One of my mentees (a Senior PM in a large corporation) told me, “Venkat, I am particularly bad at evangelising myself within my firm. I do not do enough of it.” This is a common complaint many PMs have about themselves for not creating “visibility” for themselves or their work. Having known
Many leaders hesitate to let go of poorly performing team members even after giving them enough time to improve. Few postpone the decision indefinitely and live with the problem despite being fully aware that this affects their own performance and the team as a whole. Why do they do this? To avoid
One of the biggest psychological impacts of getting laid off is the feeling of “I am not good enough”. While performance is definitely a consideration for layoff decisions, it is overrated in the eyes of the affected people. I am listing down the other parameters that go into the decision-making process. Leaders
One of the stressful things about a manager’s life is having to remember the details of every team member’s work. Managers are required to answer questions from their boss, senior management, stakeholders, investors, etc. for which they need to remember details of team members’ day-to-day work and progress. Knowing complete details of
Background: Pradeep joins HelloAB, a series C startup as VP of Products. He was brimming with excitement to solve some of the important problems facing the startup. In a couple of weeks, he understood that customer focus was broken. He created a plan to bring back the focus and showcased the same
Short answer: You can lead 3-5 Product managers/leaders before maxing yourself out Using a 2-step process, here is how to calculate the exact number of PMs that you can realistically manage. Step 1. Calculate the time expectations from your different responsibilities: There are multiple expectations from a leader’s time. Below is the
When you realize that your team member is better than you, what would you do? First, congratulate yourself that you are not one of those “leaders” who carefully avoid hiring people who can be a potential threat to their position. You have made the right choice of hiring smarter people. A couple
When promoted to a leadership role, one may wonder if it’s necessary to continue functioning as an individual contributor (IC). For instance, a product manager may be tempted to write a PRD and launch a feature instead of delegating them to a team member. Frequently cited reasons for taking up IC work
John was a product leader at a global firm known for its people-centred culture. He was an empathetic leader who always put his team members first. He cared deeply about his team members’ careers and emotional well-being and didn’t reprimand them when mistakes were made. He spent a lot of time mentoring
[This article is the last part of the PM compensation series. You can read the previous articles here, here and here.] XYZ was a high-growth and successful fintech firm with some 30-odd PMs and 150 engineers. Anand, Bama and Charlie were 3 Product Managers at XYZ Inc. working in different roles within
