I’m about six months into a PM role at a mid-stage fintech, having just left a big consulting firm. When I started, I thought I’d be dangerous—case cracking, stakeholder management, process optimization all felt like natural PM skills. Turns out, half of what made me valuable in consulting actively works against me here.
The stuff that transferred cleanly: breaking down ambiguous problems, managing competing stakeholder agendas, and framing narrative around data. My structured thinking from consulting absolutely helps me build product specs and roadmaps that make sense.
But here’s what nobody told me—the things that don’t translate are brutal. I kept trying to optimize everything and build solutions that would scale to 100 different use cases. In consulting, ruthless scope management was a virtue. In product, it killed velocity. I shipped nothing for two months because I was designing for hypothetical future needs instead of nailing the core problem for today’s users.
I’ve also realized that my credibility in PM interviews came from being honest about what I didn’t know about product—user research loops, shipping cycles, technical debt—rather than overselling my problem-solving background. The mentors who actually got me the role were the ones who gave me real feedback that my consulting playbook needed serious editing, not affirmation.
For anyone making this jump, I’m curious: what specific consulting skills have you found actually reinforce PM thinking versus the ones that trip you up? And how did you decide which parts of your consulting instincts to keep and which to kill?
Your experience mirrors what I’ve observed across dozens of consultants I’ve mentored into product. The critical insight you’ve identified—that optimization bias can suffocate shipping velocity—is precisely where many consultants struggle in their first eighteen months. The consulting model rewards thoroughness and mitigation of downstream complexity; product rewards learning velocity and iterative refinement. I’d emphasize that your awareness of this mismatch places you ahead of the curve. The consultants who succeed longest are those who consciously audit their default instincts. Your user research comment is essential: invest deliberately in understanding how users actually behave versus how stakeholders theorize they’ll behave. This friction point often determines whether consulting backgrounds become strategic advantages or persistent liabilities.
lol yeah, the consulting-to-pm transition is where a lot of ppl realize their problem-solving muscle is actually a liability. you’re designing for the imaginary perfect customer while real users are trying to do something simple and your product is overengineered to death. the best consultants ive seen in pm are the ones who got humbled early and stopped trying to boil the ocean. credibility in pm doesnt come from being the smartest person; it comes from sh*t shipping. glad you figured this out at month six instead of month sixteen.
This is super helpful! I’m prepping for my first PM role from consulting and honestly i was worried my background would be almost too much—like i’d overcomplicate things. your honesty abt the scope creep thing is exactly what i needed to hear. thanks for the real talk on this.
Research on consulting-to-PM transitions suggests approximately 60-70% of early friction stems from the exact tension you’ve identified: scope calibration. Consulting environments typically reward comprehensive analysis across multiple scenarios; product environments are increasingly optimized for rapid iteration and validated learning. Your framework of identifying which consulting competencies transfer directly versus those requiring recalibration is sound methodology. The consultants who achieve highest impact velocity typically complete this audit within three to six months. Your timeline aligns with successful transition benchmarks.
You’re already past the hardest part—recognizing the gap! This kind of self-awareness means you’re gonna be amazing at product. Keep shipping, keep learning, and you’ll find the right balance. Excited for where you’re heading!