AMA: HubSpot Former Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech, Zeeshan Qamruddin on Building a Product Management Team

The great thing about being the first hire is something that is also great about Product Management: there is room for interpretation. My philosophy has always been more heavily focused on understanding how things operate current state, finding out pain points as well as the more successful parts of a product, and leaning on those insights to form your next steps. In certain scenarios, what a team may need is for someone to roll up their sleeves and do the work to keep the lights on for a produc ...Read More

As I mentioned in another answer, lean on those around you; there is a wealth of knowledge to be amassed from stakeholders and peers that have likely interacted with the product that you've been brought in to support for some time. Those same team members likely led to you being brought on board to begin with, so learning as much as you can will set you up well for the future.  If you can come up with a clear set of goals for yourself, it will be immensely helpful to gauage your progress. For ex ...Read More

Today, our org structure follows the ethos of "Small, autonomous teams". In this structure, we generally have a PM paired with a Technical Lead (Eng), somewhere between 3 - 5 Engineers, and a Business Systems Analyst to focus on operational and analytical tasks. Some teams have a Design/UX representative as well, where applicable.  Hierarchically, we have these teams organized into Pillars, with a shared broader mission/remit. Pillars are led by a triad, with a Senior PM, Product Lead, or Group ...Read More

At the company level, there are a few different methods of communications to keep everyone abreast of updates: Product Notification emails (Ad Hoc) - These emails have a set template and allow product teams from around the company to share updates to their areas in a digestable format as major features go out of the door.  Product Newsletter emails (Weekly) - The weekly newsletter summarized major product updates and initiatives to all product team members.  Quartery Business Review meetings (Qu ...Read More

This is a situation that our team went through last year, scaling from 2 PMs to 10 over 12 months. Before hiring any additional PMs, we first took the time to survey the teams that existed in our current state. We reviewed the tools they owned, their missions, their place in the lifecyle of the motion that we support (Quote to Cash), and made our decisions from there. Certain teams needed to be consolidated, others needed to be created, and some simply needed more structure. With a plan in hand, ...Read More

This is a scenario that teams often find themselves in, especially in fast moving parts of a business. The question I would ask when looking across the existing products is "Where do I gain the most leverage from innovation?" There are certain products that simply need to work, and that have a built in runway so as to not detract from the companies success. If there is an opportunity to simplify an unnecessarily complex product, such as leaning on a 3rd party or making a capital investment to en ...Read More