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Aindra Misra

AMA: BILL Group Product Manager - (Data Platform, DevEx and Cloud Infrastructure) ), Aindra Misra on Influencing the C-Suite

May 7, 2025 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. How do you walk the line of allowing other teams input into the roadmap without allowing them to dictate roadmap priorities?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    Ensure that you set a process and have a handshake with the teams on how to collect feedback/input from them. This should have details about the changing requirements, in scenarios when you have to pivot, what is the bounded scope of your deliverables and milestones, expectations if and when requirements change etc.

    676 Views
    1 request

  2. How do you manage multiple stakeholders and how do you prioritize them?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    Here is the strategy I follow:

    • Ask all my stakeholders to share impact and timeline expectations of their request

    • I work with my engineering team on getting the level of effort for all requests

    • I map the requests from stakeholders with the strategic vision of the company

    Based on the above three factors, I give weightage and then prioritize them using the RICE score

    1,108 Views
    2 requests

  3. What kinds of ongoing, cross-functional meetings do you think are important to have? Which teams are involved, and what agenda items do you recommend?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    This is a very critical aspect of a PM role, to manage cross functional stakeholders (upper managements, teams and your customers). Customers can be internal or external. Here are the XFN meetings I recommend: Weekly meetings with engineering teams who are helping you build the product. This can be used to manage requirements, setup milestones, backlog grooming etc Bi-weekly meetings with customers (internal customers are more demanding). This can be less frequent for external customers. Use it ...Read More

    692 Views
    1 request

  4. What do your interactions with the C-Suite look like on a regular basis?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    I work with them on a quarterly basis when I have to present the quarterly roadmap and plan about the squads I am accountable for, collect feedback from them, answer their questions, take in their requests, understand their top of mind and make sure that my plan is aligned with their expectations and vision for our teams. This is very critical as a skillset as you need to learn the skill of story telling and zooming out to their altitude. The C-suite in my case is CTO since I own technical teams ...Read More

    793 Views
    1 request

  5. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone you disagreed with and chose to listen to their point of view?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    It was with my engineering counterpart. That individual was very focussed on execution and short term milestones and was pushing his thought process in the team, instead of balancing short term goals with the longer term platform vision for our product. I first heard him, cleared his doubts, disagreed with him and then shared my thought process and asked him to meet me in the middle. Also made him believe that I am on his side and I am not disagreeing completely on their point of view but just t ...Read More

    561 Views
    1 request

  6. Who do you align yourself with to gain momentum in the leadership organization?

    Aindra Misra
    Aindra Misra

    BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

    It's a 3 to 4 way alignment to help you succeed as a PM

    • Your engineering team who helps build your product vision

    • Your PM team who helps with shares your portfolio (This is only relevant for PM leaders)

    • Your customers who would use your product (it can be internal customers for technical/platform products) or external customers for growth PMs

    • Upper management (Commonly referred as "Managing Up") - It can you your PM leadership, eng leadership, customer team leadership (for internal customers)

    417 Views
    1 request