post

Footer About

Footer Contribute

Footer Get Involved

Footer Links

Mind the Product

Product Management

Sunday Rewind: Whose job is it anyway? The rise of Product Ops and why it deserves to be an independent function

Guest Post

Creating metrics that matter

B2B product management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

Building Product Teams

Business Strategy

Data Driven Product Management

Digital Transformation

Diversity and Inclusion

Minimum Viable Product

OKRs

Prioritisation

Product Design

Product Research

Product Development Process

Product Ethics

Product Discovery

Product Leadership

Product Management Career

Product Strategy

Stakeholder Management

🌎 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/world-product-day/" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Happy World Product Day!</a> Be sure to celebrate product, yourself, and your peers today! 🎉

How much are product managers getting paid in 2024?

Leading product ops at Delivery Hero with Koen Dubelaar

Connecting fans to creators at Spotify (Dariusz Dziuk, Product Lead, Spotify)

“You’re not as competent as you think” 5 lessons from Ken Chin on navigating a product career (CPO, Spark Networks)

Everything wrong with the product management job market. And how to fix it

Ed is a Product Manager at TheFoodMarket.com, an online marketplace helping indepdant food merchants reach a larger audience. Volunteering with MindTheProduct since 2012, Ed can be found assisting at numerous events, offering his insight around connecting technology, customers and business.

Edward Kendall

<p>In this November 2020 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#mtpcon Digital</a> session, Director of Product at Onfido <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Susana Videira Lopes</a>, shares two different product career stories, explaining the which was most effective in serving both the business and the individual.</p>
<p>Watch the session in full, or read on for the highlights.</p>
<h2>The Horizontal Slice</h2>
<p>Susana begins by giving an example of a friend, Lily, who in her first product role, spent a whole year working on nothing but delivery execution. Susana visualises six core product management activities in a pyramid, with delivery execution making up the bottom, horizontal slice:</p>
<ul>
<li>Product vision</li>
<li>Product strategy</li>
<li>Problem discovery and validation</li>
<li>Problem prioritisation</li>
<li>Solution discovery and validation</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Delivery execution</span></li>
</ul>
<figure style="width: 956px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/0d4f9324-6cee-4ad7-a933-cbde9a00a4d1_susana20lopes20product20manager20pyramid.png" alt="the horizontal slice " width="956" height="531" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Susana visualises six core product management activities in a pyramid, like this</figcaption></figure>
<p>Lily was stuck at the bottom of the pyramid, working only on &#8220;project management and delivery skills,&#8221; says Susana, which meant that while she handled all of the delivery execution, her manager was free to take on the roles further up the pyramid. As a result, Lily was left confused and frustrated. Why was she being given these tasks and prevented from learning the skills to move up? At the same time, she saw her manager becoming increasingly separated from the technology team and out of touch with their day-to-day work.</p>
<h2>The Vertical Slice</h2>
<p>Next, Susana shares her own experience of starting out in Product. Unlike Lily, she didn&#8217;t get stuck at the bottom of the pyramid. Instead, she was given a small slice of delivery before gradually moving up the pyramid, allowing her to build up customer knowledge and hone her skills. Her next assignment was to work on a problem that had already been prioritised. One that was no longer a feature but a problem in and of itself. &#8220;It was my job to find the right solution,&#8221; she says. She was going up, not sideways and within a year, she&#8217;d climbed the pyramid &#8211; the vertical slice &#8211; cutting across all the layers of what a product manager should be.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/113ff110-ea1a-41b9-bf7a-df003fa2f110_susana20lopes20venn20diagram.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>&#8220;This approach put me right in the middle of the Venn diagram, which meant that needs of the business, of solving the right problems in the right way, were met,&#8221; she says, &#8220;but also my needs &#8211; building up my confidence and having an exciting career &#8211; were also met.&#8221; Susana explains how over time, she was effectively paired with small problems in each horizontal slice of the pyramid that translated into one thin vertical slice going form bottom to top.<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bbb85f99-69e0-4c1b-b1d8-8b21a1fdf6eb_susana20lopes20product20mnagament20pyramid202.png" alt="" /></p>
<h2>Climbing the Product Career Ladder</h2>
<p>Finally, Susana explains that the difference between her story and Lily&#8217;s was luck. Neither she nor Lily knew what to look for in a product management job and while Susana got lucky, Lily did not. &#8220;I hope that by sharing these two stories that you&#8217;ll be empowered to change your luck. That you&#8217;ll be able to tell a good opportunity, that will excel your career, take up you that ladder faster, not stall it,&#8221; and she poses the question: “Are you working every layer of the pyramid?&#8221;. If not, she suggests, try to find out what it will take for you to do so. Create processes that force you to practice at every level and tell your manager what your ambitions are.</p>
<h2>More from Susana</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The State of the Product – Susana Lopes on The Product Experience</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tools to Help Product Managers Think Strategically and Commercially &#8211; Part 1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tools to Help Product Managers Think Strategically and Commercially: State of Product Meeting</a></li>
</ul>

core/freeform

Susana Lopes: Embracing a dual-track career ladder in product

Career clinic for product managers by John Cutler

Hiring product managers by Kate Leto

Identify and manage imposter syndrome by Phyllis Njoroge

From PO to CPO: How to drive your product career by Namrata Sarmah

Learnings from London: The secret sauce to hiring great product people by Kate Leto

Building the perfect product manager: A model for professional development by Greg Prickril

Minimum viable product manager by Susana Videira Lopes

Edward Kendall