As you progress from PM to senior PM, competencies in these 3 areas should grow: Autonomy💪🏽, Scope 🌫️ and Leadership 🙋 . There are a few clear indications that someone is ready for the senior level, like increased scope, being a reliable partner and being results driven. Here are some less obvious ones: #1 You recommend initiatives based on your strategic evaluation, instead of waiting for them to be handed to you. You are influential in your field and feel confident putting forward these initiatives. #2 You leverage relationships across the org. You can drive results from partners outside of your immediate team. You are fully entrusted to tackle complex, multi-team problems with little necessary supervision. #3 You are seen as an available and trustworthy mentor and actively seek out opportunities to help others be their best. This is my favorite by far. What are the key stages that distinguish the different levels of PMs? I think a little bit of this depends on the problem space and company. In my mind, PMs are professional collaborators, strategic assassins and bring out the best in their peers. If you can look yourself in the mirror and say you’re doing these things at scale, well, I’d say you're on the right track.

There are multiple things you need to get right before you start building a product, because the most likely outcome of creating one is that it will fail. To see an example of this you can watch this talk for how we did problem and solution discovery when creating Jira Product Discovery * Validating the problem space is important. For that I think the recipe is pretty straightforward: talk to customers and prospects and let them guide you. It's quite important to go in there open minded about what you're going to learn - because there's a high chance that all the assumptions you made when going into these conversations are wrong, that people don't face the problems you thought they faced, or not with the intensity that you imagined. I'd recommend getting coaching from a user researcher on interview techniques - otherwise you can easily meet with 50 customers and learn nothing. It's one of the most important skills for PMs (and humans are naturally pretty shit at this so it REALLY takes coaching). * You want to land on problems that are felt very strongly and urgently by the people you talk to, and are pervasive. * By doing all this you'll form a view on who your target customer is - you want to keep refining this. And you'll identify potential customers you'll want to work with to shape the solution. We call them "lighthouse users" and it's who you would want to build the solution for: they feel the problem strongly, are crafty and have tried many different solutions to solve them to no avail, they're great communicators, easy to collaborate with and have urgency in solving the problem. Find them, and the rest of the journey will be much easier! Read this post to learn more about lighthouse users. * But on its own it's not enough, there are other aspects to tease out. * You want to be clear on if there is a market - check out which companies play there, try to get a feel for their revenue and growth (there's a lot you can glean about that online); if you can, try to chat with investors who gave them money; understand the maturity of this market (early adopters, early/late majority, etc.). * You want to have a thesis for how you can win - e.g. do you have a distribution advantage, access to tech that's hard to reproduce, other? Note that the best product doesn't necessarily win distribution is going to be key to answering this question. * Distribution is super important and what will make or break your product. It's a good idea to validate demand and your ability to reach potential customers. In the past I've done this by creating and advertising a landing page on a website stating the problems and asking people to join a waitlist. That's how we knew we were onto something in the early days of Jira Product Discovery - within 3 weeks we had 3000 people on the waitlist (which contained zero information about the solution). * You need to have a clear answer on "why now?" - the problem needs to be felt really strongly and urgently by customers, maybe there is new tech opening new possibilities, maybe it's the right moment for your company to invest because of strategic reasons, etc. But you need to be clear on why this needs to happen now vs next year. * If you're in a bigger company with cash at hand, assess build/buy/partner opportunities - before jumping straight to creating something a new product: is there another company you could buy instead of building, and fast track everything by a couple of years? * Even after answering all this I wouldn't jump straight into asking for engineers. I'd only do that if we're not clear the solution is feasible, e.g. if it requires new tech that we don't master. After problem discovery, don't skip solution discovery! There's a lot you can/should validate without writing code: * In the past I've shown people slides with value propositions and asked them to explain back to me how the solution would help them. There's a lot I learnt by doing that! * Create prototypes, in Figma, or live prototypes than people can play with. You can gauge the reaction of the people you give them to: if they "just" look enthusiastic about the solution you can throw it away. If they're straightaway asking you if they can please please please start using it tomorrow then you know you're onto something * Even if you ask for an engineering team: start with technical spikes and prototypes, the goal is to validate the solution solves the problem and is feasible. All of this will also help you refine your understanding of the problem space (problem <> solution work hand in hand) You can also read more about it in the Atlassian Product Discovery handbook, that we wrote to help with things like this. Check out the "Ideas" section.

I have a very simple framework for building 0-1 product - IVC framework 1. Identify: * The first step in developing any product or feature is to identify the user's needs. Hence, your goal should be to talk to as many users as you possibly can to understand what they say, do, think, and feel. This also helps you learn who you are solving for and who you are not solving for and create a problem statement 2. Validate * Building Conviction by testing Discovery, MVP, market analysis, possible conversion. During this time also you should be talking to customers to validate the problem and solution 3. Create: * Create the right team to build the product and also a plan on how you will bring the product to market.

Reality these days is that we mostly work in remote settings, and even when we do go to the office, some people will be dialing in. As a result, I believe 80% of the strategies have to do with focusing on the fact that we are all people, 20% are tactics and adjustments for remote settings. General alignment strategies: * Build trust ahead of time. This is fundamental and driving collaboration without it is hard * Focus on common goals. There’s typically a higher goal that teams can easily align on (e.g. Revenue, Engagement, Better experience), and the differences show up as you start double clicking into the “how”. Starting the discussion with a longer term view can also help in skipping tactical disagreements and alignments * Frame, rather than take a position. With common goals in mind, center the discussion on what the characteristics of a good solution are, rather than starting with comparing options. This helps setting a more objective ground before jumping into the solutions * Call out your biases (easier to do when you have trust). In an environment where there is trust, I expect my teams to be able to call out other considerations that may cause them to pull in a certain direction, those can be different stakeholders that push in other directions, past experience and others. Some of those reasons may be valid, some may not be valid. Calling them out can help the entire team work through them. A few remote specific tactics: * Set the right structure, if possible. This includes minimizing the number of time zones each team has to work across (In my organization we are trying to limit ourselves to 2 time zones per team, when possible). If you can, hire senior enough people in the right locations to be able to run autonomously. * Invest in getting to a clear strategic direction. Having an upfront debate on the direction is time consuming, but can then help in setting the guardrails for autonomous decisions that can happen within the teams, locally. * If you do have the opportunity to meet in person, do so. Especially when working across time zones with little overlap, a good relationship would allow you to accomplish more offline, and can dedicate the overlapping time for working more effectively through the tougher topics. While I still mostly work from home I prioritize going to the office when team members from other offices are coming to town (and I am writing this note from the airport, while waiting for a flight - going to visit my team in Austin!)

PM work life is a firehose of Slack/Teams message, customer emails, meeting requests and deadlines. Here is what I find helpful to make sense of the chaos and stay on top of the key things. * Capture, Organize, Get Shit Done. Resist the urge to jump on every message or email the same moment - you may find yourself exhausted while still behind on your goals. Instead, find a tool which lets you to quickly “capture” a thing which require your attention - and move on. Organize these to-dos thoughtfully - later, when you have time: what need to be done now, today, later this week? Some people find Eisenhower matrix framework helpful, though it may require much discipline and self-training to apply it to every day situations. My personal go-to solution for capturing and organizing PM to-dos is Trello. * Meetings. Look at your calendar and brutally question it. Which meetings you don’t have to be in? Which ones you’d be fine just reading a summary after? Sometimes you’ll have to say “no” to get your work done, even if it slightly annoys someone. * Async collaboration. A great way to reduce meetings load for me is Atlassian Loom: record a short video clip and share with your collaborators, let them responds or even with another video clip, async, at the time which works best for everyone! * Focus time. Every week you likely have a Big Rock - a bit of work which isn’t immediately urgent, yet have an outsize importance and require significant focus time to accomplish. * Plan your week. Apply everything above to your Friday routine - plan your next week ahead. Meetings you’ll decline? Focus time you’ll block on your calendar - to accomplish most important tasks? 3 things (maximum) you are looking to accomplish next week? * Plan your energy, not time. Lastly, recognize when you are at the peak of your productivity - late afternoon? mid-day? morning? Do your best to allocate this time to the most important things you are looking to accomplish. You are most productive on Fridays? Make it a no-meeting day to finish up that blog or product spec!

I think the best way to break into the industry as a PM is to get after building tech products yourself. Personally, I left a well-paying job in the energy sector to work on a start-up with no reliable paycheck. Thinking back on that experience, it was crazy beneficial to learn how to work with designers & engineers to build a great product or feature. The act of building a product or feature is the best teacher. I’m not advocating that you should quit your job and not get paid to build stuff like I did! There was a lot that wasn’t so awesome about that. 😅 But I definitely WOULD encourage everyone here to think about how you could do that in your spare time. What problems are you passionate about solving? What kind of product or feature could help you solve that problem? How could you bring that solution to life? How can you talk to prospective customers about it? Even PM candidates that make wireframes or prototypes to show a product that solves a real problem have a leg up over most of the other candidates. I’ll take someone with drive, initiative and passion for the work 10 times out of 10.

This one is fairly easy, add value. We as Product Managers need to ensure that we are adding value for our organization by understanding the market (and our customers) and guiding the strategy to be successful in that market. It's easy to be a product expert, but we need to focus on being market and strategy experts. In my career, some key examples of adding value are: 1. Knowing My Market Better Than Anybody Else. When I am the expert on what our market needs, both short and long-term, I add significant value in defining and driving our strategy. My product can't be successful without this. When we are proven right in terms of our strategy definition and market validation, we win. 2. Build and Foster Relationships I work hard at establishing relationships around the organization where I am working. These enable me to be effective in cross-team collaborations and makes driving alignment across the organization easier. My relationships add value to me and my team. 3. Be an Expert When you are viewed as an expert and continually show your expertise in an area that is needed within the organization, it's easy to be seen as somebody who deserves that promotion. Show that your expertise drives direct value for your organization with clear successes.

I'm lucky in that Google has a really rigorous interview process that I benefit from. Google is also known for taking a long time during that process but I promise you that is largely because of the rigor. Post that process though what I look for are three key signals 1. Grit is my first. Big companies are notoriously slow, process heavy, and plodding. But the way I look at this is that with so much user trust, such a large business, and really a huge opportunity that we have to respect we want to get it right. I tell my team all the time that if you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together. And we've all chosen to go far so grit is critical (and sounds cooler than patience) 2. Passion. Yes this one could seem to fly in the face of the first one. But I often find that I'd rather have somebody always frustrated we can't move faster, always frustrated that we can't do better and help them mature into taking a balanced position than the other way around. Another way to say this is that I can help show somebody the upside of measuring twice and cutting once, but I've never been able to teach passion. 3. Finally EQ. Most of what PMs do depend on building trust and trust is built via relationships. Too much detail isn't likely needed here as this one is obvious but where I will go into detail is that EQ isn't the same thing as being sociable. I have excellent PMs on my team who build strong relationships that aren't loud and in your face extraverts. EQ comes in all shapes and sizes so look carefully.

Becoming more KPI driven is a matter of desire and taste. No person, team, or organization attempts to change without believing that behaving differently will result in an improved outcome they care about. It's only possible when leaders buy into how it would improve the success of their teams and business (e.g. profitability, valuation growth, employee engagement, talent retention, positive social impact, etc.) Some companies are steadfast that the use of KPIs should not equate to being data driven everywhere in the company. They prefer to have data informed teams that reserve room for intuition and qualitative insights. There is no right answer here. If we find ourselves with a company that's bought into a shift towards being KPI driven, but is trying to figure out how at the team, group, or division levels, then I'd recommend the following: 1. Have the leaders of the team/group/division define their strategy for a period of time through written outcomes, assumptions, and principles that are most critical to their success. 2. Gather all the data already available and audit it for quality and trustworthiness, then see if you can model your product or business (i.e. in a spreadsheet) to see if the assumptions you've made and outcomes you've articulated can be explained by your data. If not, note what's missing and how you could gather it (and be comprehensive at this stage). 3. Work with your engineering and/or data team to instrument the metrics you need, backfilling where possible. Remember that you'll need continuous energy to ensure your data remains audited and accurate, as data corruption can severely disrupt your KPI-driven organization. 4. Develop a process for regularly collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the chosen KPIs. Without this ritual, your efforts will be for not. Being KPI-driven means knowing and using the data to make decisions. In my experience, to get the flywheel spinning, you need to have weekly rituals that can morph to monthly rituals. These can be augmented with quarterly business reviews. 5. Make sure that the chosen KPIs are easily accessible and understandable to all members of the teams. This may involve creating dashboards or other visualizations to help team members quickly see how the product or organization is performing. Repeat your KPIs at kick-offs, all-hands, town halls, business reviews, and anywhere else you gather. It's only when you think you're over communicating them that you've probably approached a baseline level of understanding of the KPIs, and how they inform decision making, across your company. 6. Provide regular training and support to team members to help them understand the importance of the chosen KPIs and how to use them effectively to improve the org. If you have a wiki, put your tutorials there. Make it mandatory to consume these during onboarding. Offer self-serve tooling. The more people can be involved with the data, the more you'll make this cultural shift. 7. Regularly review and adjust the chosen KPIs to ensure that they are still relevant and useful. Account for any changes in your outcomes, assumptions, and principles. Assess suitability annually. Set targets annually and adjust mid-year. Some companies do this more often, and your culture should dictate what's best. 8. Lastly, make sure that all KPIs have their lower level metrics clearly mapped for the company to see. Teams influence these input metrics more quickly, and the mapping brings clarity to decision making.

Unfortunately there’s no perfect ratio – each Product Ops team I’ve run or learned about has a very different structure and mandate! I’ve heard of successful models with Product Ops to PM ratios of 50:1 and of 1:1, so it’s less about the number and more about working with what you have. If you understand the pain points of product leadership and front line PMs, you’ll be able to develop a strategy that delivers value to the Product team regardless of the number of resources you have. That being said, I do have two rules of thumb I’ll share about resourcing: * If you are embedding Product Ops within pods, target 2-3 pods per Product Ops resource. While it’s not a perfect science, I’ve noticed other embedded functions (like Program Managers, QA Analysts, Scrum Masters) try not to go beyond 3 pods. It makes sense – more than 3 pods and sprint ceremonies alone would take up most of the calendar! If your pods are especially big or complex, you may need to stick with a 1:1 ratio, but this can be a very tough resourcing ask if you don’t have a track record for results. * If you are a Product Ops team of 1-2 and have a PM team of ~7+, you should be looking for work that can impact the whole Product organization – you do not have enough resources to embed with specific pods! These may include things like optimizing the Product Development Lifecycle or creating a standard Go-To-Market checklist. Remember to engage stakeholders early and often and I highly recommend piloting your recommendations with a subset of the department!