Vikrama Dhiman: evaluation

Transcript context

…Number two is what you bring to the table. Now, I think how I describe that is what is your impact on impact? So the first access is impact, but you also need to have an impact on impact. And this is what I had missed a lot in my early career, that you put the coolest product areas, your product area is successful and that automatically guarantees your growth. It doesn't. You have to also show that yes, you were a useful contributor to having that particular impact. The simplest thing on this is that is your PRD quality good enough? Are you writing that the draft notes that go and circulate to the care teams, to the marketing teams and so on? Are you making sure that you are deriving from the strategy that has been shaped or you're constantly just pushing back on the strategy? Similarly, you also how you are drafting the north stars, how you are working on the experiments, how you're working on the data, how you're working on the metrics. All these things take time, effort, and energy. And I know there is some literature and there are some operating models where people are working only at strategy levels while all of these execution of these artifacts is being done by some other people. I don't think, especially when you are starting off, that's a very, very good thing. Even when you are mid-senior, I don't think that's a very, very good thing. You have to have to be able to produce these artifacts which are product artifacts. Even if there are people in strategy creating their artifacts, even if design is coming up with a design brief, you need to have a cohesive product strategy or product PRD and work backwards from PRD and product knows yourself. These things are important to show you are progressing on four pillars, which is data and metrics, design and research, technology skills, and strategy. Product managers constantly are evaluated on this when you interview, but you also have to demonstrate these on the jobs. And the best way to demonstrate these is through the artifacts, through the notes that you are sending. So you must have that impact to impact through the artifacts that you work on. For a lot of product managers, when I ask, "Hey, I was working on this very impactful area. I'm not able to have the impact on my career, what is missing?" And when I go and ask, "Can you show me your last PRD? Can you show me the last product note that you sent? Can you show me the product strategy doc that you have or collaborated on? Can you show me the brief that you sent to the design team on the problems and the ranking of those problems?" Usually, you'll find something or the other missing. In cases that those are bad, you will find that the pre-iteration planning, pre-sprint plannings are not running properly. You will find that the Jira storyboards are very empty and there's just a title in the subject and nothing gets described and so on. So you'll miss all these pieces. lannings are not running properly. You will find that the Jira storyboards are very empty and there's just a title in the subject and nothing gets described and so on. So you'll miss all these pieces. So these are the things which you bring to the table and it's very, very important that you work on these aspects as well. Finally, we have what's your operating model, which I feel is the most important thing which you have to have to focus if you are going from mid-senior to senior level. This is essentially about communication, collaboration, organizational skills and community skills. And across product managers, again, because of the folklore of mini CEO and others, I see that a lot of people get carried away in the way they operate as product managers with other stakeholders. There are three tenets that I define in working well as a product manager with others. Number one is raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself. And finally, you are in charge of getting the decisions made and not making all the decisions yourself. I think as long as you follow these three tenets, you will have a successful relationship across stakeholders. These three tenets are easy to say, but they become very, very hard to embody and display on a day-to-day basis. But this is essentially going to be your struggle no matter at what level of product management you are operating at in your career or within your company. First of all, can you just repeat them? Because I think this is... Essentially, it's like a mantra that PMs can think back to of, "Am I doing these things?"…

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