About PM

Question 1

What is a PM

Answer 1

• Making sure the team delivers a great product
• Product Strategy: what game are we playing (vision, value, differentiation), how do we keep score (metrics)
• Talk to users about their needs, translate those needs to product goals and features then prioritize what Is the. next right thing to build
• execution: product req, roadmap, project management, analytics (metrics dashboard)
• Liaison between engineering, design, QA, c-levels, marketing, etc.
• Don’t have direct authority to team member, influence using research and vision

Question 2

Research and Planning

Answer 2

• What to build next, from existing usage metrics, user interview, customer request and feedback, competitive analysis, new technology, product vision, request from marketing or sales
• Mostly working on Product Roadmap
• Based on customer needs, business needs, and team’s expertise, a PM prioritise features to build and bug to fix
• Once a feature is picked, the PM will be the expert on what problems we’re trying to solve and goals of the feature. Anytime anyone asks ‘why we’re building this?’ PM will have the answer
• Define success and measurable metrics, PM writes OKR with engineers
• Epics > User Stories > Acc Criteria > Backlog Item

Question 3

Design

Answer 3

• UI, features, functionality
• goals, use cases, wireframes
• PM sits down with UI/UX designer to talk about goals, brainstorm about interaction and give iterative feedback regarding the design
• product requirements
• epic > user stories > acc criteria

Question 4

Implementation

Answer 4

• Helping engineers work as efficient as possible
• SCRUM Ceremonies: Sprint Planning, Daily Meeting, Iteration Review (Demo Days), Retrospective
• Gather early feedback and bugs from dogfooding, usability testing, and experiments

Question 5

Release

Answer 5

• Checking off launch checklist
• Approvals from stakeholder
• Coordination with marketing, operation, sales

Question 6

Qualities of a Good PM

Answer 6

• Deep technical knowledge, able to relate with engineers and understand the technical complexity of what is in the backlog w/out much explanation necessary. Empathy with engineers adversity, engineers usually likes PM to have an engineering background. Better forecasting
• Understand design, able to differentiate great and good design and communicate goals of a product to the designer
• Great communicator (and writer), can make a case that is impossible to refute or ignore by leveraging data when available, but also beliefs, biases, and triggers to influence
• Able to prioritise, effort vs value, offense (product growth) and defense (refactorization, bug fixing, tech debt, etc)
• Able to estimate, from experience, discussion with engineers, and benchmark
• Willing to step out of job description boundaries, fill the gaps on execution