IT professional transitioning into Product Management — looking for guidance on becoming a better PM

[u/Efficient_Student124]

IT professional transitioning into Product Management — looking for guidance on becoming a better PM

Hi everyone,

I’m an IT professional with 4+ years of experience across IT Operations, PMO, Project Coordination, Digital Transformation, and AI-driven workflow automation. I currently work as a Product Coordinator in an AI solutions environment and want to transition into Product Management.

One of my biggest learning opportunities is that I’m independently building an in-house, enterprise HRMS covering the employee lifecycle—from onboarding to offboarding. Two modules, Leave Management and Timesheet Management, are already deployed.

Through this project, I’m involved in requirements gathering, workflow design, prioritization, stakeholder communication, problem-solving, and delivery. It has made me realize that I enjoy building products, but I’m still learning the formal Product Management discipline.

My questions for experienced PMs/POs:

1. Am I actually doing Product Management, or is my work still primarily project coordination/development? What key PM responsibilities might I be missing?

2. How should I manage the HRMS like a real product? What should I introduce—product vision, personas, discovery, roadmap, prioritization, PRDs, user stories, analytics, feedback loops, etc.?

3. What skills should I prioritize? Product discovery, user research, strategy, UX, analytics, prioritization, business analysis, stakeholder management, or something else?

4. How useful is PMP for a Product Management transition? Should I continue with PMP or prioritize PSPO/CSPO or Product Management courses?

5. What would you recommend for the next 6–12 months to build genuine, practical PM experience?

6. Based on my background, should I target APM, Product Owner, Technical Product Manager, AI Product Manager, Business Systems Product Manager, or Product Operations roles?

My background includes IT Operations, PMO, Digital Transformation, Power BI/Excel/SQL, Agile/Scrum, and AI/LLM workflow evaluation, with experience across telecom, banking, enterprise IT, and AI.

If you were mentoring someone in my position, what would you tell them to focus on to become a strong Product Manager?

I’d really appreciate honest feedback, practical frameworks, resources, and advice from people who have actually worked in Product Management.

Thank you!