Empower your Product Management with crm deal management for Product Management

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[Music] [Music] hey everyone welcome to my channel if you're new here thanks for stopping by my name is inketchie and i'm a product owner heading an agile team in a tech company based in copenhagen i have a bachelor's in computer science and a master's in technology and management and on this channel i share guidelines about product management so if you like see this type of content please hit the subscribe button the guidelines i'll be sharing in this video are in the order of how i approach my work in the first 90 days which was a success because not to brag in my manager's work i was fantastic and the reason why it was largely a success is because i applied my previous knowledge of managing products but also i read a lot of blog posts online but also joining the community taking courses on udemy and coursera but most importantly reading books which i can recommend some you can check out my last video for some inspiration to get started on product management books by the end of this video you will learn what you need to know to prepare you for your first 90 days as a product owner this video is not only relevant for product managers and product owners who are just getting started but also product managers and owners who are already in the role and may have not applied some of those tips or guidelines that i'll be sharing today please note that i'll be sharing based on my knowledge as there is no other way i can approach this topic than my experience i'm going to be giving this advice in the context of a new product manager just joining the company and these experiences that i'll be sharing today are based on what i learned uh in my role as a product owner to help you get started and ramped up faster arguably product management seems to be a very broad topic because it's about talking to the stakeholders as a product manager but also the users of the product and the management the main goal of a product manager is to identify the problems within the target market and to provide solution for that problem area this would involve communicating to the stakeholders the management but also to the development team such that they can understand it and also act on it like in the words of anne murphy i would say treat your first 90 days as sprints although with a little bit of twist i would say your first 30 to 60 days should be dedicated to discovery and also establishing trust and building relationships with your stakeholders and then the next 30 days should be on quick wins first 30 days i would say use the product as much as possible which is getting to know the product more than anything because as a product manager your goal is not only to identify the value offerings of the product but also the limitations so that when you're talking to your stakeholders you know what the existing product can offer and what it cannot offer if like me you're building a product area that doesn't exist for the first time i would say get to know other product areas that way you have more knowledge about other product offerings which can guide you in establishing the foundation for your new product also with the product knowledge you can communicate to your customers and make informed decisions getting to know your customers now part of the first step as a product manager is to get to know your customers who are you building products for that's the main reason why you're working as a product manager the goal is to identify these challenges that your customers may have and try to build a solution to solve these challenges a good way to do this is to delve into data and analytics but remember that numbers are not users so it's important to talk to real people a good place to start will be to look at the support ticket or talk to customer success to try to understand what challenges are the customers facing you can read the tickets you can check the emails of the customers and what they're complaining about another thing you can do is to check nps surveys to see detractors and what is their main complaint in doing this this will help you learn not only about the product but about the uses of the product and the expectations so that once you're building the product it would be in alignment with exactly what type of challenges that the customers are currently facing and will help your strategy in how you can provide solutions to their problems another good thing to do is competitive analysis this is a process of analyzing the strength and weaknesses of similar products in your industry compared to your own product assessing the strengths and weaknesses would help you in terms of product differentiation and help you in your product strategy how will you be able to create a unique product that will stand out from others in the market this information will not only help you in product strategy but it will also help you to create a product that satisfies strong customer demand this is known as product market feeds asides from the product strategy part of things it would also help you in how you position your product when you want to sell your product pricing and things like that next point is to define your vision for your product and some sets of okrs by okrs i mean objective key results your product vision this is an overarching goal that guides you towards achieving your product so this is very important to set up in the beginning of your product before you even start building your product now it's important to note that objective key results are not kpis and metrics they are just the way it sounds objective key results it helps you guide your goal setting and help you also track and measure the results with you and your team as you move along and once you've been able to define your product's vision and your objective key result then you can start creating your product roadmap objective key result would also help you to review the current state of your product backlog and keeps you on track as you review the product and measure it as you move along it's important to note that even though your product vision represents your true knot you will continually refine your okrs and sometimes your road map as you move along the goal is to achieve your product vision and as you move along you will go through the stages of refinement so it's better and important to be open and flexible as it relates to achieving the vision of your product one of the most important tasks as a product owner or product manager is establishing trust you're going to be talking to a lot of people both internal stakeholders but also external stakeholders so all relationships in this role is very important but not more important than the users of the product so a way to go about building trust is scheduling a one-on-one conversation with people you can start with the customer success department or the marketing department or the sales department in most cases you're going to be working with this groups of people or even the engineering department personally i recommend the face-to-face conversation so scheduling a one-on-one session with the key stakeholders that you'll be working with and having the face-to-face conversation but the key thing in these conversations is understanding their challenges and how you as a product manager would provide solutions to these challenges when building a product area so during this one-to-one conversations it's very important that you listen more and speak less the goal of having this conversation is to understand their pinpoint and so you want to ask questions about their challenges as it relates to your product area because as a product manager you're constantly thinking of ways to solve problems uh while building the product or building products that can solve the challenges of your stakeholders as a bonus tip i would also recommend that you read a lot of documentation in your first few months reading a lot of documentation either by a previous product manager in the role or existing product manager in the role it would give you a better understanding on how things work or the processes in terms of operational process so that you don't go off doing something that is not in alignment with the strategy of how products are being built in the company so i would recommend reading documentations like features specification or even case studies or a b testing the insights that other product managers have derived from you know a b tested in the past that gives you a better understanding or a more rounded knowledge about some of the challenges that the customers are facing and also opens your mind into how you can strategize when building your product in some cases these documentations may be given to you by your product director or your product manager so you don't feel overwhelmed and you know where to start so you don't go around looking at the different documentation banks but if that's not the case as a new product manager i would recommend that you spend some time you can take one hour of your time every day to read documentations to understand the user's insights the case studies a b testing results feature specification these are some of the documents that can help you in your first few days as a product manager while you spend some time getting to know the stakeholders it's also important to bear in mind that no product manager is good at everything it's important in the first few months that you identify what type of product manager do you want to be or what areas are you good at some products managers are good at you know communication and stakeholder management why others are very technical and analytics so they like the data and inside why some are very business-minded so they have business acumen why others may be good at project management and execution so depending on where your area or your strength lies it's important that in the first few months that you identify your strengths and you harness your strength the objective of identifying your strengths is to maximize your success and that of your company by doing the things you excel in which brings me to my next point quick wins so in your first few months it's also good to identify what areas you can easily execute on it might not be a huge project it can be something really small by just looking at the data during customer discovery or during requirement elicitation you can find out what are some of the quick wins that you can easily execute on uh to maximize success as a product manager that leads in most cases with no authority you have no direct report so you not only would be managing cross-functionally but also upwards i would recommend that you find some time in your calendar to meet with open management by upper management it can be other products managers or you can be the director of product or the vp of products depending on the structure of the organization it's recommended that you do this because you also get to hear insights about the challenges of the product from their own perspective that will give you a fresh knowledge in how to you know strategize when building your product area after all said and done the next question is where do i go from here in the next three to six months drop a comment in the comment section and let me know if you like to see a video about this or any related product management uh tips and guidelines but until then thank you so much for watching and i will see you in my next video bye