I will share first two steps that I follow. Step 1: Is this problem worth solving? 1.1 Problem definition and user segmentation * B2B product: A business customer must have a genuine painpoint that they are willing to pay for. Some problems are not big enough problems, hence not high priorirty for the business users, these are not worth pursuing. Fine tune the problems till they hit * B>B>C: The business user/stakeholder may have rightly identified a problem but may not have the best ideas in terms of what solutions can work. Validate the problem is real with user research. * B2C: Similar to B>B>C, some segment of users have a need. Identify who they are and what the real problems are. 1.2 Is the Problem TAM big enough Step 2: Why us? Why now? 2.1 Do competitive studies 2.2 SWOT analysis 2.3 Are you best positioned to build this and build now?

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.

As a first PM, you will need to be very judicious with how you allocate your time and resources. In fact, I think that’s true for larger companies as well. There are always going to be more ideas than resources available. As a product manager, you are responsible for translating the company’s vision into a roadmap so your first priority should be internalizing the company’s goals. Is it to drive sign-ups? Increase retention? Increase MRR? Or something else altogether? Narrowing in on that top goal helps to weed out work that may be less relevant. Once you’ve identified the top goal (there may be more than one), filter out any initiatives that do not map to this goal. The exceptions being pressing engineering initiatives (i.e. a platform upgrade, reducing technical debt etc.) or time-sensitive projects. Hopefully, you’ve been able to narrow down your list through this process of elimination. This is where a prioritization framework will come in handy. My go-to is the impact/effort matrix. It is very similar to ICE and RICE but simpler and more visual. For each initiative, assign an estimated impact to a measurable goal and a level of effort. Make sure to collaborate with your engineering and design counterparts when evaluating each initiative. This will reduce the chance of your own bias getting in the way and lead to better prioritization. For those initiatives left on the cutting room floor, think of a way you could still make some progress—is there an MVP you could run to learn something while the teams are working on the selected initiatives? There might be a low-cost way to validate assumptions via user research or data deep dive so that by the time you go through this exercise again, you are able to make a more informed decision.

There's a lot written about basic PM competencies (https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/), and for any PM on my team, they should be able to do all these things you'd expect from a PM (write specs, understand the customer, communicate upwards and outwards, GSD). I'll focus my answer on a few attributes that I think are really "make-or-break" for me: * Good communication skills, both written and verbal, are an absolute must-have for any PM on my team. Whether it's through writing specs, influencing stakeholders, or pitching product ideas, PMs have to be able to communicate effectively across mediums (written, verbal), forums (large groups vs. small groups vs 1:1) and audiences (to developers, marketers, sales, executives). In particular, they need to be able to tell good stories (e.g.,, can they get their team inspired about an idea?), structure their communication effectively (e.g., can break down ambiguous problems using a framework?) and make technical concepts easy to understand for non-technical folks (e.g., can they explain how routers work to someone without a CS background?) * Great PMs "own" the problem. They're not afraid the step outside the boundaries of their function to do what it takes to get the product out the door. They rarely ever use phrases like "that's not my job" or "this was the designer/developers responsibility". Their strong sense of ownership of the problem leads them to passionately debate about the right solution, speak truth to power when necessary, but also be open to other points of view (because it's not about "them", it's about solving the problem).

Without going into specifics, the biggest challenge has been cross-organization influencing. My time at both Microsoft and Google has exposed me to lots of intra-organization projects with varying levels of buy-in from each team. The level of effort and coordination required to pull not one, but two organizations in the same direction can be enormous. As a PM - at any level - it's your role to effectively communicate why what you're trying to acheive makes sense for other teams, your company and ultimately your customers. Even if you're aligned on principles and strategies, there are dozens of other factors that you need to be able to navigate such as resourcing, ownership, tech stacks, recognition, branding, leadership opinions and timelines. 

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!)

Good framing is essential for effective prioritization, especially in cases where departments have different perspectives on what to prioritize. In many companies, including my own, the sales team is an important stakeholder in the product roadmap. When working with other departments or teams, you want to ensure that there’s a common language in which to communicate. For example, are both departments aligned on the prioritization of high level business goals? Is there a clear ownership model? Once there's tentative alignment on these topics, it's much easier to have an objective discussion about the opportunities to influence a goal. At Braze, feedback and observations from Sales and Sales leadership is one of the many inputs that we incorporate into forming a perspective on the best way to achieve high level business objectives.

A super common question! Traditionally the term "product manager" can often mean different things depending on the size of the company, the product's stage, and sometimes the overall market segment. I often times bucket them into these core groups: 1. Technical Product Managers (TPM): These PMs work closely with engineering teams on more technical products, thinks like API driven products where the end "customer" is technical in nature. For these roles, you will need a deeper level of technical expertise and the ability to understand the technical aspects of your customers needs. 2. B2C (Business to Consumer) Product Managers: In a consumer-facing environment—like mobile apps, e-commerce platforms, media consumption products — I find that PMs often emphasize UX and product design (along with core PM responsibilities). One of the key areas that this group focuses on is leveraging a typically broader/larger customer base to do things like A/B testing, and quick iteration on product designs to validate assumptions and feature value. 3. B2B (Business to Business) Enterprise Product Managers: These enterprise PMs focus on delivering products that solve businesses' complex problems. I spent a lot of my career here and this type of PM spends a lot of time on sales enablement, strategic account engagement, and roadmap management. Given that most B2B solutions have a longer sales cycle, their relationship with sales is key to success. Depending on the size of the organization, this type of PM also focuses a lot on the financial side of the product. 4. Infrastructure Product Managers: These PMs (sometimes internally facing only) focus on building components that other teams and products rely on, oftentimes within an organization. For them, the GTM isn't as relevant but they need to understand and balance things like scale, interoperability, and business alignment. Figuring Out Your Best Fit: 1. What are your Interests: Consider things like Do you enjoy getting into the weeds on technical discussions? Do you more get energized by user research and design? Do you geek out over analytical data and love looking at usage metrics to drive feature development? Each type of role has a different focus, so find the things that excite you. 2. Consider the Environment Do you want to reach a huge market of customers and iterate on minor feature developments and enhancements? Or do you want to work closely with larger business customers and develop a deeper understanding of their problems and how your product can evolve to meet those specific needs? No right or wrong answer, just what gets you pumped up each day. Remember, it’s about aligning your career desires, your core strengths, and the types of challenges that get you fired up to solve each day. We are problem solvers, so what types of problems do you love solving and how do you like solving them? Many PMs start in one area and end up in another. All the roles share a common framework of ensuring we are delivering business value for our organization and delighting our customers with innovative and useful solutions to problems they either have or don't even realize they have yet.

Our product development lifecycle process looks very similar to a double diamond design process but with an adapted approach for our organization. While there are best practices for a product development processes, I've found that there is a decent amount of adaptation and adjustment that needs to happen to customize an approach for the needs of the organization. I've not seen 2 product lifecycles that are the same. At a minimum, a product development process should help reduce friction for the R&D teams, create clarity around what we need to know before we invest, and insight into the variables that influence those decisions. The most mature and refined PDLC programs also create consistant expectations of each role that participated in the product development process, sets criteria for high quality output, and provides clarity on what to do next through each stage. This is extremely benefitial when you think about onboarding new PMs to the team, as well as supporting the growth of PMs new to the role. Depending on the needs and maturity of your organization, you can chooste to implement a light version of this process that focuses solely on alignment and rescource allocation, or lean more into a more detailed process that provides more clarity on activities you expect the teams to execture for each stage. A good process provides time and space for the team to engage in activities focused on discovery, exploration, and time in a particular problem space. In this stage. you should avoid solutioning at all costs. There should be a stage for concept exploration, and I strongly encourage my teams to explore more than 1 concept. Sometimes the first concept we surface is not the best for the job, but inertia and time constraints prevent us from exploring more. I recommend my teams take the time, because it saves us on the rework later. Once a concept has been validated, there should be a stage that allows you to define the high level requirements and start thinking about an experience that would make it as easy as possible for customers to realize value from your chosen solution for the problem space. For me, customer validation of the specific execution is critical, because we are very rescource constraigned on the engineering side. If I can prevent rolling out soemthing that needs major rework, I will. Some organizations are more constraigned on the research or PM side in which case you may use the experience itself for validation. There are many types of product development lifecycles, and you should choose an execution that solves the most prevalent R&D problems your organization is facing. 

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!