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Several months ago I spent a lot of time interviewing potential Product Manager and Lead Product Managers to head up a product team. Listed below are some common interview questions along with some that I hand crafted for the particular PM job s being advertised at the time. There are no right or wrong answers for most of the questions. The purpose is to find out how a person will operate under different scenarios.
As a new year's resolution this year I decided to finally start blogging to share some of my thoughts on technology, entrepreneurship, and product management. I'll be writing mainly to help collect my own ideas, but I hope that some of you may find it interesting as well. I'm also often asked similar questions about my experiences from colleagues, so I plan on using this as a public forum to answer some of them.
Product Management interview question: Tell me about a project you have run or a product you have managed through its life cycle? This is an interview question that gives you the opportunity to: a) Demonstrate that you have a practical experience in the product development process. b) That you have considered the user by developing a product that utilises technology to solve a problem and therefore meets the customer’s needs. c) That you are able to lead with-out-authority by matrix managing a c
Lessons from a Silicon Valley Innovator by Rich Mironov This book compiles some of Rich's most popular columns from 2002 to 2008. It includes thoughts on building and maintaining product organizations, understanding how customers think, ideas for how to price new products, and ways to motivate people who don’t work for you. Collected into a single volume, it paints a picture of a typical interrupt-driven day.
Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage
When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m
Much has been written about how product managers can get along with the engineering teams – however the converse is also just as important – engineers need to get along and deliver for product managers. Delivery should not be confined to the production of working software at the end of a sprint or project but delivery should also be expanded to day to day issues: technical, scheduling and timing, releases, scope creep and additional demand, unit testing etc… What the product manager need is solu
Product Management View Webinar Series – Marty Cagan, of SVPG, presents “How to Create Products Customers Love. A webinar that is well worth half an hour of your time - where Marty highlights 10 Techniques for discovering products that are: valuable, usable and feasible - taken from his book inspired. 1# Make sure you know what problem you’re trying to solve and that it’s worth solving. 2# Create a product strategy so that you know what you are trying to solve – even if you’re using agile!
Product Management View Webinar Series – Marty Cagan, of SVPG, presents “How to Create Products Customers Love. A webinar that is well worth half an hour of your time - where Marty highlights 10 Techniques for discovering products that are: valuable, usable and feasible - taken from his book inspired. 1# Make sure you know what problem you’re trying to solve and that it’s worth solving. 2# Create a product strategy so that you know what you are trying to solve – even if you’re using agile!
In his article, Innovating in Large Companies , Marty Cagan highlights the fact that many successful companies allow their engineers to spend 20% of the time on innovative projects of their choice. Marty encourages companies to allow Product Managers as well as engineers to spend 20% of their time innovating. Why is this a good idea? – Because many successful products come from the bottom up rather than the top down.
Graham Jones co-founder of Lane4 an international performance development consultancy gives several tips, in his recent article “ How the Best of the Best Get Better and Better ”, published in this months addition of Harvard Business Review, on improving your management performance – many of the tips are applicable to Product Managers. The article draws several parallels between successful sports and athletics personal.
It’s been over a year since the product management team went on a series of agile/scrum training courses. The transformation and associated challenges over the past 14 months have been quite interesting. Here’s a report on the journey, progress, issues encountered and experiences to date. Product Management Prior to Scrum Before agile working practices where adopted the Product Managers role consisted of a lot of short term tactical wins coupled with continual fire fighting.
Traditionally when I think of the job of the product manager I think of someone who is half marketing and half engineer – someone who is 50% orientated towards business needs and 50% orientated towards technology. People who have this mixture hold a number of different job titles: product manager, product marketing manager, product development manager… and so on.
Stand out in your product management interview with guidance from Priyanka Upadhyay, an experienced product leader and Stanford Online program coach. In this guide, Upadhay dives into five key competencies interviewers will likely want to assess. She provides sample questions with detailed answers spanning: Product strategy Product design Execution Market estimation Teamwork Confidently land the product management role you want by pre-empting what interviewers are looking for and demonstrating y
Where do you, as the Product Manager, see yourself in three years time? I always find this question challenging: the pace of product management and technology is moving so fast that it would be quite difficult to predict where or what today’s product manager would be doing in three or five years time. However here are a few thoughts that may help you answer the question and put you on track for a prolonged and fruitful career as a Product Manager Stress on seeing yourself as a successful Product
Wikipedia , states that: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. Therefore it is important that the product manager believes and supports the processes that the company has implemented. However are there ever situations when it is acceptable to break an agreed process?
Many ask the question “How do I get into Product Management” well here are a few links to Q&As, on the topic, on Jeff Lash’s new website ‘Ask a Good Product Manager’ How can a software engineer become a product manager? View my answer to this question - hopefully it will help not just the asker but many more software engineers who want to make the transition from software engineering to product management.
In general Product Management and/or Technical Product Management is about orientating between business and markets trends and needs and being able utilise technology to define product features and enhancements. Marty Cagan, in his article Are You Technical Enough? States that: "When I interview product management candidates, I’m looking hard at these two points.
Effective risk management in product development balances safety, compliance, and opportunity. Risks can't be eliminated, but they can be mitigated through structured assessments, clear documentation, and expert guidance. Engaging specialists ensures efficiency, regulatory adherence, and product security while reducing costly oversights. A well-executed risk management plan includes frequent evaluations, defined assessment criteria, and a structured decision-making process.
In the world of web development online product managers have two choices big bang (probably using waterfall) Vs incremental redesign (and empower product development ) of the websites their responsible for. The world of online moves at such a fast pace that by the time you carry out your research, then work with an analyst to document your findings in the form user requirements and then design and build your website (or online product) and then launch/re-launch it, the original research is in da
What would you do if your boss called you to a meeting and informed you that your team has been complaining about your lack of leadership and management? You would or course be surprised even shocked because you would have put things in place to ensure that you where leading and managing the team well. Once you express that you would be surprised you could then: 1.
Mark Barnes has extensive experience in facing customers, initially as a customer support engineer and then later in his career as a product manager. Continue reading to learn more about his transition and views about product management. 1. What’s your academic background/training? BEng in Electronics Engineering from Sussex University. Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from Chartered Institute of Marketing. 2.
The interviewer poses the folloing question: "You, and your team, were involved in a successful launch of a new product that exceeded business expectations during its first phase - what would you do?" First I would Celebrate [with the team of course] and then…. Follow Brian Lawley’s advice which is stay humble and give credit to the team. Following that it would be critical to analyse all the activities that led to the success launch of the product.
Savvy B2B marketers know that a great account-based marketing (ABM) strategy leads to higher ROI and sustainable growth. In this guide, we’ll cover: What makes for a successful ABM strategy? What are the key elements and capabilities of ABM that can make a real difference? How is AI changing workflows and driving functionality? This Martech Intelligence Report on Enterprise Account-Based Marketing examines the state of ABM in 2024 and what to consider when implementing ABM software.
Looking into the future and knowing what the competition, the market and your product will be like is probably one of the most challenging tasks that any product manager has to undertake. This can be a tricky question to answer at a job interview. “ Where do you see product x in y years time ”? How a product manager answers this question gives the interviewer an insight as to how much of a visionary they are and whether or not they keep a keen eye on technology as it progresses.
How do I become a product manager? There is no one right answer to this question however one thing we do know is that very few if any people enter the realms of technical product management immediately. I have interviewed a number of Product Managers who have shared their background, experiences, likes, dislikes and given tips on how to succeed. 1. From Marketing to Product Management Ivan Chalif studied psychology and counselling at university as opposed to business studies or technology – howe
Ivan Chalif is author of th eblog The Productologist. He is also a founding member of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association ( SVPMA ). In addition to creating the original logo, and managing the website and forums, Ivan was instrumental in organizing early SVPMA events and establishing the organization’s charter. 1. What’s your academic background/training?
We recently finished a scrum sprint; during the sprint review the technical team gave a demonstration, to senior business owners, of the newly developed functionality and bug fixes they had done during the sprint. It was noted at the sprint retrospective and subsequent discussions, that followed, that the demonstration gave equal weighting in terms of the time spent demonstrating each user story.
Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System
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I have recently been interviewing Product Managers about their jobs and writing interview Q&As for those who may be going for a job in Product Management. ( Refer to 'Your Career' for a list of articles). The aim is to provide individuals who want to get into Product Management with ideas, insight, inspiration and encouragement – one common thread that spreads across all the interviews is that everyone had a different role before they entered the world of Product Management.
People often ask the question – How do I to get into Product Management [from being a software engineer, project manager, business analyst etc…]. Patrick Jolley is a case in point of a web developer who recognised an opportunity to move into Product Management and took it. 1. What’s your academic background/training? I studied Business Information Technology at University.
Francois Abbe has had many years experience designing world beating hi tech equipment. He has had the opportunity to travel the globe both as an engineer and product manager representing the products he has designed and ( later on in his career ) that he product managed. 1. What's your academic background/training? After graduating in France, I followed a B.Eng in Electronics and Communication Engineering. 2.
The function and role of product management will become crucial as businesses expand and become more dependent on technology departments to asist them in gaining the competitive advantage. But what is 'Technical Product Management'? When asked to describe Product Management in one sentence Marty Cagan said: "This is the person responsible for discovering and defining a product that is useful, usable and feasible.
In 2024, B2B customers expect better quality and service with streamlined experiences that match consumer-grade simplicity—no long calls or meetings required. Our B2B eCommerce Trends Report, surveying 400+ B2B professionals in the US and Europe, reveals how eCommerce has become vital to top companies’ strategies. The report shows how leaders are leveraging eCommerce to break data silos, unify channels, and deliver the personalized experiences that customers demand.
ProfSvcs has left a comment on my blog post "Moving from Technology to Product Management to increase business skills" ‘asking how someone gets into product management’. The answer became what I would consider too long for a comment so I’ve written this article that I hope will help him and others who what to move into product management. I must stress that this is my opinion based on my own experience and the experience of others I’ve worked with.
What type of situations cause you stress? How do you handle stress? Stress can be a killer and every Product Manager and Project Mangers would have experienced during the course of their career. I was asked the question “How do you handle stress?” when I was being interviewed for a Product Mangers job at my current company and I have made it a point to ask the question of every Product Manager that I interview.
How would handle a senior business stakeholder that demands more than you can deliver with in a certain timeframe? If you have had experience in managing projects and products using scrum (or some other agile management frame work) then this would be your opportunity to demonstrate that you understand the benefits of scrum to manage stakeholders at all levels (see - Part #6 How Everyone Can Get Involved in Agile ).
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