Building and Scaling a Successful Product Team

This is an overview of how to build and scale a successful product team. I cover PM basics, types of PMs you might want to hire as you grow, some structural considerations, and some helpful ways to think about your product team depending on your company type and size. Presented at ProductCamp PDX 2020

Transcript

1. Building and Scaling a Successful Product Team Brian M. Levine Senior Product Manager Springbrook Software Brian.Levine@sprbrk.com @ProdMgmtBrian
2. About Me • 15+ Years of PM and BI experience in enterprise FinTech products, Investments, B2B SaaS, and B2C mobile applications • Built and scaled product teams at the SMB and enterprise levels • Fly-fishing, skiing, my dogs, punk rock/HC Agile UX Technical Business
3. What A Product Manager Is Value Creation • Developers • Designers • Engineers Value Capture • Sales • Exec team • Support • Customer PM
4. Building PM Teams “’Company culture’ doesn’t exist apart from the company itself: no company has a culture; every company is a culture.” – Peter Thiel, Zero to One
5. What an Individual PM Needs to Be Successful • Translation • Organization • Flexibility • Execution • Horsepower
6. What an Individual PM Does NOT need to be successful • Pedigree • Certs/Education • Domain Expertise • Martyrdom • Tech Chops “Good product managers crisply define the target, the ‘what’… and manage the delivery of the ‘what.’ Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out ‘how’.” - Ben Horowitz, Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager ” “
7. Product Team Structure Options For Smaller Teams For Larger Teams SMEs BA>>APM>>PM>>SR Overlapping T’s Front End/Back End etc. Portfolio Giraffe model By Function As you grow, continue to assess the effectiveness of your approach – the worst thing you can do is forget to recalibrate.
8. T-Shaped PM Model CORE SKILLSET + COMMON TRAITS U N C O M M O N M A S T E R Y Broad knowledge of shared truths and foundational skills coupled with deep expertise in a useful domain is a traditional, but useful model for an ideal PM.
9. Overlapping T’s CORE SKILLSET + COMMON TRAITS U N C O M M O N M A S T E R Y S K I L L A S K I L L B S K I L L C S K I L L D S K I L L D S K I L L E S K I L L F S K I L L G S K I L L H S K I L L I Good overlap = less need for additional FTEs
10. Scaling PM Teams “…Being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.” – Tina Fey, Bossypants
11. What Role Suits Your Needs? For SMBs For Enterprise Player/Manager Protector/Promoter Waterperson Convergence Point Hybrid For smaller companies trying to hit scale, you’re still going to have to do a lot of the work; for larger companies, it’s more of an orchestration game.
12. Hire For Fit Role Type Team Impact Player/Manager Don’t hire someone who duplicates your position Waterperson model Hire for self-direction, independent action, comfort with ambiguity Convergence Point Big thinkers thrive here, but need someone who can execute (a doer to offset the dreamers) Protector/Promoter Good for established products or larger organizations, can take its toll professionally, though Hybrid Easy to move from one to the other gradually, hard to move quickly Avoid inheriting the wrong team by setting expectations early. Tell them what you’re going to do, then let them meet your expectations.
13. Source: Pendo State of Product Leadership, 2020 52% 29% Product or Operations Team Own It If your teams owns ops, you’ll struggle to scale 19% Plan To Hire Can come from inside, ideally, or from an ops- minded new hire Hire for Scale: Product Ops Have Dedicated Product Ops Resource Having someone to wrangle the data, connect the dots, keep the trains running, manage the releases and comms can help keep things clean 96% of companies over $1b in revenue report the presence of a dedicated product ops resource compared with just 17% under $25m in revenue.
14. Scaling vs. Scaffolding Scaling Scaffolding Hiring a design team for long-term design challenges Contract designers Buying the tools you need to do real analysis Getting by with free tools, excel soup Getting a real training budget Cobbled-together, peer-led “training” or knowledge transfer Crisp interplay between support and product Passing the buck back and forth, leaving the customer in the mud Success metrics are visible and easily gathered Success is black box and getting ”the numbers” is always a chore Scaling is lasting growth, scaffolding is temporary support
15. Where is Your Team Weakest Today? • Talking to customers • Analyzing data • Gathering requirements • Prioritizing backlog • Execution • Shipping the damn thing “Good teams engage directly with end- users and customers every week, to better understand their customers, and to see the customer’s response to their latest ideas. Bad teams think they are the customer.” - Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group ” “
16. Company Type: Key Skills Startup SMB Enterprise Culture > Skill Business acumen Process comfort Focus on HP Growth Focus Diplomacy + Drive EQ + IQ Goal fit Position player Stage Presence Vision discipline Consistency Needs vary depending on company size and desired outcomes. The goal is to build your team in a way that enables the next 1-3 years of growth, not the next 3-5 months.
17. Outsourcing Considerations India – Good cost models, communication and coordination can be challenging for the uninitiated South America – Timezones can align well with US business hours, and is a little more expensive, but can be worth it APAC – Timezone nightmare. Low cost. Good for big, but straightforward products/projects
18. Product Team Failure Modes Failure Mode Symptom Priority Paralysis Everything is the most important thing Execu-Cution Trap Team builds based on ideas of one key (usually senior) person MVP != MTWCB You’re shipping what you can build, not what you should built Operations Overload Team doing ops work, not talking to customers, backlog hygiene Scaling means growth, and growth means diagnosing and quickly remedying the problem.
19. Key Points • Good PM teams are comprised of good PMs that fit your culture perfectly • Above all else, build a team that listens and executes • Hitting scale is about understanding how to divide up your team’s resources and apply them • Build teams for growth, but don’t overbuild too early Dysfunctional PM teams cannot listen to the customer, communicate with engineering, or align stakeholder expectations.
20. What Questions Can I Answer For You? Contact Info @ProdMgmtBrian Brian.Levine@sprbrk.com