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Omar Eduardo Fernández
Director of Product Management, GitLab
About
After studying chemical-biological engineering at MIT, I spent three years in systems integration consulting at Accenture followed by a year in customer success at Bloomreach. It was then that I transitioned into Product Management in 2013.
Content
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
In a nutshell: the product management function is tasked with clarifying and communicating what product investments that will help a company reach its goals, and working across teams to deliver these results. There are a lot of activities that a product manager does, but it will ultimately go ......Read More
636 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
Providing feedback or managing the work of someone that doesn't report to you can be challenging, but ultimately doing that well is very similar to managing a direct report. You should: 1. Build rapport: the person should trust that you are competent, that you understand what is important a......Read More
572 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • February 14
To get better at framing and articulation as a product manager, focus on being clear about the business and user problems you're solving. This approach is similar to writing a good Product Requirements Document (PRD), where you detail the problem, the target users, and the desired outcomes. It's ......Read More
566 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
GitLab is a fully remote company, we don't have any offices and have team members spread out throughout the world. The projects that my team work on are highly cross-functional. Here is what I've found to help with cross-functional alignment. 1. Regular 1-1 check-ins with key stakeholders from ......Read More
533 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
Building partnerships across functions requires: 1. Define a compelling shared goal. Define a clear and measurable goal that all functions involved would consider important and would prioritize. To the extent possible, align them to goals that already exist for all functions, such a......Read More
530 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
The question asks about getting approval, but I'll instead focus on how you gain feedback and improve your roadmap so that there's alignment around it. This distinction is important, you are responsible of the roadmap. Instead of trying to get approval, focus on building the best possible roadmap......Read More
489 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • April 27
Depends on the stakeholders' seniority and role in the initiative, but here's a few guidelines that I use, which I outline below. However, one important GitLab cultural practice that is very helpful is that for every major initiative we have internally public channels where anyone interested in t......Read More
480 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • August 15
GitLab is quite transparent, so you can find our structure defined pretty publicly here. We have the overall product that we divide into sections, stages, groups and categories. This is how it makes sense for us to organize our work since GitLab is a product that supports many different fea......Read More
457 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • February 14
One way I got promoted at a smaller startup of <200 people, and helped my colleagues do the same, was by smart teamwork and negotiation at a startup. My friend and I were working as Product Managers and felt we deserved to be Senior PMs based on what we were doing and how much we were getting pai......Read More
450 Views
Omar Eduardo Fernández
GitLab Director of Product Management • August 15
Make or break things when I'm interviewing a PM candidate: 1. Clear and concise answers to my questions. If I need to ask the same question again because the candidate didn't address my question, that's a big problem. PMs need to communicate constantly with many teams, so they shoul......Read More
443 Views
Credentials & Highlights
Director of Product Management at GitLab
Top Product Management Mentor List
Product Management AMA Contributor
Knows About Building a Product Management Team, Product Management Skills, Enterprise Product Man......more