AMA: Asana Product Management Team on Developing Your Product Management Career

I transitioned from journalism to product management earlier in my career, and although it’s not a straightforward path, it’s actually pretty common for PMs to join tech from other sectors. An Asana PM teammate of mine, Ari Janover, actually has the best articulation of how to make the transition that I’ve ever heard. He says there are three common paths: * The Ninja: Join a small startup as another role and push to own PM work until you become a PM. * The Expert: Apply for roles where the value of your specific knowledge trumps your lack of PM credentials. Think Engineers for technical products or a real estate agent for a real estate tool. * The Hail Mary: Follow the few PM Apprenticeships that don’t require previous experience (learn more about AsanaUp here). I followed the Expert path when starting out, and I’ve seen it work quite well in early-stage companies. One of the biggest challenges in starting in an early-stage company, though, is that you’re often the first or only PM, so although you have lots of things to learn, you may have fewer people to learn from. I spent a lot of time observing and learning from PMs at other companies and building up a group of folks I could exchange ideas and challenges with, and this is a practice I still find incredibly useful today.

For me the biggest differentiator is having a growth mindset. This doesn't just mean they want to make an impact and improve as a PM. For me it comes down to three things: 1. They have a sense of what they know and don't know, and are always eager to learn more. They question their own assumptions. 2. They're humble and curious in trying to figure out what they don't know and leverage the expertise of others. 3. They frequently seek feedback from others and try to challenge themselves, not just to achieve more but to be a better colleague and partner to others.

The question I love asking every candidate is "tell me the story of the most impactful thing you’ve ever worked on." I like this question for several reasons: * It works for every level of experience. For experienced PMs, I’m expecting to hear about a very important product they worked on. For someone with little to no experience, they can tell me a story about something they worked on that was incredibly hard, impactful and meaningful to them without it needing to be related to product work. * It allows me to get a sense of their storytelling ability. Are they able to structure a story effectively? Are they able to take me on a journey with a clear start, middle and end point? Are they able to do so succinctly? * Lastly, it’s a really helpful way of assessing what they consider impactful and whether they've done something impressive that suggests they'll be a fit for the role. I've heard so many great stories, but one that stands out was for an internship role at my last company: The candidate had not done any product work before, so he told me the story of how he volunteered to help out at a student tech conference. He felt he was bad at public speaking and wanted to watch people do it well. Within a couple of years he was in charge of the largest student conference in Canada and speaking on stage to thousands of people. He told an engaging story that showed me he'd achieved something truly impressive that we wouldn't have talked about if I would have just asked product questions.

We often say that growth at Asana is more like a climbing wall than a ladder—you can choose different paths, get stronger with each foothold, and truly enjoy your journey along the way. That is doubly true for product roles. You get exposure to so many parts of the business that you may realize you want to go explore next. It is also great training for anyone who aspires to be an entrepreneur or CEO of a large company. Andew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk, advises all aspiring executives at his company to become a product manager at some point in their career. That's because it's the only role where you get to learn how to influence people without having any authority over them. Lastly, it's a great career if you decide you don't want to be a manager or executive. Companies like Asana provide paths where you can achieve great success as an individual contributor. There's a financially rewarding path to becoming one of the world's experts in your chosen area without having to manage others.

* I get frustrated whenever I hear business outcomes and customer outcomes described as two forces that are in tension, and that it’s necessary to choose between either building a fantastic product or having a fantastic business. It’s certainly possible to have a highly profitable business with a shoddy product, but I believe that the advantage that organizations gain by going that path is short term, and that eventually a poor product experience will erode trust and lead customers to move on to better products. * This is especially common in new product / technology areas, where some companies optimize everything around being the first to launch something in order to capture the so-called first mover advantage and build a moat. Looking back on the last few software innovation cycles, there are many examples of where the second, third or even fourth product to market was the eventual winner, by prioritizing nailing the customer experience and learning from others’ mistakes, over pure speed.

When looking for a new opportunity, I ask myself four questions: * Am I excited to work on this mission? If I’m going to dedicate 40+ hours a week on solving a specific problem, I need to be sure that the solutions I’m working on are ultimately helping people and making the world a better place. * Will I be happy working with these people? I operate best in an environment that values transparency and high standards, has a low-ego culture, and encourages people to bring their whole selves to work. I need to be part of a culture that has values that align with my own, and frankly, I just want to enjoy working with my teammates! * What skills will I gain that complement my toolkit? Work is more fun when you consider yourself a lifelong learner. Any new role and company needs to offer me the opportunity to add new skills to my repertoire. This can come through my manager, other leaders at the company, or learning by doing the role itself. When joining Asana, I was particularly excited about learning a playbook for how to scale product teams. * Am I poised to have a deep impact? Finally, I want to make sure that I have some uniquely suited skills and experience that will help me make a lasting impact in my new role. I am most fulfilled when I feel like I’m adding value to the business and to my teams.

At Asana, we break down PM skills into 6 core competencies. Demonstrating growth in these competencies is critical for all PMs, including our senior folks. * Growth Mindset: Be open and curious when building, growing, and leading * Strategic: Create the best and boldest ideas with a boundaryless mindset, making decisions with the company mission in mind first, team second, and self third * Get Stuff Done: Find the best solutions with the highest ROI to deliver value to our users fast * Grow Team Asana: Take collective responsibility for growing the size and quality of our team * Customer Centric: Deeply understand our customers’ pain points and build the best solutions to meet their needs * Communication and Collaboration: Master cross-functional co-creation to deliver high-quality results. If you are a senior PMs who hopes to advanced to Director and above, there are 3 additional questions I would dig into: * How can I exhibit a boundaryless mindset? Senior PMs can scale impact beyond their specific project, program team, area, or pillar. They build bridges and influence across the company. This also leads to driving more complex and nuanced product initiatives. * What do I want to be known for? As you grow in your product career, consider where you can develop depth of expertise. This could include a particular specialty (for example - enterprise adoption, fintech, consumer marketplaces). It could also include a particular skill (for example - crafting a long term vision, creating structure from ambiguity, understanding revenue impact). Do I want to grow as an IC or a manager? There comes a time in everyone’s career when they face a key question: “How do I want to scale my impact?” As a PM, there are many ways to grow in impact. * A senior individual contributor (IC) scales their impact through the work—being able to manage highly complex and critical projects across multiple teams, providing nuanced strategic leadership in making decisions, and building and innovating for our customers. They build deep subject matter expertise and are a role model for others. * On the other hand, a manager scales their impact through their team—empowering others through coaching and providing the right opportunities for growth. * Many employees switch between the manager and IC career paths. Both opportunities are equal in terms of seniority, prestige, and accountability. At Asana, we want to make sure people have the flexibility to work in the right capacity for themselves at different points in their lives.

At Asana, we don't use leveled job titles to indicate seniority (e.g. Product Manager III or Senior Director of Marketing), but that doesn't mean that we don't have management structures in place. Instead, we use Success Guides for every team that help employees understand what success looks like for each role level at Asana. Another way we demonstrate ownership and growth in role is Areas of Responsibility, key areas of the business that have one designated owner who is responsible. AoRs act as a directory so employees easily can understand who does what, and they offer employees additional ways to stretch and grow outside of a traditional role structure. * As a more junior PM you are working on a well-defined initiative driving the backlog of a single program team or large workstream within a program team. You contribute to the strategy for a program, while the high level elements are largely defined already. You drive work with end-to-end responsibility around execution in a problem space that is fairly well defined. At this stage you are open and curious - your growth mindset is a career accelerant. * As a more senior PM you have a lot of autonomy in running a program team or large workstream within a program team, and are thinking boundarylessly outside your program to drive a seamless customer experience. You may be contributing to multiple backlogs and your work likely touches experiences that are owned by others. You are expected to set the strategy for your program or workstream based on the broader pillar strategy. This strategy must help Asana win. The work that you tackle is difficult, ambitious, ambiguous, and does not have a clear solution from the outset. You coach other PMs informally, and may seek out a more formal mentorship opportunity. Once someone is demonstrating all the competencies at their current level, we then start giving them extra responsibilities. It is only after demonstrating those new competencies consistently do we decide they are ready to be promoted.

Customer feedback is critical to how we build, and we incorporate it at every step of the product development process. We get customer feedback from a variety of places. When building new products we proactively reach out to customers to learn about their needs and make sure we’re creating the right solutions for them. We have a User Research team that regularly speaks to customers via a variety of methods - everything from interviews and surveys to card sorting and field studies. Along our product development process, we have specific touchpoints where we make sure to utilize user research to get deep insight into the pain points our customers face, and the best solutions to help them. Our customer-facing teams, like sales and customer success, are also talking to customers constantly as part of their daily jobs. These teams rigorously record all of the feedback they hear and compile it into a ranked Voice of the Customer (VOC) list, all managed within Asana. Asana’s VOC program is a critical input into our roadmap process, and helps us prioritize the most pressing needs brought up by customers.

* One common misconception about b2b product teams is that they should spend most of their time thinking about the buyer (e.g. an executive, IT decision maker) rather than the individuals using the product every day. This misconception arises because in business settings, everyday users sometimes don’t have much choice in the tools they use. However, product teams who focus too much attention on the buyer and not enough on everyday users often end up building products that may get some initial traction, but ultimately become the products teams love to complain about, and in the long run, will stop using. * We focus on making the individual experience of Asana as easy and delightful as possible, so that everyone using the product can see and feel how it’s making work less effortful every day – even if they’re not the person signing the check. * Earning customer love and trust at every level creates a solid foundation for growing your relationship and your business. Moreover, B2B customers increasingly expect and review analytics of how their teams are using products, and if it’s clear that the folks at their organizations are highly engaged with a product and love using it, they’re much more likely to remain customers.