All related (8)
Product Lead, Flow Area at Asana
* One common misconception about b2b product teams is that they should spend
most of their time thinking about the buyer (e.g. an executive, IT decision
maker) rather than the individuals using the product every day. This
misconception arises because in business settings, everyday users sometimes
don’t have much choice in the tools they use. However, product teams who
focus too much attention on the buyer and not enough on everyday users often
end up building products that may get some initial traction, but ultimately
become the products teams love to complain about, a...more
Director of Product at MikMak | Formerly Discover, IRI
Misconception: B2B is about selling to businesses and so the end UI/UX is not as important.
In reality, the end user is always a person and there are people that are looking at easy products to use and making the decision to buy from you. The easier your product makes their job, the more inclined they will be to get your products. This applies for products as well as product operations - easy on-boarding, solid customer support and focus on data and reporting as possible.
Related Ask Me Anything Sessions
Director of Product Management at Salesforce
There are different paths that each product manager takes, but the common ones
I've seen are:
1. Joining a tech company as an Associate PM or an intern straight from college.
For college grads, I suggest starting by connecting with other product managers
(e.g. via LinkedIn) to better understand what we do. There are great books
available on this topic as well -- "Cracking PM Interview" is among my
favorites. I also created a series of videos explaining tech jobs and what do I
do in more detail - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAz_arwNkiPobhi09VrMFg
2. Transition from other roles e.g. ...more
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Head Of Product Management, Confluence Experience at Atlassian
First thing I'd recommend is asking your team if there is a formal description
of levels and skills associated with each level. More and more companies,
whether large orgs or startups, actually have written descriptions of product
manager levels and what those entail; the earlier you get to learn about them,
the better. If there is no formal description available, I would recommend to:
1) Interview your manager of what the next level may look like, and draft a
document outlining that
2) Review this document with 1-2 people in the product org who are on that level
and see what they would a...more
Head of Product for Mid-Market Businesses at Gusto
This is a framework shared by one of my former executive colleagues. I've found
it to be incredibly helpful when thinking through your career, taking on a new
project, or considering your next move.
Biggest suggestion is to get it on paper. Thinking about your career can be a
lot like building product.
1. Write lists of what you do and don't know. What you're confident about, what
you're not sure about. After completing your do know/don’t know list,
consider actions you can take to move your “don’t know” into the “do know”
column.
2. Think through each of these topics an...more
Product Lead, Flow Area at Asana
I transitioned from journalism to product management earlier in my career, and
although it’s not a straightforward path, it’s actually pretty common for PMs to
join tech from other sectors. An Asana PM teammate of mine, Ari Janover,
actually has the best articulation of how to make the transition that I’ve ever
heard. He says there are three common paths:
* The Ninja: Join a small startup as another role and push to own PM work until
you become a PM.
* The Expert: Apply for roles where the value of your specific knowledge trumps
your lack of PM credentials. Think Engineers for tech...more
Product Lead, Align Area at Asana
Customer feedback is critical to how we build, and we incorporate it at every
step of the product development process. We get customer feedback from a variety
of places.
When building new products we proactively reach out to customers to learn about
their needs and make sure we’re creating the right solutions for them. We have a
User Research team that regularly speaks to customers via a variety of methods -
everything from interviews and surveys to card sorting and field studies. Along
our product development process, we have specific touchpoints where we make sure
to utilize user resea...more
Director of Product Management at Asana
The question I love asking every candidate is "tell me the story of the most
impactful thing you’ve ever worked on." I like this question for several
reasons:
* It works for every level of experience. For experienced PMs, I’m expecting to
hear about a very important product they worked on. For someone with little
to no experience, they can tell me a story about something they worked on
that was incredibly hard, impactful and meaningful to them without it needing
to be related to product work.
* It allows me to get a sense of their storytelling ability. Are they able to
str...more