Day in a life at startups vs. large enterprise as a Product Manager

Jesse E. Owens II

Senior Product Manager, MasterPass @ MasterCard

My Journey

  • B.S. in Computer Science, Norfolk State University
  • 12 years in B2B and B2C product development experience
  • Military Defense, Investment Banking, Education & Payments
  • Self-taught UX Design, Web & Mobile Development

Workshop Outline

  • Understand the non-technical & technical dynamics with your maketing, sales and product team
  • Understand the divisions of autonomy when making decisions
  • Understand how to forecast your roadmap to your stakeholders
  • Distinguish how you can effect change with your stakholders

THe hammer

Image from http://geosworld.wikia.com/wiki/Yoshi

THe coach

Image from billwalsh360.com

THe Sanitation Worker 

startup

  • Generalist
  • People Manager
  • Set the Product Dev Process
  • Stakeholder Enagement is Limited
  • Less Dev Teams, Tighten Coordination
  • Limited Feature Set
  • KPIs of product tie closely to company success

large company

  • Specialist
  • Manage through Influence
  • Execution of the Product Dev Process
  • Stakeholder Enagement is expanded 
  • More Teams, More Coordination
  • Broad Feature Set
  • KPIs tie closely to the success of 1 of many company initiatives

the role of the product manager

PM challenges

  • 49% Half of companies do not use a consistent PM process
  • 21% products being delivered fail to meet customer needs
  • 45% indicated that the skill levels of the Product Managers at their company varied greatly
  • 70% In companies doing Agile, the majority of PM are Product Owners

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Note: The results contain data from over 850 PM team leaders about the biggest challenges faced in their organizations conducted by 280 Group

Let's dance: Forecast your roadmap with stakeholders

  • In Groups of 5, Select the PM, UX Lead, Release Manager, Tech Lead, Sales/Marketing Lead, Architectural Design Lead
  • Your product is a Travel Booking App that allows users to book and pay for hotels, flights, and transportation
  • Your development team has capacity of 120 pts across  6 development sprints for Q12017
  • Commercialization: Launch product in Europe in Q2-2017 with 2 Factor Authentication SignUp/SignIn (13 pts), Multi-Language Support (8pts)
  • Architecture:  Performance Improvements to UI, Booking and Payments API, Buildout  of Web and Mobile Test Automation (15 pts each or 75 pts)
  • UX Lead: Refine User Feedback during SignUp (10 pts)
  • Release Mgt:  Critical defects preventing cars in certain locales, hotel booking for less than 2 days and app fails to store customer info on browser when they select to be remembered (8pts each or 24 pts total)
  • In 15min, Your Goal is Craft a Q1 roadmap per iteration with all the stakeholders, team capacity and product needs  in consideration.

Resources

Product Manager You Are.....

by Mat Balez, VP of Product at FlatIron School

How to Hire a Product Manager

by Ken Norton, Partner at Google Ventures

Contact Me

@JesseOwensII

Jesse Owens II

@JesseEOwensII

Thank you !

Day In The Life: PM for Startups vs. Large Enterprise

By Jesse E. Owens II

Day In The Life: PM for Startups vs. Large Enterprise

As we all know the role of the PM is different generally at every company but share a lot of similarities. That being said, Product Management can be seen from different perspectives if you're working at a startup or large organization and it important understand the role from a non-technical, technical and cultural point of view. This workshop is intended to give a perspective on the day to day activities of a PM upon joining a startup or large enterprise product team. Key Takeaways: - Understand the divisions of autonomy when making decisions - Understand how to forecast your roadmap to your stakeholders - Understand the nontechnical & technical dynamics with your marketing, sales and product team - Distinguish how you can effect change in the company amongst your stakeholders - Understand the business driver of the company and how you can add value

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