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Product Management Team · Building a Product Management Team

I’m the first PM hire in my company. What advice would you give to someone tasked with establishing this function in an existing business structure?

Paresh Vakhariya
Paresh Vakhariya

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

Here is my advice for a junior PM in a small company:Get to know your product. Learn to ue it everyday and document any issues you seeTalk to customers about their experi...
840 Views

Is there overlap between PMs and the User Research function when PMs should know their users firsthand? How do you build teams with the right target ratio or support from User Research and to some extent Data Scientists/Analysts as well? Do those functions support individual teams or executives trying to understand broader trends?

Nicolas Liatti
Nicolas Liatti

Adobe Senior Director of Product Management, 3D Category • 1y

There is definitely an overlap between User Research and PM, and I think it depends on the size of the company and organization also. If you have the chance to get a grea...
990 Views

Should CX teams and Product Management teams be on the same team? Pros/Cons?

I've worked with a few CX leaders who now have product managers reporting to them. Curious to know the benefits/risks of having them combined.

Nicolas Liatti
Nicolas Liatti

Adobe Senior Director of Product Management, 3D Category • 1y

If by CX you mean Customer Experience, then by experience I value them to be in the same team as PMs.One of the secret for great products is to look for collapsing the st...
1,028 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?

Paresh Vakhariya
Paresh Vakhariya

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

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:Dete...
1,527 Views

If your PM team has only one or two people responsible for covering multiple products with complex features, how would you recommend dividing the workload in the short-term so as best to support long-term growth and expansion of the team?

Ashka Vakil
Ashka Vakil

strongDM Sr. Director, Product Management • 3y

If your PM team only has one or two people responsible for covering multiple products with complex features, I would recommend building a prioritized list of deliverables...
320 Views

How have you dealt with possible overlaps between Product Managers, Business Owners and Marketing?

I was just reading an article by Marty Cagan about the scenario of Business Owners "versus" Product Managers, especially for companies using a matrix organization. Now, I'm living in a similar situation, and not only in the case of Business Owners, but it seems that depending on the side of the organization, the scope of Product Managers is divided more than expected, causing various types of issues. So, I'm curious if other companies, big or small, have also had to deal with this. Here's the link to the article: https://www.svpg.com/product-managers-vs-business-owners/

Casey Flinn
Casey Flinn

OEC Head of Global Product Operations • 3y

Ah yes, I remember this article :) I think the key point Marty makes is "Things go wrong when these two roles are not clearly defined." There are two aspects of "defined...
1,118 Views

As a Group Product Manager who has had experience working at several big companies that provide different products and services, what are the top 3 skills that you think have helped you succeed at these companies

Orit Golowinski
Orit Golowinski

JetBrains Head of Product | Formerly GitLab, Jit.io, Cellebrite, Anima • 3y

As someone who has worked in various roles and companies, I've found that the top three skills that have helped me succeed are adaptability, self-learning, and collaborat...
1,493 Views

When autonomous technical/product teams are actively capable of leveraging TPM’s help/skills, in those cases do you still see any/some need for SCRUM master kind of roles going forward? Thanks

Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam

Meta Director, Technical Program Management | Formerly Microsoft • 4y

I’ll try to answer this question to the best extent possible because I havent worked at a company that had formal SCRUM master roles. My understanding is that the SCRUM m...
1,263 Views

Transition to the TPM is often considered as a next career step for technical roles. How to source for such candidates granting that their profiles often lack relevant details? What job titles, qualities and skills would you recommend to look for?

Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam

Meta Director, Technical Program Management | Formerly Microsoft • 4y

I love this question. Typically one does not boot strap their career as a Technical PM, at least not until recently (Some companies including Meta are hiring Technical PM...
2,139 Views

What's your day to day work involves today and when you started your career as TPM? Please share your experience running and administrating larger programs in newer or unknown areas of your functional expertise. Thanks!

Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam

Meta Director, Technical Program Management | Formerly Microsoft • 4y

For the first part of the question - I stared my career as an Individual contributor IC) and as you know that is all about specific product/platform strategy and top not...
1,267 Views