Why Product Manager need to Learn SQL?

May 09, 2023

Table of Content:

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language used to manage and manipulate relational databases. It is usually considered a skill for software engineers and data analysts/scientists. Software engineers use SQL to build applications or services, while data analysts and scientists use it as a core part of their daily workflow

However, I believe that there is one more position that could benefit from learning SQL: Product Managers. This topic might be controversial, but I am of the opinion that "SQL is a must-have skill for PM," especially in this era where data is the new oil.

I have long experience working with product managers, and I have found that I always have a good impression of those who know how to query data. It's not just me, most people who have worked with them have given the same testimonial. In this article, I will elaborate on why product managers nowadays need to learn SQL.

But Product Manager's Job is to Deliver Value to Customer!

When I bring up the topic of SQL to product managers, I usually encounter two types of responses:

"Where can I learn it and do you have suggestion where to start?"
"No need, products manager's job is to deliver value to customer. I can ask data team or tech team"

It's true that delivering value to customers is (one of) the main responsibilities of a product manager, but it doesn't necessarily mean that learning SQL is not important. Learning SQL is similar to learning Excel or Google Sheets. While you can ask others such as data or engineering teams for help, you may not be able to deliver maximum value if you don't understand how your data is stored and how to access it.

To illustrate this point, consider the analogy of a restaurant owner asking the chef to make the food spicier. There's a difference between saying "please make this food spicier" and "I want a spicier taste, but with a specific type of spicy sensation like mala." The latter request is more specific and likely to result in the desired outcome. Similarly, learning SQL can help product managers better understand and communicate their data needs to the relevant teams, resulting in more effective and targeted product decisions.

Furthermore, a product manager's job is not solely focused on delivering value to customers. While this is an important aspect of the role, it's just one of many responsibilities that product managers have. In fact, product management is heavily centered around data.

Ideation: Product managers often come up with ideas by analyzing and understanding existing data structures and sets.
Product Roadmap: Understanding SQL can help a product manager gain better insights into creating more accurate timelines and forecasts.
Validating Product: SQL can be a useful tool for validating a product.
Defining & Tracking Product Metrics: Before defining product metrics, product managers need to understand the data points that need to be stored and how they're stored.
Align & communicating with stakeholders: Go meeting without datas and the meeting will be chaos with assumptions. Having data-backed insights can help product managers communicate more effectively with stakeholders.
Acceptance Test: Some features may not show a response in the frontend, so you may need to check the database. Do you want to fully depend on other people? What happen when there are scenarios missing, blame others?

Given the current emphasis on data-driven decision-making, doesn't it natural for product manager to learn SQL in order to better understand how data is stored and retrieved?

What do Data Analyst do then?

This is another argument that always comes up. For small companies, it's clear that they usually don't have a data analyst on their team. For bigger companies, they might have a data analyst, but they could still be overburdened with tasks not related to their primary role. In the real-world scenario, what actually happens is that data analysts are often given tasks by product managers that are not part of their main job responsibilities.

"Data analyst, please make a revenue report for this month. I need to present it to stakeholders"

Is this the Data Analyst's main job? If so, what are their KPIs? To me, this kind of job is not the role of a Data Analyst, and a Product Manager can access it because building the query is not that difficult.

Product Managers and Data Analysts should use SQL in different ways. Product Managers may use SQL to quickly answer high-level questions about product performance or customer behavior, while Data Analysts use SQL as a core part of their daily workflow, performing complex calculations and statistical analyses, and building predictive models and visualizations to uncover latent knowledge, something that cannot be achieved by any other position, including Product Managers.

But we already have Google Analytics and MixPanel

While Google Analytics and MixPanel are valuable tools for product managers to gather and analyze data, they have their limitations. These tools have pre-built reports and dashboards that are designed to answer specific questions, but they may not be able to answer more complex questions that require specific data analysis. By contrast, SQL allows product managers to write custom queries and extract data that is not available in pre-built reports. This level of customization and flexibility can be crucial for product managers to gain deeper insights and make more informed decisions about the product.

Effects/Benefits of Having SQL Skills for Product Managers

Are you convinced yet? Let's take a look at more benefits of having SQL skills as a Product Manager.

Faster decision-making - I have seen a lot of obstacles between the Data & Tech Team and Product Manager due to one simple query. This is usually because the data and engineering teams have other priorities that cannot be distracted. By knowing SQL, the Product Manager can write custom queries and get the data that you need quickly, making decision-making faster
Uncover Insight - Product Managers are the ones who understand the end-to-end flow of the product and engage with users more than Data Analysts or Software Engineers. By being able to see and understand the raw data with your own eyes, you can uncover latent insights that were previously hidden. Understanding SQL can help provide more context and a better understanding of the data.
User Acceptance become more accurate - When a Product Manager understands SQL, they can check the database themselves to make sure (double check) features are working correctly. It was a long time ago when my team and I were building a voucher code system. Based on the requirements, the feature was not supposed to show the limit of the voucher, but there was definitely a limit. There was a bug where two people could use the same voucher code at the same time due to a payment delay, resulting in the remaining voucher becoming negative. Fortunately, our PM captured this scenario in the staging environment by checking the database using SQL.
More detailed product requirement documents - When a Product Manager understands SQL, they have a better understanding of the end-to-end flow of the product, not just the idea. This means that the product requirement documents can be more detailed and accurate, providing developers with the necessary information to build the product efficiently.
More efficient product development - By having a better understanding of SQL, the Product Manager can relate to how the product will be developed. They can identify what can be developed and what cannot, what is hard and easy to build, and how to work around any issues that may ariseI have a story to share when we were developing an online store system. Our product manager suggested adding more tables because he already planned to add multi-variants in the future roadmap. This suggestion ended up saving us a lot of time when we implemented the feature.
Hard to explain - Sometimes, it can be hard to explain what is needed in a report or dashboard to the Data Analyst. By having SQL skills, the Product Manager can write the query themselves and get the results they need, avoiding wasted time and miscommunication.
More productive meetings - When a Product Manager knows SQL, they can bring the data they need to meetings, making them more productive and efficient. This can help ensure that meetings are focused and that decisions can be made quickly.

How much to learn SQL

While learning SQL can be a valuable skill for product managers, they do not need to know as much SQL as Software Engineers or Data Analysts/Scientists. Here are some things that you should learn:

Retrieving data - such as how to write SELECT statements, use WHERE clauses to filter data, and aggregate data using functions like COUNT or SUM. Additionally, learning JOIN and Subquery techniques will help you create more complex queries.
Understanding how data is stored - At the very least, you should understand SQL operators and database schemas, including data types, so that you can comprehend how the data is stored and how to retrieve it later.

Product managers who want to improve their SQL skills can take online courses, read books or tutorials, or work with a mentor or colleague with SQL expertise.

Conclusion

Does SQL matter as an essential skill or nice-to-have for product managers? Given the abundance of data in today's world, I would say that SQL is an essential skill for product managers. Learning SQL as a product manager is not difficult, as you only need to know the basics of data retrieval and have a basic understanding of database design so you can communicate effectively with your tech team. It might take you only 1 week to 1 month to learn SQL.

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