I was honored to join Cindy Solomon’s Product Management Talk podcast series on April 16th. Co-hosted by Adrienne Tan and Nick Coster, we had a lively conversation about Galvanizing The Product Management Career Path.
I’m back from a week of product management workshops and seminars in Sweden, including a Product Leadership event hosted by Tolpagorni’s Magnus Billgren.
In a half-dozen discussions with the heads of product management groups, I was struck by how familiar their concerns are. We could have been in Sunnyvale rather than in Stockholm. Topics that came up repeatedly:
My last two posts were about getting into product management and the climb to Director. This third post asks how Vice Presidents of Product Management (VP PMs) are different from Directors, why they are so rare, and where else Directors can look for organizational advancement.
Product groups vary widely and are not rationally designed. (Sorry.) So let’s imagine a pure VP PM position generalized from my own tours of duty plus a half-dozen interim/acting VP PM roles. Your organizational mileage may vary. Continue reading
I had a chance to spend a week with some of Dublin’s software thought leaders, including two days teaching in a Postgraduate Diploma Program in Product Management offered by the Dublin Institute of Technology and Software Skillnet. In addition, the Irish Software Association generously hosted a workshop and lecture, where we talked about technology management, agile, and building commercially successful products. Continue reading
In the second of three posts about the product management hierarchy, we’ll focus on technology product managers (PMs) who’ve been in their jobs long enough to consider what comes next. (User story: “As a Senior Product Manager, I want to be promoted to Director so that I get more money and respect and glory.”)
Let’s break this problem into a few parts: likely candidates for promotion; how the Director job differs from line Product Management; and ways to show that you’re ready for a bigger role. Continue reading
Looking over dozens of discussions, presentations and Quora threads from the last few months, a frequent question has been “How do I get a job in technical product management?” Here is the first of three posts split along job levels:
John Peltier is a seasoned product manager out of Atlanta, and does a periodic 
webcast with guest product folks posted on his Product Owner Vision blog. He generously included me in an interview posted on12 December. We recorded a half hour discussion covering:
Listen to the entire session here.
As a break from stealth start-up work, I led a discussion for SDForum’s Engineering Leadership SIG on “How Engineering Can Work Better with Product Management.” This was a VERY spirited discussion…
We gathered some (good and bad) experiences from attendees about their interactions with product management, tried to define what the PM role is, and shared some thoughts on how to cooperate better for great products and organizations. Lots of questions about how to get into product management, and why people would stay in such a role! Continue reading
This year’s Silicon Valley Product Camp (the fourth!) drew the largest crowd ever of product managers and product marketers to share, network, learn and have fun! Estimated at almost 600 and hosted at eBay’s Paypal/San Jose location, it pulled attendees from around the continent for nearly 40 sessions. It also included a job fair with a dozen local companies. I was honored to be emcee and event coordinator emeritus, having passed PCamp management to new leadership.
I ran a session on Understanding the Next Job Up and Getting Promoted…
I got an early look at allthis – a community of people using their talents, skills, and social connections to support their favorite causes. Hope that you’ll visit as well, and participate if the spirit moves you.
In brief, allthis lets people post offers (services, goods, special items) that they’ll provide in return for charitable donations. You do what you’re good at (or what you hope others will appreciate), and 100% of the money goes directly to the cause of your choosing. Continue reading