Nidhi Surana

Mistakes that I make as a #ProductManagement mentor/leader Mistake 11 Making product managers the focus of all discussions And not involving/enabling design, data science, business and engineering to contribute in discussions and drive strong collaboration and autonomous decision making within cross functional pods.

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Product design involves more than just moving pixels around on the screen - it's about stakeholder alignment, understanding technical limitations, and collaborating with various teams. From customer journey mapping to data analysis, product design encompasses a wide range of tasks beyond aesthetics. As you gain experience in the field, the focus shifts towards strategic elements. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of product design? #productdesign #userexperiencedesign #userinterfacedesign #ux #ui

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Strategic decision making is the backbone of successful product management. Here is my 7-point guide for product leaders to shape crucial decisions. 1. Aligning with Company Goals 🔹 Strong leaders align strategic decisions with the company’s goals, ensuring focus and coherence. 2. Data-Driven Decisions 🔹 Leaders who prioritize data make informed, confident decisions. 🔹 Effective leaders balance data insights with customer feedback. 3. Balancing Risk and Innovation 🔹 Leaders who balance risk and innovation push boundaries while managing downsides effectively. 4. Facilitating Collaboration 🔹 Leaders foster cross-functional collaboration, bringing diverse perspectives and leading to robust solutions. 5. Setting Clear Priorities 🔹 Effective leaders establish clear priorities, ensuring the team focuses on what matters most. 6. Driving Product Discovery 🔹 Leaders emphasize product discovery to identify and solve real customer and business problems, ensuring that the team builds solutions that truly matter. 7. Focusing on Long-Term Vision 🔹 Leaders maintain a focus on the long-term vision, ensuring that strategic decisions not only address immediate needs but also support the future direction of the product and company. #ProductManagement #Leadership #Strategy #Innovation #Collaboration #Decisionmaking

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One of the most critical superpowers product managers should prioritize is empathy. Even moreso, in its multiple ramifications. Empathy for: - A customer’s pain-point - Why stakeholders may be pushing back on your ideas - What an executive cares about - When a teammate needs extra support - When to truly stop talking and listen

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When you say your product has Product Market Fit, it means your product has achieved PMF for specific segments of users, not everyone which you consider as your potential user. PMF is always segment specific, it is never generic. So next time you want to grow your product, understand which set of customers loved your product initially and find similar customers who have similar needs.

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Mistakes that I make as a #ProductManagement mentor/leader Mistake #10 Asking my mentees to pick up a problem/ project with urgency And not giving them the necessary context on the reason for urgency and helping them with re-prioritisation of the items currently in progress.

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Who Killed Product Management in India? 🔎 This was the title of of a recent article by Praveen Gopal Krishnan on The Ken, he puts forth some interesting points (link the comments). One key point that stood out was someone saying - 90% of Product Manager roles have become redundant. Engineers, designers, and business professionals can now take on tasks once exclusive to PMs. Harsh? Maybe. True? To some extent. So, what does the future hold for PMs? I believe the future lies in the rise of the Full Stack Product Management and in everyone gaining a strong product sense. Let’s dive into details below. Article Insights: Product Management has shifted from a creative, intuitive role to a bureaucratic, data-driven one. Instead of creating innovative products, PMs are bogged down with frameworks, PRDs, and justifying decisions to stakeholders. AI is also automating many PM tasks, further pushing PMs toward obsolescence. Companies like Airbnb have even removed traditional PM roles, showing how product development can happen without them. Know thy Product: The core issue, in my view, is that we don’t truly understand what their product is. Too often, the "product" is mistaken for the app or the website—the enablers—rather than the value delivered to the customer. -> What’s the Real Product? Flipkart/Amazon: Not the app, but the goods they deliver 📦 Netflix: Not the platform, but the content 🎬 Zomato/Swiggy: It’s the food 🍔 Gmail/WhatsApp: The network effect they create 📱 The actual product is the core value, and whoever is owning it is the one owning the customer too. There are spaces where PMs can own the product, like in B2C tech (Gmail, YouTube) or B2B SaaS Applications; but in industries like e-commerce or D2C, the product isn't the app; it's the actual goods experience or service. Everyone Needs Product Sense: It’s not just PMs who need to get this. Whether you’re in business, ops, engineering, analytics, or business ops, having a product mindset is crucial to understanding the end value delivered to customers. Companies should encourage leaders and ICs alike to gain product exposure. Product sense helps you understand users, business impact, and how to solve real problems. Whats the moat for some wanting to be a PM or who is a PM: Enter the Full Stack Product Manager The future of PMs is Full Stack, blending creativity, data, and technical skills. The Full Stack PM can: Identify customer problems, Conduct discovery, Prototype and build solutions, Collaborate with engineers to build scalable products, Market and sell the product, Iterate based on feedback. AI and no-code tools are enabling this shift, allowing PMs to own the entire product lifecycle. What do you think of this? Share your views in the comments below and follow me (Vellanki Sriharsha) for more such insights. #ProductManagement #FullStackPM #AI #ProductLeadership #FutureOfWork

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Freemium Users: Stockholm Syndrome or Secret Weapon? (Product Managers, Look Here!) Ever wondered why users cling to your freemium plan, even when a paid version offers clear benefits? It's not just about budget! As product managers, we can tap into a powerful psychological force: the Endowment Effect. This bias makes people value things more simply because they own them. Think of it as emotional investment - the more users customize our platform, the more ingrained it becomes. They perceive switching as a loss, not just a new purchase. Here's how we can leverage this for epic retention: Freemium Trials with Bite: Don't just offer basic features. Give users a taste of the good stuff, features that become essential parts of their workflow. Upgrading becomes about keeping what they already love, not just acquiring something new. The Customization Conundrum: Make it easy for users to personalize their experience - custom dashboards, integrations, unique workflows. A platform that feels built around their needs becomes a prized possession. Data, the Double-Edged Sword: While a seamless user experience is key, some strategic complexity in data migration can nudge users towards staying put. The time and effort invested in setting up becomes part of the perceived value. (But remember, we don't want to make switching a nightmare!) The Endowment Effect in Action: A SaaS Case Study Imagine an analytics platform with a freemium model. A startup uses the free plan to generate basic reports. Over time, they customize dashboards to track key metrics, integrate data from other tools, and develop specialized reporting workflows. As the company scales, the limitations of the free plan become apparent. Upgrading feels less like a purchase and more like safeguarding their finely tuned analytics machine - a system they've invested time and sweat into building. By understanding the Endowment Effect, product managers can craft features and experiences that foster user attachment, leading to a loyal and thriving customer base. Let's discuss! What are your experiences using the Endowment Effect in product design? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments! #ProductManagement #SaaSPsychology #EndowmentEffect #SaaS

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Mistakes that I make as #ProductManagement mentor/leader Mistake 13 (probably a deal breaker) Letting the mentees be the only accountable people when a highly debatable decision or mistake is made And not taking responsibility and supporting them with equal accountability in big forums. As a mentee myself, the feeling that my mentor has my back inspires immense confidence in me to take big decisions and gives me the psychological safety that there’s someone to help lift me up when I fall.

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The product lifecycle is like a Bollywood movie: Starts with a bang, full of drama in the middle (bugs!), and ends with everyone wondering if there will be a sequel (new version) or if it's just a one-hit wonder. #productmanagerlife #productmanagement #productmanager #agile #productowner #officehumor #worklifebalance #softwareengineeringhumor #uxhumor #customercentric #productlifecycle #productlaunch #bugs #productdevelopment #newversion #bollywood #softwareengineeringhumor #productmanagerlife

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Nothing hurts career growth for talented Product Managers other than over-indexing on the immediate next job move as the only important thing for career advancement. Here is how to avoid this short term thinking trap and build a career plan for meaningful career success : Step 1️⃣: Envision what you want to achieve and create your career roadmap - Think your career as a product and have a long term vision - Think roles/titles/scope you want to have in long term - Identify what PM skills you need to succeed in that role - Work backwards to reverse engineer your plan to learn those skills - Have clear short term milestones to monitor progress - Identify companies which can help you build that skill set - Identify mentors/coaches/courses/books which can fast track your learning - Plan for scenarios in case a role/company is not a good fit (eg when will you quit and what will you do next) Step 2️⃣: Find right roles as per your plan and build your reputation - Go after the role you want to start with as per your plan (always pick companies with higher growth and higher odds of success when having multiple offers) - Improve your strategy, execution, influence and communication skills as you grow - Work extremely hard and deliver strong outcomes via your product work - As you progress understand what are your strengths and liabilities - Go deep on your strengths and build your reputation around it - Work on your liabilities to bring them to median level of proficiency - Understand what environmental parameters help you thrive eg extent of manager support, fast vs slow paced environment, processes vs autonomy etc - Annually assess how close/far-off you are wrt to your short term milestones - In case you see gaps, transition to new role/company basis the extent to which things can be fixed in your current role Step 3️⃣: Learn how to be lucky than solely relying on hard work - Create your advisor council to share your journey and seek inputs - Contribute to the community of PMs to organically build you network - Support others(within/outside your team) in their career growth - Work hard to find your sponsors within and outside your company - Always give more than you seek #productmanagement #pmcareergrowth

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Nils Davis, I appreciate you for a great conversation about the current state of product management! Nils put a spotlight on key factors impacting product managers in the B2B space. He also shares what he believes are the essential skills of product management success. It may a surprise to learn that Nils puts a premium on developing soft skills and the ability to communicate through storytelling. Key Take Aways from this episode include: •          Storytelling is Product Management a superpower •          How to avoid the feature factory •          Go-to-Market skills are a key differentiator Don’t miss this episode of GTM Disrupted! Click the link below to listen:  Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gN_jk-QN  #GTMdisrupted #gtmstrategy #prodmgmt #cpo #GTM

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👋 How can improv help product managers have effective conversations? Shardul Mehta is a rare combination of a seasoned product leader and an improv instructor! In just 6 min on Product BLAH, Shardul shares three improv techniques to level up. Shardul teaches product managers how to launch and scale products. He has been an entrepreneur and a senior product executive at growth-focused companies. He also performs and teaches improv. 🗣 We bring the BLAH, now its your turn to bring the BLAH BLAH :-) Love to hear your thoughts! Product BLAH 2 - Level Up with Improv | Shardul Mehta #productmanagement #productleadership Product Leader's Journey

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Product strategy is crucial, but obsession with the customer experience is critical. Great PMs don't just plan—they meticulously craft every touchpoint of the customer journey. Quality experiences does not happen by accident; it's a relentless, tough but rewarding pursuit.

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Product managers need some level of financial literacy to ensure they are speaking the same language as their stakeholders and other decision-makers. This write-up explains some of the financial terms PMs need the most, as well as how to take it back to their product teams. https://lnkd.in/gZ3xgXWg #productteams #financialacumen #finance #product

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💡 The Sean Ellis test is a simple yet effective method to gauge product market fit. Just ask your users, "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" and if 40% or more respond "very disappointed," then you have a leading indicator that you achieved product market fit. Sean Ellis highlights on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast that you can further ask your users why they feel this way to understand what resonates with them the most. In the past, I've run this test at the end of the product journey, however, some companies like Nubank go one step further and optimize for product-market fit down to the feature level. #ProductManagement #ProductDiscovery

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Interesting piece and helpful definition about the quickly evolving role of product management Your job as a PM is to deliver business impact by marshaling the resources of your team (both human and AI) to identify and solve the most impactful customer problems.

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"Risk mitigation in product management is like wearing a helmet while tightrope walking over a pool of hungry crocodiles. It might not save you completely, but at least you'll look fabulous doing it." - Author Unknown #productmanagement #productmanager #productdiscovery #userresearch #customerneeds #problemsolving #innovation #humor #marketing #development #productlaunch #entrepreneur #customercentric #MVP #agile #ux #designthinking #learnontiktok #startups

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