Greg Newman transitioned to being a full-time product manager after working as an online editor for sports newspapers, and re-imagined his company’s design and working tools. Driven by these previous experiences in helping his teams produce the best content, he decided to focus on building the best products. He is now a senior product manager for Disney Streaming,
Lets dive into the main points of this 20min webinar in this content review !
After going through his experience as a writer and his transition to product management, Newman introduces us to the links he made between product management and journalism. By giving four examples, he demonstrates his vision on how close editing an article and shaping a product are. He explains how much he used to write, edit and communicate in his former positions.
He observed that clarity is an important step for all the pieces he was writing on a daily basis. As they write a lot, product managers also have to be able to distill the information and deliver it concisely to stakeholders, customers or your team.
Everything they share, from a simple email to a status report, is part of the product and can be an essence for new ideas to better it. It can define what to build or what to do next, which is why product managers are important :
“Defining the “what” is a core part of being a product manager”
The next question he will ask is: “How to find your superpower as a product manager?”
His answer is simple: the ability to provide context.
Product managers stay constantly connected with every team, and their communication skills are crucial at all stages. They are the ones taking bits of info from these interactions and synthesizing it into clear explanations that helps the team go towards the right direction.
Newman says that PM’s aren’t experts, but generalists; they are the bridge between everyone revolving around the product. From team, customers, all the way to stakeholders. With that general knowledge around everything that forms their product, they are able to provide the context behind every change and decision.
Newman adds that context allows product managers to ask the infamous “why” question. The most important of all, since its answer ties everything together. Having your teams understand why their work will shape a better product is part of your superpower! It is a concrete vision of what your business aims for, and is the most exciting part of being a product manager, according to our speaker:
“[...] selfishly it’s also where I've had the most fun. Thinking, and connecting the dots and brainstorming these elements is the most energizing part of product management for me”
Greg Newman’s experience serves here as an effective, easy way of grasping the concepts he elaborates. From his former writing job to his new career in product management, the ability to collect and deliver information definitely is the superpower he found in himself, and decided to share through this webinar. What to take from Newman’s experience and conclusion is that the real superpower of product managers is that they’re the most informed members of the company when it comes to the product.
The speaker’s great oral skills, well-made slides, and the webinar’s relatively short length make the talk feel really enjoyable to listen to. A really insightful media I recommend every product enthusiast to watch right now down below!
