Tara Wellington

The role that UX plays in product management can vary depending on what type of PM role you are in. If you are working on a platform team building ML models or a growth team dedicated to pricing, the role of UX may not be as prominent as it would be if you are on a feature or workflow team. However, I would argue that it is always a key skill that PMs need in any role - and is just as important as analytic skills. Behind UX is ultimately the question, "How is the customer going to interact with ...Read More

Product management skills are a little tough to nail down, because unlike engineering or design, there is not one set of skills that work for all product managers. Product management needs can be different by industry, company, organization, teams, etc. However, there are 5 key skill categories that I have seen be consistent across most PM roles - product execution, customer insights, data-driven decision making, influencing others, product strategy. At BILL we define these 5 key areas with sub- ...Read More

There are lots of frameworks, templates, and communication channels you can use to create ongoing communication about past launches. I usually find the biggest issue with this type of communication is not a lack of framework or tools, but usually either (1) remembering to do it or (2) keeping people’s attention post launch. For remembering to do it, I would just set calendar reminders for yourself and hold yourself to it. That is what I personally do.  For keeping folks' attention, I would sugge ...Read More

Product leadership is a delicate mix between hard and soft skills - and soft skills are required in any leadership position. Hard Skills: The further you move up the management chain in product, the more the hard skills move from being just product management skills to more general management skills. When you are leading product teams you can't just think about the product or your specific area. You have to think about how the product fits into the ecosystem of the company. This can look differe ...Read More

The process that I go through when setting a vision when I join a new company is: Listen & Learn Research & Optionality Draft & Edit Share Listen & Learn It is very hard to write a product vision with no context. When I start at a new company, I try not to make any decisions for 30 days. I start by doing a listening tour around the company. I ask everyone the same set of questions - and always finish with "who else do you think I should talk to?" The goal of this 30 days is to le ...Read More

I have observed that the word strategy can be intimidating as well as misunderstood. In its simplest form, product strategy is a process of defining what your options are, and then selecting which option has the greatest chance of success. The most important step is getting REALLY clear on what your options are - which requires a deep factbase that includes market research, customer research, and product insights.  The process that I use is a simple 4 step process that you can apply to most stra ...Read More

This answer definitely depends on the company, culture, leadership, product - so you can take my answer with a grain of salt. Generally, I like to use the “first 90 days” approach from the book aptly named “The First 90 Days” by Michael D. Watkins.  The first 30 days is all about listening. Do as much listening and learning as you can. Don’t try to affect change during this time. Focus on learning the culture, the people, the products, the customers - and most importantly focus on building relat ...Read More

The two things you need to ensure that you can get your exec team on board with your strategy is (1) Clear communications plan (2) A strong, well researched factbase standing behind your strategy.  (1) For clear communications: Start your communications plans early! I bring my exec team in at the very beginning of the product strategy creation process. I hold a product strategy kickoff event to let everyone know we are embarking on a product strategy exercise. I share the timeline for completion ...Read More

Communicating roadmap changes can be notoriously tricky. There is often a lot of nuance and decision making that goes on behind the scenes that gets lost in translation. It sounds like your primary audience is leadership in this situation, so I will focus my answer on communicating changes to leadership.  In order to reduce the overhead of communicating with leadership and still remain effective, I would do three things, (1) Ensure your business rhythms include a consistent and regular pattern f ...Read More

The main stakeholders that have input into my roadmaps are (1) Customers, (2) Sales, (3) Customer Service, (4) Leadership / Executive Team, (5) Other teams dependent on my team. In addition to these stakeholders, my roadmap is also influenced by product data and customer behavior in the product, market research and trends, competitive research, and our company and product strategy.  In a perfect world, the product manager controls their team’s roadmap. They build the roadmap based on “streams of ...Read More