EP 77 - Product Competency Toolkit with Ravi Mehta
Jun 7, 2023
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Guest Ravi Mehta, former CEO at Outpace and former CPO at Tinder, discusses the Product Competency Toolkit, hiring product managers, and strategies for career growth. Topics include the importance of being a bridge between customers and engineering, the development of the toolkit at TripAdvisor, and the creation of Outpace to democratize access to professional coaching.
Outpace is a platform founded by Ravi Mehta that aims to democratize access to effective professional coaching and provides a comprehensive coaching program for mid-career product leaders.
Ravi Mehta emphasizes the importance of setting and hitting meaningful goals to accelerate career growth and advises product managers to align their work with the top concerns of their superiors or make strategic assumptions to bridge the gap between product management and executive leadership when a clear company strategy is lacking.
Deep dives
Outpace: Democratizing Access to Professional Coaching
Outpace is a platform founded by Ravi Mehta that aims to democratize access to effective professional coaching. By offering a mobile product that combines quick microlearning with one-on-one coaching, Outpace helps individuals level up their skills and receive personalized guidance. The platform currently focuses on product management, offering a comprehensive coaching program for product leaders. With 24 sessions covering various topics, such as product strategy, influence, and crisis management, Outpace provides a complete learning loop for mid-career product leaders. The goal is to help product managers navigate their careers, gain strategic insights, and achieve their professional goals.
Setting and Hitting Meaningful Goals for Career Growth
Ravi Mehta emphasizes the importance of setting and hitting meaningful goals to accelerate career growth. Regardless of seniority, individuals should focus on setting goals that align with the company's definition of success and are aggressive yet achievable. By consistently delivering on these goals, product managers can build a reputation for being reliable and impactful. Furthermore, Ravi advises seeking a deep understanding of the company's strategy to set goals that address top-of-mind concerns and provide value to the business. In cases where a clear strategy is lacking, product managers can make strategic assumptions and present a coherent product direction, initiating constructive conversations with leadership to refine and align the strategy.
Navigating Strategic Gaps and Lack of Company Strategy
When faced with strategic gaps or a lack of company strategy, Ravi Mehta suggests two approaches for product managers. First, they can inquire about the top concerns of their superiors and align their work with these concerns. By delivering on tactical goals and demonstrating reliability, product managers gain trust and open doors for more strategic responsibilities. Second, in the absence of a clear company strategy, product managers can make strategic assumptions and propose well-reasoned product strategies and directions. This proactive approach allows for a more nuanced conversation about strategy and helps bridge the gap between product management and executive leadership.
Finding Success Through Goal-Oriented Product Management
Ravi Mehta highlights the parallel expectations between a year one product manager and a Fortune 500 CEO. Both are responsible for setting and hitting meaningful goals regularly. To achieve career growth, product managers should develop a deep understanding of the company's strategy and set goals that align with it. By setting and achieving these goals, product managers build a track record of success and gain the trust of executive leadership. This, in turn, opens up opportunities for increased responsibilities and advancement within the organization.
Have you ever wondered what are all the things you need to know to become the best Product Manager? Or what to look for when hiring product managers for your team, and how to grow them in their career? In our latest episode Matt and Moshe met with Ravi Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO at Outpace (formerly Executive In Residence at Reforge, CPO at Tinder, and various Product leadership roles at Facebook, TripAdvisor, and Xbox). Ravi shared with us how he mistakenly found his way into product management at Microsoft, and how he grew in his career since then. As a VP of Consumer Product at TripAdvisor, Ravi developed the Product Competency Toolkit, which helps product professionals identify their strengths and weaknesses, and provide them direction on areas to focus on. In this episode you will learn:
What’s better - a well rounded Product Manager, or a pointy one?
The structure and components of the toolkit
Should we hire product people based on their subject matter expertise, or their product skills?
What is Outpace and how did he get to build it
What product managers should do to move up in their career
What to do if the org does not have a strategy in place?