Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Leading cross-functional teams and the product manager
Search
Ken Norton
April 11, 2013
Technology
25
79k
Leading cross-functional teams and the product manager
What I wish I'd known before I became a PM.
More of my writing and speaking at
Bring the Donuts
.
Ken Norton
April 11, 2013
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ken Norton
See All by Ken Norton
Google Tech Hubs: OKRs and Product Management
kennethn
4
580
Communicating for Product Managers
kennethn
4
23k
How to work with engineers
kennethn
31
260k
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
グイグイ系QAエンジニアでやっていくよ!
____rina____
0
770
「知的単純作業」を自動化する、地に足の着いた大規模言語モデル (LLM) の活用
nrryuya
8
8.2k
OPENLOGI Company Profile
hr01
0
46k
YJIT Makes Rails 1.7x faster / RubyKaigi 2024
k0kubun
3
460
Kaggleで学ぶ系列データのための深層学習モデリング
yu4u
7
1.7k
多言語化対応における TypeScript の型定義を通して開発のしやすさについて考えた / TSKaigi TypeScript Multilingualization
nabeliwo
2
390
Cloudflare WorkersがPythonに対応したので試してみた
miura55
0
190
LINEヤフーのウェブアクセシビリティ
lycorptech_jp
PRO
2
180
TypescriptでのContextualな構造化ロギングと社内全体への導入
leveragestech
3
590
大規模言語モデル (LLM)における低精度数値表現
pfn
PRO
3
830
Shinagile 2024
kawaguti
PRO
2
120
AWS CLIの起動が重くてつらいので aws-sdk-client-go を書いた / kamakura.go#6
fujiwara3
6
3.2k
Featured
See All Featured
Atom: Resistance is Futile
akmur
260
25k
Producing Creativity
orderedlist
PRO
338
39k
The MySQL Ecosystem @ GitHub 2015
samlambert
244
12k
Templates, Plugins, & Blocks: Oh My! Creating the theme that thinks of everything
marktimemedia
20
1.8k
The Language of Interfaces
destraynor
151
23k
Robots, Beer and Maslow
schacon
PRO
155
8k
Building Better People: How to give real-time feedback that sticks.
wjessup
356
18k
Rails Girls Zürich Keynote
gr2m
91
13k
Designing on Purpose - Digital PM Summit 2013
jponch
111
6.5k
Practical Orchestrator
shlominoach
183
9.8k
Web Components: a chance to create the future
zenorocha
306
41k
Fireside Chat
paigeccino
22
2.7k
Transcript
Leading Cross-Functional Teams Ken Norton VP, Products JotSpot, Inc.
What am I going to talk about • A disjointed
set of learnings • What I wish I’d known before • (There will only be two formulas)
Here’s the good news.
You have the resources.
You are completely accountable.
You are ready to go.
But…
You have no authority.
And everyone is skeptical.
Why?
Without sales, nobody would sell. Without engineering, nobody would build.
Without support, customers would riot.
Without product managers?
Life would be just fine.
(For a while.)
Organizational structure: What you are working with
What you’ve probably learned:
Functional organization. PM
Weak matrix. PM
Strong matrix. PM
What you actually find.
The real world. PM
The reality. • You will not be closely supervised. •
Little to no authority will be handed to you. • You will not have direct managerial oversight for the people who work on your stuff. • You will be highly accountable for success (or lack thereof).
The team: Who you are working with
7 ± 2 Ideal team size.
7 ± 2 (That’s the first formula).
Always trust your instincts.
If you don’t have the right team, get it.
There is nothing more important to invest “political capital” on.
Communicating: How you are working with who you are working
with
There are only three things you need to remember.
1. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them
what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” (General George Patton)
2. Communicate to different people in their own language.
3. Represent the points of view of the people not
in the room.
How to get respect from engineers.
Clear obstacles. Always take the blame. Ask smart questions. Explain
the “why.” Empathize. Bring the donuts.
How to get respect from sales.
Know their number. Get on the phone with customers. Make
promises so they don’t have to. Help them be creative. Bring the donuts.
How to get respect from executives.
Have a vision. Be patient. Know your competition. Make your
commitments. Bring the donuts.
How to get respect from customers.
Understand what they want. Call them out of the blue.
Keep your promises. Take the blame. Bring the donuts.
A. B. S.
Always Be Shipping.
Nothing helps a team become efficient more than a steady
release tempo.
Agile development.
Can be extremely effective.
But requires hard work and experience.
If you do nothing else…
Have a fifteen minute daily meeting.
Ask your team three questions: • What have you completed
since our last meeting? • What will you have done by tomorrow’s meeting? • What’s standing in your way and how can I help?
Estimating work.
Product Manager: “When can you get this done? Today?”
Engineer: “Well, I think it needs more time.”
Product Manager: “We need it ASAP. What about tomorrow by
end of day?”
Engineer: “Uh, OK.”
The right question: “What needs to happen for you to
finish, and what can I do to help?”
Rule of thumb for estimates.
Likely estimate (L): “How long do you think it will
take?”
Pessimistic estimate (P): “OK, but what’s the longest it could
take, accounting for unforeseen roadblocks?”
Optimistic estimate (O): “What’s the least amount of time required
if everything goes well?”
O + (L x 4) + P 6 What you
plan.
Another rule of thumb for estimates.
Never assume more than 5 hours of progress per developer
per day.