Gabrielle Bufrem is a product leader and product coach who comes highly recommended by Sir Marty Cagan himself. She's passionate about developing product managers and product leaders, as well as helping them be true strategic partners to the business. We spoke about product vision, what to do when it's not there, the importance of product principles and much more.
My former podcast guest, Saeed Khan and I are thinking of putting together a B2B Product Management cohort course on Maven. Our goal is to help B2B PMs make peace with the differences between B2B product management and much of the classic product literature, and enable them to be true business partners rather than stuck in a remorseless feature factory. We're assessing interest right now, so if this sounds good, please fill in our course questionnaire. Thanks!
1. A product strategy is the highest leverage artefact any product leader can have
But it's also one of the hardest to do. It's serious, serious work, which is why so many product teams just end up with a list of tasks, or a "pizza strategy" (pepperoni! chicken! M&Ms!)
2. A lot of problems stem from being people pleasersNo one wants to say "no" and people can suffer from the fear of missing out. People can be afraid to take a stance. But, it's essential to narrow your focus to the absolute essentials if you want to make any progress at all.
3. It's hard to push back on pre-agreed feature requests if you don't have a planProduct leaders need a deep understanding of their users and customers, but also of the wider business context. You need to be conscious of what the company (and the board) wants.
4. Sometimes companies don't have strategies eitherIt's easy to get dragged into a neverending feature list, prioritising whatever the next thing is. Product leaders need to work with wider leadership to identify broad goals, how they can get there & what the 3-5 year plan is.
5. Product managers are there to represent the businessUX designers are there to look after the users and the engineering team is there to look after the tech. It's absolutely essential for PMs to be trusted business partners if they want to make a big impact.
Contact GabrielleYou can connect with Gabi on Twitter or on LinkedIn. Or, check out her website.
Debbie Levitt's Hot Take - Democratising our Work means AI is Going to Steal all our Jobs Sooner (with Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")
Build Better Products at Scale with Product Operations (with Melissa Perri & Denise Tilles, Product Consultants & Co-authors "Product Operations")
Knowing your Customers, Seeking Evidence and Sticking up for Continuous Discovery (with Hope Gurion, Product Leader and Team Coach @ Fearless Product)
Transforming your Organisation to the Product Operating Model (with Marty Cagan, Author "Inspired", "Empowered" and "Transformed")
Applying Product Management Principles to Life (with Miloš Belčević, Author "Build Your Way")
Standing up for User Research... and User Researchers (with Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")
Building Great Companies through Community-Led Growth (with Lloyed Lobo, Author "From Grassroots to Greatness")
Harnessing Generative AI to Reimagine the Future of Product Management (with Shyvee Shi, Product Lead @ LinkedIn & Author "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI")
Enabling Strategic Product Decisions through Product Operations and Portfolio Management (with Becky Flint, CEO of Dragonboat)
Nailing your Brand Marketing by Embracing your Zone of Genius (with Orly Zeewy, Brand Strategy Consultant & Author ”Ready, Launch, Brand”)
Making Sure You Make an Impact through User Research (with Steve Portigal, User Research Consultant & Author ”Interviewing Users”)
Helping Superhero Startup Founders Stay Away from their Kryptonite (with Richard Blundell, Founder @ Vencha & Co-author ”The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders”)
Making our Product Teams Stronger through Building Communities of Practice (with Petra Wille, Author ”Strong Product People” and ”Strong Product Communities”)
Going Beyond the Dreaded Product Demo and Creating the Perfect Sales Pitch (with April Dunford, Author ”Obviously Awesome” and ”Sales Pitch”)
Nailing your Product/Market Fit Strategy by Focusing on the Mission Critical (with Maja Voje, Growth Strategy Expert & Author ”Go-To-Market Strategist”)
Fearlessly Defeating the Four Horsemen of a Product-Friendly Culture (with Eisha Armstrong, Co-founder @ Vecteris & Author ”Productize” & ”Fearless”)
How to Build Products when the Founder IS the Product (with Saagar Bains, Fractional Product Leader & Former Head of Product @ The Body Coach)
Supporting the Next Generation of Female Product Managers with Women in Product UK (with Namrata Sarmah, Founder @ Women in Product UK & CPO @ INTO)
Paying Off Your Organisation’s Human Debt Through Agility & Psychological Safety (with Duena Blomstrom, Founder & CEO @ People Not Tech)
Moving Beyond Founder-Led Product Development & Setting PMs up for Success (with Jennifer Yang-Wong, VP of Product @ Contrary)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
Aligned Money Show
Gorse Culture PODcast : The H.R. Detective Agency!
HCI Leadership Revolution
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money