AMA: Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence), Paresh Vakhariya on Building a Product Management Team

November 8 @ 10:00AM PST

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Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence), Paresh Vakhariya on Building a Product Management Team

Top Questions

I’m the first PM hire in my company. What advice would you give to someone tasked with establishing this function in an existing business structure?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

Here is my advice for a junior PM in a small company: 1. Get to know your product. Learn to ue it everyday and document any issues you see 2. Talk to customers about their experience using your product. Document these issues 3. Create a prioritization framework: prioritize the probl......Read More

773 Views

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How do you communicate product management updates and activities to the rest of the company?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

It is important to tailor your communication methods to your company's culture, teams, projects and their needs. Here are some of my favorites ones: 1. Slack (messaging) Updates: Send out regular email updates to relevant stakeholders via short but sweet Slack messages. These updates can r......Read More

721 Views

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Do you have any advice for a junior PM who is a first product management hire?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

722 Views

1 request

As a product manager, what are the make-or-break things for you when interviewing a potential next product manager for your team?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

Here are the top things I would look for in a product manager on my team: 1. Customer-Centric: understanding and serving the needs of the customers/users possibly via user interviews, surveys, or user testing. 2. Good understanding of the domain: Although this is not mandatory, it would......Read More

713 Views

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How do you effectively split your attention between contributing individually and coaching your PM's? Do these two priorities ever conflict with each other?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

As a PM leader, it is imperative to balance individual work and managing teams of PM's. There are some key tasks I would focus on as an IC such as setting up the right vision/strategy for the entire group, clear business metrics and customer impact that need to be communicated across the organiz......Read More

780 Views

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What is the single most important activity you prioritize as a product leader? Why do you prioritize this activity above all else?

- How might this shift according to company maturity and the maturity of the product you're working on? - For IC PMs, what is the single most important activity that you'd recommend they prioritize? How might this shift according to company maturity and the maturity of the product you're working on?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) • November 9

Setting a solid product vision, strategy and a clear roadmap for atleast 3-6-12 months is the top activity for a PM leader. Some benefits of having this in place are: 1. Determine and solve customer problems 2. Clearly articulate the impact you will have on company or product metrics 3. Ali......Read More

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