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今日推薦開源項目：《這個網站居然沒有伺服器 itty.bitty.site》傳送門：GitHub鏈接

推薦理由：這個項目可以讓你生成一個網站。對，接下來你只需要把 html 代碼填進去，然後把網址鏈接記下來，就可以通過這個鏈接在任何聯網的時候打開這個網站而不需要任何的伺服器之類的，當然了，缺點顯而易見，你沒辦法從中獲得或者存儲任何數據，但是對於不需要這些的網站來說，興許這是一個廣泛傳播自己的不錯的途徑。

今日推薦英文原文：《How to Scale and Grow as a PM?》作者：Arpana Prajapati

原文鏈接：https://medium.com/women-in-product-blogs/how-to-scale-and-grow-as-a-pm-43d6d0aa4c8c

推薦理由：如何成長為一個 PM （Project Manager），這篇文章通過問答來介紹了這一點

How to Scale and Grow as a PM?

(left to right) Pratima Arora, Connie Kwan, Tara Seshan and Anutthara Bharadwaj

Women in Product partnered with host Atlassian in Mountain View, CA for a lively panel discussion about how to scale and grow as a product manager. Nearly a hundred current and aspiring PMs gathered for the event. Key questions included:

  • Have you ever thought about the correlation of your own growth as a Product Manager and the growth of your company?
  • Where do you shift focus at later stages of your career and company growth?
  • How does team size and company stage impact decisions?
  • How does company size and culture affect PM role and success?

The panel was moderated by Elain Szu, an Executive-In-Residence at Accel Partners and former PM at Trulia. Panelists featured were: Pratima Arora, Head of Confluence at Atlassian; Connie Kwan, Partner and VP of Product (as a service) at Advantary LLC; Anutthara Bharadwaj, Group PM for Atlassian; and Tara Seshan, PM at Stripe.

Here』s some of the feedback from attendees:

「As a career changer (in progress), helping dispel some myths was personally very confidence-boosting. It made me feel like I can do this.」

「Actionable + specific insights (book recommendations, mentoring organizations, prioritization technique names)」

We hope you』ll be able to join us for future WIP events. In the meantime, here are some key takeaways from the discussion.

How do you choose the right company and team size to begin your PM career?

  • Consider starting at a larger company that has more resources for training and skill development. Then join a startup for more opportunities to lead and influence interesting projects.
  • It can be good to work in different industries — there』s a lot of learning and innovation at the intersection of industries
  • Create a personal learning plan — what do you want to learn, what do you want to gain from your next role, where are areas you need more experience?

What are the expectations of a Product vs. Platform PM, and B2B vs. B2C PM?

  • As a Product PM, you are required to have an in-depth knowledge of the customer, find the right product/market fit, and grow the business. Depending on the stage of the company, you could be responsible for growing a million vs. a billion users. The Product PM role comes with the luxury of deep focus.
  • As a Platform PM, you have to wear two different hats. You have to not only think about the end users but also developers using your platform to generate more users for their products. Companies that have established a significant revenue stream with a product line often will then build a platform to drive 10X growth. Platform teams help product teams to scale. For example, a core component of a Ford car would be built by a platform team, but special components would be made by the product team.
  • As a B2B PM, you should have a strong business sense and sometimes more technical skills are required.
  • As a B2C PM you face the challenge that consumers can have a higher bar for usability, since they have more choices. So, when you work in B2C, it』s important to have a strong understanding of UI/UX in addition to general product sense and analytical skills.

What surprised you the most as a new PM?

  • It』s not enough to make a case for why a feature is good for users and growing the business. You also need to justify the opportunity cost. Think about alternative investments and tradeoffs. Explain why should we build this specific feature now vs. later (or not at all).

As a manager, how do you empower people? Who are you as a leader, and how do you lead?

  • A lot is around the art of storytelling.
  • Personality tests such as Myers Briggs or Business Chemistry taught in business schools teach you how to manage different personalities.
  • You don』t have to become a people manager to become product leader. Many companies have tracks for career growth as an individual contributor.
  • The biggest difference is you need to be Coach vs. Player.
  • Recommend the book What Got You Here Won』t Get You There to understand how to climb last few rungs of the ladder.
  • Understand that there are multiple ways to arrive at the same solution. Learn to let go. Your team may implement things differently from how you would do it — but that can be a good thing. You want to have teams with diverse skill sets.
  • What you want may not be what the entire team wants. Develop empathy.

What are the various performance dimensions for PMs?

  • Communication skills — openness, ability to influence decisions, resolve conflicts
  • Product mastery — product sense, business sense, customer empathy
  • Leads and inspires others — story-telling
  • Delivers outcomes

What are the biggest distractions for you, and how do you focus?

  • Email. Use tools like Confluence to consolidate comments and feedback. The book 『The One Thing』 is also helpful.
  • Meetings. Think about what you』d do if you were not sucked into these, and do it. For example, Tara took a week off to meet a bunch of users!
  • Impromptu drop-ins. Find a corner where you can concentrate on work that requires deep thinking.
  • Note — also consider if your role is Maker or Manager. For a Maker, distraction can be devastating as it hurts creativity. For a Manager, meetings/IMs/emails are crucial.

What are your recommendations for cross-functional collaboration?

  • Use a 『Why, What and How』 triad model to engage with PMs, Designers and Engineers. PMs define the value and impact of the product/feature, designers help visualize the solution, and engineers make it happen.
  • At Stripe, PMs act as GM, and hence you own the relationship with design, engineering, marketing and sales. To be successful, understand each team』s motivation, the goals they have to meet, and collaborate with them effectively. Find the path of least resistance. Tip regarding dealing with sales — treat them as one of many input channels.
  • Transparency is the secret sauce of collaboration. At Atlassian, most documents except ones with legal implications are accessible to all employees.

How do I make a move into PM with no prior experience?

  • Apply to RPM/APM programs. Facebook, Google, Atlassian and others have these.
  • Apply to jobs even if you meet 60% of the criteria. Women often don』t apply until they feel they have 100% of the job requirements — but that does not stop men. Keep perspective that a technical background (e.g. computer science degree) is not always required — you just need to be able to have productive conversations with your engineers and other key stakeholders.
  • Ask for a PM side project at your current company. Ask lot of questions.
  • Look for a mentor. Check out Everwise Mentoring.

Hopefully these insights are useful to you in growing your PM career. Thanks again to our panelists and host Atlassian for providing this opportunity for the WIP community!

(left to right) Elaine Szu, Anne Cocquyt and Christine Lee

About Women in Product

Women in Product® is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in product management. Founded by senior women product leaders in Silicon Valley, Women in Product』s mission is to educate, empower, and create a global community of women product managers to build impactful products at scale. Join our community: http://www.womenpm.org/join/

每天推薦一個 GitHub 優質開源項目和一篇精選英文科技或編程文章原文，歡迎關注開源日報。交流QQ群：202790710；微博：https://weibo.com/openingsource；電報群 https://t.me/OpeningSourceOrg