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

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. Another way to think about this is that you are increasingly moving from "learning the ropes" to "knowing the ropes" to eventually "having invented the ropes". Much depends also on how formally the company de ...Read More

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 product management function, then leads to really suboptimal business outcomes. Often this happens due to misaligned incentives in other orgs (We're innovating!?). Good ideas can come from anywhere and the ...Read More

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 fill gaps that are normally entirely different functions: - Project manager - QA - Technical Support - Technical Writer - Trainer - Solution Consultant - Marketer - Data Analyst, etc. Write down the CORE PM r ...Read More

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 suspect the most common reason to leave might be simply put as: a better opportunity elsewhere. Now, this is a very personal calculus that becomes harder if things are not exactly terrible. Perhaps you ar ...Read More

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 easier when you increasingly not only "speak their language but incorporate the knowledge on the job. Observation of how other successful PMs and even other stakeholders operate is also very useful, especiall ...Read More

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, navigating trickier interpersonal dynamics, connecting more "dots", communicating with more clarity on more complex matters, and influencing more people and outcomes, are among some of the skills needed at eve ...Read More

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, step 1 would be to have a conversation with your manager dedicated to how you would like to get help. I good starting point is documenting an IDP (individual development plan). Think through what and how y ...Read More

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 change in scope or new formal reporting lines into the role, perhaps the most surprising thing is that much else remains the same. You might now be on some additional distribution lists for Directors and ab ...Read More