Product Bakery – The Product Management, UX & Design Podcast

Based on questions from the community and general observations the Product Bakers decided to talk about how to land a job in product. They focused on topics such as searching for a job, preparing for an interview, as well as some dos and don'ts for the CV.   Table of content:  00:30 - Small talk & intro 03:30 - Applying as junior vs. senior  04:15 - What makes a good CV stand out (and why) 09:25 - 1 to 5 ratings in CVs (spoiler: NO GO!) 13:20 - Mocked interviews & alternative ways to prepare 15:40 - Applying for the right companies  18:15 - Portfolios for product jobs   ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

Starting a new job as a Product Manager can be very challenging. Especially, if you don't have a mentor a someone who guides you through the process of becoming a PM. Shaun Russell made it to his mission to support people on that journey as a product coach. In this episode, the Product Bakers and Shaun discussed the challenges people are facing when starting a new PM position and how to overcome them. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️    Table of content:  00:30 - Episode Intro 02:30 - Intro Shaun 05:30 - Starting a new PM position 08:15 - Common challenges PMs have 10:20 - Understanding the organizational structure 13:00 - Crucial methodologies to learn 17:30 - Managing stakeholders 19:10 - Being stuck in a position 25:10 - Product Management is like learning a new language 32:15 - Why Bootcamps suck! 34:46 - Passion > Theory   Follow Shaun & his links: Website: https://www.shaunrussell.me/ Linkedin: @shaun-russell-coach Twitter: @_ShaunRussell Book recommendation: Continuous Discovery Habits https://www.producttalk.org/opportunity-solution-tree/ https://andrewskotzko.com/how-to-know-if-youre-interviewing-at-a-product-led-company/ Continuous Discovery Habits   ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

Nacho works for more than 12 years in Product Management. One of his key takeaways after more than a decade was, that the product strategy is the most undervalued tool to make a product company successful. He decided to structure and share all his knowledge in his recently launched book: Product Direction.  In this episode, the Product Bakers and Nacho make a deep dive into how to define a product strategy and how to communicate and share it with the whole company to get full buy-in. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️   Table of content: 00:30 - Episode summary 02:00 - Intro Nacho 04:50 - The importance of a product strategy 07:20 - Product Leads drive product strategy 10:55 - How to start creating a strategy 18:10 - The timeframe 20:20 - Roadmapping based on strategy 22:55 - Roadmapping vs. OKRs 28:50 - Communication is key 31:20 - Mistakes to avoid 34:55 - Measuring strategy & its impact 39:30 - The most important things to take care of Nacho online: Linkedin: @juanbassino Medium: https://nachobassino.medium.com/ Podcast: Conversaciones de Producto Nacho's book: Product Direction ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

This time the Product Bakers picked up a frequently asked question from the community and talked about the agile frameworks Scrum and Kanban. Christian highlighted the differences and gave some tips on what framework you can get started with.   Table of content: 00:30 - Episode intro 02:10 - Agile frameworks 03:35 - Scrum vs. Kanban 04:35 - Agile = not changing the plan all the time 07:25 - Velocity vs. throughput 09:00 - Planning & estimating  10:45 - Getting started with scrum 12:30 - Kanban for experts?   ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

Richard and Ben both love working with people and startups. It became their mission to help people with great ideas and minor to no technical knowledge to make their dreams come true. However, not every business idea is necessarily a good idea. Therefore they support founder teams with everything they need from product discovery, building the product to shipping it to their future customers. In this episode they've talked about the importance and the process of validating business ideas, setting up teams for success, and what it needs to build a trust relationship between external agencies and founder teams. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️    Table of content: 00:30 - Episode summary 03:00 - The story of Rich & Ben 07:35 - When founders should work with an agency 11:10 - What founders make fail 14:05 - The benefits of no technical knowledge 17:25 - MOHARA's SCUBA framework 20:30 - Validating business ideas 22:35 - The challenges of working with founder teams 30:05 - Fundraising  35:11 - Building trust as the foundation for collaboration 37:15 - When to stop working with an agency 40:20 - What founders can expect from agencies 43:35 - Rich & Ben's biggest learnings working with startups   Follow Richard & Ben:  Website: http://mohara.co Linkedin Richard: @samsrichard Linkedin Ben: @ben-blomerley Article: Doing the product due diligence right ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

After another dinner, the Product Bakers decided to do another product review. This they took a deeper look at Atlassian's product JIRA and how to set it up in the right way. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️ Table of content: 00:30 - Small talk 03:25 - Love it or hate it 06:10 - JIRA & working agile 07:00 - JIRA classic & its terrible UX  11:00 - Defining workflows and projects for success & scale 14:15 - Who should manage & own JIRA? 16:00 - Cross-team collaboration & reporting 19:30 - Two tips to better use JIRA ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

The Product Bakers talked the first time to another Product Manager & Design "couple." Yoav (PM) and Tudor (PD) share their experience about working together on projects and how they split responsibilities and maintaining a trustful relationship. In this episode, they've caught up on topics such as design review, prioritization, and design sprints.  👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️     Table of content: 00:30 - Episode summary 02:35 - Intro Yoav & Tudor 05:00 - Their day-to-day business 06:50 - Team setup & collaboration 08:50 - The key for good collaboration 11:45 - Data for better decision making  15:50 - What design needs from product for discovery 21:40 - Prioritizing solutions 27:25 - Team workshops (design review & design sprints) 39:20 - Yoav's & Tudor's tips for good collaboration    Yoav & Tudor online: Yoav Linkedin: @yoavfarbey Yoav on medium: https://farbey.medium.com/ Tudor Linkedin: @tudor-teisanu-7b08a4b2 Tudor on medium: https://teisanutudor.medium.com/   ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

During dinner, Alex and Christian had a discussion about personas and the common mistakes people do while working with them. They decided to continue this conversation in this episode and dive a bit deeper into the whole world of personas. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️   Table of content: 00:30 - Are personas the right way? 04:00 - Slicing personas instead of working with one 06:00 - Jobs to be done 07:30 - Understanding customer problems instead of assuming 13:10 - User vs. persona   ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩ 👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery 📸 Instagram: @productbakery 🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20 🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

Varya started her career as a Frontend Developer and was always passionate and engaged in working with design & frontend components before design systems were invented. At some point, she decided to use her knowledge and focusing on helping companies and the community on building design systems in the right way and understand the value. In this episode, Varya talks about how to manage a design project in the most structured way and how to convince senior leadership teams of its value based on data. 👉 Episode feedback survey ✍️   Table of content: 00:30 - Episode intro 01:50 - Intro Varya 04:10 - Engineering vs. design mindset 06:30 - Best timing to build a design system 08:50 - How to allocate resources & focus 11:05 - Kicking off the project  17:30 - Communicating & aligning across the organization 21:55 - Convincing Senior Leadership Teams 26:35 - Design systems vs. creativity 28:30 - Biggest mistakes companies do with design systems 32:45 - Varya's design system course   Follow Varya: Design system course: https://hands-on-workshop.varya.me/ Website: https://varya.me/ Linkedin: @varyastepanova Twitter @varya_en ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/

Alex talked to Christian about his past experiences working with Designers. Christian shared his story about how he developed a good eye and understanding of UI and UX.  Table of content: 00:30 - Small talk 01:45 - Christian's design history 06:20 - Working together with a Designer 07:50 - How design skills help Product Managers 08:20 - Keeping an open & honest relationship    ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩    👨‍💻 Linkedin: Product Bakery    📸 Instagram: @productbakery    🐦 Twitter: @productbakery20    🌍 Website: https://www.product-bakery.com/