Bhaskar Krishnan

This is a very interesting question and one that I keep touching upon on almost all career conversations with my teams & mentees. There is no one typical career path for PMs, which can be both liberating and challenging at the same time! It's liberating since PMs have the chance to shape their careers to what they would like it to be, playing to their strengths and having a fulfilling life & career. It's challenging since every industry and many firms in the same industry have different ...Read More

Vision statements are critical for products, product portfolios and companies. Firms with clear vision statements are able to adapt, evolve and focus on solving problems that their customers face, better than competitors and in a manner that brings forward all their strengths. Firms without clear vision statements and products without one become stale, one-hit wonders or worse, seasonal crazes like beanie babies Here are vision statements from two financial services firms  1) “aspire to be the b ...Read More

Product teams and firms should think about the relatioship between the Product, features & goals, the products' & companies' roadmap and finally the company strategy & mission! All these are related and are critical to build disruptve firms at scale Company Mission is how the world sees your company and the change it wants to bring Company Strategy is the logical plan to bring your company’s mission into being Product Strategy is logical plan for how the product will drive its part o ...Read More

Product Vision is similar to a compass for explorers! Product Vision sets the North Star for the product teams and ensures that the Product Principles, Values & Strategy aligns with the Vision on a daily basis Its easy for Product teams to devolve into a mess of features or play catch-up to competitors, etc without a singular vision thats bigger than the team's daily activities. Sony Ericcson, Nokia & Blackberry (smartphones), Bolt (electic cars) or Yahoo (Consumer & AdTech) are exam ...Read More

The best Product managers combine curiosity with structured problem solving skills. Being curious helps them look at problems as opportunities to learn & grow. Ability to frame & structure a problem helps them take others along in the process. Both these skills can be learnt & cultivated over time. Curiosity - Being curious is an under-rated skill. PMs who are curious keep learning, adding new tools (ideas, PM techniques, s/w tools) to their expanding toolkit and more importantly kee ...Read More

Data & Metrics are at the heart of every product, be it Consumer, Enterprise or Platform. A metrics tree or hierarchy is critical and should follow the Execute -> Features -> Roadmap -> Strategy -> Vision structure highlighted in another question The metrics dashboard should track the metrics across these different parts of the Product Strategy Stack. Each level of metrics is relevant for a different stakeholder or leadership layer in the firm. The metrics around Company Vision & ...Read More

Empathy and the ability to connect with people across the board is the most under-rated skill for high-performing PMs. Empathy enables PMs to connect dots, build relationships, solve problems and dive-deep, to increase their expertise PMs need to exhibit people skills that span three broad categories and empathy for each of these different categories helps in its own way. 1. Managing XFN - PMs typically work with large cross-functional (XFN) teams and need to adapt their working styles for each ...Read More

Product vision distills why a product does what it does and how it envisions the future. As we saw above, it's critical to spend time crafting the product vision and the strategic narrative that follows from it. Two firms that had brilliant product visions and have built world-class & global platforms changed their product visions a few years ago. The new product visions have spurred these firms to greater heights! Facebook changed its vision statement from “Making the world more open and co ...Read More

This is a question that is close to my heart and I love to see folks transition from Product Owners to Stellar PMs. Taking a step back, I truly love to see people become the best versions of themselves and it doesn't matter if they are Product Owners, Product Managers, Program Managers or any & every role they like to see themselves in!  The key to excel in any of these roles is to understand that every role has a few basic requirements but once they are met, there is the opportunity to brin ...Read More

Vision statements should be simple, describe the value and stand the test of time (atleast one or two market cycles) Every product is built to solve a user/ people problem or help solve a pain-point. This should be the main focus when building a product vision and the most important questions are ‘Who is this product for’ and ‘What problem is it solving’? Teams that answer the two questions above typically get their vision statement right and teams that focus on teh urgent, immediate or playing ...Read More