A Product Chat with The Globe & Mail’s Swati Matta

Key takeaway: No, you don’t need to be a coder to be a great Product Manager.

Welcome to PM Nation (PMNation.co), a limited interview series where we shine a spotlight on personalities behind great products, learn more about how they got into product management, and provide insider perspectives into how the craft of Product is evolving. To learn more about why this got started, click here.

For the benefit of our readers, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do as a Product Manager (PM)?

Hello everybody, I am Swati and I lead Product at Sophi.io, which is a part of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. Sophi is a suite of intelligent decision support systems and analytics tools for modern publishers across the world. We use machine learning algorithms to power exciting features such as automated content-curation, predictive analytics and paywalls, just to name a few.

Over the past 7 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of interesting products across the fintech and healthcare industries, including at Paytm Labs, Ratehub Inc and Tata Health, which has given me the opportunity to learn how to scale a business from conceptualization to growth.

Prior to my Product career, I worked as a fashion designer.

So how did you land up in product management?

I landed up in PM by accident. After my MBA, I was a part of the Tata Group leadership program in India, where I had the opportunity to work on a number of projects in four different Tata Group companies.

On one of my projects, I had the opportunity to design a product from scratch — a Business Development app for the office of the Group Chairman. At this point I didn’t know that what I was doing was called “Product Management”. I approached the problem from the lens of “go beyond what the consumer asks for, and understand their real needs & wants”. The product-thinking learnings from being a fashion designer earlier in my career came in really handy here. Technology, on the other hand was something very new to me and so I had to teach myself various concepts along the way.

Why is it so hard to get into product management these days?

Even with many businesses going digital, getting into Product is still a challenge these days. I believe this is partly due to the fact that for most product roles, companies seek to hire talent that has had already success in building products, and so new graduates may find it difficult to break in.

Another thing to note here is that there is no structured study of product management as a discipline, and a successful product manager must have many diverse skills — customer empathy, prioritization, relationship management to name a few — which take time to develop.

As such, a lot of people approach product management from the position of various strengths, and you will find people moving into product from other domains, such as technology, sales or design. This also makes it difficult for newcomers to get their foot in the door.

“In a real-world environment, everything that a customer wants doesn’t get built at the same time; a good Product manager must be able to prioritize the right things that will drive business growth.”

For those interested in a career in PM — what kinds of experiences should they seek out?

I believe that a successful Product Manager wears multiple hats and demonstrates very diverse skills in different phases of Product Management. These include customer empathy and emotional intelligence to really help you understand what the user wants; relationship management skills to drive stakeholder alignment between the CEO, business, product and technology teams so that there’s one vision of product that everyone’s driving towards; and, most importantly, prioritization skills.

In a real-world environment, everything that a customer wants doesn’t get built at the same time; a good Product manager must be able to prioritize the right things that will drive business growth.

Those interested in product management should seek out experiences that help them leverage and build skills that form the foundation of a good Product career. And one can gain these experiences in various other roles such as business analysis, design, client relationship management, to name a few.

I would also suggest subscribing to various product blogs like the Silicon Valley Product Group blog, and Mind the Product blog. These can help you familiarize yourself with product concepts and best practices in various industries.

As a PM, what do you do exactly on a day-to-day basis?

My typical day includes understanding what our customers want by talking to clients & client-facing teams, and by studying product analytics.

I then work on identifying and prioritizing features and use-cases in a resource and time-crunched environment to ensure we ship features that drive the most value for our business.

What do you love about being a PM? What do you wish you could change?

I love the creativity and problem-solving aspects of my work. Being a PM gives you the space to solve new challenges and watch as solutions you help create are implemented and used in the real world, generating real feedback and data.

Product management involves a lot of cross-team collaboration and collective decision-making, a side effect of which sometimes is too many meetings, which can take toll on one’s calendar. This is one challenging aspect of PM, specially now in a time of 100% remote work.

“Product vision is a derivative of the overall business vision and aligned to the company’s growth goals.”

So what’s one common myth about being a PM?

“The Product Manager is the CEO of their product.”

While a CEO has direct authority on taking the final decision and steering the teams in a certain direction, the same cannot be said for a Product Manager. A Product Manager, on the other hand “influences without authority”. A PM does not have direct authority over any of the teams that they work with but are still responsible for influencing and driving multiple cross-functional teams in the right direction in order to achieve business goals.

What is the difference between product management and project management?

Product Management is about what to build and why. What are the unmet needs of your customers, and how can you fulfill them in the best possible way?

Project Management starts when what needs to be delivered is clear, and focuses on ensuring that the delivery is on-time and as per expectations. That said, both go hand-in-hand, and successful project management is one of the key pillars of successful product delivery.

How do you develop a vision for a product?

Product vision is a derivative of the overall business vision and aligned to the company’s growth goals. It is very important that product vision is finalized as a part of a collaborative and open discussion with other teams, such as technology and client success, so that there is company-wide buy-in and alignment around the growth goals.

“I think the question to ask is: how do you know if a certain PM role is the right fit for you?”

What skillsets are essential to being a PM? What skills will PMs need in 5 years?

Creative problem-solving, customer empathy and relationship management are some of the skills core to the success of a PM. In the next 5 years, I can anticipate that skills/ knowledge of newer technologies such as AI and ML will be useful in a PM career depending on the industry you work in.

What’s the most important quality a PM should have (or develop)?

Empathy, emotional intelligence and an open mind. A Product Manager is not expected to know all the right answers and make all the decisions themselves, but rather, to listen to all the cross-functional teams involved, gather data, and bring well-researched trade-offs to the table to facilitate a discussion with stakeholders that helps the team arrive at right decisions.

What’s the toughest product problem you’ve ever solved?

One of the toughest problems a PM solves for is trying evolve user behaviour through product design. I experienced this first-hand while trying to build and launch Electronic Health Record and digital consultation tools for the Indian market, which was largely characterized by hand-written prescriptions at the time.

We are solving for a similar challenge at Sophi now: conceptualizing decision support tools for modern newsrooms by automating some of the manual functions that have traditionally been done by editors, helping establish editorial trust in the machine.

What’s the best way to shine in a PM interview?

Do your homework about the product and the company you are interviewing for, ask good questions to try and understand more about the company’s user and strategy, and offer up ideas or suggestions you may have to drive the discussion in a direction that allows you to highlight how you can add value.

If you have any experience that’s related to the Product role, please highlight it (e.g. exposure to challenges in customer success, design thinking, merchandising or category management), and explain how you think this will add to your success as a Product Manager.

How do you figure out if you’re the right fit for a prospective PM role?

I think the question to ask is: how do you know if a certain PM role is the right fit for you?

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Does the product and company excite you?
2. Does the company culture fit you? Is the company culture and decision making more team-led or top-down, and does that align with what you’re comfortable with?
3. What are your long-term growth goals and does the company & role help you achieve them?

It’s time for the Lightning Round! What’s a good book, movie, TV series or video game you’d recommend right now?

“Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb

Favourite place for a coffee chat?

Any park. Best to walk and talk!

Favourite dish to pick up after a long day?

Pizza, with loads of cheese & pesto.

Where do you dream of traveling to next?

Japan.

What’s your hidden talent?

I can paint!

Swati, thanks for your time!

Thanks for having me!

For the rest of our conversations with Product minds from around the world, visit PM Nation.