Product Growth Leaders | Product Conversations with Grant Hunter

Best Background for Hiring Product Managers

Hear our panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - when hiring internally for a new product manager, what background do you look for? 

Hear why Steve may have biased our poll with his well-known opinion that Sales Engineers are the best background

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• Which is harder for someone to learn, a specific industry/domain or product management?
• What are the most common reasons why someone new to product management does not succeed in product management?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "What do you think is the most important attribute to look for when hiring someone new to product management?"

Check-out Jon's summary of our conversation on his blog at https://jonharmer.medium.com/another-week-another-excellent-product-growth-leaders-topic-of-the-week-discussion-8bf627e73602

 

This week we try some new technology for the recording, and Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are again joined by Jason Vincelette, Gregg Fenton, and Jon Harmer the best background to look for when hiring product managers.

Introducing Product Management to an Organization

Hear our panel discuss introducing the function of product management to an organization, how product management is happening in one way or another, how Jon built a motley crew for the first product management organization, and Grant getting excited about Yes-and.

Listen to us discuss our key recommendations to an organization looking to bring the product management function into their organization, including discussions on our poll about the best background for the first product manager at a company.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• Is a company doing product management, even if they don’t have a formal product management function?
• Outside of who to hire, what should be the major considerations for an organization as they launch a product management function?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "If you could give one piece of advice to someone joining a company as their first product management resource, what would it be?"

Check-out Jon's summary of our conversation on his blog at https://jonharmer.medium.com/bringing-product-management-to-a-company-for-the-first-time-987fb2b7befd

 

This week Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are joined by Jason Vincelette, Gregg Fenton, and Jon Harmer to talk about creating a product management function.

Retrospectives

Hear our panel discuss when is the best time to have retrospectives, the difference between post mortems and retrospectives (and how like Win-Loss analysis we need to look at successes and failures), and join Gregg Fenton as he defends his dissertation on retrospectives.

Listen to us discuss when we do have retrospectives, the desire for an "all of the above" choice, and how different the answers would have been if we asked, "How often should you do retrospectives?"

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• Should retrospectives be part of the strategic and/or annual planning process?
• Where do you think retrospectives provide the most value, process improvement, product improvement, or something else?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "A retrospective for retrospectives: How will you change your approach to retrospectives after this week’s topic and conversation?"

This week Steve Johnson and I are joined by Jason Vincelette, Robert Goldberg, Paul Hurwitz, Gregg Fenton, and Jon Harmer to talk about retrospectives.

Product Management Chaos

Hear our panel discuss where they find the most chaos in their product management process, including 15 years of Jason Vincelette's chaos and being the VP of NO, Steve ranting about his antagonist Kevin (the world's worst salesperson) and getting on his soapbox on role clarity, and Robert thinking about failures in build-buy-partner.

Listen to us debate if we find more chaos with executives, development, marketing, or product management ourselves.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• How much chaos is created by lack of process versus lack of adhering to process?
• What is the best approach to getting out of the chaos?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "What is your first piece of advice to a product manager dealing with chaos?"

This week Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are joined by Jason Vincelette and Robert Goldberg,  and to talk about product management chaos.

Product Lifecycle Management

Hear our panel discuss the dynamics and metrics we find most valuable when managing a product's lifecycle, including the two different TTM (Trailing Twelve Months, and Time To Market), and great input from Laurie on the great business performance KPIs to utilize during for lifecycle management.

Listen to us debate if Decline or Inception (Getting to Product-Market Fit) is more difficult to manage, and hear me tell Charles Handy's Second Curve story.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• What is the biggest challenge with Product Lifecycle Management?
• What aspect of product management needs to change the most as a product moves through its lifecycle?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "For a new product manager, what would be your best advice to help them manage the lifecycle of their product?"

This week Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are joined by Robert Goldberg,  and Laurie Harvey to talk about product lifecycle management.

What is a Product?

Hear our panel tend to agree about what is a product, exploring the differences around problems, needs, wants, etc., and then explore the behavioral and psychological outcomes in a Jobs-to-be-done around wants and needs. [and here Grant say "right" way too many times while we discuss the product of pizza].

Learn about which concept from Market Problems, Under/Un-met Needs and Wants, and Jobs to be Done (JTBD) our panelists prefer.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• Are Market Problems, Needs and Jobs To Be Done interchangeable concepts?
• When are services products? Or, how do you productize services?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "What is your best take on the definition of “product”?", including a deep dive on the importance of experience being part of the product.

This week Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are joined by Jason Vincelette, Jon Harmer, Robert Goldberg,  and Tom Caragher.

Tough Product Management Decisions

Hear our panel (perhaps our largest ever) discuss their toughest decisions and where they went for advice, with a strong focus on End-of-Life and killing new product ideas (including how at Google you have to convince leadership you should KEEP doing something), along with some thoughts on migrating (or not migrating) feature requests to a new tool, shifting a product strategy for an idea the head of product had, and overcoming an executive trying to be the tail wagging the dog.

Learn our thoughts on why Strategy/Roadmap prioritization was voted the most frequent type of tough decision, and the difference between product lifecycle related and EOL decisions.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• What is the best way to handle a recommendation on a tough decision that leadership ignores?
• How do you best prepare and support your team when they are faced with tough decisions?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "What/who are your go-to sources for advice when facing a tough decision?" Including Jon Harmer's "three or four dudes in a Slack channel."

This week Grant Hunter is joined by Jason Vincelette, Gregg Fenton, Jon Harmer, Paul Hurwitz, Brian Weber, Mounika Sanikommu, Robert Goldberg,  and Tom Caragher to talk about tough product management decisions we have faced.

Evolution of Market Engagement for Discovery

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette, Rob Goldberg, and Tom Caragher.

 

Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, how does market engagement for discovery need to evolve?​

 

See the results to the Wednesday poll, what is the most important thing product management can do to improve market engagement for discovery?

 

Get our take on the questions:

What is going to be the biggest difference between market engagement in 2022 versus 2019?​

How will better access and analysis of data impact market engagement?​

 

And, listen to the answers to our Lightning Round question, where is the biggest impact of new approaches to market engagement going to be seen?​

Product Management as Business Leaders

Hear our panel discuss how product management can demonstrate business leadership, including the importance of the balance between soft skills and hard skills, the importance of understanding the user personas of their internal business, and the importance of focusing the company on the right problems to solve. 

Learn why the panel thinks "Strategy" was unanimously picked in the poll, and why many said they would change their vote to "Collaboration" if they could go back.

Get our two-cents on the following questions:

• What is the biggest mistake product managers make that get in the way of them becoming a business leader?
• What is your best advice to a product manager looking to become more of a business leader?

And get our rapid-fire answers from every panelist on "How would you approach getting leadership to realize the business leadership role product management can play?"

This week Steve Johnson and Grant Hunter are joined by Jason Vincelette, Robert Goldberg,  and Jon Harmer to talk about Product Management as business leaders.

Product Management 2021 and Beyond

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette, Jon Peltier, Anita Wood, Rob Goldberg, Gregg Fenton, and Jason Brett

Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question: How do you see product management changing in 2021 and beyond?

See the results to the Wednesday poll: What changes do you think will have the biggest impact on product management in 2021 and beyond?

Get our take on the questions: As we look into the ongoing role of product management in an organization, aspirationally what should it be?

How will the evolution of the role of product manager change the requirements and expectations of the job?

And, listen to the answers to our Lightning Round question: Where is the biggest opportunity for product management to make a material impact on company performance moving forward?