Product Management Community Survey Results

From January 10th to 22nd, 2021, I conducted a survey to find out more about engagement in Product Management Communities. The goal was to discover what attracts and retains members in a PM Community and to deliver some insights to the Toronto Product Management Association (TPMA) as well as other communities who could benefit from the results to enhance their community programs. The survey was promoted on LinkedIn and Slack channels, mainly to the TPMA membership, the Toronto Product Leaders Group, HelloMeets (WhatsApp) and to my LinkedIn network.

Number of responses: 56

Years of Experience: There was a pretty even split in the number of years of experience in Product Management in this sample. Only 2 respondents had no experience:

Awareness of existing Product Communities: We can debate whether the choices provided in the survey were all real 'communities' however, they all allow members to reach out to each other for support via Slack, a LinkedIn Group or via networking events.

The great majority (94.6%) were aware of the Toronto Product Management Association (TPMA) which is no surprise as the TPMA sent out the survey to their membership and that group responded quickly. Other well known communities were Product School (80.4%), Product Camp (66.1%), Mind the Product (64.3%), Women in Product (21.4%), Product Coalition (17.9%), Product that Count (14.3%) and HelloMeets (10.7%). All other choices were known by 5 or less respondents.

Active involvement: Four respondents provided no answer and two refused to classify themselves as belonging to a community although they stated that they participate in various communities from time to time. The communities mentioned more than once were TPMA (22), Mind the Product (8), Product School (8), Product Camp (7), Toronto Product Leaders (4), ProductTO (3), Toronto Product People (2), Product League (2), Product Tank (2), Pragmatic Institute (2) and Women in Product (2).

What respondents like about Product Communities: Pretty much all respondents enjoy Product Communities to grow their knowledge and to network. The ability to get help/support and to have access to industry leaders is also appreciated by about half the respondents.

Most valuable Product Community: When forcing respondents to select the Product Community they derive the most value from and to explain why, I was most interested in the why. Forty-two respondents provided an answer. Access to resources, tools, gaining knowledge and sharing experiences were what most respondents value.

TPMA received 15 mentions (not surprising considering the sample) for their content, mentorship program, networking, the regularity of events and as a great resource to help people transition into product management.

Toronto Product School received five (5) mentions for their vast array of content and large network,

Product Camp (4), Mind the Product (3) and Toronto Product Leaders (2) were also mentioned a few times.

Disappointments: Thirty-five respondents had a lot to say about their disappointments. Inactivity of the community, repetitiveness and redundancy of the content, too much talk of frameworks and not going deep enough into the issues were the big ones. Some mentioned that they found some arrogance, lack of honesty and the inability to build solid relationships. It appears some presenters use the community's platform to sell their product rather than provide valuable information. Some participants stated that they are clearly only participating in order to land a PM job.

Paying for membership: A little bit more than half have paid for a membership in a Product Community.

What should a paid membership include?: I provided instructions to select the least number of choices possible - the must have's.

Online courses and events were selected by 26 respondents and small group video calls by 24. Product forums, newsletters and webinars each received 20 votes. Articles was selected 18 times and podcasts only 9 times.

Twelve respondents chose to select that they would not pay for anything.

Most valuable component of a paid membership: When asking respondents in an open-ended manner what would be the one thing they would find to be the most valuable part of a paid membership, networking, events and group forums came out most frequently.

There were a few mentions of content around solving real-word problems, high quality content, curated content as well as thought leadership.

Some respondents asked for small group meetings, experiential hands-on and use case sessions. A couple of people stated they would like access to PM job fairs, career development and interview preparation support.

A few expressed opinions that a paid membership would exclude certain groups and do not promote diversity.

Reasons for not participating: The mains reasons for not participating are due to a lack of time, lack of interest in the topic, the caliber of the talk, being overwhelmed with the large amount of content already available in the community, 'fake' leaders, lack of a regular schedule and the topics not communicated well in advance.

Favorite medium to level up one's knowledge:

Blogs (28.8%), coaching (13.5%), books (13.5%) and events (11.5%) were the clear favorites. I was surprised that podcasts received only 1 vote.

Propensity to never join or quit: The leading reason was a lack of relevance of the content (66%). Other top reasons mentioned were a lack of PM experience in the group (34%), no time (34%) and a poor meeting format (14%).

Although the sample size was relatively small, I hope this provides some guidance to PM Community leaders in the development of their programs. I am happy to share the raw data with any PM Community who would like to obtain it. Please DM me if you are interested. I also plan to do more studies on this topic with a small group of Product Managers who accepted my invitation to continue on this journey.