How To Succeed In Product Management | Jeffrey Shulman, Red Russak & Soumeya Benghanem - 27: Transitioning from an Individual Contributor to a Manager

27: Transitioning from an Individual Contributor to a Manager

12/01/21 • 57 min

How To Succeed In Product Management | Jeffrey Shulman, Red Russak & Soumeya Benghanem

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Poorvi Shrivastav (HubSpot) to talk about how to smoothly transition from being an individual contributor to a leadership role. Aside from the tips and guides one can learn and practice while in transition, never lose focus on putting people first.

Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.

What to Listen For:

00:00 Intro
01:29 Transition from an individual contributor (IC) to Manager
07:43 Who directly reports to you?
08:51 The biggest transition from being an IC to a manager
11:02 3 things you need to succeed in the management role
16:20 Be very clear about the credit that belongs to you
20:13 Tips on how to transition in your first few days
25:29 Focus on outcome, but think about the process too
31:11 How to ace an interview for a leadership role
41:20 When you start leading a team that you are part of
47:38 How do you manage delegation?
50:00 Transition from an IC to management course
52:02 Focus on people first

What to Listen For:

00:00 Intro
01:29 Transition from an individual contributor (IC) to Manager
07:43 Who directly reports to you?
08:51 The biggest transition from being an IC to a manager
11:02 3 things you need to succeed in the management role
16:20 Be very clear about the credit that belongs to you
20:13 Tips on how to transition in your first few days
25:29 Focus on outcome, but think about the process too
31:11 How to ace an interview for a leadership role
41:20 When you start leading a team that you are part of
47:38 How do you manage delegation?
50:00 Transition from an IC to management course
52:02 Focus on people first

Previous Episode

26: The Relationship Between PMs and Sales and Marketing

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Ted Dworkin (Sonos) to talk about strengthening the relationships between the PM and the sales and marketing team. PMs are dependent on the collection of data to be able to develop and improve a product, while sales and marketing has direct contact with customers and what they truly need. Therefore, the collaboration between these organizations is crucial to the overall success of any product or service.

What to Listen For:

00:00 Intro
01:52 How product managers and executives interface with sales and marketing organizations within the company
04:56 Becoming part of the sale force and being customer centric
10:35 Embedding conversations into the product development process
15:32 Having an established sales motion
19:50 The difference between B2B and B2C
22:50 Balance between doing sales and product market fit
30:13 The responsibilities of a product marketing manager
34:32 PMs collaborating with the marketing counterparts
38:22 How often is the core team talking about customer data?
42:22 Accept and look at all internal data
47:54 Hire the people with the right skillset
51:31 Take full advantage of building relationships with marketing and sales
52:53 Continue conversations with sales people
55:37 Sales and product should be hanging out often

Next Episode

28: How to Ace Product Management Interviews

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Martie K. Burris (Salesforce) to discuss product management interview strategies. To land the best PM role in the best company, you have to master the art of acing any and all product management interviews. Listen in to the techniques experienced PMs use, their strategies that have worked, and their proven and tested frameworks.

What to Listen For: