Guillaume Forget

Here's one fun and easy hack that designers and product managers can use to GREATLY level up their technical chops: Learn how to use Airtable. Why? It's a hands-on way to learn the fundamentals of relational databases, data types, and database querying. Knowing these concepts intuitively will benefit your working relationship with devs and make you MUCH more effective at your job. Here are some easy database project ideas to get you started: 1. Your Library -- Books, authors, genres, etc. 2. Trips You've Taken -- Locations visited, travel companions, experiences, etc. 3. Recipes -- Types of food, ingredients, kitchen tools needed, etc. Have fun! https://www.airtable.com DM me if you want to learn Airtable and need tips on getting started. Happy to help. #Airtable #Data #ProductManagement #UX #CareerGrowth

3

Looking to become a better leader? Check out these 10 tips to build trust and propel your team to success! - Authenticity is key: Share your strengths and areas of growth. - Empathy matters: Seek to understand your team's perspectives. - Walk the talk: Align your actions with your words. - Invite honest feedback: Create an open door for communication. - Follow through: Promises made, promises kept. - Respect confidentiality: Build a safe space to share. - Own your mistakes: Sincere apologies foster accountability. - Know your limits: Collaborate and learn together. - Respect boundaries: Promote work-life balance. - Kindness is power: Strengthen relationships, enhance trust. Click to find out more in my latest blog post! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gzm6QYBq

2

I wrote Hiring Product Managers to show that hiring can be an agent of change. We need to stop thinking of hiring as simply 'ticking a box' - approaching hiring in a meaningful way can have a great impact on our personal growth, team dynamics & the shaping of our organisational culture. Get your copy!

10

Product Rockstars in tech....It's not about strategy. It's not about frameworks. To play big...it's about the soft skills. Yep....your EQ is critical to level up and lead. You need to master the human side of work.  Treating people with respect Understanding how to communicate Executive presence Managing politics (yep...,I said it) Treating people as human beings To level up in the world of tech....it's about the human game. #productmanagement #techleaders #womenintech Are you ready to level up into leadership? Are you ready to learn how to play the human game? Respond with 'yes' and I'll send you my E-Book on The Next Generation of Leadership in Product

1

I talk to so many people weekly who are feeling stuck in their roles, careers or lives. Whether you... 👉 quit your job or been laid off, 👉 want to change jobs/careers,   👉 need product or business related advice 👉 help resetting your goals  👉 level up in product management I am opening up my calendar to those who need a little boost, or even a transformation in the way they do things today. 💡 I’ve been lifted by incredible opportunities and mentors, and I want to pay it forward. ⭐ So if I can help you at all → send me a DM 🙏 #probono #coaching

84

4 Comments

Another insightful post from Catherine Connelly, this time about setting and achieving your goals. If I could summarize: 1. Set quantifiable goals based on inputs that you can control 2. Break that goal into components 3. Spend your time on the components that make the biggest impact Read her post for the details and examples: https://lnkd.in/gDv8TPaZ

7

🤔 It may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's always best to be first to the party 🥳 Innovation is the engine of growth, and the partnership between MikMak and DoorDash is a testament to this principle. This first-of-its-kind integration is a game-changer, revolutionizing how consumers shop and brands sell. Imagine this: you're scrolling through your favorite social media platform, see an ad for a product you love, and within moments, you can have it delivered to your doorstep via DoorDash. This is the power of MikMak's integration with DoorDash, a seamless fusion of social commerce and on-demand delivery. But this partnership isn't just about convenience; it's about empowering brands with valuable data and insights. MikMak's closed-loop attribution provides a granular understanding of consumer behavior, enabling brands to optimize their marketing strategies and drive sales. 🚀 This is the future of omnichannel shopping, a world where every interaction is a potential purchase, and every purchase is a data point. MikMak and DoorDash are leading the charge, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes us. 🗞️ Read the Press Release here: https://lnkd.in/e-VqFtSb? #MikMak #DoorDash #Omnichannel #ecommerce #innovation #marketing #attribution #data #insights #partnership #futureofretail

68

6 Comments

Gathering and prioritizing customer feedback - at scale! - is an incredible challenge. A decade ago, we standardized on portals where customers can contribute, sort, search, comment, and vote on ideas. Product Managers spent hours, days, and weeks triaging responses, responding to ideas, and generally becoming frustrated with not being able to keep up with the amount of incoming feedback! Today, Pendo launches Listen as part of the Pendo One Platform. It is such a massive step forward in how we can capture customer feedback from seemingly endless sources, collate, summarize, intelligently route, validate, and take action on it. It's really magically and scales beautifully. I think it focuses in on the difference between hearing the voice of your customer and truly listening. Hearing is about a single sense. Listening involves all of your senses. Pendo Listen deeply integrates our quantitative analytics, integrations, and replay to Listen to your customer and take action. Learn more:��https://lnkd.in/eTPR4HiQ

36

1 Comment

My friend (and teammate) James Buac shared this with our Product team last week. Its a great reminder of what makes an empowered product team. We hear from customers and stakeholders about features day in and day out and its easy to get distracted by a long list of product requests. It's up to us to always go back to the customer, the problem we're trying to solve, and the outcome we're trying to achieve. Starting there allows for more creativity and innovation on how to deliver value to your customers. It also aligns the entire team on what success looks like, ensuring that celebration doesn't happen with putting a feature into production, but when the objective is achieved for the customer. https://lnkd.in/efmvh7Mb #product #empoweredproduct

45

Want to get better at working with others to solve problems collaboratively? Use the 4 D's framework for systematic thinking. Go one step at a time. 1. Data - What do you (collectively) know about the problem? 2. Diagnosis - Why is this problem happening? What are the underlying causes? 3. Direction - What should be done in general? 4. Do Next - What specific actions should be taken? Who? When? Where? How? Credit to Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp's book "Getting it Done." Read this because it was recommended by the late and great Charlie Munger.

4

Alistair Gray gave a great talk at Write The Docs Portland, going into detail about our investment in Internal Docs at Stripe. He breaks down our thoughts about issues of fragmentation, discoverability, and document quality - and how we’ve tried to build great tools to improve the state of internal docs at Stripe across all of these axes. In Q&A, he touches on an important theme which is essentially “how do we convince engineers to use the tooling we build.” The answer really boils down to “ruthlessly build what engineers want” while maintaining our core primitives (eg, ownership, doc quality) that we know are vital to the health of Stripe’s knowledge base all-up. Let me know if y’all have any questions - happy to expand more on these themes! https://lnkd.in/em4QRFmH

26

Playing a role - A Daily Practice. In our work and personal lives, we all play various roles: product manager, engineering manager, VP, parent, etc. This little practice is about not over-identifying ourselves or others with those roles, but seeing through them to the people behind them.

16

1 Comment

Going from a product idea to a company and scalable business is all about closing the product-company gap. Here an very interesting insight.

4

Everything you wanted to know about Microsoft Copilot, but didn't know where to look, here is the encyclopedia of Microsoft Copilot, for your journey, for your persona.

14

My first podcast! Please listen and share your feedback, the learning continues. 

53

16 Comments

Last week, a significant chapter in my career ended: an incredible 4-year journey with Riseup. Reflecting on the challenges, achievements, and impact I've been fortunate enough to be part of, I wanted to sum up my time here and share my key learnings: 🎯 Product Leadership I joined Riseup to be part of a world-class product team, and I’m grateful to Yuval Samet for the opportunity to be part of a truly product-driven company. Working closely with customers, experimenting, and being data-informed made this the most advanced way I had ever built products. As VP of Product, I had the privilege of leading the Product Team, mentoring the PMs, and shaping our strategy and squad work from discovery to delivery. 👉 Takeaway: As much as I'm a data-driven person, I understand that to surpass the local maxima, we must take bold, intuition-based big bets and ensure great alignment across teams around it to make significant moves. 🧭 People Management I managed diverse roles across product, design, community, and data analysis. As a people manager, I got to invest time in refining my coaching skills, providing meaningful feedback, and leading people through real trust-building. 👉 Takeaway: While leading with questions and clear outcomes is crucial for empowerment, people often look to their manager for clearer guidance and decisions. Depending on the proficiency of your employees, also be directive and demanding to ensure tasks are completed correctly and that the desired outcomes are achieved. 💪 Personal Growth Transitioning from a Product IC to VP of Product and being part of the company leadership, I learned the importance of continuous self-improvement. Special thanks to Avi Charkham for being an incredible coach and guiding me through this journey 🙏. The past 4 years have been a period of significant personal growth. 👉 Takeaway: Like getting fit, having a coach or mentor is invaluable, but ultimately, it's up to you to prioritize your growth, show up every week, and work to achieve your goals. 🚀 Startup Life Working in a dynamic startup, I had the opportunity to contribute across various domains, from digital marketing to community strategy, shaping company processes and rituals, and leading the Data Analysis team, implementing a data-driven culture. 👉 Takeaway: It's important to identify the most crucial mission that you are responsible for and are being evaluated on. If taking on more responsibilities causes you to lose focus, it's probably best not to do it. Learn to say no and keep your eyes on the ball. -- Riseup has been an incredible mountain climb, allowing me to reach new summits. While the end is bittersweet, I hope Riseup finds a way to continue fulfilling its great mission and impacting people's lives worldwide. I'm grateful for the incredible people in this team and our unique cultural values as a company—it made me a better person. Now, I’m catching some rest and looking forward to continuing to climb the next summit.

222

14 Comments

As a product community, we’re too obsessed with MAANG companies and Silicon Valley. —TL;DR— - Organizational context matters - Create a learning journey within that context - Define achievable success for that context I’m seeing a lot of messaging to PMs recently that reads like, “there's no excuse not to do what we're doing. You can act like Silicon Valley anywhere.” The behaviors of successful tech companies should certainly be part of our product learning journey but not the whole. Context matters. Most product practitioners are working for non-product first companies that have different budget structures, less specialized resources, and stakeholders who fundamentally don’t understand the product domain. Depending on the industry you could be working with stricter regulations and compliance that intentionally slow you down. Being successful in these environments requires skills that you’re not going to learn at a MAANG company. I strongly recommend looking for mentors and guides within your context. Define success by what’s reasonable for that context, it might not be starting a brand new category. Success can look like clarifying your product’s development path or learning something new about the market. Don't let the messages from the ivory tower of product influencers frustrate or sadden you. Sure you can influence your organization for the better, we all should. We can also do great things within our context. #productlearning #careerdevelopment

15

6 Comments

How can product leaders move the needle and take the lead in this shift? Moving Off the Solution – guide your team to step back from the tech stack and view the challenge from the POV of a new user. Measuring Customer Perceived Value -- require PMs to sit with a cohort of users -- typical users. Conduct a discovery exercise. A small sample size is sufficient. Embrace the Change – this should require a complete change in mindset but a different orientation. Focusing the team on adoption, cross sell and upsell has clear near-term and long-term ROI for the company. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gjJk_K5V #leadership #prodmgmt #ROI

6

1 Comment