Toyyibat Yussuph (American Express), Ria Bhatia (Niantic), and Rakesh Kumar (Mastercard) join marketing professor Jeff Shulman to discuss platform product management. They cover topics such as user personas, risk assessment, prioritization, and aligning business features with tech imperatives. The podcast explores the importance of understanding the essentials of a platform and provides insights into building scalable platform products.
Platform product management requires a clear and aligned vision to prioritize the right features and tasks.
Balancing business features with technical imperatives is a challenge for platform product managers.
Empathy and effective communication are essential for successful collaboration with engineering teams in platform product management.
Deep dives
The importance of alignment and vision in platform product management
Platform product management requires a clear and aligned vision in order to prioritize the right features and tasks. It is essential to have a common understanding of the company's objectives and work towards them. Building a platform product often involves taking the first cut, or minimum viable product (MVP), and building upon it to achieve the desired vision.
Balancing business features and technical imperatives in platform product management
Platform product managers face the challenge of balancing business features with technical imperatives. It is crucial to prioritize both aspects, ensuring the delivery of value to customers and maintaining the stability and scalability of the platform. This requires close collaboration between product managers and engineering teams, as well as a clear understanding of the trade-offs between business needs and technical considerations.
The importance of scalability and metrics in platform product management
Platform product managers need to prioritize scalability and consider key metrics such as meantime to resolve (MTTR) and meantime to mitigate (MTTM). Scalability is crucial to support future growth and expand the platform into new regions or markets. Monitoring and optimizing these metrics can help improve the platform's reliability and ensure smooth operations for both internal and external users. Additionally, AB testing can be an effective strategy to roll out new features without disrupting customers, enabling continuous improvement and iteration.
The value of empathy and effective communication in platform product management
Empathy and effective communication are essential skills for platform product managers, particularly in their interactions with engineering teams. Understanding the perspective of engineers and collaborating closely with them can lead to more successful outcomes. Effective communication helps ensure alignment and mitigate the challenges that arise in balancing technical and business requirements. Platform product managers who can bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders can drive cohesive collaboration and achieve desired outcomes.
Continuous learning and adaptability in platform product management
Platform product management requires a mindset of continuous learning and adaptability. As the product landscape evolves, platform product managers need to stay curious, ask relevant questions, and seek opportunities to broaden their perspectives. This may involve networking, learning from subject matter experts, volunteering on projects, and staying updated on industry trends. Being open to new experiences and continuously improving one's skills can contribute to long-term success in platform product management.
Join us in Seattle on May 12th and 13th for the Inclusive Product Management Summit. Early bird pricing on registration available at https://summit.info.foster.uw.edu/
In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman welcomes Toyyibat Yussuph, PMP (American Express) and Ria Bhatia (Niantic) with an appearance by Rakesh Kumar (Mastercard) as they discuss the ABCs of platform product management and why this role is important in product management. Platform PMs look at the bigger picture of a product and is an important role because platforms have become a key driver of innovation and growth in many industries.
Disclaimer: All opinions of the speakers are their own.
What to Listen For:
00:00 Intro
04:12 What is platform product management?
06:04 User persona in platform PM
08:23 Should you try to be a platform PM?
14:11 Private betas
18:15 Risk assessment
24:00 Prioritization
27:10 How do you know the essentials of the platform?
29:44 Deciding on what project to do
33:36 Alignment
36:01 Balancing the business features vs. tech imperatives
39:32 Buzzword Blitz
42:07 Being a product manager is a landing curve
46:19 Final thoughts
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