Product Teams

This talk was presented on October 11th 2017 at UC Berkeley for the Valley Consulting Group.

Transcript

1. Product Teams
   October 11th 2017 | UC Berkeley
   @dasmersingh
   

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2. June 2013
   

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3. August 2013
   

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4. Timeline into Technology
   Graduated from
   Columbia
   Engineering
   Started at
   JP Morgan
   Left JP
   Morgan
   Learned iOS Development +
   Released 6 apps in the App Store
   Started as
   an iOS
   Engineer at
   Venmo
   May 2013 June 2013 August 2013 February 2014
   

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5. My Background (at Venmo)
   iOS
   Engineer
   February 2014 July 2016
   Product
   Manager
   January 2016
   Strategy
   Associate
   September 2017
   Moved on
   to GSB
   

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6. Takeaways
   ● Keep an open mind about your career
   ● Trust your gut
   ● You never know what skills will come in handy
   ● Invest in learning about different careers and industries
   ○ Intern
   ○ Attend career panels and talks like this
   

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7. Today’s Agenda
   1) Roles: What positions makes up a product team?
   2) Process: How does a product team collaborate on a project?
   3) Hired: How can you land a PM Job?
   

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8. Today’s Agenda
   1) Roles: What positions makes up a product team?
   2) Process: How does a product team collaborate on a project?
   3) Hired: How can you land a PM Job?
   

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9. Roles: What positions make up a product
   team?
   ● Product Manager
   ● Data Analyst
   ● Designer
   ● Engineer
   ● Quality Assurance Engineer
   ● User Tester
   

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10. Responsibilities of a Product Manager
    ● Assessing product
    opportunities
    ● Defining requirements
    ● Validating the product with
    real customers
    ROLES
    

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11. Responsibilities of a Data Analyst
    ● Providing data to support or
    reject potential projects
    ● Establishing KPI’s
    ● Designing A/B tests
    ● Analyzing test results to
    make recommendations
    ROLES
    

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12. Responsibilities of a Designer
    ● Creating what you see in the
    product
    ● Developing a deep
    understanding of the target
    users and personas
    ● Rapid Prototyping
    ROLES
    

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13. Responsibilities of an Engineer
    ● Providing feasibility
    estimates
    ● Writing production code
    ● Testing production code
    ● Reviewing code written by
    peers
    ROLES
    

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14. Responsibilities of a QA Engineer
    ● Writing and executing
    manual test cases
    ● Coding automated tests
    ● Logging bugs
    ROLES
    

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15. Responsibilities of a User Tester
    ● Recruiting test subjects
    ● Evaluating results and
    recommending alternatives
    ROLES
    

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16. Today’s Agenda
    1) Roles: What positions makes up a product team?
    2) Process: How does a product team collaborate on a project?
    3) Hired: How can you land a PM Job?
    

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17. Process: How does a product team
    collaborate on a project?
    1. Write a narrative
    2. Share and get feedback
    3. Flesh out the narrative
    4. Kickoff Project
    5. Create Product Spec Tickets
    6. Execute
    7. Celebrate
    8. Test & Measure Impact
    

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18. Write a narrative
    ● Outlines the problem being
    solved
    ● Every major feature idea has
    one
    ● Used by all stakeholders
    PROCESS
    

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19. Components of a Narrative
    ● Problem
    ● Context
    ● Goals
    ● Milestones
    ● Metrics
    ● Potential Pitfalls
    ● Open Questions
    PROCESS
    

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20. Share and get feedback
    ● User test and gather data to verify the problem
    ● Have stakeholders identify issues and opportunities
    ● Confirm metrics with leadership
    PROCESS
    

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21. ● A meeting with everyone working on the project. All members
    should have reviewed the narrative beforehand
    ● 2-3 weeks before coding is anticipated
    ● Goal to arrive at shared context and agreement on product team
    Kickoff
    PROCESS
    

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22. ● Detailed building blocks of work
    ● Tickets should be separate for each platform
    Product Specification Tickets
    PROCESS
    

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23. ● Summary
    ● Assignee
    ● Priority
    ● Due Date
    ● Description
    ● Component
    ● Points
    Fields in a Ticket
    PROCESS
    

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24. ● Stands (daily)
    ● Sprint Planning (sprintly)
    ● Retro (every few weeks)
    Execute in (1-2 week) Sprints
    PROCESS
    

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25. ● Ship to a small cohort
    ● Wait for a larger enough event sample
    ● Measure KPI’s
    ● Decide whether to ramp to 100% or pivot
    Test & Measure Impact
    PROCESS
    

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26. Today’s Agenda
    1) Roles: What positions makes up a product team?
    2) Process: How does a product team collaborate on a project?
    3) Hired: How can you land a PM Job?
    

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27. Hired: How can you land a PM Job?
    ● Practice writing product specifications
    ○ For your own idea
    ○ Ideas on dribbble.com
    ● Run with an idea and start a side-project (or join one)
    ● Learn to use basic event tracking software
    ● Take an intro computer science and / or UX class
    ● Read, Listen, Watch Tech Media
    

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28. Recommended Books
    ● “Inspired” by Marty Cagan
    ● “Sprint” by Jake Knapp
    ● “The Lean Startup” by Eric Reis
    ● “Hooked” By Nir Eyal
    ● “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrell Huff
    

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29. Recommended Blogs
    ● blog.trello.com
    ● blog.mixpanel.com
    

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30. Recommended WWDC Videos
    

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31. End
    

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32. What Questions Do You Have?
    

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33. Appendix
    

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34. Some of the products I built at Venmo
    BLE Nearby Mentions Touch ID Emoji Autocomplete
    

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35. May 2013
    

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