On Tuesday December 13, 2022 I attended an Invision webinar entitled How to Lead in Product Management in Uncertain Times, with guest speaker Jeff Lee (Product Manager at Robinhood).It was nice to see a seasoned professional answering real time, real life questions posed by attendees.
Jeff Lee | @jefflee812
I'm a Product Manager with 5+ years of experience working cross-functionally to scope, build, launch, and maintain products. I have a knack for understanding customer needs through user empathy in order to turn product requirements into features. I've also led development efforts by coordinating work between engineering, design, product, and QA teams.
I'm currently a PM for the customer experience team at Robinhood, where I'm focusing on enabling our customer care associates in order to resolve customer issues faster and with better results!
Elijah Wollery (LinkedIn)
I’m an author, speaker, and designer, with a depth of experience in product, user interface, and user experience design. Since 2013 I’ve co-taught Implementation, the 2-quarter capstone class for senior undergraduate Product Design students at Stanford University.
I’m the Senior Director of Design Education at InVision, where I write, speak, and run workshops to help large enterprises collaborate more intelligently. I’m the co-host, along with Aarron Walter, of the Design Better Podcast, which was nominated for a Webby in 2020, and where we’ve interviewed creatives like John Maeda, Debbie Millman, Seth Godin, Jason C. Mayden, and the inimitable John Cleese. The Design Thinking Handbook, which I wrote for InVision, is used in the curriculum at UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute for Design, as well as USC’s Graduate School of Business.
Here are some major points that stood out to me:
Ask questions all the time, especially to clarify vocab that might be unfamiliar. It allows individuals to approach new experiences with a sense of curiosity and open-mindedness, rather than feeling discouraged by a lack of knowledge or skill. Being a novice also means that there is room for growth and learning, which can lead to personal and professional development. Embracing the role of a beginner can help individuals to be more humble and willing to ask for help, which can foster collaboration and teamwork.
When in calls or meetings, try to always share your screen for writing notes, etc, so others can better accompany the decision making. Give demonstrations to your team, and your clients. This has been very valuable for Acorn, as there are a lot of moving parts to the operation. With the work being more of a show than a tell, it's important to have a suite of visual references we can share with our customers, and routines we can engage them in. By providing visual examples and cultivating environments for participation, teams can really drive forward results.
As a PM, always try to encourage feedback from others. This includes the good and the bad. The ways in which this can occur need to be considered as well. Being able to only provide good feedback can create an environment of complacency. Being able to provide negative feedback runs the risk of breeding resentment. Nevertheless, feedback is essential to driving results. Try to laugh about it as the decisions, at the end of the day, tend to be fairly arbitrary - but can create a ton of stress for stakeholders and team members.
Do things like calling your product vision a “draft” to get as many opinions as possible during reviews, to further refine the product.
Next of course, our commitment to knowledge sharing continues!
Thanks again for hosting! Looking forward to hearing more. Getting through uncertain times always benefits from collaboration and teamwork, making us excited for what's coming in 2023 and beyond!
