What i want from Google

Its been 3 months since i started working at Google as a product manager. This blog is my attempt to articulate what i expect to learn at Google so that i can come back to it every few months and reflect if i am achieving what i had intended.

1. Product Strategy

So far, i have not had enough opportunity to work on product strategy. This roughly translates to articulating who the target segment for the product would be, why should we build the product for them (which pain points are we solving, and why are those pain points under-served by other players in the market), what is the opportunity we are chasing here and how does that fit into the overall direction in which the company is moving. This sounded simple to me, and i thought i could nail this within a week. How naive! Its been 3 months and i am still struggling with framing the strategy for my product in a satisfactory manner. Doing a good job at articulating the strategy involves really immersing yourself in the ecosystem for which you are building the product, absorbing the necessary context, trends and realities of the ecosystem and them translating this into a sleek and concise strategy document. It also involves answering tough questions like how much of an opportunity is a good opportunity for your org to enter a market or build a product. Like i said, i have not done this so far in my career, The products i have worked had their strategy sorted before i picked them up. I want to get better at it, and the only way to to do it taking multiple stabs at it and aggressively soliciting feedback. 

2. Don't work to impress

A bug in my personality is that often i work to impress, especially the people elder to me. In school it was to impress parents and teachers, and later it was to impress managers. I myself can see how my behaviour changes around them. I often am not able to talk to them as equals, but become subdued in my behaviour. I want to change this. I want to work as equals, even with people many years senior to me in my org. I want to present my point of view confidently, and ask critical questions when my seniors disagree with me. I want to be less agreeable and more of a paint in the ass, when it comes to convincing me of changes in the approach i am suggesting. I want my seniors to respect my opinion, and know that asking me to change my opinion is going to be a difficult task. 

3. Speak Concisely

I tend to ramble, both on calls and emails. I plan to be more concise in my communication. A pre-requisite to it is for me to be okay with being disagreeable, as i often tend to ramble trying to justify myself. 

4. Do better 1:1 

I suck at 1:1 with my seniors. I often dont have much to say or ask. I also feel i come across as someone who is too eager to impress without having a strong opinion about things. I want to change this. I want to get better value from this precious time i get with my seniors. And i want to come across as someone who has a strong point of view and who has specific agenda items to discuss - this also goes back to point no 2 above. I feel i will need some help here, i should speak with other folks on how to better manage 1:1. 

5. Complete task faster

Inspite of taking this up as an item i want to improve on, i feel i havent made much progress here. The idea is to complete the tasks faster, even if it means they are not up to the quality i had in my mind when starting them. Though i see some progress, i need to be much better here. I plan to set deadlines for myself to finish specific important tasks, and get them done by then no matter what. These deadlines will be weekly, so baking in some buffer period into it.