In this presentation, Yana Yushkina, shares concrete steps to transitioning from data analytics to product management, how to lean into your particular strengths and fill in the gaps. Yana also talks about applying data analysis when developing and launching products.
19. Data-Driven Design
The process of designing or improving products
based on quantitative measures: A/B testing,
surveys, and north-star metrics.
20. The First Super Power of an Analyst-PM:
Knowing what to measure and how
● Goals ➛ metric
● Proxies
● When to slice and when to stop
● Which dashboards to request
● Noise vs. signal
21. The Second Super Power of an Analyst-PM
Self-sufficiency
● Custom queries
● Dashboards are a breeze
● A/B tests
22. The Third Super Power of an Analyst-PM:
Persuade with data
● Analysis summaries
● Data visualization
23. “If we have data, let’s go
with data. If all we have
are opinions, let’s go with
mine.”
Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape
24. 1. Validate: Is this what you want?
● Shadow a PM at your company
● Volunteer to help out a proximate PM
● Volunteer to help a proximate PM-less team
25. 2. Apprenticeship: Learn by doing
● Build something yourself
● Larger scoped project with proximate PM or
eng team
● Associate Product Manager roles
34. www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management, Coding, Data, Digital
Marketing and Blockchain courses in San Francisco, Silicon
Valley, New York, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Austin, Boston,
Boulder, Chicago, Denver, Orange County, Seattle, Bellevue,
Toronto, London and Online
Notas del editor
Break a problem down into its parts and work through to a solution; similarly, need to be able to identify an end goal for your product and a strategy toward it; need to be able to question the status quo and whether the team is building the right stuff; need to be able to figure how the solution translates to a feature design
You don’t need to be a SWE but you need to voraciously consume information about relevant technology, seek to understand how things work, and be able to explain key tech concepts to others. By the way, understanding the market falls into this category too.
That translates into a bias to action. If something not being done, make sure it gets done or do it yourself. It must be said that it’s your job as the PM to make sure that everything to ship a great product gets done. If anything goes wrong or if the product is bad - it’s your fault. Clear the obstacles for the team.
PM is responsible for evangelizing the product and telling its story to users and x-functional stakeholders; also need to constantly be leading without authority which means you need persuasion which is really just another word for good storytelling. Also: make sure the right people are informed. Also: networking. Listen to your users: don’t ask them what to build, ask them about their pain points. Listen to your eng. Ask the right questions - and humbly listen. That’ll allow you to gain the knowledge you need to figure out what can be done for what user needs. The key to being a good story teller is empathy. If you don’t have empathy, you won’t be a good PM.
So beyond the fact that great data analysts usually have correspondingly advanced analytical and critical thinking skills why would an analytics background offer a competitive advantage in PMing?Why because of data-driven design. Data driven design of products depends on using analytics to identify areas of opportunity and measure success. That’s where those with an analyst background will shine.
1. Someone with a solid analyst foundation likely has good instincts on how to translate goals into metrics.
2. Ideas on how to do this even when there is no obvious, direct measurement available. i.e. Which proxies, or correlates, could I track to triangulate on the desired metric.
3. Knowing when to ignore the noise, or when to dig deeper (segmentation) to find the signal.
Start to finish set up and analysis of experiments
Persuasive summaries of experimental results: Key for go/no-go on launch decisions. As an analyst you likely have good instincts about what that key metric is that needs to be highlighted and what questions stakeholders might have.
Great way to convince people you’re right is by offering them data. I have a personal example of this...
PM has a sort of glamour around it but the reality is not glamorous though hugely fulfilling if it’s right for you. How do you try it out you may say? Try it on the side: e.g. volunteer to help a proximate product team, shadow, help, learn. Ideally you want a well-defined problem space with a PM sponsor/mentor.
Apprenticeship model, DIY route - build something yourself, proximate strategy - work with a product team?
Whether your skill gap is technical, design, or business, there are resources in books, blogs and classes to fill them in. Places like General Assembly, Product School, online classes that are often free.
Practice and research your product
Challenges, impact of “mistakes”, errors are different, impact is different, direct impact vs. indirect, day-to-day, lots and lots of meetings, more stress, more joy, everything is my fault, nothing is done by you, giver vs. getter of thanks, scope: ship to billions of users
On the one hand you don’t physically build things (vs. building dashboards, etc.) On the other hand you’re directly affecting what ships to users, in my case billions of them.
There are as many paths as there are people so if you’re set on becoming a PM there is a way there. Figure out if it’s worth it for you, and then get after it. With that. I’ll go to questions