Process
Better Together
As a product manager, I am responsible for understanding, prioritizing, and delivering solutions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Of course, that is the 10,000 foot view. Zooming in, product management requires a balance of art and science, and we need both to be effective. Throughout the product lifecycle, it is my duty to work with teams to cultivate and evangelize the product vision, build and maintain strong relationships with various teams, and create and maintain environments in which people are able to successfully work together. Whilst, at the same time, I also need to put on the hat of a scientist, developing and testing hypotheses to get valuable information we need, tracking and communicating burn, and calculating the return on your investment. The complexity that comes with constraint, the need to remain agile and pivot, and the ability to support and guide teams fulfills me. Though it seems crazy, I love this work.
I’m an Certified Scrum Product Owner who runs projects using an Agile methodologies, primarily using Scrum. Throughout my career, I’ve identified and implemented three guiding principles that influence the way I lead and manage projects: iterative approach, people focused, and meaningful collaboration.
Iterative Approach
In order to mitigate risk and provide value as early as possible, I take an iterative approach to building software and web products. By working with both product and client teams, we work to define a MVP version of a product. By thinking critically and having discussions around what is needed to deliver the first phase of the product, we’re able to understand which features are most important and why. Always working toward a shippable increments that compose your MVP, we are able to loop in people that are needed to test and get a feel for the product, gaining confidence along the way. After launching this first phase, we’re able to hold conversations around these new features together and prioritize this work for future releases.
People Focused
The way I succeed as a product manager is to remain focused on people and these can usually be split up into three main groups: the people for who you’re working, the people with who you’re working, and the people for whom you’re building the solution. When people are left out of the picture, it’s easy to go astray really quickly. It’s easy for some of these groups to make decisions that impact the other, so it’s important as a product manager to keep everyone’s interests and intentions at the front of mind. It’s important to maintain empathy for not only users but also the team. It’s important to keep communicating to stakeholder groups. And, it’s important to do all these things while building products thoughtfully and incrementally.
Meaningful Collaboration
As a product manager, I constantly find myself in situations where I need to draw on the strengths of my teammates. Frankly, collaboration isn’t something that is desired; it’s something that’s needed. In order for collaboration to truly happen, it’s my duty to ensure the stage has been set and safe spaces have been created for teammates to be vulnerable. When teams feel this security and encouragement, more ideas are brought to the table. Trust is established among the team, and confidence becomes a byproduct of the experience and the exercise. Teams understand that autonomy expected, and we all work hard to keep it that way. When true collaboration happens, work feels lighter and enjoyable. Conversely, when true collaboration doesn’t exist, tasks at hand can feel impossible.
Work
Featured Work
Throughout my career as a product manager, I have been responsible for the product vision, planning, design, usability, and quality of regular product releases for ecommerce applications, marketing websites, and IoT products. I invite you to take a peek into some of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to work on with some of the most talented teammates you could ever imagine.
International Needs Marketing Website
The International Needs organization had come to a pivotal time in their history. A new president had been hired, and their contract with their previous service provider was coming to an end. They had already begun to envision the future and had purchased their donor database software outright from the rest of their system. The opportunity was ripe to begin exploring and evaluating options and think critically about how the IN brand might be perceived under new leadership for years to come.
To us, the solution felt very clear. We needed to bring a solid strategy to IN's online presence and cast them as an international leader in this work. We needed this new marketing website to hook visitors into their message at first read and show readers how they differentiate from other non-profits that might be doing similar work. We needed this site to be navigable, holistic, and act as a conduit to connect people with their mission and showcase meaningful content and stories that would inspire people to read, share, sponsor, or donate to their cause.
Stories
Featured Stories
Writing and sharing experiences are a couple of my favorite things. After all, it’s one of the oldest methods still used to best connect people with one another. In this section, I’ll be featuring some of my favorite stories I’ve written. Please expect content to span from a piece of a thought provoking learning, an evaluation of a real-life experience related to process and product management, or even a “how-to” guide of one of my hobbies, like gardening, crocheting, or cooking. I’m really excited to have an outlet to share some of these things with you.
