This week, Product College hosted Masooma Zakir, Product Supervisor at Drift, for a particular #AskMeAnything session. Masooma tells us how she knew she was prepared to steer a staff, discovering Product-Market Match, and balancing strategic considering and execution.
Meet Masooma
Masooma Zakir is a Senior Product Supervisor at Drift. With greater than 10 years of expertise in management, she focuses on technique, end-to-end product improvement, and undertaking administration life cycle simply to call just a few. Earlier than becoming a member of Drift, she operated at Financial institution of America the place she labored her approach up from Portfolio Product Supervisor to Digital Product Supervisor. Previous to that, she was a Enterprise Programs Advisor at Wells Fargo.
Do you suggest a selected technique framework on launching a product in a purple ocean market?
Nice query. Figuring out which framework to make use of is all the time an fascinating determination to make. I discover that the match normally is determined by the business and atmosphere you’re in. For instance, after I was at a bigger company we took a different method from the hyper-growth firm I’m at now. We’re far more scrappy the place I’m at now.
You have got 10 years of management expertise. As a PM when did you come to the purpose the place you have been prepared to steer Product Groups? What elements/occasions introduced you to that time?
Oh there’s a lot I can discuss right here! Thanks for the query. I all the time say it’s my curiosity that led me to Product Administration. I aspire to study as a lot as I can from clients to find out the easiest way to resolve for his or her ache factors. I knew I used to be prepared to steer Product Groups due to this drive.
Extra particularly, nevertheless, I recall being in conferences watching our Product Leads and considering ‘oh that’s precisely what I used to be considering. I need to do THAT’. I additionally grew to become a lead in an area the place I felt snug with the merchandise and clients. Having that information base and the present relationships made the transition seamless.
Try: What Nice Product Groups Look Like in 2022
What’s the easiest way for one to hold out a product evaluation for a brand new function or product?
If you say ‘evaluation’, I’m assuming you’re speaking a couple of Product Market Match? If that’s the case, I discover that the easiest way is to have interaction with clients immediately. When I’ve an idea in thoughts, I associate with design to mock up or prototype the function. We then validate it with clients immediately. This has been probably the most helpful approach in my expertise.
Aside from this, the opposite classes to think about are ‘what ache level does this resolve for?’, ‘does the information help us fixing this drawback?’ ‘how impactful is it in the direction of our enterprise objective?’, ‘what’s the ROI for us (ex: elevated income or decreased operational prices), and lastly ‘whats the trouble to implement this?’.
I’m at the moment planning on upcoming initiatives and I discover myself on an inside back-and-forth of pursuing a single large undertaking or many smaller ones, do you could have any particular suggestions on how one can higher steadiness these two for improvement?
PM is a enjoyable balancing act, isn’t it? I’d ask myself questions alongside the strains of ‘what’s going to deliver the client probably the most worth?’ and base my evaluation round that, aside from another prioritization situations to think about. Moreover, I come throughout this in my each day skilled life ceaselessly and one method that’s helped is discovering a method to break up the one large undertaking into smaller worth increments. Even when it’s one thing that may solely be launched collectively, I discover that breaking it up into smaller items makes it extra ‘digestable’ and simpler to prioritize/scope for the Product Groups.
Learn subsequent: Full Information to Function Prioritization for Quick-Rising Startups
What are the concerns that go into constructing a potent technique?
As I’ve talked about, the way you outline technique is closely influenced by the business and atmosphere you’re in. There are such a lot of nice frameworks like Porters 5 Forces which is normally my go-to to start out desirous about technique after which I normally customise the framework primarily based on my wants.
How do you steadiness your time between strategic considering with knee-deep execution?
Truthfully, that is an on-going problem for me, nevertheless, I discover making use of prioritization to my calendar and the way I spend my time is essential to sustaining the fitting stage of steadiness. In my day-to-day, I attempt to spent 50% of my time on strategic considering – this implies blocking out my calendar to just do that. I label the blocked time with what a part of the technique I need to give attention to so it’s a reminder for me to proceed focus in that space.
What are widespread misconceptions/myths about technique in follow that you simply’d wish to make clear? Do you ever should do a one-off function or job that’s not aligned with the technique?
I believe I’ve seen this happen probably the most on account of sudden new buyer ache factors, tendencies available in the market together with a competitor launching a product or function that impacts our aggressive moat. I’ve additionally seen this occur when a brand new buyer deal is within the pipeline that may usher in vital income. If they need a particular function earlier than they resolve to undertake, then that’s one thing that will even be thought of exterior of the technique.
