The 5-Pillars to Building Great Product Teams and Orgs

I was recently asked about my philosophy to building great product teams. While I had previously intuited what I looked for in building a team, I had never articulated it. So, I did what any ex-Amazon #productmanager would do, I wrote a one-pager summarizing my thoughts. This blog post is that one-pager.

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Product teams are unique. Unlike engineering teams where the entire team is working on one product, typically every #PM on a product team owns their own product and is responsible for its success. While the products may complement one another and be part of a broader product portfolio, PMs often operate as the single threaded owner (STO) for their space. This structure and STO based accountability enforce quick decision making, but can come at the expense of diverse thinking. It also introduces challenges in PMs learning from their colleague’s wins and misses.

As a leader, my goal is to build a team that can balance this tension. I want to empower my PMs to autonomously deliver results in their product area while also creating opportunities for them to learn and collaborate with their peers. The following represent the key characteristics I look for when building product teams:

1. Diversity of skills and backgrounds: Diversity of thought ensures that multiple perspectives are considered when developing a product. This becomes an antidote to thoughtless agreement as not every product solution works for every kind of person. It is also a good formula for delivering results. For example, if my team has one PM who with coding experience and another PM who is a great strategic thinker I can lean on the former for helping with tech design reviews and the latter for helping drive a 3-Year Product Vision (3YP). If both PMs were former software engineers then my ability to deliver a crisp 3YP could be delayed. Furthermore, this allows the PMs to learn from each other and further develop their professional areas of opportunity.

2. Lead with empathy: While the objective of the product team is to deliver results, we are all human beings and it’s important that we remember that when interacting with one another. I expect my team to be kind and empathetic with their colleagues and look for leaders who are happy to jump in and help their team members if needed. We don’t point fingers and instead we obsesses with finding solutions. As product leaders, we are also the voice of the customer. To that end we must empathize with the customer and bring that empathy into our decision-making process. We must be bold and provide that perspective, even when it’s at odds with a business decision.

3. Direct feedback and communication: My point of view is that the best way to communicate is directly. I provide the team with real-time feedback and expect them to deliver real-time feedback to their colleagues, both on the product team and elsewhere. While direct feedback can sometimes be emotionally charged, it helps expedite decision making. However, it’s important to deliver feedback with empathy and recognize how someone may react to it. In doing so, the feedback will be direct, but it will be kind.

4. Data Obsessed and Data Hungry: The PM team is the subject matter expert for their customer and their product. They should understand their customers' intentions and how customers behave with the product inside and out. Data are pivotal to making good decisions and data are a great tool to influence stakeholders. If we don’t have the data we need, we should stop at nothing to get it.

5. Career Growth Mindset: Most PMs I’ve worked with are ambitious and want to grow. As their manager, my goal is to help them unlock the career growth they envision. I take career development seriously. While it’s each Team Members (TM) responsibility to drive their career conversations, I provide them with the tools they need to do so including Career Development Plan templates, a commitment to a quarterly career development meeting, and a commitment to push to get them promoted when they’ve demonstrated a sustained performance at the next level.   
   

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I hope you find value in this and I am interested to hear thoughts and feedback!