Senior Product Leadership Group (SPLSG)
Learn from peer Product Leaders about hot topics discussed in the community. Top speakers share their workplace experiences. Meet in an intimate setting (maximum 20-25 hand-picked participants) on March 7th, 2020 in Berlin. Looking forward to welcoming you there!
This is a question that is asked many times. And it should be answered on multiple levels:
There is a good article by Siraj Khalic about this topic: https://medium.com/atomico/europes-product-management-problem-9061bc71dc99. For the “Y” above, he writes about a status quo median ratio of 1:34 in Europe (aka if your company has 60 employees, you have a maximum of two product managers on average). For the “X” above, the number of 1:24 (aka if your company as a development team of 24, you have one (!) product manager on average).
If you take a look from another angle: Let’s assume you are working agile. Your individual squad size should not exceed six to eight. And this number (1:8) is confirmed by Siraj for the Valley, but not for Europe. I have experienced many cases where one product manager was responsible for two scrum teams. Sometimes supported by a “Requirements Manager” or a “Junior PO.”
Let’s finish this post by discussing “Z”. The size of your company is limited by the number of product managers you have and how you organize them – not the other way around. Let’s image you have a development team of 200. With the ratio 1:8, it would require 25 product managers. As one product lead cannot work directly with so many product managers, you need to establish a layer in between. E.g., you could have one Product Director with 3-4 Heads of Product reporting to him/her. This requires senior product leadership. If you don’t have this in place, the outcome of your 200 employee development team will be suboptimal.
I have been thinking about this a lot. We are all aware of the experiences and skills a Product Owner/Product Manager needs. But a Product Leader needs more than those “horizontal skills” to succeed in his or her organization. Here come the ones SPLSG believes are the most important:
So, how many boxes do you tick as a Product Leader? Is there something important missing in this list? Please comment – We are looking forward to your thoughts!
In 2019 SPLSG has hosted successfully two Product Leader Roundtables in Berlin. We are currently discussing options for 2020. If you would like to be part of the discussion, please reach out!
In preparation of our Product Leader Roundtable in Berlin on 16/09/2019 focusing on OKRs, we are looking forward to understanding better how widespread this framework is. Please help us by voting below. Thank you!
[yop_poll id=”3″]
Objectives and key results (OKRs) are being discussed everywhere. Obviously, they are helpful to align the direction of the company across different teams. But does this make them fundamentally new?
You should be aware that they have first been mentioned already back in 1975 (read more here). Everyone who has some business education will know “Management by Objectives (MbO)”. We would argue that the framework is anything but new. Nevertheless, the fact that today it has become fashionable to implement OKRs in organizations is new. Above all, there seems to be an imminent need to align not only Product and IT, but also strategy and execution, business and product, product and marketing, etc.
Let’s take a look at the starting point. Organizational silo structures have made it increasingly difficult to have a competitive advantage over others. In a world where customer demands are getting more and more sophisticated, it is vital to be organisationally effective and efficient. At the same time, defining, designing, building and operating products requires an aligned approach. This cannot be planned like a waterfall project. The big word is “agility”. Most importantly, being able to ad hoc react to new insights and the ability to change direction whenever necessary. In a world where this matters most, a product leader needs to stand up. It all boils down to the ability to influence and to lead people into the desired direction. SPLSG have named those skills “horizontal skills.” Based on product management expertise, the responsibility of a product manager is ever-broadening.
OKRs might be a good framework. But without the overarching skills and without the mandate to lead, the implementation will simply end in a mess.
Discuss this topic more! We would recommend our next Product Leader Roundtable on September 14th in Berlin. It is fully dedicated to the topic “OKRs for Product Leaders.” Secure your tickets here.
How was your summer? Slowly, but surely people are coming back to their desks. So have we @SPLSG 🙂
We are super-excited that tickets for our Roundtable event on September 16th in Berlin are selling fast. The focus will be on OKRs for product leaders. Learn more here.
Other than that, it might be worth mentioning that our initiator & founding partner Jörg Malang will be in Berlin September 17th-19th. Feel free to schedule some time with him here.
Speak soon!
Thank you to all our supporters and members since our initial launch in February 2019. It has been an interesting ride. We have had our first Product Leader Roundtable Event in Berlin and countless interactions with our members and product leaders who are interested in strengthening the still young discipline of (true) product leadership.
Now it is time to have a break! Enjoy summer and we are looking forward to resuming our activities in August/September.
All the best,
Elaine & Jörg
Many people speak about London losing traction because of the Brexit. What is happening to Paris? What do you think?
[yop_poll id=2]
