Mukesh Kumar

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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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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"Testing as a Career" demands 3 major things to succeed on a macro-level : 1. Immense Passion - Passion for the product, end-user experience & the organisation's goals. 🏆 2. Attitude To Grow and Learn - Aptitude to keep learning and growing better than yesterday. ⏫ 3. Love For Testing - You gotta be in this field with your own choice and love for your work. The moment you doubt what this field can give you in return 💰, that moment you lose the edge and feel stuck. 🔴 P.S - I have seen many people rising from 0 to 10 in this field with the right skills and attitude, some staying stagnant at 5 thinking there's nothing more left to learn, and some falling from 10 to 0 very fast due to doubts in their mind. Now, choose your boat carefully out of these 3 buckets and let's keep learning & growing. Happy Testing and Happy Diwali 2024 !! #testing #engineering #sdet #ai #ci #cd #learning #grow #career #quality #developers #hiring

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What is North Star ✨ framework? North Star framework is an important product management concept to define success metric for business and inputs that drive the success metric. Here is an attempt to simplify it (Go to PPT 💻) + What is a North Star Metric? A North Star metric is the one measurement that’s most predictive of a company’s long-term success. + Why Do We Need a North Star Metric? Focus and Alignment Company-wide View

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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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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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Case study for all budding PMs and working PMs . . In today's times, an average person has 12 paid subscriptions. Millennials are even higher, with  an average of 17 subscriptions. These subscriptions could be Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Spotify,  YouTube, The Ken, The Economic Times, The Times Of India, moneycontrol.com Pro, Lenskart.com Gold,  Audible and many more. Most of these companies will ask you to add your credit details and set  up a mandate so that auto-debit can happen every month. And, these would start with a monthly  or a quarterly trial. In order to try the service, you would add these details and then tend to forget  that you have set up an auto-mandate. This results in a significant expense for users when calculated at a yearly level. Now, you as a product manager want to build an app that can help  users manage all their subscription services. Think of all the features that you would want to give users and why. What problem will each feature solve for the user? Consider this to be a free app that users can download from the Android Play Store or the Apple App Store. Share your answers in the comments section. And, I will add my views to it. Liked this? Follow Vishal Bagla for more. #CaseStudy #ProductManagement #ProductManagers

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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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Case study from PMs and aspiring PMs . . Imagine Quora gets 500,000 new sign-ups every day and this is the daily average of the past 6 months. There has been a deviation of only +/- 5% in the daily sign-up numbers. For the last 7 days, you have noticed that the number has dropped to 300,000 suddenly and has remained at that level. As a product manager at Quora, you want to identify the reason(s) behind it and fix it, if needed. How would you go about solving this? Make whatever assumptions you want to make. P.S. - The numbers are fictitious and have no relation to the actual scenario whatsoever. This is a purely hypothetical case study meant for discussion purposes, nothing more. Used Quora as a platform only for reference. Follow Vishal Bagla for more case studies and insights on product management. #ProductManagement #CaseStudies #InterviewPrep #ProductManagers

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𝐄𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭:   Of late a few friends reached out to me to draw the distinguishing essentials of platform product management(PPM) and how it differs from traditional product management practice    𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭? Platform Product Management is a discipline that fosters the development of a platform that assists other products or services to help end customers.   𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐏𝐌 : Unlike traditional PM, PPM will have a greater role and wider responsibilities including the following: 1. 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: PPM will have to manage a two-sided market eco-system - Internal Users and External customers  a. External Customers are the ones who pay and consume product/service offerings on our platform  b. Internal users on the other hand are the ones who build these services and experiences for external customers (Developer Personas) 2. 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 : PPMs focus on enhancing the experiences by building core functionalities/capabilities 3. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐏𝐌𝐬:   a. Internal User Metrics: Developer Engagement, API Usage, Availability of Services   b. External Customers: User Acquisition, Platform Engagement, Adoption of Platform Capabilities 4. 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 : The platform must have a smooth experience offering for internal devs to replicate the same to the external stakeholders. Emphasis must be on documentation tools, easy-to-use developer tools, API Management, Community Exposure 5. 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚, 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 : PPM to go big must find the sweet spot among data tech and business strategy for long-term sustenance   𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐏𝐌𝐬 : 1. Thorough understanding of the platform architecture 2. Deep expertise in ecosystem experiences like Developer, Customer, Community and others 3. Long-term business strategy alignment with platform scaling and developments Plus all that of traditional PM   Examples of great platforms : 1. E-commerce: Amazon, Shopify 2. Tech: Salesforce, ServiceNow, Atlassian 3. Payments: PayPal, Stripe 4. Social Media: LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube 5. Sharing : Airbnb, Uber, Ola, Rapido Do share your thoughts on how you see PPM evolving and changing course with AI as a new layer on top of it! #𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 #𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 #𝐊𝐏𝐊𝐑

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For a lot of product work, good Product Strategies withstand test of time and remain valid for atleast 18-24 months. Good Product Managers are able to simulate various future scenarios well in advance to decent degree of confidence for future proofing the work. If you have to change your direction, redoing your strategy every 6-12 months as a team then perhaps your didn't put enough rigorous thinking to it in the first place. Am not saying we don't update our strategy baking in the latest tech/competition/user insights in that 18-24 months, but the changes should be less the 20-30% to the overall plan. #productmanagement #productstrategy

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How PMs can influence other teammates without direct authority? Watch video of Vivek Karna, ex Director of Product at Razorpay here -> https://lnkd.in/dsNbgSgB Watch more case-studies related to PM topics on https://hellomeets.com/ #pm #productmanagement #razorpay #careerdevelopment

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PRDs are not important. I would much rather have a one pager Press Release that highlights the journey than a detailed PRD document that lists out every spec and solution detail to the T. The detail which Engineering teams have started expecting in PRDs has gone bonkers. Yes, Engineering is one of the main stakeholders for PRDs, but a PRD should stop short of solutioning for Enggineering. The purpose(s) of a PRD or any other document that leads to a finished product should be to highlight: 1. What we're building 2. Why we're building it 3. Who are we building this for 4. How will they use it 5. Why we think this is an important problem to solve 6. Who are the key people involved in delivering it 7. What is the GTM strategy 8. What does success look like and maybe a few more things depending on org structures. Now, I am not saying we should no go into details in a PRD. Details are important- mandatory, if you will. But we should shy away from going into solutioning details, unless we're building an API/Platform product in which case, the solution is the feature. Think of PRDs as the first surface of your product/idea for the world (customers and stakeholders) to touch, see, feel and wrap their heads around. They don't want to know whether you'll be using an XGBoost model or a simple rule to predict outcomes. They don't care about the tech stack or whether you will be leveraging your latest data sources for rendering the data on their screen. They care about the problems you're solving for the customers. They care about revenue, cost savings, optimization or strategic wins. #productmanagement #PRD #PM

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Are you constantly busy but not seeing the results you want? 🤔 Shreyas Doshi, former PM leader at Stripe, Twitter, and Google, shares crucial lessons for product managers: ✨ Clear Strategy Over Busywork Instead of getting lost in endless planning cycles, focus on a solid product strategy. This alignment can reduce unnecessary workload and streamline decision-making. 🎨 Develop Good Taste Evaluate ideas beyond catchy terms and authority biases. Cultivate the ability to discern what truly adds value to your product and team. 😓 Align Work with Strengths Identify your superpowers and operate within them. Misalignment leads to frustration and burnout, so ensure your responsibilities match your core strengths. 👂 Master Deep Listening True listening goes beyond surface interactions. It’s essential for making informed decisions and leading effectively. Shreyas emphasizes that sustainable productivity comes from strategic alignment, thoughtful decision-making, and effective communication. By implementing these principles, product managers can navigate their roles more efficiently and enjoy greater professional satisfaction. Read more insights from Shreyas Doshi here: https://lnkd.in/gyNZcpiX #productmanagement #leadership #strategy #productdevelopment #efficiency ---- Need help breaking into Product Management or accelerating your PM career? Schedule a free 1-on-1 session with me and let's chat about your goals: https://lnkd.in/gyGz73NV If you enjoyed this post: 1. Follow me for more PM & career content 2. Repost to share with your network

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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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API Masterclass: The Ultimate Guide for APM & PMs Watch now: https://lnkd.in/g26v5PWr In this insightful video on "API Development: Crucial product & tech considerations" featuring Shashwat Chandra, Director of Product at Moneyview, he dives deep into key factors to consider while building APIs. HelloMeets - Upskilling platform for PMs. #APIdevelopment #productmanagement #HelloMeets #MoneyView

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