ProductCamp Boston is the world's largest and most exciting crowd-sourced one-day event for product people. It's organized by and for product managers, product marketers and entrepreneurs, so attendees get the most out of the day. Attendees learn about and discuss topics in product management and product marketing, product discovery, product development & design, go-to-market, product strategy and lifecycle management, and product management 101, startups, and career development. www.ProductCampBoston.org

1. it’s not easy starting new:
career transitioning to product,
starting strong, & being successful.
product camp
june 2019

2. Product Manager
TripAdvisor,
Hotels Location Discovery
Lindsay Levy
Senior Product Manager
TripAdvisor, Hotels Supply
Sam Feldman

3. game plan How do you land the job?
What do you do on day 1?
How can you be successful?
01
03
02

4. Step 1
how do you land the job?

5. Tell your PM story.
1. Say you were a PM with a different title.
1. Acknowledge your background is non-PM.
2. Explain why your unique skills translate
and can add value.

6. Understand the product competencies.
Cross functional leadership
Stakeholder management
Communication
Voice of the user
Partner collaboration
people
Product vision & specing
Influencing/motivating
Execution
getting shit done
User feedback
Data analysis
Telling a data story
measuring

7. Understand the product competencies.
Cross functional leadership
Stakeholder management
Communication
Influencing/motivating
Voice of
the user
how?
Partner
collaboration
what?
Execute
Product vision & spec-ing
UX Design
User feedback
Data analysis
Telling the story
Business
outcomes

8. product
competencies
for your role.
Translate past
experiences
how?what?Don’t have to be limited to
job-related experiences, especially
if you’re a student. Seek out other
opportunities to build skills.

9. Lindsay’s PM story
Skill Gaps
Skills

10. Lindsay’s PM story
Cross functional leadership
Stakeholder management
Communication
Influencing/motivating
Voice of
the user
how?
Partner
collaboration
what?
Execute
Product vision & spec-ing
UX Design
User feedback
Data analysis
Telling the story
Business
outcomes

11. Cross functional leadership
Stakeholder management
Communication
Influencing/motivating
Voice of
the user
how?
Partner
collaboration
what?
Execute
Product vision & spec-ing
UX Design
User feedback
Data analysis
Telling the story
Business
outcomes
Sam’s PM story

12. Step 2
what do you do on day 1?

13. Spec writing
A/B Testing
Motivating
Engineers
Tableau
Data Science
Language
Tech stack
Own the things you don’t know.
Roadmapping
Managing
Up
Influencing
Jira
Agile
How
websites
make $$$ ...
Remember: you were hired for a reason!

14. Prove you’re reliable.
Source: tiny.cc/crush6months
“Don’t try to learn everything… priority #1 during your onboarding
is proving that you are reliable (and eventually excellent) on the
few things that matter… the 3-5 core activities.” - Daniel Shapero
Photo by Nicholas Kampouris on Unsplash

15. Ask your manager what success
looks like at 1 week / 30 day / 90
day...
Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

16. Over-deliver and over-communicate
Source: tiny.cc/crush6months
“Over-deliver on your first 3 assignments, and most importantly,
over-communicate your progress to your manager as you work
through each assignment. They don’t trust you yet, so keep their
anxiety low by keeping them in the loop. When you have a question,
don’t be afraid to ask, but bring recommendations to show how you
thought about the problem. Ask for feedback, and take feedback
with a smile.”
- Daniel Shapero

17. What else you can do early.
Help take load off your
boss & learn from it.
QA
Documentation
PM Bug Tickets
Test Analysis
Prep so you can join in
the conversation.
Check test results each morning
Industry news
Team status updates & specs
Build trust & partnerships.
Invest in team culture.
Build relationships with your
resources.
Ground yourself in your
user and industry.
Get to know your user.
Get to know your competitors.

18. Find the superstars and copy their work
“Don’t try to learn everything… priority #1 during your onboarding is
proving that you are reliable (and eventually excellent) on the few
things that matter… the 3-5 core activities. Interview people around
you and observe star performers to figure out what these core
activities are and how to be great at them.”
- Daniel Shapero
Source: tiny.cc/crush6months

19. Don’t know
Tableau?
Find existing dashboards or use
Excel.
Never
written a
spec?
Organize all the notes about a
feature and then schedule a
“30% review” with your
manager and get feedback on
what’s missing.
How do you
motivate an
Engineer?
Meet with the Tech Lead and
talk about what you want to do
together and what problems
you want to solve. Enlist their
help.
Never ran
an A/B test?
Become a watcher on someone
else’s tickets and document the
process.
Never
written a
roadmap?
Copy an existing one.
Jargon too
technical?
Ask what it means/how it
impacts a user’s experience.
Fake it till you make it.

20. Surround
yourself by the
right people.
Take advantage
of being new &
meet with
everyone!
Build your network.

21. Step 3
how you can be
successful?

22. Add value as a product
manager not as a project
manager.
Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

23. Deliver areas that matter to the business.
01 Be a student of your organization: understand what
matters to your business.
02
Spend (most) your time on work that is in sync with
that.
03 Bring data from outside the building. Talk to users, talk to
peers, talk to people from other industries.
04 Influence your roadmap. Develop hypotheses, size the
opportunity, and gain stakeholder alignment.

24. Trust the experts (technical,
design, analytics, etc.) and
develop a “gut check”.
You are not a designer,
developer, analyst, etc. So don’t
try to do their job. Instead enlist
them on solving your problem.

25. Don’t trust too blindly; ask the right
questions.
● What are the risks associated with that? How can we reduce that risk? How much risk is there in
that estimate?
● Is there any reason we have not tried this solution in the past?
● How does that change a user’s experience?
● How does this help us deliver against our objectives?
● What does success look like, once we make this change?
● What are the current blockers? What would need to be true to overcome those blockers?
● What could we change from this feature set if you wanted to meet ____ deadline?
● What would you add to this or remove from this feature set if you wanted to build the best experience?
● Do we have dependencies on other teams? Do they have dependencies on us?
● What’re some important dates we need to keep in mind? (e.g., vacations, release cycles)
● So many more …..

26. Build your network.

27. Learn from not-on-the-job training

28. game plan How do you land the job?
Tell your PM story.
What do you do on day 1?
Use your strengths & learn.
How can you be
successful?
Focus on what matters.
01
03
02

29. Questions?

30. Thank you
30
Lindsay Levy Sam Feldman
llevy@tripadvisor.com sfeldman@tripadvisor.com
careers.tripadvisor.com

31. 1 week, 30 day, 90 day plan.
Habits.
Build trust. Ask questions.
Listen & observe. Keep asking
questions. Soak it in & participate
where you can add value.
Start the conversation. Then still
listen. Still observe. Ask why? Bring
your new person perspective.
01 wk
30 day
90 day+
Execution.
Shadow & pick up in-progress work.
Tactical value: Start new work & see
execution through to end. Measure
results.
Hypothesize & ideate to inform what’s
worked on. See through the project
lifecycle, measure results, and iterate.
01 wk
30 day
90 day+