Building a Product Management Team

10 Answers
Mckenzie Lock
Mckenzie Lock
Netflix Director of ProductAugust 4
The candidate must “spike” (“8/10” or higher) in all of these areas, in order of importance:  1. Critical Thinking Given how many decisions and complex problems are thrown at PMs, this the #1 most important attribute I screen for. They don’t need to be a rocket scientist (top 0.5% of populati......Read More
12659 Views
7 Answers
Zeeshan Qamruddin
Zeeshan Qamruddin
HubSpot Senior Director of Product Management, FlywheelApril 12
As I mentioned in another answer, lean on those around you; there is a wealth of knowledge to be amassed from stakeholders and peers that have likely interacted with the product that you've been brought in to support for some time. Those same team members likely led to you being brought on board ......Read More
896 Views
19 Answers
Tamar Hadar
Tamar Hadar
The Knot Worldwide Senior Director of ProductFebruary 3
As a first PM, you will need to be very judicious with how you allocate your time and resources. In fact, I think that’s true for larger companies as well. There are always going to be more ideas than resources available. As a product manager, you are responsible for translating the company’s vi......Read More
9646 Views
3 Answers
Becky Trevino
Becky Trevino
Snow Software Executive Vice President ProductsOctober 27
Great question.  To create a powerful partnership between Product Marketing (PMM) and Product Management (PM) it's essential for you to have a common set of KPIs that help you understand whether your work is generating the intended results.  Warning: For this to work best, it's great for th......Read More
947 Views
10 Answers
Rupali Jain
Rupali Jain
Optimizely Chief Product OfficerMarch 2
I'm going to suggest a few processes, but please do scale each process to the size of the organization. Treat your processes like you treat your product - establish 2-3 internal customer problems that are actually worth solving, and solve them with an MVP of a process and iterate as you learn - d......Read More
1623 Views
What is the single most important activity you prioritize as a product leader? Why do you prioritize this activity above all else?
- How might this shift according to company maturity and the maturity of the product you're working on? - For IC PMs, what is the single most important activity that you'd recommend they prioritize? How might this shift according to company maturity and the maturity of the product you're working on?
3 Answers
Paresh Vakhariya
Paresh Vakhariya
Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence)November 9
Setting a solid product vision, strategy and a clear roadmap for atleast 3-6-12 months is the top activity for a PM leader. Some benefits of having this in place are: 1. Determine and solve customer problems 2. Clearly articulate the impact you will have on company or product metrics 3. Ali......Read More
969 Views
8 Answers
Zeeshan Qamruddin
Zeeshan Qamruddin
HubSpot Senior Director of Product Management, FlywheelApril 13
Today, our org structure follows the ethos of "Small, autonomous teams". In this structure, we generally have a PM paired with a Technical Lead (Eng), somewhere between 3 - 5 Engineers, and a Business Systems Analyst to focus on operational and analytical tasks. Some teams have a Design/UX repres......Read More
1604 Views
8 Answers
Tasha Alfano
Tasha Alfano
Twilio Staff Product Manager, SDKs and LibrariesFebruary 11
The partnership with Product Marketing is one of the most important functions when it comes to rolling out a successful product. Don’t read too much into the last part of that statement though, a Product Marketing Manager (PMM) is a crucial teammate to include from the start, not just at launch t......Read More
1817 Views
9 Answers
Virgilia Kaur Pruthi (she/her)
Virgilia Kaur Pruthi (she/her)
Expedia Group Senior Director of Product, Head of Trust and SafetyFebruary 1
Wonderful, congrats! Get into a rhythm by understanding the business/company goals. Then understand how the tech works (look at the customer/user interface first and then make sure you understand how the system behind the UI works). Begin collecting data in a transparent way and share your learn......Read More
889 Views
9 Answers
Virgilia Kaur Pruthi (she/her)
Virgilia Kaur Pruthi (she/her)
Expedia Group Senior Director of Product, Head of Trust and SafetyFebruary 1
Interestingly enough I see two trends in the types of KPIs product teams miss.  1) Aligning with the larger's organization or business goals - Ensuring that your product roadmap is actually impacting the success metrics (OKRs, KPIs) of the business itself is critical to knowing if you are invest......Read More
826 Views