Both companies and HR consultants consider communication to be the most important social skill for the future. For you as a product manager, good communication skills are decisive, both for your career and to ensure that you deliver a successful product. Yet we often still hear complaints about communication not functioning well with other departments and about the lack of acceptance of product management in many companies. Using examples from the real world of business, this unique self-help guide looks at the typical communication difficulties which often arise and highlights potential solutions. There are also several exercises for you to test your new knowledge. The communication skills you acquire will simplify your everyday working life: You will improve your communication skills. You will learn how to convey information more effectively and how to convince stakeholders of your ideas.You will enhance your ability to pose tactical questions in order to increase your knowledge of the market. You will build up skills which will enable you to deliver customer-focused product management. Your company will benefit in different ways: senior management will be able to make decisions faster and development teams will be able to carry out their development work according to real market requirements. In addition, the sales team will find selling easier and employees will get more enjoyment out of their work. I wish you every success in putting these ideas into practice. You will soon find you are experiencing more acceptance from the various departments you deal with.
About the Author: Ulrike Laubner is an expert in product management. She has a profound knowledge of the value which product managers generate for a company, having herself spent time working as a product manager and in other leadership roles in various international companies. She understands the challenges involved in communications and knows what it is like to come up against internal hurdle. She has experienced this situation herself. Her methods of improving communication skills are very convincing on account of both their ability to be implemented quickly and the visibility of the success they bring about. The information which provides the basis for her knowledge has been collected from a range of companies and industries and she has worked with the methods herself. She enables companies and employees to develop their expertise in product management through certified training courses, workshops and consultancy. Companies and product managers achieve a noticeable improvement in collaboration and are able to launch new products onto the market faster through systematic product management and effective methods of communication. As a member of the international non-profit organisation Toastmasters, she coaches and trains other members. Through this initiative, they are given training in communication and management skills which they can use in both their private and their professional environments. Ulrike Laubner is lecturer, speaker and author of over hundred articles about productmanagement.