what does a product manager do
TRANSCRIPT
Cloud Strategy MeetingO c t o b e r X X 2 0 1 5
Sandeep Grover, SVP Global Ecommerce Feedzai
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Agenda
• What is Product Management• Do we need it• Startup vs Large Fintech• How is it different for B2C vs B2B
• How to be a successful Product Manager• How to organize to get the most out of it
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My Background
Work Experience:• More than 15 years of Experience – Engineering, Product, General Management• 3 Years at Amazon.com leading the Risk/Fraud Team• 3 Years at GoDaddy.com leading Products for Small Businesses• Currently, SVP Global E-Commerce at Feedzai, a machine learning based Risk
Management Startup
Education:• MBA, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, US• B-Tech Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), India
Cloud Strategy MeetingO c t o b e r X X 2 0 1 5
Software is eating the world!
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What a Product Manager is not?
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Product Management connects the Outside w/ Inside
Product Management
Market• Current/
Prospective Customers
• Competition
Development Team
• Engineers, QA, Data Science
• Prod Marketing
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer and create shareholder value for an organization
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer and create shareholder value for an organization
• Customer can be Internal (Other teams in a company) or External
• Lots of Customers (B2C) or Few (Enterprise)
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer and create shareholder value for an organization
• Organization can be Small (startup) or Large (Big bank)
• Any Industry Vertical (Internet or Fintech)
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer to create shareholder value for an organization
• Customer has Pain Points but they may or may not know about it• Customer will most likely not know how to solve that pain point• If you ask them, they will give you a narrow solution• Product Manager validates and identifies the problem at hand• Product Manager will decide if the problem needs to be solved
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer to create shareholder value for an organization
• Solution - could be a product or service• Product Manager will use various tools to find the best possible solution
• B2C = User Surveys, Usability tests, A/B tests, analyze data• B2B = Talk to Customers, Sales, Customer Reps, Look at competition,
Research Reports• Product Manager will quantify the key metrics that the solution will drive:
• Could be user engagement, revenue, profit, more users or even making the engineers more productive
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer to create shareholder value for an organization
• Product Manager will be the champion and drive launches• Work with Engineers/QA/Technical Writer/UX to build a solution that meet the
requirements• Prioritize and make sure the most important stuff is delivered first• Communicate Progress to the Executive Stakeholders• Work with Legal to ensure compliance• Train the Sales people or Customer service people• Build and Manage the brand of the product
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Product Management
Product Management = Deliver innovative solutions on behalf of a customer to create shareholder value for an organization
• Product Manager’s role is to create shareholder value by:• Prioritizing the right projects for the product and the company that would
result in:• Getting more users, retaining them, Generating more value per customer• Increasing topline, bottomline etc.• Driving Partnerships, Proposals, answering RFPs
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Product Manager: Examples of what they can do
Product Managers is a strategic and business oriented role, focused on delivering solutions to Market Needs:
PM:Identify opportunities that meet Market needs
PM:Launch Products into the Market; Find Product Market Fit
PM:Improve and Grow the product line to scale
PM:Oversee Existing Products in the Market
PM:Wind down products that no longer meet Market Needs
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Product Manager: How they will do it?
• Competitive Analysis
• Usability test• User Surveys• Conferences• Talk to
Competition Customers
• MVP Launch• Get Early
Feedback• Write Business
Requirements• Fail fast
• Maintain and track Metrics
• Growth Hacking• A/B Tests• Backlog Building• Documentation
• Metrics tracking• Backlog
grooming• Internal Exec
Reviews
• End of Life Products
• Work with Legal
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Product Manager : Summary
Lead TeamsAssess Opportuniti
es
Maintain/Wind down
Products
Drive Launches
Market: Customers
Internal Teams
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Product Manager Job/Titles can vary
• Product Managers can sometimes be called:• Program Manager (Internal facing product and is more execution focused
working with several cross company teams)• Technical Product Manager (PM in a Platform team dealing with APIs/SDKs)• Product Marketing Manager (PM focused on Go to Market for a white labeled
product)
• Role and Responsibility can vary by:• Industry/Company• B2C vs B2B• Startup vs Mature• Internal vs External Customers
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Example of a PM in B2C Companies
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Example of a PM helping Internal Teams
• At a Large company, four different teams are integrating with some code base at the function level – the team is maintaining 3 different version of code bases
• A savvy PM might realize that an API might better serve his clients• Starts socializing this with internal teams to get feedback• Teams like the idea but resist the change as there is work involved on their side as
well• Savvy PM builds a business case for it quantifying the cost/benefit for the company• Garners executive support for the project• Proposes timelines, executes and communicates progress to all stakeholders
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Checklist to become a good PM
What needs to be done and Why?• Make sure you are solving the biggest impact problem• Articulate the Value and Vision early on• Gather Exec Support early on to make sure its funded• Tools – Hear the Customers (directly, indirectly), Analyze Data, Don’t neglect CompetitionLeading Teams:• Cause the team to have a shared understanding of the Product – this should included extended
team such as Marketing, Legal, Sales, BD• Give People Problems/Questions/Hypotheses (What and Why) rather than Solutions (How)• Make yourself redundant• People should see you as the CEO of the ProductExecution:• Be there to answer any questions team may have on a daily basis• Fail Fast
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How to Organize to get the most out of PM
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How to Organize to get the most out of PM
BU Leader
Product Management Engineering Operations Marketing Sales
UX
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Q&A
Thank You