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Sean Horgan
Practice of Product
Leading PMs
Sean Horgan
“It makes no sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do”
— Steve Jobs
The leap from a product manager serving as an individual contributor to a Manager of PMs can be very challenging. and Casey Winters laid out the challenges in this great article: :
In that article, they laid out four key transitions you need to make:
Principles
A first principle is a “basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.”
A manager of PMs needs to focus on:
Questions to constantly ask your team
On Ownership (drafting)
DRAFTING
On Decisions
On Growth
As a leader of PMs you need to think about a PM’s career beyond your team and the company. It’s rare for the product they onboarded to or created to continue to present exactly the challenges and opportunities necessary for their growth. You either help them find the next best thing or someone else will...and it’s better for it to be you.
You should have honest conversations with your team members about their career goals. This should be both 1:1 and as a team.
What is the perfect environment for them? Do they see themselves as a founder or a CPO at a 10K+ Fortune 100 company?
References
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