How technical should a PM be?

Transcript

1. Should a PM know how to code? Director, Product Manager @ Labs Graham Siener @gsiener Technical Literacy
2. AKA why should I care? • Enterprise Software Developer • Startup Product Owner • Helped grow our PM team from 4 to 50 About Me
3. AKA how can I help? • Developers • Product Owners • Taxidermists Who are you?
4. What makes a PM successful?
5. Do you improve your product every time you push new features?
6. Do you improve your product every time you push new features? Can you prove it?
7. Does anybody like what you’re building?
8. Does anybody like what you’re building? Who are they? What do they have in common?
9. How do you prioritize your product’s roadmap?
10. How do you prioritize your product’s roadmap? Does your team agree?
11. From the experts
12. (Good PM, Bad PM) Ben Horowitz Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence. ...is the CEO of the product. ...takes full responsibility and measures themselves in terms of the success of the product. They are responsible for right product/right time and all that entails.
13. (How to hire a PM) Ken Norton Hire Smart people Strong technical background Spidey-sense product instincts and creativity Leadership that's earned Ability to channel multiple points-of-view
14. (Customer Development) Steve Blank Build Measure Learn
15. (Customer Development) Steve Blank Form Measure Learn
16. (Metrics for Pirates) Dave McClure Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue
17. (need to be technical to be a PM?) Ellen Chisa
18. (Confessions of a Non-Tech PM) Julie Babb The Product is the boss Tell a great story Be available Ask questions Speak up + Listen @awkward_hug
19. Agile Lean Empathy (This talk) Me ==> Fluency
20. Where a PM lives
21. Who a PM lives with
22. PM Des Dev Ubiquitous Language
23. Convey needs of product Know when to call YAGNI
24. Development is the most expensive part of your process, optimize for it
25. Do as much work as you can before you need a developer to help.
26. Run your app locally Write SQL queries Run rails console Understand logfiles Use curl to accept API stories
27. An Example: Cart abandonment email
28. Hey, answer the question already!
29. No. PMs don’t need to be technical, but they should be fluent!
30. Q/A