Megan Boundey

⚡️💡 What an incredibly energising and insightful session we just had! 20+ Product Managers and Product enthusiasts engaged with Mandar Karlekar for over 45 mins on navigating the Product Management landscape in Australia. Mandar not only shared some sobering facts, but also shared very concrete and actionable advice with the audience to set them up for success 🙌 Thank you Mandar Karlekar for your valuable time and the wonderful audience for their excellent engagement - Vamsi Krishna, Rahil Hameed, Pragati Maan, Nidhi Verma, Nguyen Duc Ngoc (Gosha), Brenton Williams, Nishanth D'Souza, Shruti Narayan, Vivek Menon, Teresa Wong, Meelad Zora, Ha-Le Trinh, Ratheesh Kannan Baskaran, Ajeet Singh Yadav, Deepti Kulkarni Lucy Wang, Venkatesan Madhavan Poornima Pai and others 👏 Here's to a stronger Product Management community Down Under 🇦🇺 🚀 If you'd like participate in future session or would like to help organise, drop me a note. #productmanagement #productinAustralia #productmanagementcareer

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Don't miss out - the final set of Colab Cohorts product management cohorts are open for applications! These are live cohorts held in APAC friendly timezones for both kick-starting a career in product, and levelling up as a senior product practitioner. Here's what opened up for senior product people 👇 🚀 [NEW] Product Leadership 101 - starts October 16th (NZ/APAC) 🎯 Mastering Product Strategy - starts October 9th (NZ/APAC) 🕹 Advanced Product Management - starts October 9th (NZ/APAC) And, here's what has opened up for those looking to kick-start their product career 👇 ⚡ Product Management Fundamentals - starts October 7th (NZ/APAC) With outstanding instructors who work in product day to day like John Bowker, Shameem Daneshmend, Adam Davis, Millie Zah, Jacqui Wales, and others, these are amazing opportunities to accelerate your product career growth! Learn more and apply via the link in comments 👇 👇 👇

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In the whirlwind pace of product management, managing time effectively isn’t just nice to have; it’s a must. I stumbled upon some enlightening insights from Aakash Gupta about crafting Product Requirement Documents (PRDs), which really struck a chord with me. While traditional PRD templates serve a purpose, they tend to be a bit of a time sink. Even with tools like GPT-4 easing the burden, they still often need significant tweaks to truly resonate. That’s where Aakash introduces ChatPRD. he has shown how ChatPRD minimizes the need for heavy editing, delivering drafts that sound like they’ve been penned by a seasoned Product Manager. With input from experts, ChatPRD streamlines the entire process, enabling you to whip up a robust PRD draft in roughly 30 minutes. Aakash’s collaborative effort with the ChatPRD team to put together a comprehensive guide is a real game-changer for PMs and product leaders looking to streamline their workflows. This guide could potentially cut down your PRD drafting time by 75%, giving you more room for innovation and strategic thought. If you’re often facing a daunting blank page or clunky templates, I highly recommend diving into Aakash’s full guide and exploring how ChatPRD can revolutionize your approach.

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Here's the latest APAC Product Management job market report for November 2024. The number of Product Manager jobs in APAC are down 2.8%. This compares unfavourably to October 2024, where they were UP 5.1%. ♻️ Please reshare this post for others 👩🏽‍💼 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗠 & 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 There are 809 Senior PM and 356 PM Leadership roles open, or about 17% and 7% of total roles in the region. Senior PM roles 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 11% while Product Leader roles 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 compared to October. APAC has the 2nd lowest share of open Product Leadership roles, behind only LATAM. 👨🏻‍💻 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘃𝘀. 𝗢𝗻-𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘃𝘀. 𝗛𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱 On-site & Hybrid jobs 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 MoM, while Remote roles 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 but remain a low share of the overall total (9%). On-site job listings account for 67% of total APAC job listings. Stay tuned for more market specific deep dives I will report later this week. 📣 Comment below with questions or requests for additional cuts. --- This is the 8th month I've done this report and will continue publishing it as long as people find it valuable. A like, comment, or repost goes along way to support the work. If you know someone who is considering entering the market, suggest they look at this report first. 👍🏻 if this is helpful 🎙️ ask questions below 💡 follow me for more insights

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The first time I have ever heard someone singing a song as part of their speech at a Product Management Conference! About metrics. With a backing track. What a very different approach, and fun presentation from Joe Raeburn that also hit us with some powerful messages at Product Aotearoa Day 2. Building successful products and businesses are all about keeping an eye on the money when you're looking for product market it. Find a very popular (and profitable niche) and then find that extra need that is not being met by the people using the products here. Balance Fresh with Familiar. Too much Fresh just scares people - they need something familiar to ease the transition. But at the end of the day fundamentals - metrics, money, customer segments, needs and PMF - are applicable in every product, service or offering you can imagine!

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“Can you design a solution for someone trying to communicate with the new human settlement on Mars?” … “What would happen if Google is no longer able to see your location?” “How many cars are there in Sydney?” Welcome to an interview for product management! Fun, right? Interviewing for product manager roles has certainly been a unique experience and I am not sure if this is because I transitioned from marketing. These are the types of questions which might freak out a new PM. Here is the good news: there is no one correct answer. The bad news: these are no easy questions to answer on the spot. You can’t possibly prepare for every odd question one could possibly ask you. So let’s go back to the basics. On The Product Manager podcast (8 Sept 23 episode), Natalia Baryshnikova was asked, “from a hiring perspective...what are some of the markers you see when you are evaluating someone’s background?” Natalia answered, “when interviewing product managers, I usually think about the HACK methadology… ‘H' stands for Humility... 'A' stands for Analytical... ‘C' stands for Creativity... 'K' stands for Knife" (“cut off the pieces that don’t belong” — prioritisation)." That clicked something in my mind. How else could someone test analytical or creative thinking in an objective, fair and standardised way? These questions are clever ways to observe our product thinking. Testing what you know is one thing, testing when there are no real answers to know is another. When prepping for interviews, I wrote the following notes for the above questions. 1️⃣ “Design a solution for someone trying to communicate with the new human settlement on Mars” —> creativity & analytical: customer value, needs, behaviour - environmental factors - estimated technical challenges - estimated risks/safety - Mars speed of light 4-13mins for message to reach 2️⃣ “What would happen if Google is no longer able to see your location?” —> analytical + knife: top 3 impacts to businesses (+200 million) - top 3 impacts to customers (+1 billion/month) - estimated impacts to Google's revenue users reputation - estimated impacts to Google (Maps) competitors 3️⃣ “How many cars are there in Sydney?” —> analytical thinking: population - estimated no of license holders - estimated no of cars per license holder - estimated demand for cars based on age - estimated no of rental cars based on tourism Not sure what this tells about my degree of craziness, but once I got the hang of answering these sorts of questions, I labelled them as the “fun ones.” Lastly, I highly recommend listening to the full podcast episode, “How One Street Artist Became Head of Product at Atlassian.” Natalia sounds like a very interesting and passionate product person. #NewProductManager #CareerChange #ProductInterviews #ProductManagement

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Hot takes on health tech from Harsh Songra and Manjunath Bangera from the last session of Call My Baby Ugly. 💡 Huge market and potential for preventive healthcare in the "diabetes capital of the world" but builders are often underestimating how hard it is to make the behaviour shift happen, that is critical for any product in the space to work 💡 Data, data everywhere but who's taking action? It's easy to get fascinated by all the great data & insights one can surface to a user, but the real question is how can one inspire action on that data Such enriching conversations already, and I am so excited for more sessions! Opening up the form for more builders to get their baby called ugly, link in the comments.

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Hi The Good Bug team, I received a feedback survey link today on WA. And I am a huge supporter of your products. However, not sure if your team tested the survey. If I click any option, all previous options are getting selected by default. I hope no one is looking at this survey result. Its disastrous. And the fact that it kept happening even after me trying to unselect. 😞 Users hardly fill surveys these days and when this happens it’s damn frustrating. Hope you look into this. Attaching a video for reference

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Who Killed Product Management in India? 🔎 This was the title of of a recent article by Praveen Gopal Krishnan on The Ken, he puts forth some interesting points (link the comments). One key point that stood out was someone saying - 90% of Product Manager roles have become redundant. Engineers, designers, and business professionals can now take on tasks once exclusive to PMs. Harsh? Maybe. True? To some extent. So, what does the future hold for PMs? I believe the future lies in the rise of the Full Stack Product Management and in everyone gaining a strong product sense. Let’s dive into details below. Article Insights: Product Management has shifted from a creative, intuitive role to a bureaucratic, data-driven one. Instead of creating innovative products, PMs are bogged down with frameworks, PRDs, and justifying decisions to stakeholders. AI is also automating many PM tasks, further pushing PMs toward obsolescence. Companies like Airbnb have even removed traditional PM roles, showing how product development can happen without them. Know thy Product: The core issue, in my view, is that we don’t truly understand what their product is. Too often, the "product" is mistaken for the app or the website—the enablers—rather than the value delivered to the customer. -> What’s the Real Product? Flipkart/Amazon: Not the app, but the goods they deliver 📦 Netflix: Not the platform, but the content 🎬 Zomato/Swiggy: It’s the food 🍔 Gmail/WhatsApp: The network effect they create 📱 The actual product is the core value, and whoever is owning it is the one owning the customer too. There are spaces where PMs can own the product, like in B2C tech (Gmail, YouTube) or B2B SaaS Applications; but in industries like e-commerce or D2C, the product isn't the app; it's the actual goods experience or service. Everyone Needs Product Sense: It’s not just PMs who need to get this. Whether you’re in business, ops, engineering, analytics, or business ops, having a product mindset is crucial to understanding the end value delivered to customers. Companies should encourage leaders and ICs alike to gain product exposure. Product sense helps you understand users, business impact, and how to solve real problems. Whats the moat for some wanting to be a PM or who is a PM: Enter the Full Stack Product Manager The future of PMs is Full Stack, blending creativity, data, and technical skills. The Full Stack PM can: Identify customer problems, Conduct discovery, Prototype and build solutions, Collaborate with engineers to build scalable products, Market and sell the product, Iterate based on feedback. AI and no-code tools are enabling this shift, allowing PMs to own the entire product lifecycle. What do you think of this? Share your views in the comments below and follow me (Vellanki Sriharsha) for more such insights. #ProductManagement #FullStackPM #AI #ProductLeadership #FutureOfWork

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A huge thank you to Phil Grove from Atlassian for delivering such an insightful session at the recent ProductTank Canberra meetup! 🙌 Your talk on Atlassian Team Playbooks was a fantastic look into how collaboration and structured team practices are just as critical as the work itself. Also, big thanks to Adriana Voegeli for organizing this event and creating a space for the community to come together and learn. Looking forward to putting these plays into action! 💡 #producttank #productmanagement #Atlassian #teamplaybook

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Making the Impossible Possible: Honest Metrics for Clarity 🙆🛠️ My flatmate and I recently had this challenge while planning for Vivid Sydney. There are so many incredible gigs we wanted to attend, and the ones with no free entry are the real highlights of Vivid. But with our limited budget, it seemed almost impossible. We tracked our spending for a month to understand where our money was going. Then, we created a budget framework to see where we could save and where we could spend a little more. Prioritizing essential expenses and setting up a small emergency fund helped us manage our finances better. It wasn’t perfect from the start, but we found a balance that worked for both of us. Now, imagine this scenario in a company. When we have to make a quote for a client or even an internal department, we often face a similar challenge. We have a budget, but we need to present it as if we can deliver triple the effort to stay competitive. It feels like we’re creating an illusion of the impossible because we know there will be iterations and changes until we find the right balance. To address this, we must apply transparent communication with clients and stakeholders, explaining the iterative process, and the need for flexibility builds trust and sets realistic expectations from the start. It’s also important to explain in simple, understandable words what we do and why it takes time, emphasizing that planning, even in an agile approach, requires effort. Implementing Agile methodology to manage projects by breaking down tasks into manageable sprints allows for continuous feedback and adjustments, keeping the project on track and ensuring iterative improvements. Additionally, benchmarking and comparing similar projects helps create a clear idea for the client, showing them how similar challenges were addressed and what results were achieved, making it easier for them to understand the value and effort involved. We can create a more balanced and effective way of managing budgets and expectations, both in everyday life and in a professional setting. #ClientCentric #IterativeImprovement #EmpathyAndUnderstanding #UXDesign #EverydayUX #LifeHacks #vividsydney PH Credit: @mikkig at AIR Plays ‘Moon Safari’ Sydney Opera House Vivid 2024

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I see too many senior folks suffer from Information Bias, They believe having more information helps them make better decisions and then force that information to be captured in the systems you build. In my years of experience, I have realised that too many details only delay decision-making as you have more reasons for something not working/working to delve upon before ignoring them. #Informationbias #decisionmaking

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The past 2 weeks, I've been testing out different ways to draft a PRD. By far, the fastest is ChatPRD: (This is not a sponsored post) OUR OPTIONS When we PMs walk into a company, we have 1 of 2 situations: 1. We're handed this PRD template the company has 2. It's a free-for-all with no PRD template     If there's a template, it takes roughly an hour and a half to get a first draft of a feature you have begun aligned on the problem for. If there's no template, I found it takes even longer. Around 2 hours of work. ENTER LLMS It's incredibly difficult to actually find those time blocks without working late nights. So, my latest practice had been to use a tool like GPT-4o with a mega-prompt. And this works pretty well. But there's so much editing you have to do. If you're really good, though, you can get a draft out in something like 45 minutes. So I was genuinely surprised when I tried ChatPRD. The reason is: its PRD's don't need that much editing!. It does a really good job of sounding like a PM. That's always the major challenges with LLMs, but ChatPRD is built around it. It makes sense, if you think about it. LLMs are made for generalized use cases. With a GPT atop the LLM, 3x CPO Claire Vo has exported her brain into the product. ENTER THE COLLAB With ChatPRD, I've found you can actually draft your PRD in ~30 minutes. But to make sure everyone can get to that level, I reached out to the team behind ChatPRD to write the ultimate guide. I tested all the different ways to use it, and also worked with the awesome Alisa Haman, Claire's partner in crime, to add my PRD template to ChatPRD. So, it's just one click and a few prompts to get to an Aakash-inspired draft. Check out the full guide here: https://lnkd.in/e6nsDWKt LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK I think it's worth a try for any PM or product leader facing a blank page or template and ready to jump into editing faster. 𝗔𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘀𝘁: it gives you an idea of what an LLM would say—so you can do better. 𝗔𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁: it could cut your time to a working draft by 75%. Share your honest opinion in the comments.

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Product Design. I am no product designer. Our CTO lets me nowhere close to anything that looks remotely like code. One day.... Anyhow, I am sitting here at my desk in Christchurch Central, NZ. It's late in the day and we are being treated to a beautiful fresh autumn evening. Before I shoot off out to wonder at the bouquet of colours on offer I want to share some appreciation for product designers. Take a moment. Look at any product in close proximity to yourself. It could be any number of things. In my eyeline I can list literally 100's of items. iPhone, mouse, glass, coffee cup, laptop, screen, Bluetooth earpiece (my workmates call it my snorkel), pen, photo frame, toaster, office chair. You get the picture. Lots of products. Some are more complicated than others. Some are more fun, a couple are more useful with much better utility, one or two are downright ugly and need a spruce up. Each though has one thing in common. They started as an idea. Maybe a new idea, something really innovative. Queue the iPhone. Or.... in the case of the white coffee cup, not too much thinking, and a slight change (definitely not an improvement) of the original (the OG if you will). And that idea was iterated on. Some ideas should have been iterated on more, that's for sure. The best products are prototyped, tested, iterated, binned, improved, launched, relaunched. Etc. etc. Sir James Dyson created 5,127 prototypes. 5,127. And gee I am glad. Cause I love our Dyson. FYI it's not the flash one. Just the old faithful. Thank you Sir James for your persistence, passion, and your care for your end customer. My carpet appreciates you. Where am I going with this? Great product design takes time and deliberate effort to keep progressing forward. Progress is the key here, not immediate perfection. 10s of thousands of small improvements and enhancements. I am proud to be part of a team who subscribes to this methodology. I see so many of these tiny, tiny enhancements and tweaks that our product team releases daily. All contribute to where we are today. And we don't always get it right, but over time we get it better. The best thing is that not all the ideas were sparked by us. A huge proportion were from our loyal customers (thanks!!!). So whether it is: - making your buttons slightly rounder - changing the colour of your boxes on your multichoice boxes - introducing text-to-speech out of the box - enabling users to update their logo's in their modules It is all important. Your customers will care. And so should you. Right, time for a curried sausage.

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Fractional fan I'm a big advocate for #fractional product leadership. At a time when middle management is being decimated from businesses, it's a great way to support less experienced staff who are crying out for training and advice. I've done a number of short term fractional product engagements. The beauty of this approach is that it's not just about coming in to work on projects, it's about helping the team identify and work through their problems. The wider team is also a lot more candid with their feedback when they know they are not talking to their boss but to someone who can draw knowledge from a variety of experiences outside their company. #TheTomorrows #fractional #productmanagement #prodmgmt

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I'd describe myself as a naturally curious person. Would I say I have a deliberate curiosity about what I do or is my approach more haphazard? In this episode, we explore being intentional with your exploration as a Product leader. How so much of our role relies on it and other great areas. I liked how we focused on how building good relationships with others can enable you to uncover things. Our roles are about adding as much value as we can. Often being curious and encouraging that with others is key to succeeding!

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