In this talk, Amit Paunikar, a career product manager, will try to demystify what product management means and what product managers do. Based on 15 years of experience launching multi million dollar products for companies like Yahoo!, Google and Skype, he will provide practical advice on how to think like a product manager and reap the benefits.

1. Hello!I am Amit Paunikar
You can find me at @paunikar

2. Find your inner
Product Manager

3. What is a
Product Manager?

4. “
Product manger is the CEO of the product
- everyone

5. “
Product Manager’s job is to discover a
product that is valuable, usable and
feasible
- Marty Cagan

6. “
Product manager investigates, selects,
and drives the development of products
for an organization
- Wikipedia

7. Product Manager is someone
who takes ownership for the
failure of the product
Product does not sell
Product does not scale
Product does not delight
Product looks like c$#p
"Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue" by Alex E. Proimos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/4199675334/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg#/media/File:Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg

8. Blame the Product Manager
flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/a2gemma/

9. Octopus at Kelly Tarlton's.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Octopus_at_Kelly_Tarlton's.jpg
What should we build?
Why should we build it?
Who will buy it?
How should we build it?
How should it look?
How do we market it?
How should we sell it?
How do we support it?
Customers
Engineering
Design
Marketing
Legal
PR
Sales
Support

10. 10 WAYS TO THINK LIKE A PM

11. Empathy
Think like the customer
Internalize basic needs
Be the customers voice

12. Triple vision
Blue sky: 5 -10 year disruptors
Horizon: 6 month -1 year changes
Battlefield: Next release
"Four antennas ALMA" by ESO/José Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org) - http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1108a/. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via
Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four_antennas_ALMA.jpg#/media/File:Four_antennas_ALMA.jpg

13. Story teller
Responsibility with no authority
Influence and seek buy-in
Inspire and motivate
"One Ring" by User:Osa 150 - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/b/b7/20100301162258!Unico_Anello.png.
Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_Ring.png#/media/File:One_Ring.png

14. Venture out
Go to a BD meeting
Sell your product
Sit on support calls
By Xof711 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)],
via Wikimedia Commons

15. Plan A, B and C
Find ways to unblock and progress
Be pragmatic, not emotional
Love the best solution (not your solution)
"Ridderkerk interchange" by Mawijk - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ridderkerk_interchange.jpg#/media/File:Ridderkerk_interchange.jpg

16. Love thy data
Data are apolitical
Data > opinions
Thought + instrumentation = Data
The WebGL Globe is an open platform for visualizing geographic data. • Get the code • By the Google Data Arts Team

17. Eat your dogfood
Solve your problem
Use your product
Be your own customer

18. Don’t assume; Test & analyze
Allow for surprises
Break things (innovation is the fruit of failure)
Get your community involved

19. 10X not 10%
Embrace a new way of thinking
Challenge conventional wisdom
Sometimes 10X is easier than 10%
Credit:NASA
Pluto 2015
Pluto 1995

20. Embrace chaos
Credit:NASA
Credits:
Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
Photographs by Unsplash
Individual photos attributed accordingly
Questions?
You can find me at @paunikar & apaunikar@gmail.com