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How do you approach building successful partnerships across multiple functions?

Derek Ferguson

GitLab Group Product Manager • 1y

As all PMs are aware (or should be), cross-functional partnerships are essential for you to be successful as a Product Manager. Building great partnerships usually requir...

856 Views

Who should own pricing? Product management or product marketing? And what role should each play?

Kalvin Brite

Contentful VP, Product Management | Formerly Twilio, SendGrid • 3y

Pricing is a complex and multifaceted aspect of product management, and it can be challenging to determine who should own it. In general, pricing should be based on the c...

10 Views

At what point do you pull in the product marketing team while working on a new feature enhancement?

Julian Dunn

Chainguard Senior Director of Product Management • 4y

As early as possible! I pull in product marketing as soon I have a good understanding of the problem statement and its benefits to customers. Typically the artifact we'll...

881 Views

What advice would you give to a product marketer looking to transition to product management, or vice versa?

Julian Dunn

Chainguard Senior Director of Product Management • 4y

This is a great question. I've transitioned from PM to PMM and back again, so I can give you my perspective on both. The biggest challenges for anyone moving into PM, wh...

2,103 Views

How different are the product management KPIs from the product marketing KPIs?

Julian Dunn

Chainguard Senior Director of Product Management • 4y

In general, PM KPIs tend to be further down-funnel and PMM KPIs are further up-funnel. PM's KPIs are about utilization / adoption of products or features, including repea...

1,830 Views

What are the commonly shared responsibilities between product management and product marketing?

Carrie Zhang

Square Product Lead • 4y

Revenue, P&L ownership. Customer discovery. Our PMs and designers tend to lead more qualitative research while our PMMs tend to lead more quantitative surveys. Produ...

2,458 Views

As a product manager, what are the make-or-break things for you when interviewing a potential next product manager for your team?

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) | Formerly PayPal, eBay, Intel, Verizon • 2y

Here are the top things I would look for in a product manager on my team:Customer-Centric: understanding and serving the needs of the customers/users possibly via user in...

1,040 Views

Who are your primary stakeholders?

Deepak Mukunthu

Salesforce Senior Director of Product, Agentforce AI Platform • 3mo

Following are critical stakeholders that you need to focus on to be effective and successful:External developers (most important)Engineering teamsDeveloper relations / ad...

453 Views

As a Developer Product Manager, what is your role within a larger team?

Deepak Mukunthu

Salesforce Senior Director of Product, Agentforce AI Platform • 3mo

I see my role as translating between three worlds: developers (users), engineering (builders), and the business.For developer products, that translation is more technical...

512 Views

How do you manage multiple stakeholders and how do you prioritize them?

Nicolas Liatti

Adobe Senior Director of Product Management, 3D Category • 2y

First it's critical to identify clearly who are the stakeholders. Usually business, engineering and design are the 3 you should work with very closely. Then you need to c...

1,060 Views

When creating your product vision statement, what do you research?

Becky Trevino

Flexera Chief Product Officer | Formerly Rackspace, Dell • 5mo

These are the main areas of research for me:Who are we as defined by the market, customers, and partners?What is our mission?Why does this mission matter now?Who do we se...

391 Views

What Design decisions should Product have the final say in? How do you bring clarity to this?

Arun Janakiraman

Zoom GPM: Head of Zoom Apps & Marketplace • 1y

Product should have final say on decisions that directly influence measurable user behavior and business outcomes. For example, if we’re debating the complexity of a sign...

571 Views

What’s your approach to involving design early in product decisions?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 6mo

A value I hold is that more voices early on ensures you are optimizing for a high fidelity product or result without needing to build new context or change gears because ...

368 Views

What shared metrics help align product and design goals?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 6mo

Some of my favorite tangible metrics that can be shared across Product and Design:Time to value - time it takes to complete the action in product Retained users - number ...

385 Views

How do you push for design quality when speed is the top priority since you’re in a startup?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 6mo

My favorite way to think about shipping fast is the cost we will incur needing to redo something if it doesn’t work or fails to deliver on the promised outcomes. By focus...

344 Views

What are ways for Product Managers to build trust and rapport with their designers?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 6mo

One of the highest leverage relationships a Product Manager can have is with their designer. Specifically, it is the dyads responsibility to find l best way to partner th...

355 Views

How do you balance shipping an MVP with having a great user experience?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 6mo

MVPs are really only as good as the user problem they are trying to solve. Design is a critical piece in defining that how to solve the user problem in the least friction...

315 Views

What do you think junior PMs struggle with the most in regards to working with executives?

Derek Ferguson

GitLab Group Product Manager • 1y

I think the biggest struggle for junior PMs when working with executives is understanding the fundamental differences in communication and decision-making that happen at ...

2,243 Views

Have you leveraged Gen AI to communicate and report on things internally to stakeholders? What has been the most valuable artifact that AI has helped you create?

Matt Landry

Infoblox SVP Product Management, Networking • 8mo

I often use GenAI for aggregating diverse documents and synthesizing details into concise, coherent summaries. Critical caveat: GenAI often misses nuance that domain expe...

670 Views

How do you structure your Product team? How big is it, what does everyone do? How do you measure success of each function/person?

Rishabh Dave

Stripe Product Lead, Financial Infrastructure • 3y

There is no one-size-fits-all structure for product teams as organizations have different setups based on their needs, maturity, customer segments and nature of products ...

1,354 Views

Mentally, what will you tell yourself as a product manager when walking into a room full of board members?

Rodrigo Davies

Figma Product, AI • 10mo

It's my job to ensure everyone in the room understands what we're talking about. If it's not clear to them, that's on me to fix.My audience is making lots of high-stakes ...

656 Views

What are the top 3 things that will provide value to C-Suites as a product manager?

Derek Ferguson

GitLab Group Product Manager • 11mo

Every executive is different and their roles necessitate them caring about different information. I've found that PMs often interact the most with CEOs, CPOs, and CMOs. B...

356 Views

What do product managers get wrong when trying to influence the C-Suite?

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 2y

Assuming the C-Suite is right Not coming with a clear decision point to a call Not having sufficient data or research to justify the product investment Over preparing det...

367 Views

How do you walk the line of allowing other teams input into the roadmap without allowing them to dictate roadmap priorities?

Joshua Bohling

BILL Director of Product Management • 11mo

Put simply, there are two things I consider vital when soliciting input from other teams on your roadmap. Firstly, go with a point of view. Don't ask for input on a large...

4,333 Views

What are the skills required for a PM role vs a PMM role?

Sacha Dawes

Semarchy Chief Product Officer | Formerly Flexera, Snow Software, SolarWinds, AT&T, Microsoft • 1y

Product Management (PM) and Product Marketing (PMM) roles are often deeply connected, and while there is often some overlap in areas of focus, they generally require dist...

574 Views

How do product managers and product marketers share the voice of the customer responsibilities?

Abhiroop Basu

Square Product Lead, Payments • 4y

PMs should always lead voice of the customer (VoC) programs While PMMs need to have their ear close to the ground when it comes to customer feedback, it's ultimately the ...

1,949 Views

How would you describe the key differences between the product manager role and product marketer role?

Carrie Zhang

Square Product Lead • 4y

The product manager (PM) decides “what” to build and “when”, and is accountable for delivering the product or feature that delights customers. The product marketer (PMM) ...

2,430 Views

From your experience, what are some best practices for product management and product marketing to work together effectively?

Carrie Zhang

Square Product Lead • 4y

Good question. I view product management and product marketing as close partners since we co-own the strategy and business outcome. Cannot say I have best practices, rath...

2,347 Views

Who do you align yourself with to gain momentum in the leadership organization?

Carrie Zhang

Square Product Lead • 2y

I don’t think we should try and align with certain people. Product development is about solving customer problems. So fundamentally I think we should deeply understand ou...

424 Views

When you are stuck managing the a legacy products that are not a priority for top line growth. How do one work with C-suite and displace oneself internally to work on the growth-focused areas of product?

Derek Ferguson

GitLab Group Product Manager • 11mo

I've been there. It's not easy to be the PM for a legacy product with declining value. But, it is possible to reposition yourself. It requires some hard work and strategi...

340 Views

Different internal stakeholders require different fidelity of updates (e.g. your support team probably needs more granular details than the CEO) about product updates. Any protips/tools/suggestions for the best way to handle this?

Devika Nair

Oracle Director of Product Management • 4y

First, ensure you have the right data to backup any claims or decisions you want to make. Second, focus on the goals you want from that audience. Third is to make sure th...

1,835 Views

What are some ways that junior and newer pms can get greater exposure to the C-Suite?

Joshua Bohling

BILL Director of Product Management • 11mo

I always say "do the job you want, not the one you have", and I feel that's very applicable here. Usually, an organization has no shortage of ideas or initiatives, but of...

1,292 Views

How often do you meet with stakeholders, and which stakeholders do you meet with? I’m trying to figure out the right cadence, without creating extra meetings.

Derek Ferguson

GitLab Group Product Manager • 11mo

Find out what the stakeholders need from you and set up a regular meeting cadence with them. It can be a lot of meetings, but setting these meetings up with clear agendas...

2,155 Views

What are the best habits to do when working with C-Suite?

Poorvi Shrivastav

Meta Senior Director of Product Management • 4y

Three best habits to follow Clear communication strategies on why you are meeting, what problem you are trying to solve, what is the solution in your mind and the reaso...

1,214 Views

How do you ensure alignment when you have two senior executive stakeholders who disagree with each other on the proposed strategy and you are stuck in the middle?

Lane Shackleton

Coda Chief Product Officer • 4y

There are two things I think about in cases like this: fears and steel-manning. I’ve found that one of the fastest ways to help get alignment amongst executives is to sta...

646 Views

Have you ever let go of a hire and did that process break you emotionally?

Mike Flouton

Boxford Capital Managing Partner | Formerly Barracuda, SilverSky, Digital Guardian, OpenPages, Cybertrust • 4y

Unfortunately, this is one of the sad truths that comes with management. Sooner or later you will have to let someone go. It's never easy. I'm not sure it's ever broken m...

1,075 Views

How do you influence the C-Suite to get more resources?

Natalia Baryshnikova

Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Strategy and Planning • 3y

By bringing clear plans, having a track record of driving results, and not being known as a person who asks for resources to "build an empire". - I expanded on what a "c...

490 Views

Product Managers often get pulled in several directions and everything feels urgent. How do we work with our Exec team to help narrow down what we focus on?

Mike Flouton

Boxford Capital Managing Partner | Formerly Barracuda, SilverSky, Digital Guardian, OpenPages, Cybertrust • 4y

This comes down to transparency. See my later response on this topic. Make sure everyone on the exec team clearly understands the priorities, and more importantly, the no...

424 Views

What kinds of ongoing, cross-functional meetings do you think are important to have? Which teams are involved, and what agenda items do you recommend?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

This is a very critical aspect of a PM role, to manage cross functional stakeholders (upper managements, teams and your customers). Customers can be internal or external....

695 Views

How do you balance customer feedback with market trends in outbound product development?

Sheila Hara

Barracuda Sr. Director, Product Management • 1y

Balancing customer feedback with market trends involves aligning short-term needs with long-term opportunities. Customer feedback provides insights into immediate pain po...

594 Views

What are your favorite frameworks or visuals to prepare for customer conversations?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

Not a framework or visual but I love to review any piece of data I can get my hands on about the customer before we meet. We also have an internal sync with the account ...

658 Views

Would all organizations benefit from an Outbound PM? When is the role most beneficial?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

Not all companies need OPM. OPM is typically a role you see emerge when PMF has already been established, but the product is working to establish adoption within enterpri...

683 Views

What tools or software do you find most useful for outbound product management tasks?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

Obviously Atlassian products ;-) If we're trying to help our customers adopt Atlassian products at scale, of course we drink our own champagne! I spend a lot of time talk...

724 Views

How do Outbound PMs interact with traditional PMs?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

Outbound PMs and traditional PMs work hand-in-hand, but focus on different things:Outbound PMs serve as the key product person involved in pre-sales, escalations, and str...

673 Views

What anti-patterns exist in Outbound Product Management that practitioners should be on the lookout for?

For example, would blocking (or gatekeeping) regular PMs from having direct customer conversations be an example of an anti-pattern to be aware of?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

A few that I would watch out for:Over-indexing on individual customer asks: Focusing too much on the most vocal or largest customers can lead to a fragmented roadmap and ...

2,324 Views

How did you get into Outbound Product Management?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

At my prior company, when I transitioned to building products as a traditional PM for Enterprise / Education customers, it was obvious to me that regardless of how cool t...

2,473 Views

What skills do you look for in a good Outbound Product Manager?

Sailaja Kalle

Gainsight Director, Product Management • 3y

Outbound Product managers also have foundational product management skills, technical expertise, and a focus on product success like traditional Product managers. Howeve...

1,606 Views

What resources would you recommend reading to learn more about outbound product management?

Sarah Joshi

Atlassian Director of Product • 1y

There's not a lot out there (yet) - Richard Seroter's piece is probably the best one I've seen: https://seroter.com/2021/06/21/so-what-the-heck-is-outbound-product-manage...

3,423 Views

When should product orgs think about adding an outbound product manager or team?

Sailaja Kalle

Gainsight Director, Product Management • 3y

This particular role is not always needed but if your product is technical in nature, having this role to evangelize your product definitely helps in Adoption. Also if th...

1,529 Views

What does your product management team expect out of your product marketers in product meetings, and how do you measure if the team is delivering this effectively?

Sacha Dawes

Semarchy Chief Product Officer | Formerly Flexera, Snow Software, SolarWinds, AT&T, Microsoft • 1y

In our product meetings, we expect Product Marketing to bring the market and customer perspective to the table. While Product Management is focused on building the right ...

690 Views

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