Final week, Product Faculty hosted Ravi Shankar Mishra, Head of Product at Zalando for a particular #AskMeAnything session. Ravi spoke about switching from entrepreneurship to Product, his expertise at Amazon, and what he seems to be for in nice PMs.
Meet Ravi
Ravi Shankar Mishra is presently working because the Head of Product at Zalando. There he leads the PM group for funds and danger administration. Earlier than this, he labored as Director of PM at Tata CLiQ the place he led the MarTech group as they labored on quite a lot of options and the shopper expertise.
He has additionally labored as Head of Product for Amazon’s belief PM group in India. He additionally has expertise as an entrepreneur, having based his personal firm, Medinfi Healthcare, which was rated essentially the most engaged healthcare content material website in 2016 and 2017.
May you elaborate on what it was like switching gears between entrepreneurship to product? What key expertise transferred, and what didn’t? What did you study from the expertise?
I might say your entire Product Growth technique of validating the shopper issues, defining options that are differentiated, and measuring affect was one thing very worthwhile. This was very helpful to me as I began my health-tech enterprise after studying these expertise at Amazon. Additionally the method of aligning stakeholders utilizing Press Releases / Steadily Requested Questions (PR/FAQs) was equally worthwhile as a Founder. Solely distinction being the stakeholders modified from engineering, advertising and marketing, and operations to co-founders and buyers.
I discovered that a lot of the stakeholders like to study actual buyer issues, wish to get satisfied with knowledge, and are keen to decide to the product / startup imaginative and prescient for those who current the whole story which is buyer backwards and validated with related knowledge factors.
Learn subsequent: The Distinction Between Startup PMs & Huge Company PMs
What’s the answer if the utilization of the launched product is beneath the expectation?
I might advocate to analyse the information within the buyer journey and perceive the place the hole exists. It could be even higher to speak to actual clients and perceive their ache factors.
What qualities are you on the lookout for in your group of PMs? What would you say differentiates an incredible PM from a superb one?
I sometimes search for clear validation of the shopper downside earlier than constructing the answer, other than clear definition of success metrics for the product. These two attributes stand out for me in a superb PM and I might counsel to practise this by writing Press Releases / Steadily Requested Questions (PR/FAQs) on your present product and options that you just is perhaps engaged on.
For extra on this, learn: Traits of Distinctive Product Managers
What do you counsel for merging corporations/merchandise with related merchandise however completely different approaches to UX/options? How can we retain options that purchasers have come to like throughout all techniques with out making a monster of an software that tries to cater to all customers?
This can be a robust state of affairs to be in. Throughout my Amazon days, we had acquired a couple of fin-tech startups and confronted related challenges whereas integrating the merchandise. That is sometimes a time taking course of earlier than the groups and visions align to the tip buyer. What may make it quicker is to go to the drafting board and reply fundamental questions like:
- Who’s the goal buyer?
- What’s the buyer downside we try to resolve?
- How do we all know the shopper has this downside?
- What’s the potential answer (person expertise) for this downside?
- How will we measure the success of this answer?
It could be good to maintain this brief to start with (1-2 web page max) and use it to drive brainstorming discussions and progressively align everybody to the identical understanding of the issue, answer, and affect.
What’s the distinction between being a Product Supervisor vs a Program Supervisor vs Mission Supervisor?
Thanks for the query. This can be a robust one and will fluctuate loads throughout organizations.
Based mostly on my expertise, I might say Product Managers are sometimes in tech-product organizations chargeable for your entire Product Growth course of which additionally consists of steady Product Growth, together with future iterations on the product foundation success metrics. Mission Managers are sometimes in service-based organizations, chargeable for one-time supply of the undertaking and will not be concerned in defining buyer necessities or future iterations. Program Managers might nevertheless deal with the tip to finish supply of packages which can not contain as a lot engineering effort.
Take a look at: The Distinction: Mission Supervisor vs Product Supervisor
How do you suppose is a journey from a Machine studying engineer to the Product Supervisor with out attending a B-school?
I might agree that it’s potential to transition into Product Administration from a software program growth or Machine Studying growth function. It’s not essential to study this solely at a enterprise faculty. I can say this as I studied HR in my enterprise faculty :).
I might say studying by doing will help, together with teaching from a mentor on Product Administration strategies and instruments. The important thing issues to study are the steps earlier than and after software program growth which is to outline buyer necessities utilizing analysis and measure the affect for future course correction within the product. That is the place platforms like Product Faculty can certainly assist.
Is it necessary to do Masters for PM function?
The brief reply is No, it isn’t essential to do Masters for being a Product Supervisor. Nonetheless, we’d like to pay attention to Product Administration strategies and instruments like PR/FAQs and practise them like some other expertise to be good at it over a time period.
Any last recommendation?
My last recommendation could be to consider Product Administration as some other talent you wish to be good at. Mastery will include observe and by defining the shopper issues, options, and affect very clearly for stakeholders, again and again.
