Product Management — Product Leadership Blog

Are You a Product Manager Selecting a New Boss? Here’s How to Assess Product Leaders

In any role, your manager has the ability to make or break your experience. But perhaps this is especially the case for product managers because your job involves so much cross-functional collaboration and influencing without authority, so even more than other roles, you need a leader who will support and empower you.
Whether you’re interviewing for a new product job or your company is hiring a product leader and you’ve been asked to participate in the interview process, you will occasionally find yourself in the position of choosing your new boss.

What Exactly Do We Mean by “Product Leaders”?

I’ve recently noticed a trend within the product world that’s a little unsettling to me. We’ve typically created a distinction between product managers or product owners, the individual contributors who are responsible for product discovery and delivery, and product leaders or product leads, the people in a leadership role who manage product managers or product teams.

Storytelling for Product People: The Essentials

Storytelling is an essential skill for product managers and the key to evangelizing our products. But it's not one that comes naturally. In my Mind the Product London talk, I offer some tips for becoming a better storyteller.

All blog posts, StorytellingPetra Wille21 October 2021Product Management, Storytelling, Product Leadership

How to make the most of your coaching sessions

Committing to working with a coach is a big step. It means you’re investing money (maybe your own, maybe your company’s) and time (definitely your own) in your professional development. This is great, but it’s critically important to be thoughtful about how you approach the experience. Like many things in life, coaching depends so much on the effort you put into it.

All blog posts, CoachingPetra Wille26 August 2021Product Leadership, Product Management, Coaching

The BOOK is out!

Big announcement! My book, STRONG: A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers, is now published. If you already know you want to get a copy (or two), you can do so here.

Want to learn a little bit more about who the book is for and what you can expect to learn from it? Keep reading!

The PMwheel as a Manager of Product Managers

The PMwheel has become a reliable compass for people who want to navigate their product career or develop their direct reports. It’s an approach that I have personally used in my work with clients ever since I developed it.

For managers, The PMwheel is a simple, but powerful way to assess the responsibilities, skills, and knowhow of your product managers. Keep in mind that no two assessments for your different product managers will be the same—some will be stronger in one area, while others will be stronger in others.

How to use the PMwheel as a Self-Assessment Tool for Product Managers

I have created the PMwheel back in 2016 to give my coaching sessions with PMs from all over the globe some more structure and I am using it ever since in my work with my clients.

And I figured out that it is a framework that many of my former coachees are still using long after they have left the initial company. They, in this case, are mainly using it as a tool for self-assessment in times where there is no line-manager helping them with their personal growth. It became a compass for many people that helps them navigate their product career. So I have decided to share it with a much bigger audience to help even more people with it.

The PMwheel – a Compass for the Product Manager Development Journey

Back in 2016, I was working with the product organization of a larger tech company. They asked me to help every product manager on the team “understand the role of the product manager better,” and to help the product managers understand what “better” would actually look like.

This was not an easy challenge and, although I had a certain take on what product managers should be responsible for, I lacked a clear framework—an assessment that I could have discussed with the individual product manager in one of our coaching sessions.

Inspiring Strong Product Leaders: A Conversation with Teresa Torres

Some weeks ago, I had the honour of being interviewed by Teresa Torres. There was no shortage of topics for us to cover in our recent conversation. We’ve talked about my upcoming book, about how to develop STRONG product people if you are a product leader and about my coaching cards.

What do Product Managers want from their Bosses?

What is the job of a product leader? How should a Head of Product, a VP of Product, or a Product Team Lead behave?

Many articles have been written on this subject, most of them either by product consultants or people holding one of the above titles. But what if we ask these questions to the people they’re supposed to lead? What does a product manager think about this? What do they want from their boss?