Informational Interview with Adrian Leung about Product Management
Adrian work as a Product Operations Manager at ATB Financial. As a product Operation manager, he bridges technology and human experience. I have heard a lot about Adrian from Higher Landing career transformation program that I have taken last year. He has pivoted from Oil & Gas energy industry to tech industry. In February I have taken pivot to tech lunch course with Zachary Novak. Adrian came to one of our sessions and presented his pivot journey and I was really impressed with his story. I resented with him as we both have same background and experience like energy industry and data.
When I approached Adrian for an informational interview through LinkedIn massage, he instantly agrees to chat with me. I invite him to have virtual zoom meeting, to learn more about his role and his career journey. He believes in the potential of everyone and inspire people to grow and be the best versions of themselves. Through aligning strategic vision and personal growth, he fosters empathetic team environments by meeting people where they are apt to drive results.
In this interview we will try to learn about product operation and what he does, how he does and about his company.
Introduction to the company and Q&A session.
ATB Financial is a financial institution and Crown corporation wholly owned by the province of Alberta. Originally established as Alberta Treasury Branches in 1938, ATB Financial operates only in Alberta and provides financial services to over 800,000 Alberta residents and businesses.
What he is working on right now?
His current job is product operation pulling data from different sources. Gathering data and combined different data sources, so the product managers can make decision around product. He works with product managers on two different products. One is business banking and other is voice banking application. He interacts with many different people, stakeholders and many different products. He works with higher strategic level of the products by gathering the data to find out what direction the product manager can built the product.
How does a typical day look like for him?
Adrian spends most of his time on gathering right data for a product to help product managers. Lot of it is trying to figure out what data exists and who owns the data and putting it in to the dashboard format that visible to the product managers. Figure out the data and gathering the data and putting it in together by creating visualization dashboard in Tableau. He explains that he learned lot on his job after he started working for ATB. He used to use Excel spreadsheet in his previous job as a visualization tool. After he started working for ATB, he learns how to create visualization and dashboard in Tableau. He is lifelong learner like me so he likes to learn all the time. He still takes some course on line and the courses that offered in his organization.
How does what you do make or save money?
Their organization have a digital product. The way he sees is as they have digital products that people can use to do their banking. If you have an app in your phone, you can do the transaction in your phone to make payment. That’s what their product does. They save money by digital app that the clients can self-serve. The client does not need to go to the branch. If the clients go to the branch and have their member do the transaction it cost money to the branch. If the client self-serves themselves, it is faster for them. It saves time and money for the organization and for the client. Client can use the mobile apps anywhere. It is also more convince for the client.
How have your job duties changed over time?
Adrian started with the company about less than a year ago. When he started his job, the role was new to the company. It was like wild west where he was doing everything from stakeholder’s management and trying to gather the different source of data. In the beginning it was too much to do for him. Over the time his role gets defied better and his stakeholder management side of the role has been given to someone else, so he can focus more on the data side of the business. His job is very demanding. The way their team has been structured that there is an expert strategist to help them to manage stakeholders’ interaction. His role has been changed since he started from doing stakeholders management to more on the data side of the business. Now he can concentrate and focused more on data side of the business.
What do you like best/least about your job?
The facts that he drives the product strategy on the higher level that what’s excites him. The product manager runs the engineering teams on the lower levels that they get excited about but for him the higher level that excites him.
Sometimes there is some read tap to gets stuff done that what he least like about his job. He said that he heard people from his organization complain about the read tap. He thinks that he came from the oil and gas industry where there are many read tap that he encounters in his previous position. He does not think that too many read tap is an issue for him.
What do you think the future holds for this kind of wok?
Product operation might become more common in large organization. Product managers in smaller company who does everything like product management, stakeholders management, and data gathering. When organization gets bigger the problem that they solve it is too much for product mangers to take on. Product operational help them with data side and the stakeholder’s management side of the business. This will give more time to the product mangers to do other priorities that they have. By helping product manager, they will be able to deliver the product to the market quicker and faster.
How did you get this job?
He applied on line with his application. After he applied, he got in touch with his friend’s sister who was working in the company. She has also pivot from oil and gas to tech. He gathered information about the culture and what is the different between oil & gas industry and the banking industry. After finding out about the difference between two industry he asked her to connect with someone in the department. She connected him to someone in the group that was hiring. He conducted the informational interview with the person in the group. Same as what I am doing with him. He gathered information about the culture, the future of the organization, and product management. After going through the hiring process, he was able to land the job. He got his job by referral from his friend’s sister.
What courses, activates, or jobs would you recommend to get this type of work?
For product operation job merge of data and product are both essential. Being able to be strong on both data and product will help you get in. ATB is strong on data side but what makes them very strong is their product operation. He knows what product management needs from him. He was able to provide the information to product manager to make the process faster. The courses he recommended that as long as you keep on learning on your job, expanding your knowledge and keep up with the technology you will be able to successful in your career.
