Summary of Gayle Laakmann McDowell & Jackie Bavaro's Cracking the PM Interview

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 A product manager is responsible for making sure that a team ships a great product. They are highly respected at most companies, but not more so than engineers. You must learn to lead your team without authority, influencing them with your vision and research.

#2 The product life cycle is a general pattern of Research Plan, Design, Implement Test, and Release. The product manager will be responsible for Research Planning and Release, while the technical product manager will be responsible for Design and Implement Test.

#3 The product manager begins planning and researching the next product or feature. The product manager is the expert on these topics, and should think deeply about the problems they are trying to solve and the goals of the features.

#4 The product manager’s role in product design varies between teams. Some have a detailed functional specification that is inspected, reviewed, and iterated on by developers, testers, and other PMs. Others have a more rapid design process, with minimal input from the PM.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669383130

IRB Media

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Insights on Gayle Laakmann McDowell & Jackie Bavaro's Cracking the PM Interview

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

A product manager is responsible for making sure that a team ships a great product. They are highly respected at most companies, but not more so than engineers. You must learn to lead your team without authority, influencing them with your vision and research.

#2

The product life cycle is a general pattern of Research Plan, Design, Implement Test, and Release. The product manager will be responsible for Research Planning and Release, while the technical product manager will be responsible for Design and Implement Test.

#3

The product manager begins planning and researching the next product or feature. The product manager is the expert on these topics, and should think deeply about the problems they are trying to solve and the goals of the features.

#4

The product manager’s role in product design varies between teams. Some have a detailed functional specification that is inspected, reviewed, and iterated on by developers, testers, and other PMs. Others have a more rapid design process, with minimal input from the PM.

#5

The product manager helps the engineers work efficiently during the implementation stage. He will check in regularly with his team and learn how things are going. He will also start gathering feedback and reporting bugs on the early versions of the product.

#6

The launch process varies from team to team, but it usually involves running through a launch checklist and making sure that the teams that will support the product going forward are prepared.

#7

Shipped software refers to products that ship in the Apple App Store or on DVDs. Shipped software is difficult to update after launch, so it’s important to get it right the first time. As a result, shipped-software teams tend to have longer timelines.

#8

In online software, being scrappy is important. Product updates are easy, so things move quickly. Teams will often launch something and see how it performs before launching again.

#9

Data-driven product managers can do well working on consumer products because they are able to make a strong case for their proposals, and they are often able to come up with features that will make a difference to the company's core metrics.

#10

In business-to-business products, like online ads or productivity software, the customer is at another company. Engineers realize that they are not the target audience, and they tend to rely more on the product manager to understand the customer.

#11

The early stages of a product are when the team is focused on shipping a minimum viable product. This means cutting non-essential features to strip the product down to just the essentials. This allows the team to launch faster and begin the process of learning what customers want.

#12

Mature products are those that have been around for a long time, and are usually the market leaders. They usually have a large user base, and it is easy to make improvements that are multiplied due to the large number of users.

#13

Product managers are responsible for identifying problems and opportunities, picking which ones to go after, and then making sure the team comes up with great solutions. This is why product sense is so important for product managers.

#14

The myth that product managers are in the marketing department is false. They are in the engineering department, and they define what happens once a user is in the product. Marketing people will talk