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Vikrama Dhiman

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71
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2024-05-12
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2024-05-12
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  1. “So the three things which are very important for product managers to work with others and other stakeholders are raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself and be able to get decisions made without having to make all the decisions yourself.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Others, I see that a lot of people get carried away in the way they operate as product managers with other stakeholders. There are three tenets that I define in working well as a product manager with others. Number one is Raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself. And finally, you are in charge of getting the decisions made and not making all the decisions yourself. I think as long as you follow these three tenets, you will have a successful relationship with across stakeholders. These three tenets are easy to say, but they become very, very hard to embody and display on a day-to-day basis. But this is essentially going to be your struggle no matter at what level of product management you are operating at in your career or within your company.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Problem. Usually you'll find something or the other missing. In case that those are bad, you will find that the pre-iteration planning, pre-sprint planning are not running properly. You will find that the JIRA storyboards are very empty and there's just a title in the subject and nothing gets described and so on. So you'll miss all these pieces. So these are the things which you bring to the table. And it's very, very important that you work on these aspects as well. Finally, we have what's your operating model, which I feel is the most important thing, which you have to have to focus if you are going from mid-senior to senior level. This is essentially about communication, collaboration, organizational skills, and community skills. And across product managers, again, because of the folklore of Sweeney, CEO and”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Four pillars, which is data and metrics, design and research, technology skills, and strategy. Product managers constantly are evaluated on this when you interview, but you also have to demonstrate these on the jobs. And the best way to demonstrate these is through the artifacts, through the notes that you are sending. So you must have that impact to impact through the artifacts that you work on. For a lot of product managers, when I ask, hey, I was working on this very impactful area, I'm not able to have the impact on my career. What is missing? And when I go and ask, can you show me your last PRD? Can you show me the last product note that you sent? Can you show me the product strategy doc that you have a collaborator on? Can you show me the brief that you sent to the design team on the problems and the ranking of those problems?”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “How are you working on the experiments? How are you working on the data? How you're working on the metrics? All these things take time, effort, and energy. And I know there is some literature and there is some operating models where people are working only at strategy levels, while all of this execution of these artifacts is being done by some other people. I don't think, especially when you're starting off, that's a very, very good thing. Even when you are mid-senior, I don't think that's a very, very good thing. You have to have to be able to produce these artifacts, which are product artifacts, even if there are people in strategy creating their artifacts, even if design is coming with a design, you need to have a cohesive product strategy, a product PRD, and work backwards from PRD and product knows yourself. These things are important to show you are progressing on”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Number two is what you bring to the table. Now, I think how I describe that is what is your impact on impact? So the first axis is impact, but you also need to have an impact on impact. And this is what I had missed a lot in my early career, that you pick the coolest product areas, your product area is successful, and that automatically guarantees your growth. It doesn't. You have to also show that, yes, you were a useful contributor to having that particular impact. The simplest thing on this is that is your PRD quality good enough? Are you writing that the draft notes that go and circulate to the care teams, to the marketing teams, and so on? Are you making sure that you are deriving from the strategy that has been shaped or you're constantly just pushing back on the strategy? Similarly, you also, how you are drafting the Nord Star.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Absolutely. And it's not just when you are starting off or when you are young, even if you are senior and you're starting off with a new team, even if you're starting with a new company, you need to have that mindset. And sometimes you will not know the best. And we'll talk more about how to, what is your operating model, which is how you work with others. It's a very, very important thing for you to know that you are one part of the pog.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Absolutely. And be useful in doing the small things which make an impact and also contribute to your learning versus being useful in areas which you think the mini CEO should be working on.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Some of the things that I think are useful. So, first, what's output is something which is very tangibly defined, which doesn't take too much of your time, effort, and energy to visualize and think and strategize over. And you are able to quickly get moving on. Go and ask your product leader. Go and ask other leaders on what are the areas they are blocked on. Sometimes they will be blocked on, hey, I need to prepare this brief for this particular summit. I need to prepare this particular slide for a leadership review. I need to prepare a review. I need to prepare a review which has to be done with the legal. You can volunteer and definitely own and deliver the first drafts of those even if the final draft is not something that you own. That's a simple example of an output which”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So I'll give you my example. In one of my previous roles, there were two product areas that were important for the organization. My product area ended up being the center and focus of the organization. Yet the product manager who was chosen to lead the area when it became big wasn't me. It was someone else. At that time, I really felt very bad that, okay, why did that happen? But now when I look back, I can see why that happened because that product manager was so much better at the overall craft of output yet when they were focusing on outcome were not forgetting the output as well. So they were just better at me on launching products. They were better at me on working with design in producing design artwork and they were better definitely better at than me in running the experiments as well.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Absolutely. So focus on outputs at the start of your careers. And don't forget outputs even when you grow in your career.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “But now they were able to show something which was a small part, which was an output, but it fell into the overall outcome”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Absolutely. So outbooks is shipping products, but it also comes in smaller things. For instance, if you are sourcing content for your homepage, what are the different avenues that you can source content from? What is the easiest to source? What is the most difficult to source? Just ranking it all in that order goes a long way. And one of the product managers actually did that yesterday and I went, wow, it just made my life so much simpler. And we were also able to, not just my life, but so many other people's life so much simpler. And we were able to take that specific output and use it as part of our overall strategy. If that PM would have obsessed about the overall content strategy, overall how we are going to do it versus just how we are going to be sourcing it, they would have indexed on something bigger and maybe would have not even been able to make that impact.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Even when you are at the senior most levels, don't forget your IC roots. Don't forget the IC component. And sometimes it is necessary to just pull up your sleeve and go back and keep working on those things. That also gives you a lot of grids with others in the team as well.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Outcomes are product areas, goals that you can own and or collaborate with other stakeholders on. And when you start figuring out which outcomes are necessary, that is when you move to the leadership and directional areas. The mistake that I see a lot of product managers make is they start operating in either output or outcomes. And when you are transitioning to outcomes, it's very important that you continue to still hone your craft on outputs. For instance, do you just give up on the go-to market strategy or do you start making product notes which are then picked up by marketing people and are capable to be used to create that go-to-market strategy? You always, always have to have the output and outcome even when you're moving up the so-called career management ladder. So that is very, very critical that as you are producing”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So, what you produce, a lot of people index on the impact while, and they start thinking about goals, they start thinking about direction, and they start thinking about strategy. While it is important to know at what stage of the career you are and what kind of a product that you are working on, the very first thing that anyone, when you're starting off produces, is outputs. The output can be launching a product. It can be analyzing and running an experiment. And it could even be just being a part of the team and contributing to a go-to-market strategy. So focus on that output significantly. As you get comfortable with output and you start getting comfortable with working with different stakeholders,”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Talking to other product leaders, what I discovered was that the really strong product managers who are also growing in their careers did some things differently. And based on that, I created a career growth framework for product managers, which comprises of three things. And I call it three W's. what you produce, what you bring to the table, and what's your operating model. The really strong product managers are good at usually two or three of the three things. The ones who rise and when they are rising, they are performing well on all the three axes. So if you would like, let's talk a little bit more about each one of these W's.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Over the last decade and a half, I've had the opportunity to work with some really strong product managers, learn from strong product managers. And some of them have had rapid career growth. When I was younger and I was starting off, I used to think it's all about the product. If you've got a really cool product to work on, your growth's guaranteed. And if you got really a product which no one cares about or a stream which no one cares about, then your growth is going to be slightly slower. But as I started seeing more and more product managers at their craft, I saw that working on a cool product area is not the only thing. In fact, sometimes some product managers would come back and complain that despite their product doing really well, they've not really grown. And while some other product managers whose product didn't have the impact really grew. And as I started looking at it and as I started making notes, as I started”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “View would change whether you are focusing on things you control. And third is how you see yourself. The moment you are able to correct those stories, you may be back on the growth backs in you.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Can you show me your last PRD? Can you show me the last product note that you sent? Can you show me the product strategy doc? You must have that impact through the artifacts that you work on.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I created a career growth framework for product managers, which comprises of three things. What you produce, what you bring to the table, and what's your operating model.”

    2024-05-12 · Lenny's Podcast · A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source