Perspectives from a career in technology
The holidays seem to be filled with societal pressures that push us toward consumerism. That said, there’s something really nice about receiving a gift, especially when it comes from a source you don’t usually expect: work!
There are some unspoken rules and general best practices to keep in mind to navigate this appropriately in most situations.
Continue reading “Gifting at Work: How Do You Handle the Holidays?”Recently, I was in a meeting where I mentioned that we’d need to recruit someone to help test. When I mentioned a particular colleague’s name, everyone’s faces lit up; she’d be the perfect person to help on this effort! This reminded me of something that is so simple but yet alludes many when it comes to work: if half the battle is showing up, the other half is how you show up.
But what exactly does that mean?
Continue reading “What Do People Say When You Aren’t in the Room?”Recently, I was asked about how to assess the culture of a new organization before you join. As I mentioned in a prior post, it’s really hard to figure out whether you are joining a place where you’ll thrive and grow or if you are joining an organization with a toxic culture.
Here are some tips I use and recommend when assessing a potential company to work for.
Continue reading “Evaluating a Job Offer: How to Assess Culture Fit?”
A former colleague reached out to me earlier this year with a situation. She found herself in a position at a company that didn’t quite measure up to her expectations in terms of work/life balance and culture. It’s really hard to assess these things upfront and especially difficult for folks early in their careers with less ability / means to be choosy when job hunting.
Her question for me was: do I really need to stay at this position for 2 years to make this look good on my resume? Or can I start looking for a new position now?
My response to this question is nuanced because life isn’t quite so black and white.
Continue reading “When to Say Goodbye: Do You Need to Stay 2 Years at Every Job?”
In 2018, my husband and I embarked on buying our first home. We purchased an older home (built in the 1920’s as far as we know) and it was in pretty decent shape. We knew there were some cosmetic things that could be updated (we dreamed of adding a new kitchen and finishing the attic) and that we’d tackle them over time.
What we didn’t realize was the tremendous iceberg beneath the surface: the water line to the house was lead and needed to be replaced for health reasons because at the time, we were planning to start a family; the gutters needed to be fixed because the holes led to puddles that froze over and became ice skating rinks in unfortunate places (like our front door); the home had zero insulation and would need some blown in because otherwise we’d be paying for more natural gas than we really need. I could go on and on. You get the idea.
And you might be wondering, so what does this have to do with digital products?
It is very similar to the concept of “technical debt.”
Continue reading “What Homeownership Taught me about Technical Debt”
In the past, I’ve heard folks say that a Product Manager is the CEO of their product. This kind of thinking creates a strange founder-like mental model where folks feel work will simply fall apart without them so they can’t take a vacation. You can also sub Product Manager for any other ‘Lead’ role within a digital product team (think Lead Engineer, Product Owner, etc).
In short, this line of thinking is not sustainable.
As product folks, we are asked to drive value and in order to do this we need to be somewhat ruthless about what we do, and consequently what we do not do. I always refer to this as ‘ruthless prioritization’ but it’s not quite as antagonistic as it sounds.
I want to address why it often feels ruthless or downright “icky” for us to prioritize work this way:
While being ruthless is associated with not showing compassion, I’d argue that in this case, it’s about taking the passion out of it for a second. Continue reading “Ruthless Prioritization”
Most Product Management roles request that an applicant have good written and verbal communication skills. And while some folks know their product and have great ideas, they can still struggle with being heard for a number of reasons. Continue reading “What Effective Communication Skills Really Means”
In short, no.
To elaborate (because I have many thoughts on this!), I’ll share a story about a colleague I managed as a result of some organizational restructuring. Continue reading “Do You Need to Be Technical to be a Product Manager?”
Many of my best life decisions were made by saying, “Let’s see where this goes!” When my husband and I started dating, for instance, I thought, “This will be fun for the summer until we break up; we’ll go off to college in different cities and never see each other again.” And then that never happened: we were both in New York and the rest is history.
I can say something similar happened when I decided to apply for the Smartly Quantic program. I had just finished paying off 27K of student loan debt and the prospect of going back to school (read: more debt) was not exactly tempting. And the truth is age is a major factor; going back to school in my 30’s was going to put a major cramp in my life goals of owning a home and having a child.
I saw ads for what was then marketed as “Smartly” on the train (specifically their fee-free MBA program) and figured it was worth at least throwing my hat in the ring. What happened next was unexpected; I was admitted to their Executive MBA track given my work experience. This track normally comes with a fee and I was offered a full scholarship to cover the one year program.
I honestly didn’t think I would be accepted so now that I was, at no cost to me, I had to make a decision — should I do it?
Continue reading “I did the Quantic EMBA program, here’s what happened”