-functional team.

Some fundamental technical skills a Product Manager should have;

• Using postman to test APIs
• Updating documentation on GitHub, Gitlab, or any code repository tool
• Forking
• Managing databases via SQL
• Basic understanding of some software development tools like VS Code, Heroku, and AWS

Advantages of having technical knowledge as a PM 

• It helps you to understand the resource requirements, development timeframes, how to build your roadmap, and how to handle stakeholder expectations.
• It generally enhances your knowledge of your products and how to manage them.
• It makes it easier for you to detect when your engineers or developers give you inaccurate or exaggerated planning or resource estimates.
• You’ll earn the trust of your technical team, which is usually very important.
• It helps you to better comprehend your industry, market, and the ever-present risks and new technologies.

How to improve your technical knowledge Learn basic programming.

• Learn the fundamentals of APIs, get acquainted with postman, and understand the status of various codes (200, 300, 400, etc.). 
• Learn how to manage databases with SQL
• Familiarize yourself with cloud servers (AWS), database tools (MongoDB), and hosting services. 
• Take technical certification courses. I advise taking the AWS cloud foundation course for beginners and interesting Microsoft and Google cloud courses.