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Product Management at a large bank vs Business Analytics/S&O for FAANG? Recently started in the former role, but have interview calls for the latter just come up in my mailbox. Similar comp when adjusted for the different job locations. Can anyone help me with the Pros and Cons please. I know the roles are different, and so are the industries, need to understand difference career paths and difference in corporate cultures. JPMorgan Chase Google LinkedIn Citi
What’s a good CISA program?
Facebook (Meta) Product Management (IC5) or Google Cloud Marketing S&O/ Annual Planning (L6) role if I want to eventually be working on Product Strategy for consumer tech?
Heard it hard to pivot from Google S&O to Product Strategy even with 20% projects internally…
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Sigh. My last 3 roles which lasted 3-9 months were the same. Pisses me off how many companies do this.
First off, whoever your "manager" is needs to give you a rundown of who's who, if they're incompetent, do it on your own
Figure out if they even have strategies in place, if not you might need to work through it
1- have get to knows you's with teammates and teams around you in the following protocol
- who are you
- what do you do
- how are we going to collaborate together and what on
2-identify process owners, document through discovery meetings, confirm and sign off
3- never assume, always confirm (with others, not your team or you'll seem incompetent)
4- have everything in writing, including your goals and 90 day onboarding plan, with follow ups also in writing
5- if they're as shitty as my old jobs, they might ask you to give them a roadmap in under 2 weeks. If you're smarter than me, you'd give them a very generic one and not push back
6- take time to get to know the backlog, it'll be the worst most painful thing you'll do cus it's probably crappy with no details.
Follow the 5w1h protocol
Who (who's this for, identify personas and users/stakeholders - internal)
What (what the heck are we building or being asked to build
Where (where in the app/software and user journey does this lie)
When (when does this need to be built - do a MosCow, use this to build your roadmap too)
Why ** (like fr, why is it needed)
How ** (this is pretty much your user story, definition of ready and done, functional and technical specs)
We're back to PBRs. I don't mind it because slippage and Spikes kill me!
Coach
Just start writing down whatever processes you notice and ask people to review what you have.
You gotta start somewhere.
Whenever I am in a new position, I’m collecting information and writing it down in a one note, excel, word document on my drive. And then treat it as a handbook for onboarding later. (My gift to them)
But your boss should be giving you the priorities. If that hasn’t happened, then there is a need for a sit down and conversation.
If you are working the week of Christmas and new years, (and your boss is too) I would think it’s slow enough to have this conversation.
Sit down with people who have knowledge and ask questions. Ask for documentation about strategic priorities and whatever else you need. Then start developing a system to get new processes and knowledge history organized and implemented
What’s your role?
Comb through the work in progress
If they are running pretty lose what you have is an opportunity to take the lead. Take a moment. Get the lay of the land. Figure out who and most importantly what is important and make that happen. If you have to start making processes without direct approval just to get things done do it the best you can till someone tells you to fo it differently. They might just decide tp do it your way.
One of my previous roles they did it right but when they delayed part two of the project they let all the tech writers go, put an admin in charge of maintaining - I still had friends in the company who kept in touch who kept saying that the KB we built was a complete mess now and they needed me back but they had no $$. A couple of months ago they tried to bring me back and I said no because I am in a permanent role elsewhere (they only hire contract). Companies do not understand the value of good technical documentation. (Well the place I am with now does.)
If you have Jira, hopefully you also have Confluence. It's another Atlassian product that can be your repository and document center. If you're Agile find the key stakeholders and make certain everyone is connecting their processes and using JIRA and Confluence effectively. Utilize tour Atlassian resources and sign up for training and ask for help. I actually do less management in JIRA because my Dev manager controls access. Depending on your level of access learn the scope of your responsibilities. Do you need to run stand up will you assign points. No organization is the same. But, I advocate for you to find a mentor and keep doing what your doing asking for help and ask questions. You got this!
Atlassian has many resources
Agree with other advice here, start somewhere with the WIP items. Over time and conversations, identifying top priority will come with more convos w team and management.
Host a vision and north star setting sessions with your team
Interesting topic. I was dumped into a role with zero processes yet again, so I did my usual thing and started to build them. My manager didn’t like that (unusual reaction) so he literally tampered with my work and deleted my formulas, then accused me of moving r