17 Slack Groups For Product Managers
Looking for Slack groups for product managers but not sure where to start? You’ve come to the right place.
Since Slack launched publicly in August 2013, the way businesses communicate internally changed forever. For many of us – me included – we celebrated the mass migration from Skype and Hipchat to an online tool that actually works, and works well.
There are over 10 million of us globally spending more time than we’d like to admit, making decisions on Slack. On average, large companies are sending 200+ messages a week and are seeing a massive shift from email to Slack for all internal communication. Slack, as I just learnt, is an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.” Thank you Wikipedia for that lovely little fact. I personally find the search functionality to be a little lacking, but that’s not what this blog is about…
Though Slack was originally intended to be a work collaboration and conversation tool, it has taken over from message boards and social media groups for online communities. Here at ProdPad we’ve long been singing the praises of having a Slack community and love having a place to have great conversations with our customers.
When you think about it, it’s no surprise that hundreds of us head to Google every month to find great Slack groups for product managers – who doesn’t want to have conversations and share knowledge with their peers? Joining a Slack community could be where you find new friends, get help and advice, find a new career opportunity, or, like the members of our Slack community, be the first to hear about new and exciting things coming soon to your favorite SaaS tool.
But how do you find the right product management Slack community for you?
How to Find Slack Groups for Product Managers
There isn’t a giant Slack yellow page-style centralized online directory, unfortunately. Sorry to all gen z-ers who have absolutely no idea what the yellow pages are (…a telephone book that we all had in our houses and offices).
There are a few lists that have been created, but they are massive, and who has the time to look through 2000+ groups to find a few Slack groups for product managers that look decent? So we’ve taken this as an opportunity to curate the ultimate list of Slack groups for product managers, from which you can pick. (N.B. All are free to join unless stated otherwise.)
The Top Slack Groups for Product Managers
Here is the complete list of the best product management Slack groups, according to our team of product experts and experienced product managers…
- Mind the Product
- Product School
- Product Collective
- Product Manager HQ
- ProdPad Talk
- Creators of Products
- PLG (Product Led Growth)
- Product Marketing Alliance
- Women in Product
- Lewis C. Lin Product Management Interview Practice Community
- Product Coalition
- Product Folks
- Product Buds
- Modern Agile
- Agile Coaching
- PLA (Product Led Alliance)
- SaaS
Now, let’s take a look at each group in turn, and give you the lowdown to help you decide which are for you.
Mind The Product
Mind the Product is the largest international group of product managers. They host hundreds of events around the globe every year and offer training sessions and paid memberships. The MTP Slack community has 55,590 members, (at the time of writing), that’s a lot of product people ready to chat.
Mind the Product is one of our favorite Slack groups for product managers, not just because our Founders, Janna and Simon, are part of the team who founded MTP, but because we love anything that is built for product managers by product managers. As a community, everyone is welcoming, the conversations are insightful and informative, the house rules are solid and the moderators save all of us from spammers. If you haven’t already joined, it’s the first place I would go. Trust me, you won’t regret it. Ask for your invite here.
Product School
Product School hosts weekly AMAs with heavy hitters in the product space, from major-league, household brands. This gives their community members, (all 109,283 of them), the opportunity to gain some amazing insights from people who have seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to product management.
It’s also a great place to find your next job. They have a very active job listing channel where you might find the job of your dreams. One top tip: if you are looking for a new job opportunity, use the chat search to find people who are hiring and see what they’ve been talking about recently – great insight into what you might expect to be asked about in an interview! Ask for your invite here.
Product Collective
Product Collective is another Slack group made by product managers for product managers. Once you’ve signed up to their mailing list, you have access to their invite-only Slack community.
Not only are there daily chats, advice and feedback going on, but you will also be the first to hear about their exclusive live video chats with product leaders from around the world. They host 2-4 a month and are worth checking out. Sign up for the mailing list here then get invited.
Product Manager HQ
Product Manager HQ is the slack community for you if you are getting really serious about wanting to level-up your knowledge and industry contacts. This isn’t a free slack community like many of the others, but at a one-time fee of $25, it’s not going to break the bank. A lot of members have their fees covered by their employer as part of a learning & development budget.
Product Manager HQ have collected a wealth of information and created a treasure trove of free resources for you to step-up in the product management field. They also offer a paid training program if you want to take your learning even further. Become a member here.
ProdPad Talk
OK, this one is ours… but hear us out. ProdPad Talk is a wonderful community of ProdPad users. Not only is it the quickest way to find out about all the freshest releases and latest features of our product management platform; it’s also a really friendly place to be. Whenever a member poses a question, or asks for help or advice, they’ll get a speedy reply and solution from a ProdPad team member or two, AND input and advice from fellow users, on how they use ProdPad.
It’s a great chance to learn a bunch of useful tips and tricks on how to run your product management process. We’ve actually picked up some interesting ways to use ProdPad from our community, stuff that we wouldn’t have ordinarily thought of ourselves. If you are a ProdPad user and love hearing about thought leadership webinars or being the first to try a beta feature, make sure to join the community. To join – log into your ProdPad account or start a trial now.
Creators of Products
This product management slack group is very popular with the team here at ProdPad. It’s a super-friendly, supportive group and it’s all about making great products! If you are looking for a slightly wider product community, with leaders, developers, designers and product specialists, then Creators of Products is the community for you.
You’ll find mentorship, support, people to side hustle with…it’s also a welcoming place for students wanting to hit the ground running. Fill in this form to request your place.
PLG (Product Led Growth)
If you are looking to transition from a sales-focused business methodology to ensuring everything you do is product-led, then this is the community to join. If you want advice on where to start, talk about growing pains or share your successes, there is space for that.
It’s a really friendly and fun community with enthusiastic people, always ready to talk through ideas or offer advice. Ask for an invite here.
Product Marketing Alliance
Product Marketing Alliance, is home to a whole range of product marketing certifications, but they also have a large, free-to-join community of product marketers on Slack. There are 70+ channels to join full of great conversation, advice and the odd template.
If you are a product marketer in a small team (or the only product marketer in the company), this could be particularly beneficial, giving you access to lots of people (24,223) who do what you do and will happily pay forward what they’ve learnt along the way. Ask for an invite here.
Women in Product
Women in Product is a collective that was founded in 2015 to create a space for women in product to talk about their work, get advice and celebrate their successes in a space exclusively for them.
What makes this Slack group so special is its ability to really help lift you up. Whether you need help negotiating new contracts or pay rises, or want to find out more about female-friendly companies, this community is where to go. Fill in this form.
Lewis C. Lin PM Interview Practice Community
Lewis C. Lin is a bestselling author whose expertise lies in the art of interviewing well. He’s created this Slack community to help those who want to land their dream Product Management role absolutely smash their interview.
Once you’ve been granted access to the community you get partnered with people who will do mock interviews with you. Practice makes perfect and according to one of their testimonials, one member managed to undertake 70 mock interviews through the community and bag themselves the job offer they were hoping for! Request your spot here.
Product Coalition
You’ll know Product Coalition from their unmissable product management publication on Medium. It boasts 1 million annual readers… but did you know that they also have a slack community?
Product Coalition’s “mission is to make mastery of product management globally accessible”. With an emphasis on editorial integrity at the heart of everything they do, you know that their slack group is going to be full of interesting, insightful conversations. If you’re up-to-date with what this Slack community are talking about, then you can pretty much regard yourself as up-to-date with the vanguard of product management… because if these folks aren’t writing about it, is it even worth reading? Probably not. Fill in this form to ask for an invite.
Product Folks
The Product Folks are a bit different – they are a volunteer-run community of product enthusiasts, and they absolutely love an emoji 🥳🎉💃. So, if you struggle to communicate without the assistance of an emoji or three, you’ll find your safe space here. They host weekly AMAs on the Slack channel and host free product teardown events that are genuinely quite lovely. Request to join in this form.
Product Buds
Product Buds is a Slack group for product managers who are just starting out in their career. It’s a space where you can learn and grow and really kick-start your life in product management. It has helped students understand what product management is, and helped many of them get their feet in the door at their first jobs.
If you are looking for tips, advice and guidance on interview prep, this is the first place you need to go. Follow this link and join straight away.
Modern Agile
Modern Agile is a community committed to the art of agile. If Marie Kondo made a business methodology it would be agile. It’s all about streamlining, simplifying and making your product development move quickly in the right direction for success.
If you need help, advice and support to do this within your organization then this community will definitely bring you joy 😉. Follow this link to join.
Agile Coaching
Agile Coaching is a great resource for talking about agile. This is a useful space to sense-check what you’re doing, make sure you’re getting it right and get general help and support on all things agile. The people in the group have a range of jobs related to the agile methodology, so you’ll get a really broad range of opinions and expertise. This group is currently invite only, so keep your eyes peeled for any admins you may meet in the wild.
PLA (Product Led Alliance)
Product Led Alliance means business, let’s be honest here, if there is an alliance in the name you know they’re not messing around… And PLA are no exception, they are a global community of self-described product-led gurus. Not only do they offer certifications, events and a great blog they also have a really solid Slack community.
Some highlights from the channels include: #pla-recommended-tools, #pla-recommended-reading and #productledonboarding. If you’re just trying to work out what to do to be more product-led, or want to idiot check your plans, this is the place to go. They have done the research so you don’t have to. Join here.
SaaS
SaaS is not a Slack group for product managers, but I feel like it deserves a place in this list. As someone who has worked in SaaS for many, many years, I can say, with my hand on my heart, a SaaS tool is a strange and very specific beast to manage.
SaaS the group, is a special place full of founders and SaaS makers, builders and sellers, and is all about helping build better SaaS tools. If you work for a SaaS company, or want to start a SaaS company, why not reach out to the absolute heroes in the group who can help you learn from their mistakes and their wins. Join automatically here.
There you have it – 17 Slack communities for product managers we think are the bee’s knees, we’d love to hear from you if we’ve missed your favorite, let us know in the comments below.
