What is product management? How can one job be so hard to define? In this presentation, John Meehan walks through the course of an average week at work, from UX meetings to engineering stand ups. John talks about the exciting parts but also the other parts that fill up a 40 hour work week.

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8. John Meehan
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

9. What is Product
Management?
John Meehan

10. So who am I?
● Originally from New York state
● Got my B.S. in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology

11. Rochester, Winter time

12. So who am I?
● Originally from New York state
● Got my B.S. in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology
● Moved to Los Angeles
● Got a job with Symantec - 2008
● Moved into engineering management - 2012
● Moved into product management - 2016

13. What do I work on?
● Norton Security for Mac
● New growth products

14. Why give this talk?
● I transitioned over to PM (not something I went to school for)
● I had an idea of what the position was
● When I started, I got a vague PPT of what the position entailed
● I had to define my position

15. What is Product Management?

16. ?

17. “Product management is the practice of
strategically driving the development, market
launch, and continual support and improvement
of a company’s products.”
“A product manager can be thought of as the
CEO of the product.”
“The product manager is responsible for the
strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for
that product or product line.”
“Product management is an organizational function that guides every
step of a product’s lifecycle: from development, to positioning and
pricing, by focusing on the product and its customers first and foremost.
To build the best possible product, product managers advocate for
customers within the organization and make sure the voice of the market
is heard and heeded.”

18. So what is Product Management then?

19. Now, let me show you.
Let’s redefine the question from “what are the roles
and responsibilities?” to “what does your day to day
look like?”

20. This is product management.

21. My week usually breaks down into the following categories of meetings:
● Engineering
● UX
● Business
● Marketing
● Process
● Work
Let’s walk through each category and review.

22. Engineering
Meetings:
● Stand ups
● Sprint demo
● Requirement reviews
● Status review
● Design review
● Release schedule review

23. Engineering
● Standups
○ Objective: To see what the engineering team is working on that day and if there are any
blockers
○ PM Expectation: To answer any questions relating to the requirements
● Sprint Demo
○ Objective: To review work done in a given time period
○ PM Expectation: To review and sign off on the work done
○ This is the chance for you to review how engineering implemented your requirements
● Requirements review
○ Objective: To walk the engineering team through new product requirements
○ PM Expectation: That you know what you want and the requirements accurately reflect the ask

24. Engineering
● Status Review
○ Objective: To review the current status of the work engineering has committed to
○ PM Expectation: To listen
● Design Review
○ Objective: To review the engineering design of a requirement or feature
○ PM Expectation: None
○ PMs are not required for these meetings but if you understand how a feature works at the
most basic level, you’ll have an even better understanding of how your product works
● Release Schedule Review
○ Objective: To review dates of product releases
○ PM Expectations: To listen and help prioritize work

25. ?

26. Engineering
● Do I need to know how to program?
○ No, but it helps
○ One of the biggest parts of the job is working with engineers. It helps to understand your
peers, even if you do not speak the same language
● Programming resources:
○ Code Academy
○ Harvard CS50
○ Stack Overflow

27. UX
Meetings:
● Requirements Review
● Wireframe Review
● UX Reviews

28. UX
● Requirements Review
○ Objective: To review the product requirements with the UX team
○ PM Expectation:
■ To clearly explain to the UX team what to build
■ To answer questions the UX team might have
● Wireframe Review
○ Objective: To review wireframes for specific flows
○ PM Expectation: To build out those wireframes
● UX Reviews
○ Objective: For the UX team to present their design and get sign off
○ PM Expectation:
■ To make sure what was designed meets your requirements
■ To express your opinion

29. ?

30. UX
Some things to note:
● Everyone has an opinion on UX
● For initial design there are some hard and true tenants of design but for
everything else it's anyone's best guess and can only be determined once
released
● Building a product UI from the ground up is difficult so make sure you and
your designer outline as much of the product as possible before design

31. Business
Meetings:
● New vendor discussion
● Existing vendor sync ups
● Scope of work review
● Beta sync up

32. Business
● New Vendor Discussion
○ Objective: To see if the vendor meets the needs of the product requirements
○ PM Expectation:
■ To have an understanding of the need you are trying to address with the vendor
■ To have an understanding of who you’re talking to (company profile)
● Existing Vendor Sync Ups
○ Objective: To review the contract, review requirements, implementation (depends on where in
the relationship you are)
○ PM Expectation: To be prepared
● Scope of Work Review
○ Objective: Review the scope of work as part of contract negotiations
○ PM Expectation: Draft the scope of work

33. Business
● Beta Sync Up
○ Objective: To review the current beta
○ PM Expectation:
■ Ask questions
■ Organize and present telemetry, surveys, questionnaires

34. ?

35. Business
● Do I need an MBA?
○ No, but it helps
○ Pros:
■ Sometimes asked to run with tasks that MBAs have experience with or education around
■ Some companies still prefer to hire MBAs
○ Cons:
■ $100k is a lot of money and there are other alternatives
■ There are alternatives like switching over from a different role or Product School 😉

36. Marketing
Meetings:
● Product write up review
● Requirements review
● Go to market
● Pricing

37. Marketing
● Product Write Up Review
○ Objective: To write and review a marketing brief explaining new features for a product reviewer
○ PM Expectation: To write the brief and walk marketing through it
● Requirements Review
○ Objective: To discuss marketings requirements for the product
○ PM Expectation: To understand marketings requirements and be able to capture them and
explain them to engineering
● Go to Market
○ Objective: To review the go to market strategy for the product
○ PM Expectation:
■ To provide marketing with an understanding of the product
■ To provide feedback on the go to market strategy

38. Marketing
● Pricing
○ Objective: To meet with marketing and the pricing team to talk about how to price the product
○ PM Expectation: To provide guidance on feature set and cost of goods associated with the
product

39. ?

40. Process & Work
● Process is any meeting I have that doesn’t relate to getting things done
○ For example: team meetings, manager one on ones, trainings, etc.
● Work is blocked out chunks of time for me to actually work on a particular task

41. Answering the question
Product management is the ability to fit an organizational need.
Your experience will change from organization to organization.

42. To fit that need...
Requires some core competencies:
● The ability to learn quickly
● The ability to make decisions
● The ability to communicate clearly
● The ability to collaborate

43. Takeaways
● What a product manager’s day to day looks like
● The scope of what may be asked of you
● The basic areas of concentration
● A better idea of what product management is

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