Parachuting into an Existing Product

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How to land on your feet as a product manager

March 30, 2016Paul HurwitzHealth Tech Product Director

Parachuting into an Existing Product

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About Paul Hurwitz

• 15+ Years in technology roles• 10 Years in Product roles• Finance/Accounting, Life Sciences & Health Tech products• Have parachuted 3 times into existing products.

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About Paul Hurwitz

• Have parachuted 3 times into existing products.– Centage Corporation (Financial/Accounting)– Medidata Solutions (Life Sciences/Pharma)– ActiveHealth Management (Population Health Management)

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In the first 2 weeks – 5 Steps• First impressions are very important

• Difficult to recover from a bad first impression

• Learn how product managers are perceived

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1) Meet with Key Stakeholders

•Window into short-term urgency for your product

• Find out what the real priorities are

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Business Stakeholders

• CEO (depends on size of company)• Marketing director• Adjacent product managers• Sales director• Account Management

Technical Stakeholders

• VP Engineering / Development Lead• QA Lead• Customer Support Lead

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Discussions with Stakeholders

What is the problem that we are trying to solve?

• Face to Face (if possible)• Listen! Don’t talk too much.• Take notes

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2) Find (or Create) the backlog•What’s already been promised?

• Any golf course deals?

• Don’t make any commitments until you know the full scope

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3) Book Calls with Customers

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4) Learn Your Product•You only have a few days to experience your product as a naïve user

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5) Introduce yourself to the Development team (gently)•“Be a mensch instead of an MBA” – Rich Mironov

•Position yourself as their champion

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First 30 - 60 Days – Another 5 steps

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1) At least 5-10 Calls with Customers

•Write up summaries

•here’s what I heard from customers

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2) Create a Product Strategy

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3) Get intimate with your financials

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4) Prepare the business for a roadmap reset•Set proper expectations

•What really, truly has to be in the next release?

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5) Get a few quick wins

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Conclusion

"A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.“

-Deep Nishar, former SVP for products and user experience at LinkedIn

Before you parachute in, have a plan to engage with people and issues. Remember that titles don’t matter, but driving collaboration and product success do.

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Contact Info

• paul@phurwitz.com

•www.phurwitz.com

• http://lnkdin.me/phurwitz

• http://twitter.com/phurwitzma