3 key qualities of a successful product manager: Alexey Korotich, VP of Product

According to Wrike managers, we continue our series of articles on the key qualities of a successful product manager. We have already managed to talk with Anton Danilov , Yuri Golikov and Dmitry Orlov . Today is an interview with Alexey Korotich. Lesha has been working in Wrike for more than 3 years and now holds the position of Vice President of Product and is responsible for the entire product strategy. Alexey has a strong background in product analytics and product management: he worked at Aelita Software, Quest Software and Dell.

- Hi Lesha! In Wrike, you have an important role - you are responsible for the entire product strategy. Tell me, how far do you plan your goals? How many years ahead?

- Hello! Now we have started planning work for the year ahead. This seems insufficient, but in our highly competitive market with the high dynamics of change that we experience every year, and such planning looks like a far horizon. Even if you build a plan for, say, five years ahead, then after six months everything will have to be rescheduled, because some new developments and changes have taken place in the market, new technologies have become available. It also happens that we understand something new, figured out something better, and decide to change course. In this context, it is ideal to do planning at least two years ahead.

- As part of strategic work, how much do you go into details? Do you look at each direction and subdivision at the general level, or do you sit down with a specific product manager (and there are more than 10 in Wrike) and do you understand everything thoroughly, down to individual buttons and features?

- It's not always the same. Sometimes, to understand a problem better, you need to get into the details. If we put something on a large scale, then I want to do it well, so diving to a fairly low level helps to work better and have a common understanding with the product managers themselves who work on a specific feature: then the feedback becomes more relevant.

But it is obvious that in all directions to a low level of detail it is impossible to dive. The work is simultaneously conducted on a huge amount of various functionalities, therefore I try to prioritize. My first filter is to see how this initiative fits into our overall strategy. The important point is the extent to which I have expertise in this area so that I can give an adequate feedback. And there are requests coming from the guys, product managers, where this help is needed to solve some complex problems. But, of course, these are only a few among all initiatives where the level of immersion is commensurate with that on which the product manager is located.

- But, nevertheless, do you regularly make decisions like that in such different directions?

- Yes of course. There is one more factor: I, of course, like to do it. Despite the fact that I am responsible for product strategy and overall vision, I still had a product before, and all these skills remained. This is all very close to me, so if there is some interesting task and request for help, I always try to find time for it.

- The next question. What component of your work would you call the most difficult, challenging for you and why?

- Probably the most difficult component is to make sure that we understand everything correctly: strategy, vision, and together we go in the same direction. Because the team grows and scales, and the product becomes more complex, acquires more and more functionality, and in order for the product not to lose face and identity, it is necessary to ensure the same level of understanding: who we are, what we are better than competitors, where we move, who we are want to be.

And this is a permanent job. It would seem that the strategy and the vision can be formulated in three sentences, but all three product managers can understand these three sentences absolutely differently. Therefore, creating this same level of understanding on the most important issues and, in fact, aligning people and teams around our most strategic initiatives is the most difficult task that I solve every day.

- Almost all the product managers with whom I managed to communicate, mentioned how important the communication skill is for the product manager. If I understand correctly, this is not only communication from myself, it is also “in itself,” so to speak.

- Yes, absolutely so.

- And how difficult is it to operate in a situation when you set the general trend - which way you need to move, but at the same time leave a certain autonomy for managers?

- It was difficult, but now it becomes easier. When you clearly define the boundaries of responsibility and direction for a specific product manager, less unnecessary intersection and waste of our creative potential across all people and product teams.

Now our efficiency is very high, because everyone understands in which block of the product they really have this autonomy and how much what they do aligns with the product strategy. And therefore, within the framework of such restrictions, product managers have a fairly high degree of freedom to make decisions.

My task is to explain to the guys why we are doing this and what goal we want to achieve. Having this answer at the entrance, the team can already articulate how to achieve this goal and what needs to be done for that.

It was most difficult when we were at the stage of forming these areas of responsibility, when we formed global goals and scaled a grocery organization. And now, once these rules of the game have been defined, it has become much easier. Now there is no need to constantly explain all the basic principles of work both for new guys who come to us and for those who work with us for more than a year.

That is, the introduction of the rules of the game in a grocery organization and a clear distribution of responsibilities, within which there is a degree of freedom, helps to avoid situations when a person does something, invents, and then it turns out that this does not correspond to our product strategy and, unfortunately, we forced to abandon these initiatives. Such situations happen, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

- In the last interview, Yura told me that one of the key points for a product manager is the definition of a clear scope, which is within his area of ​​responsibility. In the opposite case, the person is not a real product manager, but simply doing what he is being pulled down from above. And this should be avoided. How do you think?

- Exactly. In my opinion, one of the key qualities for a product manager is the ability to take responsibility. True, pure skills are not enough, we still need the desire and lack of fear to take this responsibility on ourselves.

A clear understanding of their responsibility and readiness to be responsible for the result - the basic qualities of the manager. For any company, it seems to me, the best solution would be to empower the product with the authority to make decisions, for which the chain of responsibility for the result will follow. Making decisions without responsibility for the result is impossible, otherwise the product manager will not be able to do its job.

- The question to which you have already partially answered: what, in your opinion, three key qualities are necessary for the product manager to be successful in his role? About the responsibility you have said.

- Look, the ability to be responsible - this is such a qualifying attribute, which is simply a mandatory parameter at the entrance. In addition, there is another level of qualities that a person must possess. I am in every product manager looking for three outstanding qualities, three super powers.

The first quality is to be a visionary. Such a skill is difficult to test, but the product manager should be able to predict the future in a product context, that is, to imagine how technology will change in two or three years, how people will solve their problems in the future, and what will change compared to how it is It is happening now. The product manager should be able to answer these questions in their daily work.

The second super-strength is the analytical abilities of the product manager. We are not talking here simply about the ability to work with data, but, in general, about the ability to think logically, put forward hypotheses, analyze the results and draw conclusions.

Analytical skills are necessary when working with product analytics, studying customer needs, and analyzing competitors in the market. It is in this context that logical thinking and the ability to see a causal relationship, having a limited set of data, is a very important quality of the product manager.

And the third quality is communication skills. First, a person must be able to clearly state his thoughts and have the skills of a speaker in order to lead his team as an ideological leader. A person should not be afraid of communication, it, on the contrary, should like him. After all, most of the working day of the product manager consists of communication with people.

And you know what the difficulty? It is difficult to find a product manager who has even two of these three qualities as super powers, and it’s very rare to find someone who has all three of them.

- So you assume the situation that you take a person with a strongly pronounced one quality, and the second and third will develop?



- I strive to find in the candidate two qualities out of three. Although there are unique cases when a person has only one of the listed qualities that is highly developed, but it is right here outstanding. And if at the given moment of time we have a need for precisely this quality, we can take a person, as they say, “for growth”. If we believe that one strongly pronounced quality in a person will help us in something, then we will help him with the other two.

- In your opinion, is IT education a prerequisite for a person to be successful as a product manager?

- No, it's not. If a person has IT education, then he has some handicap: he is more likely to become a successful product manager. But this does not mean that a person without IT education has no chance of becoming a good specialist.

In fact, all three qualities that we just talked about do not necessarily develop in you with obtaining an IT education. For example, to be a visionary and a communicator - these qualities are not related at all to a technical specialty. Analytical qualities - yes, it is possible to argue that with people who came from the technical world, this is usually much better than that of other people. But again, this is absolutely not the main reason why people develop this quality. And, as I said, if a person is a visionary with very well developed communication skills, this gives him an excellent base to become a successful product manager.

- I understand correctly that it is generally not a trivial task to interview a product in order to reveal at least the prerequisites of what you call important?

- You understand everything correctly. That is why our interview process for a product manager takes place in several stages. It all starts with a technical analysis of the resume, in which we want to see the candidate’s relevant experience. Then we invite the person to meet in person in order to understand what his character is and how well his communicative abilities are developed. This is the primary filter that a person must pass. And then, in the course of more in-depth interviews, test tasks and playable cases, we understand how well the candidate has other qualities that he needs in order to successfully do his job.

It is not simple. If the products were so easy to test, we would have long ago closed all the vacancies in the product team. In practice, many guys come to interview us, and only a few of them we end up making a job offer. The process of hiring product managers is difficult in part because the industry has no generally accepted process of interviewing product managers.

- And tell me, please, are there any differences in the specifics of the work of product managers in Wrike and in other companies?

- It seems to me that everything comes from the culture of our company. Our culture is built on the principles of transparency, freedom of decision making and high collaborativeness. Therefore, I would say the following: our product managers have a real opportunity to become a mini-CEO, each at his own level. The guys have a large degree of freedom and the ability to be aware of the decisions made at any level of the company. They also have talented and ailing colleagues who are ready to provide product support to any product manager. This is probably what distinguishes Wrike from other companies.

We have a huge potential of talented people, which we are trying to send in the right direction. One of the main tasks of our managers is to involve the team in the development of the best technical solution. Therefore, we pay so much attention to the communicativeness of product managers, their leadership qualities, and how they are able to become masters in their own product area.

- And the last question: you work for two hemispheres, spending part of the year in California, part - in St. Petersburg, not counting business trips to other offices. How hard is it to constantly be in this suitcase mood? Or is it not a problem?

- I have already got used to this, because I have been working in this mode for a long time. But still I will say that it is not easy. Not only because it’s far to fly back and forth, but also because it’s still two different cultures, and you need to rebuild your thinking all the time from one culture to another, but it takes time. I noticed on myself that in order to get used to the new working conditions, to the new type of communication and to the new mentality, it takes up to two weeks. During these two weeks there comes a time when you throw off the specifics of one hemisphere and switch to another.

- It sounds as if you often have to rebuild, being in a state of continuous adaptation. How to cope with this?

“That's exactly why I try not to come from one office to another right now, but still to spend a long enough period of time in one place to go to a good level of efficient work in different climates, in different hemispheres and with different people’s mentalities.”