I am not a Product Manager…but I talk to them. Episode 6: Mercè Garcia (Adevinta)
I am a Product Director @Adevinta Spain (leading today the Product Team for our two Real Estate sites: Fotocasa and Habitaclia) and Product Management Professor at Nuclio digital School.
I started in Digital and Product 14 years ago in a mobile music startup. After all this time I’ve been able to learn from different companies of different sizes, industries and business models (music, dating, ecommerce, travel and marketplaces). However there’s one thing that hasn’t changed through all this time: my passion to deliver meaningful experiences to Customers.
1) If you were a product, what product would you be? Why?
I would be Spotify: User Centric, with attention to detail while offering a personalised service with great and up to date content.
2) In your own words, what is a Product Owner? And a Product Manager? Which one do you prefer to define your job?
In some agile methodologies and frameworks the Product Owner role is understood as the role inside a Multifunctional Team that takes care of prioritising the Product Backlog. However, mature product organizations have evolved towards a role (call it Product Owner or Product Manager) that is responsible for leading a Multifunctional team in order to deliver the maximum value in an iterative way to the targeted customer. That Product Manager is responsible for Product Success (Aka solving customer problems, meeting their needs while delivering value to the company he/she works for).
3) Why do companies need Product Managers?
I have seen companies where the CEO ( or other executives) make product decisions. Don’t take me wrong, some of those companies are successful (1 decides and the rest execute like soldiers). However making data informed decisions on a daily basis about what Customers need and prioritise them is a Full Time Job. Having Product Managers ( and agile self-sufficient teams) not only professionalises the job and gets the most of your employees, it creates a user centric and data culture of experimentation to drive innovation.
4) What is the difference between a good Product Manager and a bad Product Manager?
A good Product Manager:
- Understands and listens to his/her customers
- Makes Data Driven Decisions
- Is strong enough to say NO
- Has strong leadership and negotiation skills
- Is a great communicator
- Takes controlled risks to innovate
- Is extremely passionate about technology and his/her job ( you cannot do this job without energy)
5) What do you enjoy the most as a Product Manager?
The best of working in Product is to be able to create meaningful and delightful experiences for Customers. It’s not an easy job at all. To release something new to your customers sometimes you need to deal with politics, old platforms and spaghetti code that breaks all the time, complex projects, ten thousand meetings with stakeholders, review your data ( and fix the accuracy of your data…) hundred times, deal with resource problems etc etc. However, there’s nothing better than a Happy Customer telling you that he/she has solved a problem thanks to your Product.
6) What is the worst part of being a Product Manager? What frustrates you?
Lack of strategy and autonomy. Companies need to make decisions and sometimes they need to be directive. That’s a fact. But it’s really important to set clearly what’s the expected Outcome of a Team (preferably with OKR’s) and give them autonomy and accountability to meet those results.
I personally get frustrated when I’m told what to do without understanding the “Why” behind it or if there is no strategy at all. At that point you become a Project Manager and the essence of the Product Owner/Manager is gone.
7) If you could ask any question to any product owner on Earth, who would you choose and what would you ask him/her?
I would love to talk to any PM at Netflix. I’d like to ask them:
- How do they balance Product Optimisation vs innovation?
- What is their innovation model?
Note: this post is the sixth of an ephemeral set of articles based on my conversations with eight Product Managers. I will publishing a new article in the next two days. You can read Episode 5 — interview with Loïc Gersant from New Relic and Product Tank- through this link.