AMA: HubSpot Product Lead, CRM Platform, Katherine Man on Product Development Process

The ideal product manager to engineer ratio can vary from company to company and even team to team, but it usually depends on the company size, product complexity, the skill level of the engineers, and the role scope of the product manager. A general rule of thumb is 1 product manager for every 5-10 engineers. 1:5 - This is common in startups or small teams where the product manager may need to be in the details. 1:10 - As the team and company grows, a product manager may manage larger engineeri ...Read More

I would describe my product development philosophy as "agile lite," meaning there is some structure but the order of operations can change based on new learnings that arise. The entire product team (product manager, UX designer, and engineers) should be involved at every stage, but different roles will play a leading role depending on the stage. Here are the stages I go through: Identify the problem: Product manager identifies the top customer problems to solve. Conduct user research: Product ma ...Read More

When you lack resourcing whether it's engineering, design, or even product, it's critical to practice ruthless prioritization and managing expectations. Realistically there is only so much you can get done given the resources you have, so you need to work with your team to define what is within scope for a certain timeline. Once you have that, you need to align and set expectations with stakeholders and leadership. If they push you to do more, you can ask what they're willing to trade off to do ...Read More

Having a QA team ranges from company to company, but I personally believe it's important for engineers to test their own features so they feel more ownership over the quality of what they've built. Often engineers test continuously while building so they can fix bugs as they arise and not be overwhelmed by how much they have to test at the end. Once they feel good about the product quality and have double checked that what they've built meets product requirements, they can organize a "bug bashin ...Read More

Product managers should partner closely with engineers on building a product roadmap so that everyone is bought into the roadmap and avoids the need for slipping in rogue features. I would say this sounds like a lack of trust between product and engineering. Here are a few suggestions of how to rebuild trust: Collaborate early and often on a roadmap with engineers and UX to make sure the entire team is bought into the plan. Encourage suggestions from engineers so that they have a voice. Establis ...Read More