Another Product Podcast

We share experiences navigating the EU tech scene as non-EU product people, highlighting the cultural differences.
Available on all podcast platforms.

[chand @Publisethi]

You are product manager. You have 34 tasks in your to-do list. You get on a catchup call with your manager. Now, you have 42 tasks in your list.

One of the new tasks is:
"Analyse why is our retention trending higher for last few days?"

You are actually interested in this analysis. It's a significant jump. You start dreaming the best case scenario where you find some ground breaking insight and go 'eureka' in your product-internal channel.

With this dreamy inspiration, you open your analytics tool. After some basic cutting and chopping, you don't see a smoking gun. But Kunal Shah wants you to follow your curiosity. You start making some user segments. It's tedious but you're in the flow. After trying 3-4 properties, you are getting nowhere but impatient.

Finally, 'I will do this later' you think. 'I must use my time on other higher leverage tasks. Just like papa shreyas taught me to' you say to yourself.

————————————————--——-

It's been a week now. In 5 minutes, you have your catchup call again with your manager. You just realised that you didn't do that analysis. Your heart skips a beat. What if she asks me about it? You start thinking how can you divert the discussion so that you don't get to that at all.

"In case she asks, I'll make something up. I am an MBA after all."

Meeting's over. You're happy because even your manager forgot about the analysis (she has to-do list of 65 items and is also an MBA)

You think about doing the analysis now and surprise her tomorrow with your breakthrough insight.
But... you don't know where you left.
Did I save the chart somewhere? Oh man, I'll need to switch dates everywhere now. Why's there so many null values? Aghh fuckkk it.

————————————————--——-

It's these types of stories that leave so much on the table.

All these 'product sense' tweets you read, it's not just a general skill. It's specific to your product too. And you partly develop it by finding behaviours and demographies and correlations in your data.

What went up/down/sideways? And more importantly, WHY it happened.

But that's hard. Structured thinking can only take you so far. Brute force is a gamble. You might as well hire an APM if you have to download two CSV and VLOOK them up.

Why is something so critical, so annoying to do?

————————————————--——-

I did get a chance to demo out @segwise_ai from @bbharadwaj. Segwise sits on your analytics stack and does the math for you.

What I loved about it is that it's a little opinionated.

It's not just a tool to tell you why something happened. But it broadly puts you into a habit of gathering nuanced information about your users, your product, and your acquisition, every single day.

It's these kind of nuances that compound and help you scale your PMF faster. The nuances that help your identify high value users. The nuances that build your day-to-day micro decision making (and get you to replace your manager)

If you spend >20% of your weekly work hours on your analytics tool, you should talk ✨✨

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

We also tackle generational shifts in communication styles in the TikTok & Instagram age.

📱💬 Listen in for a fresh perspective on cross-cultural communication and share your thoughts on where your country fits in this spectrum! 🎧🌎 👉 Link in bio!

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

🚨🎙️ New Podcast Episode Alert! 🎙️🚨 We're diving into "The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business" by @ErinMeyerINSEAD. A must-listen for anyone moving or working in Europe's diverse cities. 🌐💼
#CrossCulturalCommunication #GlobalTeamwork

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

🌟 Personal experiences from a Korean with a US background and an Argentinean with US work experience enrich our discussion.

Join us, @followenok and @davidef_7, as we share our challenges and insights in product management across cultures. #ProductManagement #TechInEurope

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

2/2 Join us, @followenok and @davidef_7, as we apply this book's framework to real-world scenarios in product management. We'll share our experiences and insights on navigating communication across different cultures. 📖✨ #productManagement #APPEpisode7

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

1/2 🎙️🚀 Exciting news! A new episode of our podcast is dropping soon, focusing on a vital skill for product managers: effective communication in diverse cultural environments. Can you guess the book we are talking about?
#CrossCulturalCommunication #TechInEurope 🌍💬

[onchainpm @davidef_7]

Slowly but surely...

[George from 🕹prodmgmt.world @nurijanian]

Frameworks obscure one fact:

They exist to organise already existing & somewhat clear thoughts, with many leaps of faith, gaps and lucky streaks polished over...

Not to generate new ideas and thoughts from scratch.

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

5/ 🎧 Don't miss out on this vibrant account of Arion's life, where he breaks barriers and passionately advocates for #Diversity and #Inclusion, painting a vivid picture of a man who conquers every challenge with grace and self-belief.
Link in bio! #APPEpisode6 #DEI #Design

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

1/ 🎧 New Episode Alert! "Embracing Diversity: A journey across the globe with Arion Franklin — Sr. Visual Experience Designer @ AutoScout24".
#APPEpisode6 #DiversityInDesign #VisualExperienceDesign #DEI

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

4/ 🌍 But not before discussing his experience as a digital nomad, managing clients and working remotely. And yes, with random mimosas here and there. 🍹
#DigitalNomad #RemoteWork

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

3/ 🎧 Stay tuned to learn more about #diversity and #inclusion in an exclusive with Arion. Don't miss out!

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

1/ 🎙️ New #APPEpisode dropping next Thursday! We chat with Arion, a pioneering American Visual Experience Designer @ AutoScout24, who shares his digital nomad journey in Europe, after moving from China 👀
🌏 #APPEpisode6 #DigitalNomad #TechInEurope

[Another Product Podcast @anotherproductp]

2/ 🗣️ Arion says: "...people get shit to do,  and they are not drinking a mimosa  while they're working with somebody else's brand!  Like, no, they're not doing that. They're putting in hours..."

[Melissa Perri @lissijean]

Woohoo, the Product Operations books is now available through other channels besides Amazon! You can order through your local bookstore, ibooks, Barnes & Nobles, etc! I have been waiting for this to go through for weeks.

https://t.co/ZZrEZgKZOO

[Paweł Huryn @PawelHuryn]

PM's job is simple and fulfilling.

I see too many people putting blood, sweat, and tears into things that don't matter.

PM isn't about fighting fires, working overtime, obsessing over a backlog, micromanaging others, or fixating on frameworks.

It's about focus, discovery, communication, collaboration, common sense, and intuition.

Best PMs turn chaos into clarity.

[Pat Bergstresser @PatBergie]

I briefed our VP of product on our 3-year product strategy for sign-off and alignment...

We succeeded 🎉

Here's 5 lessons that were key to our success:

👇

In this post we'll cover:

1. Simple is best
2. Send a pre-read
3. Don't be defensive
4. Leverage the appendix
5. Historical context helps

Let's dive in.

1/ Simple is best

Your VP is likely a pretty smart person, capable of understanding complex topics.

But they are responsible for a lot of things.

If you want sign-off or alignment, keep the presentation simple, concise, and to the point.

2/ Send a pre-read

The goal of the presentation is to get alignment. That's very difficult to achieve in 30-60 mins.

Send the deck (or doc) 48 hours in advance. This will give them time to read and digest the information in advance. Ask them to comment in the doc ahead of time if possible.

This turns your presentation into a discussion instead of walking through a deck or doc.

3/ Don’t be defensive

If they're good, they'll challenge your assumptions, judgment, and analysis.

The worst thing you can do is be defensive.

Remain calm and professional. They aren't questioning you personally. They are looking to understand your reasoning and POV.

While not ideal, your last resort is: "I don't know, but I'll get back to you." Follow up questions when presenting to leadership is normal.

4/ Leverage the appendix

With decks for execs (hey that rhymes!), every slide in the main deck should be core to the story.

If it isn't, put it in the appendix.

These are slides you can reference if/when a deeper question is asked.

The same is true for docs - if it isn’t core to the story you’re telling, put it in the appendix.

5/ Historical context helps

You're in the weeds every day, they aren't. Upfront, set the context of the situation your team is in and why.

This is a key step in the storytelling process to help them see your point of view.

They'll tell you to skip that part if they don't need it.

To recap, there's lots of advice out there on how to present to leaders. But these are 5 key aspects that are sure to make a difference:

1. Keep it simple
2. Send a pre-read
3. Don't be defensive
4. Leverage the appendix
5. Historical context helps

Hope that's helpful!

What tips would you add?