Ojus Padston

The key mistake new PMs make is focusing on delivering over impact.  It is inevitable that PMs hit a point where the backlog runs dry. The instinct in this moment is to panic to get something ready for dev, push forward the first idea that jumps to mind. The problem is this reduces the level of rigor, making it likely the work will not have sufficient reach or impact to matter. It also increases execution risk, increasing the likelihood specs are incomplete and engineering has to work with parti ...Read More

These 3 principles are presented in rank order, because each one only matters if the ones above it are following Empowerment - Everyone on the team feels ownership, understanding the problem space and context to really make an impact. Without empowerment, the team will inevitably be risk-averse or overly deferential, which is the opposite of the motivated, go-getter attitude needed. This can occur either because the team is not staffed or scoped appropriately, limiting what bets they are able to ...Read More

The skill sets for growth and non-growth PMs are about 85% overlapped. The key differentiator is analytical sense. While all PMs need to ensure the team is focused on driving customer and business impact, growth PMs always have a direct tie to driving business KPIs. This requires a more advanced level of understanding trends in the data to identify areas of leverage.  On the flip side, it is important to know what a Growth PM doesn't need to be great at in a given role. For example, I hired a PM ...Read More

Focus Area > Problem > Hypothesis First, the focus area for the team must be defined. This starts by mapping out the possible areas the team could focus. My recommendation is to assess the opportunity size using the product of "What's the business value if [x] area was improved?" times "What's the likelihood of that happening?" Next, you want to align on what problem you are tackling. For example, when I first started at ezCater we decided to improve initial landing experiences for visitor ...Read More