Up your product management game
ALT held its first Product Management event last week. If you’re an aspiring PM or looking to work your way up in the PM field in a startup — these nuggets of gold can help guide you. With thanks to Chad Jennings (MOO), Jo Wickremasinghe (News UK) and Cait O’Riordan (FT) and Dave Schappell (Investor), chaired by Ophelia Brown (LocalGlobe).
There isn’t one right path in
Product management, by definition, combines a number of different disciplines from design, engineering, business, research and project management. Routes in from UX and engineering backgrounds tend to be driven by an ambition to be more involved upfront in the product lifecycle process. Consultancy and project management skillsets also lend themselves well. The more you ask around, the more you’ll realise there is no typical route in and instead a shared passion to create products to solve customer needs.
Data-driven design wins
PMs unite on the need to be extremely data literate and using it to launch or test features in an iterative way. A healthy dose of intuition with a bias towards action is welcome but if the data doesn’t support it within a trial period, don’t be too proud or afraid to pivot. Cait from the FT highlights the importance of self-serving too where possible to move fast and not relying on others to pull data.
Chad from MOO highlights the need to have the right data- seeing what customers are doing will only improve funnel metrics and make the experience better for existing users. There needs to be a focus on non-customers too.
“For most businesses, 90%+ of people who visit may not purchase. Non-customers represent a big growth opportunity and is where research and business intelligence should be targeted”.
3 product management pitfalls to avoid
1. Not picking a collaborator. Whether it’s a marketing, tech, design or a business combination — find a partner in crime that complements your skill set and who can challenge you to create 1+1=3 moments.
2. Getting stuck in the day-to-day. Schedule time and headspace to do bigger picture and visionary thinking. Create a weekly routine to solely work on longer term planning.
3. The ‘it’s all important’ mentality. Use a weighted prioritisation framework or spreadsheet to match features against goals and it will help force decisions and manage stakeholders.
Product management pencil case — resources to equip you
· Harvard Business Review (free)
· Innovators Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
· ProductTank events http://www.producttank.com/ and a lively Slack channel for its community
· A16z’s oldie but goodie http://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/
3 common traits of a winning product manager
1. Customer centric- someone who has empathy with the consumer and is out there talking to them, with or without research.
2. Communicator- someone who can tell and sell a story with a focus on the why.
3. Dirty hands- someone who contributes to forums and the community, bug testing, data analysis, owning backlog, etc.
We asked our panelists “What’s the one thing you’d wish you known looking back?”
The need to build something indispensable, even if it’s for a small customer set.
“The importance of unit economics and the Cost Per Navigation: Life Time Value ratio for making hard calls”.
ALWAYS NEGOTIATE WHEN STARTING A NEW JOB!
