Empowering Career Growth for Women Product Managers — Hosted by Autodesk and Women in Product

As a product manager, it can be challenging to know what career options are out there, given that the path to becoming a PM is often a circuitous route that varies person by person.

Luckily Autodesk and Women in Product are here to help! They hosted an event with some amazing women to address these challenges.

Hosted by Lauren MacLean, we were first introduced to Allessandra McGinnis who gave us a great toolkit to face new problems head on. As PMs, we often deal with new problems everyday that we haven’t solved before. And each product team is different. Sometimes you might have a QA partner, while other times, as a PM, you’ll have to step in and do the MVP of the role you don’t have.

PM Toolkit

So how can we solve problems when we haven’t dealt with them before? A toolkit, of course!

#1: Goal Setting

When you’re solving a problem, you need to figure out what exactly you’re trying to solve and set goals and KPIs for yourself and your team, so you can measure if you succeed or fail.

Always figure out your KPIs

Goals = Success (and Failure)

You can choose SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely), OKRs (objectives & key results), or any other goal measurement tool that works best for you and your team.

For example:

#2: Evaluating a Product or Business & Making a Recommendation

As a PM, you need to understand your market, users, and competitors and decide why you are making the decisions you are. Often, that means doing your research and presenting that information to stakeholders. In order to do that well, you’ll need to do several things:

1. Make Sure your recommendation is concise
2. Give the Context and Goals
3. Describe the results of the analysis
4. Give the pricing, competitive comparison, and supporting analysis
5. Describe your conclusions
6. Give your full recommendation
7. Finish with future steps and your risk mitigation plan

#3: Confidence

Know your value as a PM. What makes you good at your job, and what unique skill sets do you bring? Make sure you know the answers to these questions, because this forms the basis for your confidence in yourself.

However, as a PM, recognize what you know, and what you don’t. Your job is not to know everything, so be humble, and always ask questions so you can learn.

PM Career Growth

Next, we were introduced to Tanu Chellam, who walked us through the career paths that exist for PMs.

It often depends on where you start, but you can follow the path of an individual contributor or a people manager/technical manager position.

You might follow a path like this (though titles will vary depending on the company):

1. Associate Product Manager: these are PMs with less product management experience but also perhaps less job experience as well.
2. Product Manager: Congratulations, you’re a PM!
3. Senior Product Manager: these are PMs with more experience, and proven success. Depending on the company, they may or may not manage people. They also may or may not manage multiple features or product lines. This tends to fall more on the individual contributor path.
4. Group Product Manager or Principle Product Manager: these are PMs with a lot of experience, who often manage other product teams, multiple product lines, and people. This role tends to fall more on the people manager path.
5. Director of Product
6. VP of Product
7. Chief Product Officer (CPO)/CEO/Chief Strategy Officer/Angel Investor/Board Member/Consultant/Venture Capitalist/President (VC)/Founder: And here’s where it gets… foggy. But just know that your product background makes it possible for you to do any or all of the above! Now go build something!

Find Tanu’s post here: https://medium.com/@scentimental/exploring-product-manager-career-paths-dd03df28b083

Round Robin Panel

Next, we heard from Amy Bunszel, JoAnna Cook, and Moonhie Chin about their experiences in product.

There were many insights, but here are the highlights:

• Think about your career now in terms of one to two jobs away from where you are now. What skills do you need and want to develop to get there?
• Always optimize for learning.
• The most important skills is being able to problem solve
• Work for both a big and small company, as it broadens your base. At a small company, you learn a lot of things broadly. At a big company, you learn a few things deeply. You also learn how to navigate both structures, which is important for your career.
• Sometimes to feel confident, you have to fake it until you make it. Find a theme song that gives you confidence and let it power you.
• Have a point of view and be able to articulate it. This helps you get into good discussions with others and learn.
• Take acting lessons! It will help you project your beliefs with confidence and stand taller.
• Find a way to believe what you are doing — what drives your decision — or don’t do it.
• Always ask for help. You will never know everything. So go to the experts and ask them questions, so you can get better.
• Talk to your manager about your career goals. They can’t help you get there if they don’t know what they are.
• Companies look different from where you stand. Broaden your base.
• Ruthlessly prioritize your own time. Block time in your calendar where you’re not answering emails or on Slack. You need to set time aside to learn and grow.
• Each night, decide on three things you need to do for tomorrow. They don’t always have to be work related, but always make sure you do them.
• Give props to your team.
• Learn to speak up. If you’re being interrupted, make sure you communicate that. Say something in the beginning of a meeting, because it makes it easier to continue to contribute.
• Always invest time in relationships with your colleagues.

And that’s it! Credit goes to Autodesk, and their wonderful speakers!

Credit goes to the speakers below:

Speakers

Allessandra McGinnis, Senior Product Manager, Additive, Composites and Cutting

Allessandra McGinnis currently leads a team of product managers envisioning and delivering manufacturing software solutions at Autodesk. Originally a materials engineer, she’s passionate about emerging technology and has driven product across all sizes of companies including 3D printing customization software at startup Shapeways which was used by Disney for the Rogue One Star Wars movie, to Xbox One natural language voice recognition at Microsoft.

Tanu Chellam, Senior Product Manager, Product Delivery

Tanu Chellam is a Senior Product Manager in the Product Delivery team within the Subscriber Platform Group at Autodesk. She has also founded two startups, one is now-defunct, and the other is a non-profit consultancy she continues to advise in the interest of helping others. Starting her career with founding her first startup in the early 2000s, Tanu has since worked in product management and related roles in network security, fin tech, internet tech and now design tech.

Amy Bunszel, Senior Vice President, Design and Creation Products, Autodesk

Amy Bunszel delivers the software that designers and engineers use to make anything. She leads with courage, inspiring new business strategies while driving agile software development. Amy’s roots as a start-up co-founder, combined with her deep product management expertise, fuel products used by 90% of Autodesk subscribers worldwide. Before joining Autodesk, Amy co-founded Linius Technologies in 1996. Amy is a member of the President’s Council for Cornell Women, an advisor to the Entrepreneurship at Cornell Program, and a member of The Athena Alliance.

Mary Hope McQuisten, Vice President, Education Experiences, Autodesk

Mary Hope (“MH”) McQuisten leads Autodesk’s global Education team which is tasked with re-thinking the way we inspire and empower the next generation of designers, engineers and construction professionals to imagine, design, and make a better world. MH is passionate about making technology accessible to anyone who can benefit from it and gets riled up about education, girl power, the San Francisco Giants and her hometown of Philadelphia.

Moonhie Chin, Senior Vice President, Digital Platform and Experience, Autodesk

Moonhie Chin is the Senior Vice President of Digital Platform and Experience at Autodesk. She is leading the charge to offer a superior digital experience for Autodesk customers wherever they engage with the company. She is also responsible for strategic initiatives and programs that seek to re-design and strengthen Autodesk’s business operations. Before joining Autodesk in 1989, Moonhie spent eight years at General Electric.

Lauren MacLean, Go to Market Communications Manager, Subscriber Platform Group

Lauren is currently a communication and marketing manager in the Subscriber Platform Group at Autodesk, responsible for helping customers make a smooth transition to subscription. Her education is in organizational communication, and she has 8+ years of professional experience in global campaigns and product marketing for technology start-ups and corporations.

This event is brought to you by Women In Product and Autodesk. Women In Product is a highly-engaged community of women builders and leaders. Join our community or sign up for our newsletter for monthly events, networking opportunities, and much more! Please check out WIP website for a list of upcoming events.

About Autodesk:

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