Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
11
How to land on your feet as a product manager
July 19, 2015Paul Hurwitz
Parachuting into an Existing Product
2
About Paul Hurwitz
• 15+ Years in technology roles• 10+ Years in Product roles• Finance/Accounting, Life Sciences & Health Tech
products•Have parachuted 3 times into existing products.
3
About Paul Hurwitz
•Have parachuted 3 times into existing products.– Centage Corporation (Financial/Accounting)– Medidata Solutions (Life Sciences/Pharma)– ActiveHealth Management (Population Health
Management)
4
In the first 2 weeks – 5 Steps
5
1) Meet with Key Stakeholders
6
Business Stakeholders
• CEO (depends on size of company)• Marketing director• Adjacent product managers• Sales director• Account Management
Technical Stakeholders
• VP Engineering / Development Lead• QA Lead• Customer Support Lead
7
Discussions with Stakeholders
What is the problem that we are trying to solve?
•Face to Face (if possible)•Listen! Don’t talk too much.•Take notes
8
2) Find (or Create) the backlog
9
3) Book Calls with Customers
10
4) Learn Your Product
11
5) Introduce yourself to the Development team (gently)
12
First 30 - 60 Days – Another 5 steps
13
1) At least 5-10 Calls with Customers
14
2) Create a Product Strategy
15
3) Get intimate with your financials
16
4) Prepare the business for a roadmap reset
17
5) Get a few quick wins
18
Getting started with your new boss
• Discuss expectations• Frequency of 1:1s• Define 1 Year success• Figure out what kind of boss you have• Create a 30/60/90 Day Plan – Decide if you want to share
19
Conclusion
"A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.“
-Deep Nishar, SVP for products and user experience at LinkedIn
