Chief Product Team 
Let’s see in this section how to become Chief Product Officer. What are the skills needed and what are the stages that one has to go through to become Chief Product Officer.
What Are the Skills Needed to Become Chief Product Officer?
The following are the skills that are needed to become Chief Product Officers.
• Leadership skills
The Chief Product Officers work with different teams in the company. So he/she must have strong leadership skills to motivate and guide them. He/she also needs to have good communication skills to communicate with the internal teams and external customers.
• Understanding of technology
The Chief Product Officers must have a good understanding of technology for product development. The CPO will need to know how technology can be used for developing new products, so he/she must have a good background in technology.
• Ability to prioritize
As the Chief product officer is responsible for all the products of the company, he/she must be able to prioritize between different products and decide which one is more important.
• Strong knowledge of product development process
The Chief Product Officer has to manage all aspects of product development. So he/she should have strong knowledge of this process.
He/She should know about how new products are developed, what resources are needed for developing different products. As well as where to get these resources, how all these resources are utilized effectively etc.
• Good negotiation skills
Chief Product Officers need to negotiate with different departments in the organization for getting resources. Thus they need good negotiation skills to get the required resources without compromising on quality.
What Are the Stages That One Has to Go Through to Become Chief Product Officer?
There are different stages one has to go through to reach this position. These areas are given below.
1) One should first be working on different projects of product development. And then he/she can move to the next stage.
2) The next stage would be to become a Senior Manager of product development. Thus one can gain experience in managing different teams and projects.
3) After gaining experience in managing projects and teams, one can move to the next stage. Like for example to become a Director of product development. Here one will have to manage larger teams and projects. So he/she will learn how to manage larger teams and projects.
4) After becoming a Director of product development, one can move to the next stage i.e. Vice President of product development. And here one will have to manage larger teams and projects and so he/she will learn how to work with senior executives of the organization and manage larger teams and projects.
5) After gaining experience in the above mentioned two stages, one can move to the next stage i.e. Vice President of product development and chief product officer. Here one will be managing all the products of the company. So he/she has to learn how to manage all the product development activities as well as external customers.
Conclusion
In this section, we have seen what skills are needed to become Chief Product Officer. We have also seen what stages one has to go through to reach this position. Now let’s see how the role of Chief Product Officer is changing in this digital age.
