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JJ Miclat

AMA: Zendesk Director of Product Management, JJ Miclat on Product Management Career Path


December 11, 2024 @ 9:00AM PT

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  1. What are the different types of product managers, and how do you figure out which type you're the best fit for?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    Different types of PMs - Core Product Managers, Platform Product Managers, Infra/Internal Product Managers, Data Product Managers, Growth Product Managers, AI Product Managers Core Product Management Building products, features, enhancements directly for the company’s external target consumer/business Platform Product Management Building products, tooling, systems that are leveraged/shared by a handful of core product management teams to prevent service duplication - ie billing systems, authenti ...Read More

    3,963 Views
    2 requests
  2. How do you convey the importance of product management to engineering leaders who have never worked with product managers?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    PMs are able to help engineers with: talking to all different types of customers and prospects, so that we constantly have informed/holistic insights into most impactful problems we should be solving for our target customer taking the set of problems we have to solve, strategically sequencing them (roadmap), and pitching this to leaders internally to ensure buy-in + resources to fund this work take the lead on solutioning - working with engineering, product design, content design, user research, ...Read More

    2,198 Views
    1 request
  3. Are there any productivity hacks or tools that help you stay organized and on top of everything going on as a product manager?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    I have a Notion board with three swimlanes - to-do, doing, and done.

    I groom my to-do list about 3 times a day to ensure the highest prio stuff is next on the queue.

    I to try to carve out dedicated blocks for complex, mentally-intensive work. I try not to little tasks (stuff that takes less than 5 min to do) build-up and intersperse them throughout my day.

    1,147 Views
    1 request
  4. What do you see as the most important hard/soft skills to be a successful product management professional?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    the ability to ask questions and synthesize - customers often tell you what they want to see happen in the product, but that may not be the most scalable solution for all of your target customers in aggregate. In customers interviews, get to the root of the “why” behind feature requests - why are they asking for this? what problem is it looking to solve? how big of a problem is this? what workaround are they doing today to bypass this problem? how would solving this problem help your customers b ...Read More

    1,993 Views
    1 request
  5. How do you effectively split your attention between contributing individually and coaching your PM's? Do these two priorities ever conflict with each other?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    Coaching my PMs takes priority, people management is a force-multiplier if done correctly/effectively.I make individual contributions only if truly needed - a PM backfill hasn't been placed or a PM is struggling in a product that absolutely cannot fail. It was hard to to give up IC contributions initially as a people manager, but coaching your reports to be self-sufficient + autonomous + make quick/correct decisions, pays off dividends. If you miss IC work, go back to being an IC, the pay and gl ...Read More

    1,021 Views
    1 request
  6. What's the best way to position my b2b product management experience when applying for b2c product roles?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    Focus on how you drove engagement/retention for your B2B product, and how it ultimately lead to improving renewals and/or increasing upsells to higher tiers, if you made contributions there.Focus on how you drove self-serve checkout/trial experiences for your B2B product, if you made contributions there. Focus on how you solved the "cold-start problem" to an extent, for your B2B product, if you made contributions there. This applies to when a product's success is partially determined by the amou ...Read More

    2,795 Views
    1 request
  7. As a product manager, how to get better at framing and articulation? Any framework?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    in product reviews, when an exec/lead asks you something about your product decision, don’t table it and say “idk, we’ll assess and circle back with you in xx days”, rather just say what you think ought/should happen. You could state that these are assumptions and you could/should validate later. But as a PM, you’re paid to have an opinion on the spot, and oftentimes we don’t have all the data/research at our fingertips. At least the exec could course correct you on the spot in case you need mis ...Read More

    2,709 Views
    1 request
  8. What ideas or projects would you try to take on and lead after landing your first product management role?

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    get some quick wins under your belt: shepherd a small product/feature/enhancement that’s currently in development out to market launch jump into user research calls to understand customer pain jump into sales calls (prospects or existing customers) to understand pain work with user research (or do it yourself) to understand and document the nature of different customer personas/segments, if this hasn’t been done already write a PRD for small product/feature/enhancement, get feedback on it, and r ...Read More

    1,346 Views
    1 request
  9. Would you advise non-technical PM’s joining a coding bootcamp?

    I’m currently looking for new opportunities and I find that when it comes to the final stages of the recruiting process, PMs with more technical skills get the role.

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    As a PM, you should know the architecture of your product's tech-stack, so that you could have meaningful conversations with your engineers about tradeoffs, capabilities, limitations, and estimates.

    You don't necessarily need to know how to code, unless your product is code (ie PM for Swift at Apple).

    2,327 Views
    1 request
  10. What's the career path for a 5yr experienced Product Manager to become a leader? What are the steps to prepare oneself for the next step, i.e., becoming a Sr./Director/VP of Product or CEO?

    I have worked as Product Manager for the last 5 years collaborating closely with Eng, Design, and Business in both startup and corporate environments.

    JJ Miclat
    JJ Miclat

    Zendesk Director of Product Management • 1y

    File a request to get a PM intern (if there’s such a program at your company) for direct people management experience Sign up through your company’s mentorship program (if there is one) to glean coaching/mentorship experience Become another employee’s unofficial mentor (if you are doing great work, folks will notice, and will naturally ask you to help/guide them on things) Influence other product development teams’ roadmaps (outside of the product development teams under your PM purview) Ask to ...Read More

    1,781 Views
    1 request