Delivering Impact as an
Internal/Platform PM
by Booking.com Sr PM
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Creating Impact as
an Internal PM
Zareena Ashraf

Senior Product Manager (Design System), Booking.com
● Over 12 yrs in IT, 6 yrs in product management
● Enjoy the challenge of delivering beautiful UX in complex,
cross functional products
● MBA (Marketing) - IMT Ghaziabad , India(2014)
B.Tech (Electrical Engg.)- KU, India(2010)
● Amsterdam, NL
Zareena Ashraf

Who is an Internal PM?
Internal Product Managers build products that help businesses be
more efficient, grow at scale and gain a competitive edge.
Technical Product Manager| Non-revenue product managers |
Internal PMs | Platform PMs
?

Process automation & modernization is not pain-free
● Lack of defined strategy
● Evolving user needs
● Budget concerns and constraints
● Ineffective data management
● Inefficient business processes
● Lack of organizational change management

.. but guess who can help
Hello
there!

Creating impact as an Internal PM

What does impact look like?
● Effect or influence that the product has on the organization and its
operations.
● Takes different forms: increased efficiency, cost savings, improved
collaboration among teams, increased employee satisfaction, or the
achievement of business goals.
● Impact is a crucial metric for assessing success

Challenges
● Understanding user needs
● Balancing conflicting priorities
● Limited resources
● Complex stakeholder management
● Organizational alignment
● Lack of user feedback
● Resistance to change
● Balancing innovation with practicality
● Ensuring adoption

What can you do?
● Organizational alignment
● Complex stakeholder
management
● Resistance to change
● Ensuring adoption
● Balancing conflicting priorities
● Understanding user needs
● Lack of user feedback
● Limited resources
● Balancing innovation with practicality
DIRECT FOCUS ENGAGE
MEASURE

DIRECT
Guide the product and the team towards
delivering impactful outcomes while
maintaining alignment with the
organization.
Business Case
Product Vision & Strategy
Stakeholder Management

Business Case
Define you raison d'être:
Craft a concise and well-defined Business Case
Use it to articulate:
● Problem
● Approach /Alternatives
● Risk assessment
● Solution
● Business Value

Product vision & strategy
Product Vision:
Provide a clear and inspiring picture of the future state that the
team aims to achieve.
Product Strategy:
Highlight the steps you need to take to achieve your Product
Vision.
Align the product goals to org and department goals.

Stakeholder Management
Challenges:
● Multiple stakeholders
● Non customer facing
● Resistance to change
Strategies that can help:
● Identify your stakeholders
● Establish clear communication
channels
● Build relationships
● Set realistic expectations
● Prioritize feedback
● Address concerns

FOCUS
Build customer-centric internal products
with a deep understanding of the needs
and goals of your organization's customers
Leverage user base
Chase outcomes
Maintain captive audience

Leverage user base
● They are your one main source of requirements
● Captive audience: You have easy access to your
customers
● Understand your users
● Involve them in the process

Chase outcomes over milestones
Prioritize outcomes that contribute to the company’s business
priorities and enhance user value.
Stay wary of driving products through defined milestones.

Maintain your captive audience
● A bad user experience snowballs into a user base resistive to
future changes
● Establish feedback loops and a well structured support
channels
○ Including support resources and documentation

ENGAGE
Engage with users and build relationships
with your customers to foster trust and
loyalty with your user base.
Market your product
Stay Current

Market the product
● Develop a strategy focusing on each user
group
● Market your product
○ Educate and build awareness to its
benefits
○ Leverage blogs, workplace forums and
maintain current documentation

Stay Current
● Periodically evaluate and benchmark against external
competitors
● Listen to and observe your users
● Stay up to date on company processes and direction

MEASURE
Measure the impact of your product to
drive direction and ensure its continued
relevance within the organization
Monitor smartly
Demonstrate value

Monitor smartly
● Define clear metrics
○ Harder to track customer and revenue driven metrics
○ Tie to the goals and objectives of the product
○ Should be SMART
● Collect feedback
○ Identify areas for improvement
● Analyze usage data
● Track performance
Make the process frictionless::
● Forge relationships with the teams using the product.
● Automate as much as possible

Demonstrate value
● Share the success metrics
○ User satisfaction
○ Performance metrics
● Share positive feedback from users and success
stories
● Display and celebrate outcomes and important
milestones

The future looks bright
● As companies continue to focus on innovation and digital
transformation, the need for internal PMs will only increase.
● Key trends:
○ Agile methodologies
○ User-centric design
○ Integration of emerging technologies
○ Cross functional collaboration
○ Data analytics
○ Low code/no code

Thank you
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