Some learnings and tips garnered from my experiences in the Consumer Internet Space at companies such as Amazon, Yahoo!, Times of India and my own tiny startup. Use this presentatin to learn more about product management or as a guide to identify key skills in potential product management candidates. Visit : http://linkd.in/sumitchugh in case you want to get in touch with me.
1. How to be an Effective Product Manager
Presented by Sumit Chugh at
Institute of Product Leadership, Bangalore Nov’18
2. What is a Product?
Anything that solves a customer problem….
Platform (Collection of Customer and Seller facing applications- Uber)
App or a Website (Myntra, Zomato Restaurant Order Management App)
Category (Fashion on Amazon)
Feature (Product Search, 1 click checkout)
Device
Button on the device
Operating System or Software feature that runs on a device
And so on……….
3. Who is a Product Manager?
Owner of the Product
Voice of the Customer
Jack of All Trades
10. What does a Product Manager do?
Conceptualize> Plan> Build> Operate> Scale> Improve> Repeat
11. Works with
Technology and Design
Marketing, Sales & Business Development
Operations & Logistics
Customer Service
Public Relations
Senior Management
External Partners
12. Basic Competencies
Good understanding of the space
Business and Technical Acumen
Good with Logic and Data
Excellent Communicator
Basic Program Management Skills
Customer orientation
15. Thinks Big. Thinks Different
Challenge existing norms
Bring in some Creativity and Imagination in your day to day work
Read
Watch
Use
Discuss ideas/problems with other people
Do anything else that gets your creative juices flowing
16. Thinks like a consultant. Executes like a Ninja.
Has a 10,000 foot view of the business, product and her/his own role
Connects the dots
Defines a vision. Breaks it down into a realistic roadmap
Executes fast. Delivers tangible results
17. Invent/Re-Invents Constantly
Think of New Features
Constantly improve existing features
Not just features/products………..
New Skills
New Responsibilities
18. Should be comfortable with Ambiguity…..
- “By how much will our sales go up, if we introduce product X? How much should
we invest?
Tech team – “We will not pick up projects till you gjve us a one year roadmap”
Sales Team - “1 year feature requests? We don’t even know what will happen
next month!”
Boss - “This is not working. We need to pivot…
Me – “To what”?
Boss- “I don’t know. Go figure”
Leadership –
- “You delivered a product. Great! Now how can we make this a Billion Dollar
business in 5 years?"
Some anecdotes…
19. Should have an opinion……
And be able to defend it!
Rely on -
Logic
Data
Insights
21. Invest in User Experience and Design
• Hire a kickass design team!
• Empower your designers to challenge the entire team’s thinking –
across functions.
22. Get your hands dirty
Get your basics right
Learn to code (Coursera, Udemy)
Build something yourself
23. Insist on Goals
• Make sure they move the needle on your organizations goals
• Align them with all your stakeholders
Type of goals
• No/type of features/products to be launched
• Launch timelines
• Business or Impact of each launch
• Quality metrics – Zero P0 Bugs
24. Mechanisms matter. Invest in them.
Mechanism - “a natural or established process by which something
takes place or is brought about”
Roadmap Intake Meetings
Product Update Emails
Leadership Roadmap reviews
Office Hours
Stakeholder 1:1s
25. Listen to customers – first hand
Participate in Focus groups/interviews
Use social media
Talk to your friends/family
26. Sometimes you have to be a prick
…. And its’s ok!
“a prick is an incessantly annoying or obnoxious person who
escalates their behavior the more they are ignored “
Continuously audit Voice of Customer and Key Business Metrics –
• Be a prick if things are going wrong and no one is doing anything about it
• Be a prick if customer experience or organizations interests are getting impacted
• Highlight the elephant in the room and hold other people accountable
• Make sure you are being a prick for the right reasons! Don’t be a random prick.
27. Prioritize.
“Not just the Requirements. But Your Life”
• A PM’s role can get very demanding and can send Work Life Balance for a toss -
Weekend sprints, late night releases, outages, customer escalations, odd hour
meetings with international stakeholders etc.
• Just like requirements for your product, you need to identify and hold true to the
P0s and P1s in your life.
• Learn to effectively delegate, audit and put in processes/mechanisms in place so
your workload is distributed.
• Switch off sometimes – Don’t burn out!
Open House
Ask audience for Tech/nNon Tech Breakup
Ask audience – How many are Product Managers or have been Product Managers?
Open House
Open House
A PM plays different roles at different times
Lays out the strategy for a product. Tracks performance. Scales up.
Changes path if required
Communicates and Advocates the voice of the customer
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At a 10,000 feet view, these are the activities that a Product Manager performs on a day to day basis, scaling up the game with each iteration.
Good PMs deliver.
They don’t give up when faced by challenges or hurdles and figure a way out.
They are street smart and are not shy of taking smart risks and pushing the envelope further.