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AMA: Atlassian Head Of Product Management, Confluence Experience, Natalia Baryshnikova on Developing Your Product Management Career

February 16 @ 10:00AM PST

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Atlassian Head Of Product Management, Confluence Experience, Natalia Baryshnikova on Developing Your Product Management Career

Top Questions

What's the best way to break into the tech industry as a product manager?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

Two ways. First sweet spot is to pick a mid-size startup (round B or C) that is growing. They need folks all the time, and they need folks who can roll up their sleeves and do things. The roles you join in does not matter as much - if you prove yourself as a doer, you can later transition into a ......Read More

600 Views

2 requests

There are different frameworks to prioritize the product backlog. How practical is the use of such frameworks? How to manage top management expectations?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

Ultimately, prioritization comes down to a chain of decisions. Regardless of the framework that you use, the question I see folks overlooking a lot is "who is the right person to make this decision". Is that you, the PM? Is that your manager? Or maybe, if the work relates to security vulnerabilit......Read More

856 Views

7 requests

How do early career PM's proactively learn about skills that take them to the next level. How do they develop them.

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

First thing I'd recommend is asking your team if there is a formal description of levels and skills associated with each level. More and more companies, whether large orgs or startups, actually have written descriptions of product manager levels and what those entail; the earlier you get to learn......Read More

806 Views

10 requests

I’ve heard that the jump from Sr. PM to the “next level” (e.g Principal or Group PM) often comes with a steep learning curve. Is that true, and how would one prepare to solidify the right foundation to ease the transition preemptively?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

The biggest struggle I have observed is related to transition from an individual level product craft growth to growing that of a group. Andy Grove in High Output Management said "Managers are responsible for increasing the output of their organizations and neighboring organizations they influence......Read More

805 Views

8 requests

What do you think is top 3 skills a PM should have acquired to move to director level?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

1. Storytelling. You need to be able to tie many disparate pieces of product work - user needs, business goals, technical limitaitons, competitive landscape, innovation opportunities - into a coherent, compelling narrative. A director can fill in the blanks in the following sentences with ease: "......Read More

769 Views

6 requests

What should you do if your Manager is not helping you grow and you see little growth opportunities? Should you stay at the job and try to learn as much as possible or should you definitely leave the company and look for a new opportunity?

How much time should you give a job and a manager to see if they are a fit in your growth and career?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

First thing to do is to check with your manager how they think about your growth. They may be thinking that they are helping you, and it is just your perspectives that are misaligned. Ask them about their definition next level of growth for you (see answer above about growing skills for details),......Read More

636 Views

3 requests

How do you manage the 1000 questions and tasks that are shot at you when you are a PM in an early stage startup?

I'm the first PM in a startup that used to be sales led. I'm trying to set up the proper discovery processes, prioritization tactics and strategy, but I find that extremely hard to do as I'm getting carried away in the day-to-day tasks around requests, issues reported and project management.

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

Startups are all about speed. To move fast, you need to know where you are going (aka what to be ruthlessly focused on) and allocate the most of your time/energy to that. Easier said than done, right? One thing that helped a lot in my early startup days was my framework of "One thing I am going t......Read More

974 Views

3 requests

How do you sell 'no, not now' to stakeholders?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

There are three aspects to selling this well: 1. Empathy. You have to start with acknowledging the validity of a need or ask. Folks often skip that step and go straight to rebuttal. Don't do that - you need to empathize with the stakeholder, understand where they are coming from and really pond......Read More

894 Views

5 requests

How to make a career change to PM?

Any tips, strategy, success stories?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

See my answer above on breaking into tech as a PM for one of the options. Another option, if you are a mid-to-senior career professional is to build ties with your product team internally. Product leaders need good folks all the time; I have facilitated multiple secondments of folks from other de......Read More

1322 Views

2 requests

What is your favorite product management interview question and the best answer you've heard?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • May 28

Will add my favorite question to ask the managers of product managers (GPM, Director and above): "Tell me about a product manager you've worked with, and who's better than you and inspires you. What about them makes you say so?" Best answers usually involve leaders speaking about people on their ......Read More

471 Views

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

"Assume I don't know anything. Teach me something in the next two minutes about a topic you are passionate about - can be anything". This questions helps me understand how a person thinks on their feet, does storytelling, and uncover more about their passions as a human, that may have some intere......Read More

2236 Views

2 requests

What metrics do you use to justify a pay raise?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

At Atlassian, we look at multiple pillars of value PMs bring to the organization: delivering outcomes (think - moving business KRs and goals), leadership (inspiring others), communication, helping others grow product craft and so on. I really love this framework. My recommendation is to first a......Read More

834 Views

2 requests

If I don't want to be a CPO or GM, what future executive role should I be shooting for as a PM?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

I see a lot of PMs succeeding in startegy and operaitons roles. I have been tapped a few times for COO / Strategy & BizOps / Chief of Staff types roles because of the product background. Your ability to understand and connect the dots across business and customers, as well as manage stakeholders,......Read More

1050 Views

2 requests

What are the biggest frustrations you have as a product manager?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

Being patient when I would like to be impatient. Product management is deeply humbling in that good things often take time. I like to say that I am "tactically impatient, strategically patient" - as in, obsess over small details and steps every day and treat them with urgency, but know that thing......Read More

783 Views

3 requests

What framework do you use when assessing a new opportunity at a different company?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

First, like to work on problems that I am passionate about. I love to learn and make impact in areas that I think, pardon high brow speak, will make the world a better place. One such area of passion for me is helping people and teams achieve more through working together. I never even considered......Read More

547 Views

2 requests

What's a typical product manager career path?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

There is a fork in the PM career path road: one is becoming a people manager, the other becoming an expert in a deep thinking product area sans managing a team. My recommendation is to figure out which one is right for you. Many folks want to jump into management simply because they think this ......Read More

1325 Views

2 requests

How can a enterprise architect transition into PM role? What mindset change is required?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility • February 17

In short, you have to go from being a thinker to being a doer. The biggest mindset change is about learning when to stop with the analysis and transition into acting on things, in sometimes imperfect data coverage situation, and because of that imperfect coverage, how to experiment and iterate. G......Read More

803 Views

2 requests