MICHAEL LEPECH: It's really a pleasure to be here today and to host this webinar
Our product management program is one of the programs that we're most proud of here in the School of Engineering and at Stanford because we find it to be content that's so relevant to what many learners are looking to move into today
For those that end up taking our program, you'll learn more about my background as a startup entrepreneur and product manager at my own startups, building products and getting them out, and selling them, in addition to my background being a faculty member in both the School of Engineering and the School of Sustainability here at Stanford
But enough about me
I'm actually more interested to have our guests for this webinar today introduce themselves
And then we'll dive into some questions
And then ultimately give you all a chance to ask some questions
For those that do have questions throughout the program, please actively put them into the Q&A box on the platform
We'll look to get to as many of your questions and inquiries as we can by the end of this webinar
So without further ado, Kunal, we'll start with you why don't you introduce yourself and then we'll get-- and then we'll get on to the rest of the webinar
KUNAL GARG: Sounds great
Thanks so much for having me, Mike
Hi, everyone my name is Kunal
I started my career doing product work at Redfin
I worked for a couple of years as an engineer at Wealthfront
And currently, I am the cofounder and CTO at Bracket
Bracket is a YC-backed startup
We help sync ops tools like Salesforce, Google Sheets with your engineering databases and data warehouses
I've been part of the XPROD300 Product Management Program since the beginning
So it's been a couple of years now and I've enjoyed this entire process
Excited to chat today
MICHAEL LEPECH: Sweet
Thank you very much for joining us
Arya, please go ahead and introduce yourself
ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah
Hi, everyone, my name is Arya
I have been a product manager for four years
And prior to that, I was a data scientist, which is how I started out my career
And I have also been part of the Product Management Course at Stanford since the beginning
And that course really-- part of that course is just us pulling from our real life experiences and turning that into something that people can learn from and grow from
So I'm excited to talk to you all today about the world of product management
MICHAEL LEPECH: Cool
Well, the first thing I'd like to ask both of you to comment on before we get into our specific questions is you are both actively involved in our program
And what exactly do you do as part of our program? Because I think it's helpful for learners to understand how in addition to learning from great faculty and other instructors, how they're going to interact with someone like you throughout the program
What is it you do? Let's start with-- let's start with Kunal
KUNAL GARG: OK
So as a coach, a facilitator for the program, we help design a lot of the content and the syllabus for the course
Some of the material comes from-- Billy illustrated PMs that have outlined some of the material that you'll be learning and watching
But we will help digest some of that information in coaching sessions
So these are weekly hour-long sessions where we go through real life examples and exercises for you to really understand the learnings
We also help design some homework and grade assignments so that you can get feedback and apply that to any of your future endeavors in the product space
So try and guiding you-- try to get you to experience product management through this mini-course that condenses information in a way that gets you primed to be a product manager in the real world
MICHAEL LEPECH: Totally
Arya, anything to add to that? ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah
I would just add that we get really detailed in our feedback
We are literally going through your assignments line-by-line, leaving comments
We offer office hours if you ever need it to talk about not just the assignments, but even your career and what you want to do next
And for certain learners, I've reviewed their resume and helped out there
So there's tons of great ways to connect with all the coaches
And it's been great so far
I can definitely see that
I can see a transformation from the beginning to the end of the course from a lot of the learners
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
I couldn't agree more on that
One of the places where I see your involvement being most valuable, and it really goes back to a word that Arya used, experience, and Kunal mention as well
We want this to be-- we structured this program to absolutely be experiential learning
And one of the biggest pieces of that is the Capstone presentation where we'll put you together in product teams with folks from other companies or even from around the world and give you a product idea or you can bring your own product idea to develop something during the program and then getting that detailed feedback that we talked about
How to actually apply the lessons and the tools right away during the program is one of the places that have the most fun
And towards the end of the program when I'm reviewing Capstone presentations by the teams, it's always remarkable to see the growth of every one of the participants and the fingerprints of our coaches, like Kunal and Arya on making them successful in learning the content and then becoming much more valuable in their job and better at what they do
So we'll get back a little bit later to some of the program stuff because I know there are some questions already coming up in the Q&A
But I want to get to the content for this webinar around top skills of a product manager and how to develop them
And so we'll start this time with Arya
What would you say are your top three skills as a product manager and why are these your biggies? ARYA TAYLOR: It's very difficult to condense it to three but I will do my best
I think the top three skills are ones that I thought I use day-to-day in my role and I think you'll hear across the board
So the first one is user empathy
And this doesn't mean that you hear about user problems and you feel sorry for them and you want to solve it
It's more like you're able to really dig into the pain points that users are having, you're able to assess the situation, and come up with that true core problem
Because you're going to hear users say different things but you need to be able to translate that into something very actionable
And this doesn't just limit it to users
You also need empathy for everyone that you interact with at work
You're going to have other teams that you're partnering with
You're going to be talking to leadership, engineers, designers, and you need to have empathy for where they're coming from and be able to meet them where they're at and assess those situations as well
So I would say that is the first skill
MICHAEL LEPECH: Number one, empathy
And it's probably not a surprise that that's where another very Stanford thing, the design thinking framework starts as well
ARYA TAYLOR: What a great coincidence because I didn't know that
[LAUGHTER] MICHAEL LEPECH: Me too
ARYA TAYLOR: Number two, being a good communicator
So like I said, you interface with users, you interface with leadership, your stakeholders, everyone you could possibly think of
You interface with people that where English is their second language or maybe their third language
You interface with people that may have a lot of technical knowledge or don't have any technical knowledge and as a product manager, you have to, again, meet them where they're at and be able to communicate clearly across the board
I can just share a quick example of what happens when that goes wrong
Recently, I was on an email thread with my CEO and I missed one word
Instead of saying all clients, I just said clients and it got taken completely out of context and people started thinking that there was a huge problem that happened, so on and so forth all because I missed that one word
So it's really important to be super, super detailed and thorough in your communication so that you don't cause these ripple effects and you're able to get that alignment with your team members and your company
So that's number two
MICHAEL LEPECH: I guess maybe I would also say that communication can also be extended to translation or interpretation because you're probably working with people with very different skill sets who use different words to describe similar things
And in addition to maybe English not being the first language, engineering versus marketing being the first language
And so we can interpret language as a variety of different ways and so communication and translation across job roles within your PM team is probably also a piece of that
ARYA TAYLOR: Definitely
I think that's a great way to put it
MICHAEL LEPECH: And so what's number three? ARYA TAYLOR: Yes
Number three is you have to be a deep thinker
And I think this is where the meat of what a PM really does comes into play
So when you think about a PM and who they're mapped to, they're mapped to an engineering team, a design team, the engineers are building, the designers are designing, but what are you doing as a PM? Sometimes you feel like, oh, well, I'm just in the middle of this all I'm not really doing anything
But your job is really to be a very deep thinker
You need to be critically assessing all of the information that you're getting, be able to synthesize those learnings, be able to come up with a vision, a roadmap, and really turn problems into solutions
You need to take into data into account
You need to take user research into account
There's a lot of inputs coming your way along with the company's strategy, what are the constraints
Maybe one of your engineers has to take a month off
Maybe COVID hits and your company strategy changes
There's always things at play and you need to be deeply thinking about all of those things to be able to make the best decisions
So I think that's really the top three skills that I feel any good PM should have
MICHAEL LEPECH: Super cool
Kunal, have you got some different ones or do you want to add on to any of those? KUNAL GARG: Yeah
Those are really strong ones
I feel like the user empathy is definitely number one on every PM's list
That is probably the most important skill to hone
I do have maybe three that lend to more of the startup lens or early stage entrepreneurship product lens
So my three would be the ability to wear many hats, being organized, and being decisive but open minded
I can dig a little deeper on each of those
With being able to wear many hats, I think especially in the startup space, typically you might be the only PM or an early PM where there might not be a full user research team, there might not be a full sales team, there might not be a full design, data science team and it's your job to kind of fill in the gaps that your team needs and still synthesize and think critically, like Arya was saying, across those different teams to come to a clear product vision and product strategy
So I feel like I've heard it a lot
You have to wear a lot of hats to be a successful PM
MICHAEL LEPECH: This goes back to something that Arya had said about being a good communicator right and being able to be that bridge between a bunch of different folks
And when you're working with them, they want to see you wearing a hat that's similar to what they wear as well because that just makes it easier for that empathy to grow between you and those members of your team
KUNAL GARG: 100%
Yeah, you have to jump into their world and see it from their lens
For the second one on organization, I think it's super important if you're setting up a team, you're setting up a project from day zero, you have to have good systems in place
And if you're going to be hiring folks and leading a team towards a specific vision, I think having those good systems, being regimented about these processes allows everyone on the team to feel like there's a cohesive goal that we're working towards
It helps also if you can organize the team such that you're unblocking them as well
The more organization, the more systems you have in place, you are able to unblock your teammates so that they can be successful in their specific functions as well
And I think it's an important thing to protect your engineers' time so that they can be successful in their specific tasks
So yeah-- MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah, your third one was all about being decisive but open minded
KUNAL GARG: Yeah
So I felt this was a super important skill in the super early stages of startups
When we embarked on the startup journey, we actually were building in a completely different space
We were building in the creator economy, the gig economy
And we learned pretty quickly that we have to commit to some specific product or problem space and then try to invalidate or validate as quickly as possible because time is a limited resource
And that philosophy rings true for product management, for founders, for people in the space that are trying to figure out is this solution solving the specific pain point for that customer
So you have to decide on a specific MVP or Minimally Lovable Product as well that tests that hypothesis
And then you have to be open minded in knowing that you might be proven wrong
You might invalidate your hypothesis
And it's an important skill to let go of your ego and be OK with being proven wrong
And even if you're going in with those preconceived notions, it's OK if you're proven wrong
That's an important skill that I've had to try to train a little bit
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah, that's a great
One of my colleagues Riitta Katila who studies successful startups has done a lot of work on the success metrics of startups that use a hypothesis-based approach towards product development and towards growth in which they say, look, this is our hypothesis
Let's test it
Let's see if the customers like it
Let's see if this helps us grow
Let's see if this is successful
If it's right, great
If it's not correct, that's OK too because we've learned a lot and we are going to use that learning in our next stage
And we talk of course all the time in Silicon Valley about failing fast and being OK with that
But as with anything, failure hurts unless you can couch it in the idea of, this is our hypothesis
It might be right, it might be wrong
But whatever the outcome is, we will have learned
We will have learned that it's right, we will have learned that it's wrong, and that in itself is a success
And so I really appreciate you making that point that you have to be open minded that even if your hypothesis is proven wrong, you as an individual and you as a team have learned a great deal
Definitely
So one of the other things that I'd like to connect between both of your lists is something that Arya had said, you've got to be a deep thinker
And you, Kunal, had said, you've got to be organized
And one of the things that I love about the way that we structure our programs is they're very framework driven
Yes, we'll have great examples
Yes, we'll have case studies
Yes, we'll have all of those types of things
But we also try to have every single learner leave with a set of tools in their tool belt, frameworks that can help them organize their thinking regardless of what comes their way
We have no idea what challenges our learners will face or we have no idea what challenges we will face in the next year, next five years, next 10 years
And so when your team comes to you with a problem that you've never seen before, what are they looking for? They're looking for deep thought, they're looking for organization, and they're looking for leadership from the PM
And frameworks help you provide those things to your team
It shows that you have organized, clear, and deep ways of addressing problems and thinking about them in a structured way
And that's something that will benefit you throughout your career regardless of how advanced you get in the PM role
And so I love that you connected all of those things together through your lists
So a couple of other-- a couple of other things
So if you can give us an example from just one of the three on your list, how you use it in your role today? And this time, we'll start with Kunal
KUNAL GARG: Yeah
I think, just jumping off of that last point again
Being decisive, I'll double down on that example, when we were first building out our MVP for our first idea, we were again in the creator economy building for influencers and TikTokers, building a financing product to securitize their sponsorship agreements
So it was really cool idea
It sounded flashy
But then we realized there wasn't a real pain point that we were solving for our customers
We didn't really understand our customers
We didn't practice that user empathy
And even though we decided to build out a product, we quickly decided that we were proven wrong and we pivoted completely into a different problem space into data and data engineering
And that quick decision to move fast and learn from those mistakes helped us a lot in terms of jumping to a problem that actually was a pain point for customers and practicing that user empathy
So it allowed us to practice some of these skills in the real world
And it's helped us to move fast in that sense
MICHAEL LEPECH: Totally
Arya, can you give us a deeper example on how you use one of your three top skills in a specific example? ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah
I'm actually going to touch on a few different skills that we talked about in this example
So as a PM, typically you're mapped to probably about 7 to 10 resources
Seven of those are engineers, maybe one designer, and one analyst or something like that
In my role, I just happened to be mapped to 32 which poses quite a challenge because running a team of 32 people can be operationally very challenging
And so I think this is where being organized, having empathy, and being a good communicator all three of those really had to come into play
So I, first off, had to set up a lot of processes in place to make the team operationally efficient
So each team had leads that were point of contact for certain things
We had to divide up responsibilities and make sure that everyone was clear on the boundaries in place
The second thing was how can we all communicate with each other
How can I make sure that the data science lead and the engineering lead are all aligned and on the same page on what we're doing
So I set up these weekly meetings where we have to talk things out, talk about what are our blockers, what are our concerns, are there any ideas we want to flesh out and let's do that together as a team
And then the third thing related to user empathy is, how can we make sure that we're grounded in what our customers are saying
Given that there's 30 people or more than 30 people on this team, how do we how are we all going to make sure that we're all on the same page about what our customers are saying
And so for that I set up a weekly sync where we just go through our customer feedback
We started mapping it to different problems that we're solving or maybe problems that we're not solving
And we go through and prioritize those
So this is an example where not only did I have to introduce a lot of organization into the team, but I had to make sure that I was able to make sure not only I'm communicating well with everyone, but everyone is communicating well with everyone
And we all are, at the end of the day, grounded in our users
MICHAEL LEPECH: Got it, cool
So I want to ask a few questions that a little bit off the cuff based on some of the things you've already said
I'm going to start with Arya here
You transitioned from data science to being a product manager, this is probably not that strange in Silicon Valley of a transition
How did you find that transition? And also, were there any skills from your data science background that you specifically found important for your PM role? ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah, that's a great question
So the way that it all started out actually was when I was a data scientist, my team just didn't have a product manager
And so I was unknowingly playing the role of a product manager
I was like, hey, can I talk to users, can I manage the stakeholder relationships, can I design what our vision should be for whatever model we're building, and so on and so forth
And then when I was having a career conversation with my manager, she was like, you'd be a good product manager
And that was what turned the light bulb on in my mind where I was like, OK, let me explore this further and see if this is something that I'm interested in
So I ended up asking if I can do one project where I'm the product manager instead of a data scientist
And thankfully, she agreed to that and I was able to execute one project as a product manager, see how it felt to do that, and assess is this the skill set that I feel more naturally leaning toward or do I want to stick with data science
Sure enough, at midway through the project, I was like, this is it
I love this
This is so much fun
And this is the career that I want to move forward with
So I switched into it
And I think having the data science background is super, super useful because as a product manager not only are you required to analyze data, you're required to figure out why a metric is moving a certain way and build a story from that as well
This happened and when I dug into it, the reason for it was this
And now based on that, these are the different actions we're going to take
So it was very much useful to just have that background knowledge and be able to understand a business through data and then bring that to the role of product management
MICHAEL LEPECH: Totally
You've actually touched on something that I that I end up teaching in a lot of our programs and it's called job crafting, where over time you take on roles that weren't your original job but you enjoy doing them
And all of a sudden, over time, it becomes your real job, which is the best way to figure out what your job is going to be
Kunal, I actually want to address a question that's come in from one of the participants
Michael asked a question around the PM role differing in the R&D space and the early parts of a company versus a more mature and established space
And you've served in the role in a very small company when you're doing a lot of brand new product development stuff
And so while that might not be what we classically think of as R&D, it's definitely a form of, if not R, definitely D
And so given that's been your experience, how do you think the role of the PM is different at a very early stage company versus one that's a little more mature and established? KUNAL GARG: Yeah
I think, just going back to those skills that we talked about earlier, it's up to you to set up those processes such that your team can be successful
And you have to really set a clear vision and strategy for developing a hypothesis and proving it right or wrong
So if you come into a larger-sized company that has reached product-market fit and they are just making iterations, you probably already have a culture around how you design PRDs or Product Requirements Docs
You probably have a culture around how you conduct research
A lot of those things probably are already set in place for your team
There's probably a repeatable sales cycle
A lot of those motions are already in place
And if you are doing product at an earlier stage, you have a lot of ownership there to define those for your own team
You might even be deciding your own ICP or Ideal Customer Profile
So there is a lot of ownership in that
There is more risk because you are deciding those things
But it is super rewarding when you do nail it and you get it right because you were involved in that whole conversation and got to make those decisions
So again, if you can be organized, set up those processes in place that the more enterprise companies have, and you go about in a regimented way, you have the hypothesis, you go about it in a scientific method approach, you're primed to be successful
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
I love that you're talking about the scientific method because it's something that, of course, we teach at the University as engineers, as researchers
And of course, it's something that many of us learn in grade school
And you think it's one of those things that, oh, yeah, scientific method, OK, I'm never going to touch this again like so many things that we learn in grade school
And you might never end up using again in your professional life
And the fact that we touch back on, it's a real thing
And that step-by-step process of creating questions and answering those questions is really the foundation of how we still learn when in fact, the outcome is uncertain
And this actually extends to one of the questions that's come in from Muhammad about how do we reduce the cost, both time and money, of experimenting on hypotheses like this? Because if you're going to use a question or hypothesis-based approach, how do you make sure that you're not burning cash endlessly with unsuccessful stuff? And I'd like to hear from both of you on what some of the approaches are that you've found to be able to do that
Kunal, what do you think? KUNAL GARG: I want to lean on one of the frameworks that we talk about in the course and that is the double diamond framework
I think one of the biggest learnings that folks take away from the course is you have to start in the problem space before you jump to the solution space
So if you view the problem space as one diamond and then the solution space is the second diamond, start in the problem space really getting a full understanding of all the different problems in this domain, narrow in on a specific problem, then think about all the solutions that can address that problem, and then narrow in on one final solution that solves it best
The reason I bring that up is you can save yourself so much time and energy if you do the frontloaded work of focusing on a problem that people actually face
And I was not successful with that
I did not practice that with my own startup
We pivoted at the beginning and we learned from our mistakes
But I'll tell you, you'll save so much time and energy if you focus on the problem first and then go to the solution
And on top of that, I think there are a lot of different research methods that you can apply at every step of that product lifecycle to make sure you're not jumping ahead
So you can do interviews
You can do A/B testing
You can do a lot of things across that whole range of research to make sure that you're not jumping ahead and making a decision that's a one-way door allowing you to kind of go back and make small iterations instead of jumping so far ahead
MICHAEL LEPECH: Sure
Arya, anything to add to that? ARYA TAYLOR: I think I want to just plus one to everything Kunal said
One of my mentors who has helped me a lot in product management said to me, if you've defined the problem correctly, the solution is obvious and that really stuck with me
Because the hard part is really defining the problem correctly and really knowing that it is a problem and it's worth solving
The solution is not really the glitz and glam part
I actually think the problem is where if you can figure that out, then you will find the right solution
So that's my only thing that I would add
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah, we always like to tell folks, fall in love with the problem, not the solution
And if you really figure out the problem, the solution that you get will be great
This also extends a little bit to a comment that was made by Philip saying that there are many frameworks out there and how do we know which one is going to be the best for a specific problem or solution
And my thoughts on that are this, we don't know which framework is going to be the best
Which is why we find that best approach is to teach you a cadre of frameworks
I talked about it before as kind of a tool belt with a bunch of frameworks that are in your tool belt ready to go
And when you confront a problem, pick one of those frameworks out of your tool belt and apply it
And if it gives you insight that is valuable in order to lead your team-- to lead your team forward, then it was the right framework for that time and that place
And if you're pulling this framework out, and you try it out, and it really doesn't give you any valuable insight into how to move forward, that's cool too
Move on to another framework that either we've taught you or that you know from someone else in your organization or your experience
Because I can't say that we know any better than anyone else about which frameworks are exactly applicable to which problems, which is why we try to give you a set of them so that you're ready for anything that comes your way and to apply a variety of different organizational techniques to solving those problems
So I want to go back to one of the questions that I had in my mind
So for junior PMs looking to cultivate the kind of skills that you had mentioned, empathy, communication, deep thinking, the ability to wear many hats, an organization in your DNA almost, and to be decisive, but it's OK to be wrong
How do you develop those things? How do you do-- how do you cultivate them? And we'll start this time with Arya
ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah, I think that's a great question
I think we've touched on a few of our experiences, Kunal and I
And I think the main thing to pull from that is try solving any problem
It doesn't need to be in tech
It doesn't even need to be-- it can just be anything that's happening in your day-to-day life, try thinking about that problem
Why is it a problem
How did it become a problem in today's world
There's infinite problems to solve
Just try solving one of them and see what happens from it
And you can push yourself to be regimented in the way that you do that by using a lot of the frameworks that we were talking about or even coming up with your own framework if you feel like you that works for you
A framework is only as good as you make it
MICHAEL LEPECH: Oh, and if your framework's really good, we're going to want to bring you in and talk about it so we can include it in our program, right? ARYA TAYLOR: True
That is true
But I will say that I think our program does a great job of taking you through a full product development life cycle end-to-end starting from the problem discovery itself all the way to how you would launch that
And I think that that would be a great class to take if you're looking to build your skills and really have a toolkit that you can use out in the real world
I think all the coaches are very much grounded in the real world
We don't want to give you advice that is just things you find when you just Google, what should I do as a product manager
We want to make sure that you're truly learning and you're truly able to use everything that you learn
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
What Arya is saying is she's not some head in the clouds professor like me
She actually knows what she's talking about
All right, Kunal, what do you think are some of the best ways to cultivate the skills as a junior PM that we talked about? KUNAL GARG: Yeah
I think there's a few
I really liked what Arya touched on, practicing, viewing the problems around you with a product lens
I think entrepreneurship lends to that
The barrier to entry for side projects and entrepreneurship has gotten lower and lower
One of my friends, he practiced entrepreneurship in his own life by building a check splitting app
And he just practiced that with the lens of product, being mindful of the user
And I think, Mike, what you had said earlier is another really good way to practice these skills
If you can take on small tasks or opportunities in your current roles where you can practice these skills-- MICHAEL LEPECH: Job crafting, yes
KUNAL GARG: Yeah, job crafting
It's the way to really practice and build those skills
In my engineering role at Wealthfront, I was actually a backend engineer
So not interacting with the customers at all
But I spoke to the product manager on a sister team and asked to sit in in their user interviews in their user research conversations, and just listen, and be involved in that conversation
Just after a few sessions of watching these calls and I think the amount that I learned in those few sessions was immeasurable
So just putting yourself in those environments is a great way to build those skills
MICHAEL LEPECH: Absolutely
So we're talking a bit about junior PMs
One of the questions that came in from Muhammad, and you work closely with the folks in our course, how much experience do you need as a PM to take our course? Kunal, what do you think? KUNAL GARG: Yeah, I think we have tried to build a course around the assumption that you have no experience with product management going into this course
You can have no experience with the tech industry as well
That is OK
You can come into the course without any of this background and we try and teach you those key phrases, key frameworks, key learnings that you would need to be successful and practice product management in a number of industries, not just tech
And it is definitely junior friendly to join this course
The frameworks are the key piece
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
And I couldn't agree with you more, even to the point where right now we're actually developing an additional course for advanced product management because this is really intended in its current state for junior PMs
So one of the things that I that I'd like to ask is for those that are aspiring to be a PM, and we have a number of questions that have come in from Henry saying, look, I started as a sales engineer but I want to maybe transition to a product role
We have questions from some other folks about how do you get into a job like this
So if you're someone who hasn't historically been in this role and Arya, we're going to start with you because you started as a data scientist and then moved into this role and we've already talked a little bit about that, what can you do to make your resume stand out and transition? And of course, the obvious answer is, oh, yes, take our course
But in addition to that, what do you think we can do? ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah, it's a great question
And I think the reality of the situation is it's really hard to get a product management job without having a product management experience
And that is an unfortunate circumstance to be in but I think there's ways around it
The first is what we mentioned earlier, job crafting in your current role
There's got to be some way or another that you could find a way to not just not manage a product, but even just manage a project, lead something, and get your leadership skills, develop those
And that in itself could be something that you put on your resume to say, I led this project, I worked with other teams, and I got this out the door
You don't have to be a product manager to do that so I highly recommend job crafting in that way
The other thing I would say is just do the side projects that we talked about
Add those on your resume as experiences
Once again, you don't need to have the title product manager but you could say, I started my own business
I launched an e-commerce website
These are all different side projects that I think can really resonate with hiring managers for junior PM roles
I myself am hiring a junior PM role right now
And when I look through the resumes, that's really what I'm looking for, is have you had some experience where you're leading something
It doesn't have to be that you were previously a product manager
So that would be my two cents
MICHAEL LEPECH: Sure
Kunal, what are your thoughts? KUNAL GARG: Yeah
I probably echo everything that Arya said, plus one to it all
I think there's a lot of literature out there as well to onramp you to the interview processes
I really like Lewis Lin as an author specifically focused around interviewing
And there are a few sites that help you prep for these processes
I think, job crafting
There also are some programs where you can practice product for nonprofits
So if you can investigate those and help out where you can, those are great ways to practice product management outside of your 9:00 to 5:00
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
Totally
I want to transition us towards some of the additional questions that have been coming in throughout the webinar and want to thank everyone who's been submitting questions
So a couple of questions for Michael and Margie have been focused on the product management role as it differs from project management
And those two first words, they're so close
And you're a manager regardless, right? How do you see those two being different? And we'll start with Kunal this time, we'll go to Arya, and then I also have some additional thoughts of my own as well
So Kunal, what do you see as the difference? And some of the other things that have been said is, how is it different from being a scrum master, which is very much a project management type of tool
KUNAL GARG: Yeah
I hope I don't steal too many of your words here because you might have spoken about this in some of the previous cohorts
But I'll also preface that it changes-- the overlap between product and project management becomes greater I think at earlier stages of the business
If you're at a startup, you might be doing some more project management work as a product manager
But the high level take that I have is that product managers don't necessarily have specific tasks that they need to be completed or specific feature that needs to be built
It's up to them to decide that strategy, to decide that feature that would solve that customer's pain point
But the project manager, the feature and the product has already been decided on
It's up to you to execute and implement that
So the work that leans more on the project management side is more planning around timelines, around breaking up tasks into bite-sized chunks, maybe more later-stage implementation like road mapping
But I view product management more earlier stage in that product life cycle, thinking about the strategy and where you would solve the customer's pain point without much definition in place, which is a pretty difficult task
MICHAEL LEPECH: Totally
Arya, what are your thoughts, project management versus product management? ARYA TAYLOR: Yeah, I know it's in the title but if you really think about it, when you're managing a product, you're thinking about a lot of things
You're thinking about what is the future of this product going to look like, how am I going to get the team there, what features am I going to prioritize, what should we not focus on right now
There's a lot of things around a product that you have to think about
When you're thinking about a project, I almost feel like it's a subcomponent of a product
To get a product to its next phase, there are multiple projects to get you there
And when you're managing a project, you're really trying to be very efficient with time and resources
That's your main goal
How can we get this out the door by a certain timeframe with the amount of resources that we have
What happens if one resource is out of office
What happens if another feature request that's more urgent comes into play
Those are the things that a project manager has to think about
While the product manager has to think about that whole product
So I think there's a difference in the scope that oftentimes gets conflated
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah, I couldn't agree more with both of you
And as I like to say in our introductory welcome for our course, I specifically differentiate between the project manager, the program manager, and the product manager roles
In that, as both of you alluded to, project management is a discipline in which the precedence of activities is known and the list of activities is known to get to completion of the project
And the classic example is building a building
OK, you've got a design for the building
And we know what it's going to take to get there
We know that we're going to have to probably pour the foundation before we build the walls, before we build the roof
And so the precedence of the steps and how you're going to move through it is known
It doesn't mean it's not incredibly challenging and everything can go wrong on the way there
But you know what you're doing and we have tools to help manage the resource and the times associated with getting there
The program manager is one that looks to manage numerous projects that are interrelated and you're looking to share best practices across different projects in order to get a much larger set of goals met
As you both alluded to, the product manager is much more like a venture
It's like trying to build a building where you don't know what the design is going to be
And so therefore, often it means rework
Often it means stepping back and saying, well, we did not get that right
And so in many regards, it's a completely different role
Now does it involve project management skills? Absolutely
Because yeah, you've got deadlines, you've got timelines, you've got resources you need to marshal
But it is fundamentally a very different role
And I think you both hit it right on the mark when you said that you were trying to balance that
Another couple of questions from Medric and Mahesh that relate to time management
What are some of the challenges you face when you're doing multiple products or multiple product managers and you're working simultaneously? And how do you manage workload and burnout and keep your team on the same page? And these questions are, of course, related as they both fit together
So what are some of the things that you found useful? KUNAL GARG: Arya, you go
ARYA TAYLOR: I'll go first, yeah
MICHAEL LEPECH: Oh, yeah, sorry
Arya, go ahead
ARYA TAYLOR: No, you're good
I think the main thing to say here is that prioritization is your friend
It is very easy to get burnt out especially if you're managing a big chunk of work
Even if it's a very, very small feature, honestly, you can go very, very deep into that
There's a lot of complexities at play
You may have teams coming to you asking for feature requests
Can you add this to your roadmap or can you help us with something that we're doing on our roadmap
And at the end of the day, you, as a product manager, need to be able to protect your time
You protect your team's time but you also need to protect your time
And that's where prioritization comes into play
There's always something that has to be prioritized but there's always a reason for something to be deprioritized and you need to be able to-- It's a common "buzzword" in the industry, ruthlessly prioritize
But truly, you need to ruthlessly prioritize your time as a product manager
And if there are issues where, hey, I have too many threads going on right now and I don't know how to manage this, you can always lean on your manager
You can always say like, hey, I don't think that this is sustainable for me
Here's my proposal
I think we need to deprioritize this and come back to it later
And that can start that conversation and help you avoid burnout
So just ruthlessly prioritize
MICHAEL LEPECH: For sure
Kunal, anything to add to that? KUNAL GARG: Yeah, a couple of things
Plus one on the consistent prioritization framework
One strategy that we had or we have at Brackett is in addition to just prioritizing in a scrum and agile framework, oftentimes, what happens, folks will prioritize the obviously high ROI elements
But what happens is sometimes there might be small bugs or small design changes that don't get enough attention
So we actually scheduled a one-hour UI jam every Monday to kick off the week
And we knock off those small UI tasks that improve quality of life for the product and makes everyone else excited about what we're building
Because sometimes, those little things that we get excited about, they get pushed to the side and you're just focusing on those big ROI tickets
So we found that to be really rewarding
I think, in general, protecting your mental health is super important
I do that with the gym
I have a specific calendar block for gym time in the morning
And I communicate that with my team
I think that helps convey that importance
And I do that with other aspects too
So I try and bucket all my meetings in certain blocks and then keep a block for deep work and IC or Individual Contributor work so I can actually get down to writing or writing out those PRDs or those documents
So having blocks dedicated to certain functions can help you reduce that context switching as well
And I think that helps with burnout
MICHAEL LEPECH: Yeah
I love the idea of having a Monday morning work meeting where you can just knock some stuff out
And you know what that taps into is our natural dopamine high
When you just do a few things, get them off that checklist, and you start the week with a dose of natural dopamine and you really hit the ground running that way, I love that
Arya, you were talking about ruthless prioritization
One of the questions that came in was frameworks and we have an example frameworks
And for prioritization, I always like to tell folks, check out the Eisenhower matrix
It's a two by two framework that helps you to prioritize time into unimportant and important tasks and those that are time sensitive and not time sensitive
And so check out the Eisenhower matrix and you can use it for your personal time
All right
There are a lot of questions left
And I want to thank everybody for submitting questions this has been a wonderfully interactive webinar
I want to thank Kunal and Arya for their support of our program as coaches and for their participation in sharing during today's webinar
Thank you both
I really appreciate your time
KUNAL GARG: Thank you so much
Really appreciate the questions
MICHAEL LEPECH: Annette, I'm going to let you close this out
SPEAKER: Sure thing
Thank you again, Mike, and Arya, and Kunal for this interesting and insightful conversation
I think our audience learned so much about essential product management skills, and learned a little bit more about our program, and the opportunity to work with you two in the accelerated program specifically
So to everyone in the audience with this live today, thank you all for your questions and participations
Again, I want to remind you that today's session was recorded and a link to the recording will be made available to all of you within a week
Have a great rest of your day
Thanks again
Goodbye.
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