How to Be the VIP of Your Product Management Career
Thil is a product manager with four years of remote leadership experience. He’s helped cross-functional teams across 5000 miles and three cultures navigate obstacles from his home office in the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s sharing his extensive experience in remote product management to help others successfully deal with these physically distanced and socially challenging times.
Why read on? You’re new to product management and want to learn how to set up a healthy remote framework. Or, you’re a remote product manager who wants to improve your current workflows.
Although product management is one of the best jobs out there, it can be a challenging and humbling experience to help product teams succeed. With their stressful work environment, product managers can easily overlook their own needs along the way, but as organizations shift to working remotely, it’s essential for product managers to make a healthy adjustment to this new reality.
My journey into product management began in late 2016, and I vividly remember my one-on-one meeting with my then company’s Director of Marketing. His advice to me was, “Make sure you become the VIP for your teams.”
Here are three key things product managers should do to maximize success in their careers, and in my experience every one applies to remote product management:
- Visibility. Make sure you are a visible leader to each level of your organization.
- Image. Nurture empathy. Be a “pay it forward” leader.
- Performance. Manage your time and priorities for better performance.
Visibility
Although they are not always recognized for it, product managers are the ones who get teams working in the right direction for the product’s stakeholders.
Early in my remote product management career, I joined an ongoing product initiative at the strategic level. I was interacting with an engineer in person on one occasion, when he asked, “So, what is it that you do exactly?” I was taken aback, but I realized this was a side effect of remotely working with engineering leadership. It was clear that my contributions were not reaching the development team. I had a visibility problem.
My solution was to increase the visibility of my product road mapping sessions with functional teams. I set up a system for my teams to view, provide feedback, and track changes to the product’s roadmap. I also spent more time on the tactical aspects of communicating trade-offs, setting up meetings with functional team members to walk them through the newest developments.
My initiatives brought success, and I saw an uptick in team involvement in the product ideation process. The engineer who originally asked me what I did actually became the team member who was most involved in the process.
Takeaway: Increase your visibility. Let your stakeholders know the “why”, behind your product decisions. Find out where your message is getting lost with your team, and correct that situation.
Image
The technology industry is a meritocracy where good ideas are rewarded, but if you don’t also encourage virtues like sincerity and goodness it can lead to a disastrous workplace.
I’ve been fortunate to work at companies where the pay-it-forward mindset thrived, as contrasted with the scratch-my-back culture in so many companies today. In all honesty, when I did work at a scratch-my-back company it was one of the most challenging experiences I ever had as a product manager, one that made me an empathetic leader.
In every company there are special interests among groups — sales, marketing, engineering, etc. Product managers must be comfortable making difficult decisions among these competing groups. I’ve observed that when company culture and direction are clearly defined, people are more aligned and more willing to help drive success. In the absence of this kind of leadership, each department has their own definition of success, and the differences make teamwork a challenge.
No matter what the company culture, people have a need to succeed and create impact. In a previous role, a senior engineer told me, “People drive processes, they are important.” Product managers who are empathetic and try to understand different groups’ perspectives are more likely to gain momentum to get things done.
When faced with a challenging work culture, I have found that being sincerely good and asking for help — what I need, how they can help, and the significant impact we can co-create — creates pockets of support which grow to envelop a larger following. You cannot go wrong by focusing on the success of others.
There were times as a remote product manager when I was perceived as an email address rather than as a real person. To overcome this, I tried to be as personable as possible on Zoom calls. My advice for remote product managers is to avoid being another bobblehead on a Zoom call. Frame yourself from the waist up when you’re virtual. Body language still works, and it is performance that helps you get the message across.
Takeaway: Use all the tools at your disposal to make and maintain meaningful relationships in your company. Learn to be an empathetic leader who helps others succeed. And strive to create a collaborative experience on virtual sessions like Zoom.
Performance
Zoom fatigue is real, especially if you’re performing several times a day in this new setting. It’s essential to prioritize your health and that of those closest to you. Be sustainable, take care of yourself, and your ability to perform will be fine in the long run.
Product managers are known for their ability to execute, get internal teams to take action, and support customers and success teams post-launch. It’s high energy work, and it can be easy to blur the lines between work and home when you’re remote. As a remote product manager, I’ve learned that we must be ruthless with time and prioritize mercilessly.
At one time my remote schedule was unsustainable. Most days were like this: in the morning I worked with sales teams in the central US and Brazil; in the afternoon the engineering team in New Zealand came online; and my evenings with the West Coast team routinely kept me busy until 10 pm. I was on a high and the work was thrilling, but it quickly wore me down. I realized I was not an effective product manager when I let interruptions drive my day.
Prioritization is a cornerstone for product managers. You must learn how to manage your time and get control of your performance. Don’t let anyone else plan your day. What I learned from that period of feeling out of control was that everything changed when I decided to keep a personal log of tasks I needed to do. From this I realized the value of my time and I felt more comfortable not working such long hours, since I knew I was on track to perform well.
For new product managers working with cross-functional teams, setting a direction and prioritizing what needs to happen can be a daunting task. To help you with this, I’m sharing my personal sprint log implemented in Trello. Here’s the link: https://trello.com/b/SWw5RimZ
You may start here and use it to learn the basics of sizing your work, prioritizing, and measuring your success in getting things done. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll find it’s easy to apply to almost any situation you face on the job.
Takeaway: Visibility and image take collaborative finesse, but perfecting your performance is something you can do on your own. By prioritizing well in your remote life, you can value your time and take care of yourself.
I hope my ideas for how to be an effective remote product manager sparked new thoughts on how to improve your remote work life. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas:
As a remote product manager, what are some philosophies you have found impactful for your role?
Stay safe, physically distanced, and socially connected!
