Product Voices

In this episode, Eva Beasley,  Product Manager at UiPath shares her story about how she moved into a product management after years in technical support roles.

She shares why she thought the product manager role was for her, and we also discuss:

• how her time in technical support got her ready for the role in product 
• being a woman in product
• advice to others on how to move into product 
• how technical a PM needs to be
• if she was surprised by any aspects of the PM role

Learn more at ProductVoices.com.

Nada Buhendi is the CEO and certified master career coach at Unleashing Your Awesome. On this episode, she shares how she transitioned careers and the unique issues that arose from being an immigrant to a new country.

We discuss:

• Why she quit a job via text! 
• Challenges of learning a new industry or role
• Unique challenges that immigrants have when changing jobs
• The personality types that tend to be great product managers

How can community of peers, mentors, and select side projects help your product management career?

In this episode, Naimeesha Murthy, VP Product at New Venture Labs and Founder of Products by Women, shares her journey in product management - including founding and growing a global networking and education community, leveraging mentors across her career and life, and finding side projects that stoke her passion - and how all of these have made her a better product person.

Do we need a separate product strategy or do we need to a plan to align our activities with an overarching business strategy? Ryan Frederick, author and Principal/Founder of AWH makes the case for the latter in this episode.

"Strategy is supposed to be something that is singular. A company has a strategy not strategies."

Learn more:
Ryan's books are: The Founder’s Manual: A Guidebook for Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur and Sell Naked: And Other Advice for Growing and Managing Services Firms.

Mental health is a topic that is, thankfully, being spoken of more openly these days. Especially in roles like product management and technology where there is a lot of complexity, visibility, and pressure, it is really important to openly discuss issues around mental health.

In this important episode, special guests Graham Reed and Jacquelyn Guderley, founders of the Product Mind Community join to talk about why it was important for them to create a safe space for product professionals to come together, share, listen, and support each other.

How can we make better, more inclusive, more equitable, more conscious products?

In this episode, Lisa Zane, CEO and Founder of Conscious Product Development shares how product managers and product teams can build more conscious products and solve the right problems for the right reasons.

Learn more from Lisa at www.consciousproductdevelopment.com and find resources mentioned on the episode below:

• The Product Manager’s Career Guide 
•  Conscious Product Toolkit
• Define Your PM Career North Star Worksheet 
• Finding Meaningful Problems to Solve 

On this episode, Zachary Hanson joins to discuss his very unique version of remote work - living and working in Atlanta, Idaho, USA, a town with a population of 35 people. Yes, 35! The closest grocery store is four hours away. He has learned to live without instant connectivity and share some lessons that has come from that...

• Learning to find value in no meetings and lots of focus time
• Communicating succinctly and effectively
• Forced heads-down time can make all the difference 

Zachary also just published a book about his unique lifestyle: Turning Feral. Be sure to check it out!

In this episode, with guest Prerna Kaul, Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon, we dive deep into product management for Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning products, including:

• Overview of AI / ML products
• Building a strategy for AI / ML products
• Designing AI / ML products
• Iterating and improving AI / ML products
• Root cause analysis for AI / ML products
• Getting into AI / ML product management as a career
• Resources to keep learning

Learn more at ProductVoices.com.

While product managers should first and foremost be experts on the market and the customer problem, it’s no secret that some level of understanding of the solution is important. 

But what is that level? On this episode, we explore that question.

Jan Lukas Haslbeck, founder of NATE, joins to discuss:

• The difference between skills and literacy
• Why a product manager needs tech skills and/or literacy.
• What level of skills a product manager needs
• How to break down technical literacy for product managers

We "fail" a lot in product management… a feature doesn’t resonate. A project goes off the rails. Our revenue or usage or retention numbers aren’t what we forecasted. 

But we need to redefine failure. We need to realize that through this "failure", we learn. We grow. We become better. Emotional resilience is paramount for us in product management.

Susana Lopes, Director of Product at Onfido, shares her story on how she became resilient - through some really hard times.

We talk about:

• Susana's experience with product "failure" and how she learned to turn a negative into a positive
• How we can look at missteps as learning experiences
• Tips on being resilient in product management