My First 30 days as a Product Manager at the BBC
Much like Sir David Attenborough I was not successful on my first application to the BBC , however I was not dissuaded and applied again! Fortunately, I was successful last year and have joined the BBC as Senior Product Manager — Children’s Apps.
On my first day all the team were very welcoming and friendly, and have explained (and continue to explain!) every BBC acronym very patiently. As a new Product person, it’s often intimidating to join a new organisation, not to mention within a new domain. As I have joined during the COVID-19 Omicron wave, everyone is working from home. I am keen to meet the team in person as much as possible — though we are quite geographically distributed so we will have to plan quite carefully.
Product
On an organisational level — the first thing that was clear to me was that the BBC Product Culture follows the principles and values from good Product Management practice such as that advocated by product experts such as Roman Pilcher or Melissa Perri. Having read many books and blogs over the years about say — having a roadmap that indicates what you are working on now, next and later to offer transparency to stakeholders rather than a delivery plan — has always been something I’ve desired to do, and here it is being used in practice!
Agile Values
Another thing I noticed was the enthusiasm for teamwork and team values — as one of the principles of the Agile Manifesto that I am passionate about “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams” — again in many organisations this may start as an ambition but be waylaid by older management practices and a blindness to what is a creative process.
My own reaction to this approach is that I feel there is the right focus on thinking about why we are building, and even if we should be building — this makes me feel that people think the same way that I do, and that experimentation and exploration in the problem and discovery space is supported
Expert Voices
Finally, there are many truly expert specialists at the top of their game to support you — from world class UX through willingness to focus on the data for decisions, to teams dedicated to experimentation and testing, it’s obvious quite quickly that the BBC has many very skilled people to support product initiatives. I’m excited to move on with my next 30 days and see what they hold!
