Product Managers at Work
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The common rhetoric is that product managers should act as the glue between engineering, design, and sales. This mindset was a trap. When I first start…
Alexis and Adrienne
Nov 21 1
In my first months as a PM, I* was more of a “prioritization machine” than a PM. Not in a good way. Engineers would ask me to help prioritize their pro…
Alexis and Adrienne
Nov 3
Strategic thinking is powerful -- it can often enable you to play chess when everyone else is playing checkers. Take Tesla’s Master Plan for example, “…
Alexis and Adrienne
Oct 23 6
One of my friends can instantly take a problem that at first appears intractable, like “How would you drive down the cost of Tesla’s autopilot system t…
Alexis and Adrienne
Oct 8 2
Most people switch jobs every few years, but as an ex-Facebook RPM, I* switched teams every six months. I saw a lot of different teams quickly early in…
Alexis and Adrienne
Sep 19 4
Having worked on several high-stakes product launches with complex moving pieces, I wanted to share several things I’ve learned from my experience on m…
Alexis and Adrienne
Sep 10
When I first joined Tesla as a product manager, I remember making a competitive analysis chart to understand the competitive landscape. This is a commo…
Alexis and Adrienne
Sep 4 2
A friend recently told me a story about how an Amazon team had chosen a north star metric that misguided them, leading them to millions of dollars in l…
Alexis and Adrienne
Aug 14
I was at Facebook for five years, and managed products ranging from Instagram Video Chat to algorithms for Facebook News Feed. I’ve had many friends re…
Alexis and Adrienne
Aug 7
A few years ago, I* was frustrated at work, because we were focused on bug smashing and not on launching new products. It felt as if we were in a lull …
Alexis and Adrienne
Jul 24
Early in my career, goal setting for my product team used to terrify me. It didn’t help that I worked for Facebook, a company known for taking goals ve…
Alexis and Adrienne
Jul 15
We don’t typically get to choose our managers, and it can be difficult to work with someone new, especially if they have a different working style from…
Alexis and Adrienne
Jul 2
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