Deepak Malani

Product Management : beyond influencing without authority, to leading without authority. Influencing without authority has long been the name of the game for PMs. As the industry moves (rightly so) towards a world with fewer managers and more individual contributors, ICs must continue to build their muscle on how to lead without authority. What does leading without authority look like for an IC PM? - Don't measure your worth only through execution. Execution is table stakes. Have strong views on the right thing to build, and the right way to build it. - Insert yourself in critical discussions. Ask for facetime with leaders, present your views. Leaders must learn to listen and embrace feedback/inputs from senior ICs. - Ask for help. For e.g. if some complex data pull needs to be done, make a case to the data team and push your request. DIY is ideal but don't be averse to asking for help. - Be vocal about where you see gaps. Sometimes gaps exist because nobody's thinking deeply enough. Thinking is the job of the PM. You should've thought through issues and experiences before it hits your customers. There's unmatched satisfaction in being an IC PM and building as opposed to endless meetings, but we need to give more agency to the IC leaders. This will also need ICs to not distance themselves from leading - leading is part of the job.

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How to design an effective product strategy and how does it tie up to vision.. And lot more learnings.. worth doing Product School 's certification on "Product Strategy" that every aspiring product leader needs. #ProductStrategy #ProductLearning

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There are over ~150,000 product managers in India today, and this number is doubling annually. Many of these PMs, including me, follow PM leaders/influencers, listen to podcasts, read blogs, and immerse themselves in frameworks to upskill and create better products. If these frameworks were implemented effectively, India could produce world-class products like Instagram, Notion, and Amazon- potentially surpassing Silicon Valley's legacy. But there are a few challenges: - Frameworks and principles are great reads, but their real power lies in application. - Successful implementation requires adaptation, experimentation, and countless iterations. - Most importantly, it should be tweaked to various leadership styles and Org. structure. The path to creating a “killer product” is not just in knowing the rules- it’s in knowing when to break them.

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Product and A/B Testing A/B testing is tool used for the validation of the changes to the user experience and the impact achieved . Talking to users is best way to get the feedback about product / feature but as users scale - it becomes difficult to speak to all or most users. A/B testing as a tool - helps gather data driven performance of the options, and further can be used to arrive insights to be validated in user discussions. A/B testing usually done to validate - UI design and its impact on the conversion/engagement - the marketing content / CTAs for acceptance - the different pricing options - the impact on output metric with feature on / off - if identified solution is providing intended impact The main objective of the A/B testing is to gather data at scale to validate if solution is providing impact in the expected direction. This tool helps in two ways, first to validate the solution if it works and second, to generate insights on the larger set of users. Some thoughts on ponder on - Do every feature/UI change needs to be run through A/B tests? - What is minimum percent of users needed to conclude A/B test results? - Can there be A/B/C test or A/B/C/D? - Can one run multiple A/B tests at same time? What could be benefits / disadvantages doing so? What are the conditions when tests can be run at the same time? - Does any external factors affect results of A/B tests? - What is ideal duration of the A/B test before conclusion is reached? - Does user segmentation have impact on the A/B test results? How to co-relate the two? #product #experiment #abtesting #productstrategy #execution #productdevelopment #product101 #startup

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🌟 Apparent Problem vs. Real Problem 🌟 Before product management was a buzzword, Ishaan Nandkishore Awasthi showed us the essence of solving real problems in the PM world. 🚀 Imagine a startup receiving negative feedback about their product’s usability. It's easy to assume a design flaw, right? But dig deeper, and you might find the real issue lies in inadequate user training or targeting the wrong audience. "The visible problem is often just a symptom of a larger, underlying issue." Consider this simple example: E-commerce Product Returns 📦 Apparent Problem: High rate of product returns. Assumed Solution: Improve product quality or descriptions. Real Issue: Customers are confused about sizing. Reframed Solution: Add a detailed sizing guide, customer reviews with size references, and augmented reality features to visualize product fit. Next time you encounter a problem, look beyond the surface. The real solution might be where you least expect it. #basicsofPM #productmanagement #problemsolving #UXDesign #CustomerExperience

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***99% of product managers don’t understand the super effective but non obvious levers for growth. *** Growth is not just paid traffic and writing blogs and good landing pages. Some obvious and non obvious levers - 1. The basic maths says ARPU > CAC so obviously the very first lever to get channel economics work is getting your funnel conversion as high as possible to make this maths work. 2. Now let’s talk about some non obvious levers- the first big one is bundling. Build bundled offerings/build products that increase the basket size in the same transaction. What does bundling do is it increases the ARPU for users which means that you have a better chance of winning the ARPU > CAC equation. 3. Next non obvious lever is to Improve organic/direct traffic %age of your overall traffic. What this does mathematically is brings down your blended CAC across organic + paid traffic and helps you win the ARPU > CAC equation or in other words the organic traffic and orders helps you experiment with higher CAC on your paid channels. How to improve organic/direct %, well build solid products to drive repeats, invest in an SEO engine to drive organic and so forth. 4. Next non obvious lever is help your team identify users on marketing channels who tend to engage with your product more. This means defining key milestone events on your funnel - sign ups, user demonstrating intent eg add to cart etc even before the final purchase and help your team build similar audiences to these users. Relying just on the final milestone will leave you with a much smaller sample to work with and super hard to scale. 5. Finally, a key part of making the economics work is specifically working on a product strategy that heroes high ticket size products. Which means working in tandem your growth team to work out product categories where interest in those categories (either shown by search volume/potential impression volume is high) and the ticket sizes are also reasonably high. Think of a 2x2, you want products with high ticket size and reasonable interest volume. What this does is again improves ARPU while lowering CAC helping you win the equation. Follow me for high quality content, not product philosophy but practical insights https://lnkd.in/gHweK_q7 AND also here https://lnkd.in/ggUKftFq My Playbook - https://lnkd.in/gHzyN-Xc My Channel - https://lnkd.in/gs6qnNUJ

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"A product roadmap is like a treasure map for pirates... except the X usually marks the spot where your initial launch date went to die." - Author Unknown #productmanagement #productmanager #productdiscovery #userresearch #customerneeds #problemsolving #innovation #humor #marketing #development #productlaunch #entrepreneur #customercentric #MVP #agile #ux #designthinking #learnontiktok #startups

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Many times in my PM career, my teams were executing at full capacity, as per the aligned product startegy and also building backwards from customer needs found during user research convos. But the products failed to deliver the impact in first go and required few iterations to hit expected success metrics. Reflecting back, the success was not denied due to execution, but due to lack of understanding of all parameters which lead to success in any complex initiative. Navigating such complex situations requires understanding the issue and then communicating the same with others in team to create a shared understanding of what's wrong. In such cases Dr. Mary Lippitt's Model helps understand what's really happening in an initiative. The model essentially says, there are 5 inputs to manage any complex change and if any of the 5 inputs is missing the team will struggle. Go through the screenshot to identify individual scenarios and the corresponding team reality. Once you understand the parameter absent in your relevant context, fix it proactively to increase your odds of success. From experience, defining right “ Incentives” for teams with conflicting priorities is the toughest and "Vision" and "Skills" are most difficult to change in short term and hence Product Managers typically tweak the other 3 parameters to achieve success. #productmanagement

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Product management demands honed skills that are cultivated and refined over time. Many believe they can effortlessly navigate the realm of product management, but there's a chasm between mere participation and achieving tangible outcomes. Here are five pivotal skills for product managers who consistently deliver results: 🚀Insightful Data Interpretation: Transforming qualitative and quantitative data into actionable insights necessitates sharp critical thinking. 🚀Product Intuition: This amalgamates cognitive empathy, creativity, and domain proficiency. While nurturing creativity can pose a challenge, it's entirely attainable. 🚀Compelling Data-Driven Narratives: Mastering the art of persuasive storytelling with data, while ensuring factual accuracy, is a skill that can be developed with practice. 🚀Versatile Communication: The ability to communicate effectively across various mediums is crucial for successful product managers. 🚀Decisive Decision-Making: Product managers are constantly required to make informed decisions swiftly, utilizing available information to prevent team stagnation or inertia. What stands as the foremost growth opportunity in product management within your organization? And what about yours? #productmanagement #coachingproductmanagers #productleadership #producttakes ------ 🌍 Shubham Karnwal 🆘 0-1 Product Managers 🔔 Follow me for more content ♻️ Share is care

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Data is the ‘Brahmastra’ of Product Managers and the most effective way to drive Product Development. One of the main task of a Product Managers is Stakeholder Management. Each Stakeholder has an opinion. The superpower PMs can use to get their idea accepted in conflicting situation, is by using relevant data. PMs use data to align stakeholders with roadmaps, explain the benefits of what's been built, and prioritise what to build next. With constant pressure to learn faster and do more with data, PMs need to remain focused and efficient in this arena, with these simple rules: 1. Gather implicit data - There can’t be any excuses to it. There will be other priorities, but PM must find small ways to quantitatively measure user behaviour patterns across the product. Real visibility into how users will react to new features will come with this. Recognising features which hits the bulls eye, one with incremental benefit or a feature which is a backlash feature. Or even results of A/B testing. Look at transactional data, events, heat maps, logs, performance or error rates.  2. Qualitative Data is explicit data which needs to be given highest priority - In order to tell a story, PMs generally lean on implicit data to validate their hypotheses. But the devil is in the details. Whenever a particular data is to be analysed, qualitative feedback shared directly by users needs to be taken. E.g - after the release of a particular feature, the TAT has reduced, but qualitative analysis shows that users have moved to work arounds rather than the intended usage. This sort of analysis leads to protecting the bigger picture. 3. Reiterating:Always go to your customers when a qualitative or quantitaive difference is observed -  If we want to see how people are using your product naturally, questions based on their unique context about using the product in specific situations needs to be asked . For workarounds, special note to be taken. 4. Right users for the questions - While validating a data story, At B2B setup (both internal and external customers), product managers often engage with the C-suite as their customers. Their feedback might be different than the primary users of your product. Getting to the right users and posing the direct questions to them is very important 5. Track the right metrics -.As discussed above, measuring the right things needs to be ensured. Out of the many metrics that we may come across, we need to understand what metric will indicate that the product is succeeding in solving the customer problem in the way that we want.This is what we call as the outcome metrics.Eg-Revenue,NPS,Gross margin,Active users and so on. However when looking at the Outcome metrics we drill down to other metrics [More on this later] Caution : Staying clear of Goodhart's Law. - For example, if a call center employee is compensated for the number of calls made, those call numbers will go up but have potential adverse consequences (lower quality conversations)

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It is 2024 and I am yet to find any Product Management Certification in Indian landscape which gives good ROI. For instance spending 50k- 2 Lakh just for the Product managemt basics, case studies and "exposure" still does not make sense to me. It is all available Free today. I am looking for inputs or suggestions from people who have participated in such certifications who have gained value, feel free to comment and let me know your experience. DMs are also fine if you think you do not want to comment publicly. P.S: I am okay with the hate I get for writing this, I am a PM have too thick skin for all this. Sankalpa Sarkar (PSPO) Tannishk Sharma #productmanagement #aspiringpms #productmanagers

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Who Killed Product Management in India? 🔎 This was the title of of a recent article by Praveen Gopal Krishnan on The Ken, he puts forth some interesting points (link the comments). One key point that stood out was someone saying - 90% of Product Manager roles have become redundant. Engineers, designers, and business professionals can now take on tasks once exclusive to PMs. Harsh? Maybe. True? To some extent. So, what does the future hold for PMs? I believe the future lies in the rise of the Full Stack Product Management and in everyone gaining a strong product sense. Let’s dive into details below. Article Insights: Product Management has shifted from a creative, intuitive role to a bureaucratic, data-driven one. Instead of creating innovative products, PMs are bogged down with frameworks, PRDs, and justifying decisions to stakeholders. AI is also automating many PM tasks, further pushing PMs toward obsolescence. Companies like Airbnb have even removed traditional PM roles, showing how product development can happen without them. Know thy Product: The core issue, in my view, is that we don’t truly understand what their product is. Too often, the "product" is mistaken for the app or the website—the enablers—rather than the value delivered to the customer. -> What’s the Real Product? Flipkart/Amazon: Not the app, but the goods they deliver 📦 Netflix: Not the platform, but the content 🎬 Zomato/Swiggy: It’s the food 🍔 Gmail/WhatsApp: The network effect they create 📱 The actual product is the core value, and whoever is owning it is the one owning the customer too. There are spaces where PMs can own the product, like in B2C tech (Gmail, YouTube) or B2B SaaS Applications; but in industries like e-commerce or D2C, the product isn't the app; it's the actual goods experience or service. Everyone Needs Product Sense: It’s not just PMs who need to get this. Whether you’re in business, ops, engineering, analytics, or business ops, having a product mindset is crucial to understanding the end value delivered to customers. Companies should encourage leaders and ICs alike to gain product exposure. Product sense helps you understand users, business impact, and how to solve real problems. Whats the moat for some wanting to be a PM or who is a PM: Enter the Full Stack Product Manager The future of PMs is Full Stack, blending creativity, data, and technical skills. The Full Stack PM can: Identify customer problems, Conduct discovery, Prototype and build solutions, Collaborate with engineers to build scalable products, Market and sell the product, Iterate based on feedback. AI and no-code tools are enabling this shift, allowing PMs to own the entire product lifecycle. What do you think of this? Share your views in the comments below and follow me (Vellanki Sriharsha) for more such insights. #ProductManagement #FullStackPM #AI #ProductLeadership #FutureOfWork

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Few truths on career success as a Product Manager: 1. Your career's growth is a function of impact you create 2. Your impact is a function of your competence  3. Your competence is a function of your knowledge and actions Hence in order to grow PMs need to consistently show high agency, do a lot of hard work and have a consistent learning routine for up-skilling. #productmanagement

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Mistakes that I make as a #ProductManagement mentor/ leader Mistake 4: Focussing to mentor only on the hard skills- problem structuring, product discovery and prioritisation. And not mentoring on the soft skills like relationship building, proactive communication and messaging for different stakeholders to build trust and credibility in the system.

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In spite of all the crazy abundance of literature on product management and the flood rush of self certified product gurus, all it takes is very basic questions and 99% of PMs cannot answer it. Some examples below - 1. Self certified consumer mobile products guru - ask him/her how do you make sure the app assets (images/icons) look good without any blurriness on all kinds of devices with all kinds of screen resolution? Eg. Android devices with all kinds of screen sizes and densities. 99% of them have never even considered that question. 😅 2. Ask a web apps product guy - What kind of work goes behind the scenes to ensure Multi language support. All they can talk about is translations and when asked how do you ensure translations for static vs dynamic content - 99% haven’t ever considered that question or even hilariously ask what exactly do you mean? Could you pls explain the question 😂 3. Ask a product design question - how would you improve a browser like Google Chrome? A reasonable candidate at best would be able to come up with some reasonable use cases for a regular end user (eg something on tab management, bookmarking etc) ***No one would ever consider other user personas - vectors that actually made Chrome popular to start with. Unclear?*** I am talking about segments such as developer segment - ***how to improve chrome dev tools for web developers Chrome as a marketplace for 3rd party developers - chrome extensions and their discovery. Business users - Chrome as practically an OS for business users.*** Why is this the case? See product management at its core requires true passion for solving problems (staying in problem space) and empathy for users but it also requires an innate drive to always peek behind the scenes. If your curiosity ends at the UI layer, I doubt you care enough about building world class products. Don’t be a wannabe. Follow me for high quality content https://lnkd.in/gHweK_q7 or https://lnkd.in/ggUKftFq My Channel - https://lnkd.in/gs6qnNUJ My Playbook - https://lnkd.in/gHzyN-Xc

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A meaningful part of good product management is good common sense, and while common sense is famously not all that common, it is also not the exclusive domain of product managers, which is precisely why it is silly when large orgs implicitly assume that only someone with the Product Manager title should do product work and a project cannot start unless there is a Product Manager allocated to it.

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I often get asked a lot of questions about Product Roadmaps from the APMs, this blog is for them and those wanna be PMs who need help in understanding the Product Roadmap. #productManagement #product #roadmap #indianProducts

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The product lifecycle is like a Bollywood movie: Starts with a bang, full of drama in the middle (bugs!), and ends with everyone wondering if there will be a sequel (new version) or if it's just a one-hit wonder. #productmanagerlife #productmanagement #productmanager #agile #productowner #officehumor #worklifebalance #softwareengineeringhumor #uxhumor #customercentric #productlifecycle #productlaunch #bugs #productdevelopment #newversion #bollywood #softwareengineeringhumor #productmanagerlife

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