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AMA: Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology, Milena Krasteva on Developing Your Product Management Career

October 6 @ 10:00AM PST

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Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology, Milena Krasteva on Developing Your Product Management Career

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What has been the most surprising thing about being a Director that you only realized after you were promoted?

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

Many promotions happen because the person was already performing and showing up as being at the next level. Depending on the company, the Director role marks a clearer line between individual contributor roles and management roles. However, unless the promotion is accompanied by a significant cha......Read More

492 Views

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How do you think about staying within a company versus looking for opportunities outside? When do you know it's time to leave?

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

There are some absolutes, which may be self-evident, but I'll still mention them for the record: disrespect, discrimination, excessive stress, unreasonable and unhealthy workload, workplace toxicity in all it's forms, the company is unethical or is visibly tanking...and many more. Otherwise, I ......Read More

383 Views

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

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

There is no substitute for being hands-on, although there is now also plenty of literature on PM-ing. Become more technical by learning from your engineering and data science partners. Don't worry too much about annoying people. Most will be kind enough to explain and it will make their job easie......Read More

289 Views

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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?

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

In my experience, the learning curve happens in the current role, as a prerequisite to transitioning into the next. You have to be operating at the next level already and there really isn't an easing of the transition beyond that. For example, managing wider scope, solving harder problems, naviga......Read More

507 Views

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

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

1. Communication

2. Execution

3. Domain expertise

I'd add stakeholder management as an important one but I can only do the top 3 :)

291 Views

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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?

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

There is "not helping", or even not knowing that help is needed, and then there is actively blocking. I'm going to assume it is not the latter - actively blocking. There are remedies for that too, though much depends on the situation, the players, your determination, and some luck. Otherwise,......Read More

322 Views

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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.

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

Actually, no differently than managing the 1001 questions and tasks shot at you in a large company :) A PM wears many hats. If any one area takes over disproportionately, the risk is that you are no longer doing the job of a PM. Some common blurring of the boundaries is when PM is acting to fi......Read More

339 Views

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

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

One area of frustration is when everybody wants to play the role of product manager informally but very few have any formal training or experience in product management. This manifests as all kinds of well-meaning (and sometime not so benign) solutioning, which actually attempts to bypass the pro......Read More

484 Views

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What are differences between PM and Sr. PM? What are clear indicators that someone is ready to take on Sr. PM role and responsibilities that come with it? And, when in the Sr. PM role, what are key stages that distinguish different levels of Sr. PMs?

Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • October 7

In general, the progression from any level to the next is a matter of demonstrating increasing levels of skill in product definition, technical or domain expertise, ability to navigate and project manage increasing levels of complexity, communication, and ability to influence amonst others. Anoth......Read More

392 Views

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