Product managers wear many hats: There are client-facing top hats, people-managing bowler hats and all-important thinking caps — each of which keep a finger on the pulse of tech trends, rising competitors and consumer behavior.
Three years ago, when Covid-19 coursed through the tech industry, it also upended the processes product managers were used to. As they navigated unfamiliar and unprecedented changes — remote work, virtual collaboration and distributed client calls — adaptations were required to improve the role. A new set of hats were needed, and product managers donned them once more.
Among New York City’s tech companies, successful product managers heeded the call for change. “The best companies not only pivoted what they were doing from in-person to Zoom during the pandemic, but took that time as an opportunity to try new things,” said Aaron Fulmer, DeepIntent’s VP of product.
Not to be complacent, the company’s product management team constantly scours the market for new opportunities in technologies and practices, while delegating final decisions to the engineers and UX professionals with which they’re inextricably tied.
Others, like Pinata, used the cultural reset as a chance to reexamine the roots of product management. With a renewed emphasis on collaboration as opposed to processes and deadlines, product management at the company has shifted towards prioritizing camaraderie to make better products. “These behaviors propelled companies to success and they are going back to these operating models,” explained Director of Technical Products Niki Grewal.
Product management might still be a multi-tasking endeavor, but it’s transformed in recent years. For a closer look at how tech companies are looking to innovate the role in 2023, Built In NYC sat down with Fulmer and Grewal to see how they’re highlighting new values and philosophies on their product teams.
DeepIntent is a healthcare marketing platform that allows all-in-one campaign management with data-driven solutions to improve audience quality and script performance. With big industry partners such as Merck, Bayer and Sanofi, the company seeks to streamline healthcare advertising for the industry at large.
In your experience, how has the practice of product management evolved over the last few years?
The idea of remote work can sometimes clash with the need for face time with your customers. Sitting down with your customer is one of the best uses of a product manager’s time. Covid-19 really threw everyone for a loop, partially because it was no longer possible to hop on the subway and meet a customer at their office to talk about the product and see their nonverbal cues. Did they lean in and smile at the wireframe? Did their eyes glaze over about something on the roadmap? Product managers had to really think about, and adapt, methods for gathering that critical customer data. The best ones are using Zoom and remote work to their advantage.
Thankfully, we are getting back to a world where we can have a blend of in-person interaction along with virtual meetings and choose the right tools for either one.
What kinds of technological or operational developments have driven or enabled those changes, and how has your team adopted them in your own work?
We identified that we can use Zoom to our advantage. We started to use interactive apps where each person at a company could rank potential product features. We asked open-ended questions and let everyone type in their responses, which would be shown back to the whole group anonymously.
Now it’s no longer the loudest voice in the room talking to us with others staying quiet. We were getting feedback from everyone participating. People started to turn on their Zoom videos because they found it interesting. We walked away with hard data from every meeting.
Product managers had to really think about, and adapt, methods for gathering critical customer data. The best ones are using Zoom and remote work to their advantage.”
How does your team empower and encourage product professionals to explore new technologies and practices?
Our product management team has a pulse on competing technologies and practices that we are able to observe in-market by looking at press releases, earning reports, LinkedIn content and a slew of other sources.
Ultimately, the choice for new technologies or practices comes down to our software engineers and UX professionals. Product management sets up the business context and the opportunity. It’s up to our engineering partners to help determine what technology is available to fit the need and our UX team to make the product usable and valuable to our customers. It takes product management, engineering and UX to jointly evaluate the technology for its features, the value that technology brings to the customer and how that’s differentiated in the market.
Pinata is a multimedia hub for Web3 content such as NFTs and other creative endeavors. With decentralized storage and media management, the company wants to empower NFT-based creators and builders to share and monetize their content.
In your experience, how has the practice of product management evolved over the last few years?
Product managers aim to solve problems for their customers. In the past we’ve focused too heavily on people in this role delivering a solution against a deadline, almost acting as a project manager — prioritizing getting a project through its launch. We are now seeing a shift in this trend towards enabling product managers to own their role, as well as focus on customer problems through meaningful collaboration that builds a shared understanding of problems to develop solutions.
Companies are making teams smaller, providing them with a problem space to solve for and giving them the power to make decisions and determine their roadmaps. Most importantly, these teams start and finish projects together. They set goals, uncover unknowns, design, meet with customers and brainstorm together. They adapt to new variables and are motivated to solve problems now that they are empowered to make decisions.
Rather than tying teams to processes or deadlines, companies are tying teams to goals and instilling a desire to solve problems, which leads to increased ownership and collaboration. This results in solutions that add value to the business.
What kinds of technological or operational developments have driven or enabled those changes, and how has your team adopted them in your own work?
Agile is a huge trend within tech. However, most companies implement it to mask waterfall practices. Companies are now learning from the pain points created by too much process and going back to their roots. How did they work when they were smaller? How was information shared? What processes were there? They noticed there wasn’t a lot of process — it was continuous collaboration. They solved problems together, readily shared knowledge and openly discussed different perspectives. These behaviors propelled companies to success and they are going back to these operating models.
Pinata’s teams work in exactly this method: We start and finish projects together. We set goals and collaborate. We uncover unknowns and adapt our goals and scope based on these unknowns. We ship features early for customer feedback and ensure the entire team is directly involved in the feedback process, such as participating in interviews to gain primary knowledge.
On the tech side, Pinata is a fully remote company, so we’ve adopted technology to enable communication and collaboration. Strategy and brainstorming sessions involve online tools to enable conversations and highlight various ways of approaching problems.
Companies are now learning from the pain points created by too much process and going back to their roots.”
How does your team empower and encourage product professionals to explore new technologies and practices?
Pinata allows product professionals to experiment. Our problem-focused product teams build their own processes and decide what works best for them. We understand each team has its own unique needs and different communication styles. However, we balance this with internal communication between product professionals. Product managers will share practices that work well, and from there we make decisions as to whether we should standardize this practice across our product teams.
For example, one of our problem-focused teams recently began using LaunchDarkly for feature flagging. This was an independent decision, with the thought that this solution may be valuable for other teams down the line. One team tested it and shared its successes, which led to the tool being adopted by other teams. This type of freedom empowers each individual to learn, grow and constantly boost outcomes for their team. As a result, the organization improves to provide the best product for its customers.
