What it takes to become a top 1% PM | Ian McAllister (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb)

Introduction

In this section, Lenny introduces the podcast and his guest, Ian McAllister. They discuss the importance of having a big impact in your work.

The Importance of Having a Big Impact

• Forget about politics and promotions; focus on having the biggest impact you can.

• A good guiding light is to wake up every day trying to have the biggest impact possible.

• The episode focuses on what separates top 1% PMs from everyone else and how to implement the working backwards process.

Sponsorship by Mixpanel

This section includes an advertisement for Mixpanel, which offers self-serve product analytics.

Benefits of Using Mixpanel

• Building great products without making compromises is hard.

• Teams often think they must choose between quick decisions based on gut feelings or data-driven decisions at a snail's pace.

• With Mixpanel, there are no trade-offs. You can get deep insights at the speed of thought at a fair price that scales as you grow.

Sponsorship by Athletic Greens

This section includes an advertisement for Athletic Greens, which offers daily nutrition supplements.

Benefits of Using Athletic Greens

• EG-1 is a small scoop that dissolves in water and provides 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens.

• AG-1 is constantly evolving based on the latest science research studies and internal testing.

• AG-1 is an easy way to take care of yourself every day with just one scoop in a cup of water.

Interview with Ian McAllister

This section includes an interview with Ian McAllister, who shares his insights on product management.

What Separates Top 1% PMs from Everyone Else?

• Ian's post on what makes the top 1% PM was influential for many new PMs.

• The post focuses on what skills are important for new and senior PMs.

• The working backwards process is a key component of being a top 1% PM.

Implementing the Working Backwards Process

• The episode focuses on how to implement the working backwards process.

• Ian shares his experience implementing the process at Amazon and Airbnb.

• There are links to templates and guides in the show notes for listeners who want to follow along.

Common Mistakes When Implementing the Working Backwards Process

• Teams often focus too much on solutions rather than customer needs when using the working backwards process.

• Teams often don't spend enough time writing press releases or FAQs when using the working backwards process.

• Teams often don't involve stakeholders early enough in the process when using the working backwards process.

Overall, this podcast episode provides valuable insights into what makes a top 1% PM and how to implement the working backwards process effectively. Ian McAllister's experience at Amazon, Airbnb, and Uber make him a great resource for product managers looking to improve their skills.

The Impact of Writing on the Internet

In this section, the speaker talks about how writing on the internet can have a significant impact on one's career and shares his experience with it.

Writing for an External Audience

• The speaker used to look for questions in the "Goldilocks zone" - not too high level or too specific.

• He found value in structuring his own thoughts and making connections with people in the industry.

• The speaker wrote about Amazon's product development process and working backwards process which caught on and helped him make great connections and relationships.

Power of Writing

• One post had a lot of impact on the trajectory of his career.

• Aside from positive feedback, people referencing his work has been super gratifying.

• Often, writing starts with trying to collect your thoughts and putting them out there.

Starting to Write Online

In this section, the speaker talks about how starting to write online can be simple yet valuable.

Collecting Your Thoughts

• Summarizing something you've been thinking about that you want to crystallize in your own head is a good way to start writing online.

• Organizing your thoughts makes it compact and not too wordy or rambling.

Sharpening Your Acts

• Clear thinking is necessary for clear communication.

Career Path and Background

In this section, the speaker talks about his career path and background.

Career Path

• Started in marketing in the beer industry.

• Bootstrapped his way into software development without knowing Japanese or software development.

• Worked as a developer at a startup and mid-sized company before moving to Microsoft as a program manager.

• Moved to Amazon in 2006, which was the start of building his product toolbox and leadership toolbox.

• Led programs in retail, conversion, direct traffic loyalty, Alexa International, delivery experience, and operations.

• Recently joined Uber as Senior Director of Product and Tech for vehicles.

Autonomy and AI

In this section, the speaker talks about how autonomy and AI have been a thread throughout his career.

Autonomy and AI

• Worked on machine learning AI with Alexa at Amazon.

• Currently working on sustainability tech and electrification for Uber's vehicle platform while creating a path for autonomous vehicles to come out of the platform.

Top One Percent Product Manager

In this section, the speaker discusses what makes a top one percent product manager.

Attributes of Top One Percent PM

• Think big

• Communicate effectively

• Simplify

• Prioritize

• Forecasting and measuring

• Understanding technical trade-offs.

Skills for Product Managers

In this section, the speaker talks about the importance of developing communication skills and earning trust as a product manager. He also emphasizes the need to dig for data, push back effectively, adapt to change, and focus on impact rather than promotion.

Key Skills for Product Managers

• Communication: Developing good communication skills is crucial for product managers at all levels. It is important to be able to communicate effectively with customers and stakeholders using just a few words.

• Digging for Data: Product managers should develop tools to find data instead of depending solely on analysts or reports. This skill becomes more important as one progresses in their career.

• Pushing Back Effectively: The ability to push back effectively is an art that correlates with one's ability to grow and succeed as a leader. Saying yes to everything can lead nowhere.

• Adapting to Change: Reacting positively to change impacts mood, morale, and rallying oneself and the team effectively.

• Driven by Impact: Focusing on having an impact on business every day is more important than focusing only on getting promoted.

Top Three Skills for New PMs

• Communication: Being able to communicate well with customers and stakeholders using just a few words is essential.

• Prioritization & Execution: These are core building blocks that new PMs should focus on mastering.

• Adapting to Change: Reacting positively towards change will help new PM's mood, morale, rally themselves and their team effectively.

Importance of Being a Better Communicator

• Good communication skills are essential for product managers at all levels. It is important to be able to answer questions directly and use numbers to support your answers.

• Learning from feedback is crucial in becoming a better communicator.

Conclusion

• Being a product manager requires mastering many skills, but no one can be the best at everything. Focusing on developing core building blocks such as communication, prioritization, execution, adapting to change and being driven by impact will help PMs succeed in their careers.

Communication, Prioritization and Execution

In this section, the speaker discusses the three key tools of a product manager - communication, prioritization, and execution. The speaker emphasizes that prioritization is the most important tool for a product manager.

Prioritization

• Prioritization is the number one key tool of a product manager.

• There are different dimensions to prioritization such as which themes to prioritize in a roadmap, which projects within a theme to prioritize, how to sequence those projects and how much of a project to build.

• Time management is also part of prioritization.

• A product manager with great innate ability to prioritize can generate 5x the impact of someone without that skill.

Execution

• Execution means molding what you want to build into a simple compact package that has the highest impact possible.

• Execution is heavily dependent on the team you're working with such as designers, data science folks and engineers.

• Product managers are the motive power behind execution and impact. If they stall out or don't do their job well, then the project will probably stall out too.

Focus Less on Other Things

• Think big, understand technical trade-offs and good design are important but less critical when starting out as an EPM (Entry-level Product Manager).

• Communication, prioritizing and executing should be focused on more in year one as an EPM.

Tips for Product Managers

In this section, the speaker shares tips on how to level up as a product manager by improving communication, execution, and prioritization skills.

Communication Tips

• Answer questions directly and avoid rambling.

• Grade yourself after communicating and try to improve next time.

• Build trust by setting and meeting expectations, telling the truth without fail, owning mistakes, and launching when you say you will.

Execution Tips

• Use an operator's manual or checklist to guide your actions.

• Work backwards from your goal to prioritize tasks effectively.

Prioritization Tips

• There is no simple trick for prioritizing.

• Think big and expand initial ideas to have more impact.

Importance of Trust in Product Management

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of building trust as a product manager in order to gain resources and make an impact.

Building Trust

• Trust is the currency of a product leader.

• Set and meet expectations repeatedly to build trust.

• Have high standards for yourself and own your mistakes.

Overall, these tips can help product managers improve their communication, execution, prioritization skills while building trust with their team members.

Impact and Prioritization

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of prioritizing impact over other factors such as politics or promotions. They explain how focusing on impact can guide decision-making and influence career growth.

Focusing on Impact

• Prioritizing impact is crucial for success in product management.

• The speaker shares their experience of naturally prioritizing impact in their early years at Amazon, which led to multiple promotions.

• As a junior PM, you may not have much say in setting strategy or prioritization, but you should still focus on having an impact by executing projects well.

• As you grow more senior, there are more opportunities to influence prioritization and have a bigger impact.

Importance of Impact for Career Growth

• While treating your team well is important, having a big impact is often what drives career growth and development.

• Working on projects that are likely to have a lot of impact can be beneficial early in your career.

• It's important to consider who you work for since they can be better teachers and role models for learning how to prioritize and drive impact.

Skills for Senior PMs

In this section, the speaker discusses the skills that senior PMs should focus on developing. They emphasize thinking big, building trust with stakeholders, and driving impactful outcomes.

Key Skills for Senior PMs

• Senior PMs should focus on thinking big by identifying opportunities that will have significant business impacts.

• Building trust with stakeholders is crucial for driving impactful outcomes and getting buy-in for your ideas.

• Driving impact should be the primary focus of senior PMs, as it is what drives career growth and development.

Thinking Big and Earning Trust

In this section, the speaker talks about thinking big in terms of product management and how to earn trust as a PM.

Thinking Big in Product Management

• As a PM, take a wide view of what success for your product is across disciplines.

• Think about your role as a PM and what your ownership responsibility is.

• Find the constraints or barriers to your success or your product's success and knock them down no matter what they are.

• Think beyond just your one little bubble and think about the broader business outside of the one little product you might be working on.

Earning Trust as a PM

• Earn trust by understanding work backwards from that person and what are their goals.

• Spend time and energy to try to get alignment in the same place.

Building Trust and Support in Customer Support

In this section, the speaker talks about his experience working with Airbnb's customer support team and how he could have done better to build trust and support within the team.

Building a New Team

• The speaker was brought on by Jobot to help build out the customer support technology platform at Airbnb.

• He focused on building a strong analytics framework and using prioritization muscles that had made him successful at Amazon.

• However, he did not partner enough with the customer support leadership team to build true support for his approach.

• This lack of partnership resulted in misalignment and a failure to rally the organization around their strategy.

Lessons Learned

• The speaker reflects that he should have spent more time building relationships and earning trust within the customer support team.

• He emphasizes that it is important to mitigate risks by building support for your approach, even if you believe it is the right one.

Working Backwards Process at Amazon

In this section, the speaker discusses his experience working at Amazon for 12 years and what makes people stay there so long. He also talks about the working backwards process used at Amazon.

Experience Working at Amazon

• The speaker notes that people who work at Amazon tend to stay there for 10 years or more because they quickly know whether they are a fit for it or not.

• He explains that he is a structured thinker and the idea of having a business metric or fitness function that determines success and making that number go up and to the right clicked with him.

Working Backwards Process

• The speaker talks about the working backwards process used at Amazon, where you start with the customer experience and work backwards to determine what technology is needed to support it.

• He emphasizes that this process requires a lot of discipline and structure, but it allows for a clear understanding of what needs to be built and why.

• The speaker notes that this process can be applied to any project or communication, not just product development.

Learning and Growth at Amazon and Airbnb

In this section, the speaker talks about their experience of learning and growing while working at Amazon and Airbnb. They discuss how being in different settings allowed them to learn from others, read documents that helped them learn more, and be in weekly business reviews with smart people.

Learning at Amazon

• The speaker describes how they were a sponge for learning during their time at Amazon.

• They talk about how spending three days on the road each week was a good learning experience for them.

• The speaker explains why they chose to return to Amazon after leaving for Airbnb.

Working with Jeff Bezos and Jeff Wilkie

• The speaker discusses what they learned from working with Jeff Bezos and Jeff Wilkie about building product leadership company building.

• They describe the process of developing Amazon Smile as an innovation process where they had a goal in mind to increase customer loyalty to Amazon.

• The speaker shares specific lessons they learned from Jeff Bezos, such as the importance of having a problem paragraph when working backwards.

Learning from Jeff Wilkie

• The speaker explains that they learned more from Jeff Wilkie due to having more exposure over their time there.

• They discuss how Wilkie was known internally as "Jaw" because he was the consummate operator who developed the muscle of being an operator within Amazon.

Jeff Wilke's Metrics Meeting

In this section, the speaker talks about Jeff Wilke's metrics meeting and how it helped leaders build operational mindset and rigor.

Key Points:

• The metrics meeting was led by Jeff Wilke and covered different parts of the business such as fulfillment, customer support, traffic, category teams, and programs.

• The meeting enabled leaders to be prepared to speak to variances or trends in their business in a key metric.

• The meeting had a cascading effect where everyone in the room was prepared to answer questions about their business which built operational mindset and rigor.

• Paying attention to the product that you operate will give you ideas for things you could do to double down on something that's happening well or prevent something bad from happening.

Operational Mindset and Rigor

In this section, the speaker talks about how having an operational mindset and rigor is important for product leaders.

Key Points:

• Being a product leader is not just about building new things but also about running what you've already built well.

• Paying attention to your product can give you ideas for doubling down on something that's working well or preventing something bad from happening.

• Tough love is important sometimes. Leaders need to be able to give a little kick in the ass when necessary.

• Teaching why decisions are made is important because it helps people understand mental models that inform decision-making.

Teaching and Learning

In this section, the speaker talks about the importance of teaching and learning in leadership.

Key Points:

• Jeff Wilke was great at taking a moment to teach why decisions were made.

• Abstracting lessons learned can help people apply them to future situations.

• Prescriptive advice is not as effective as teaching because it helps people understand the why behind decisions.

Starting with the Problem

In this section, Jeff Bezos talks about the importance of starting with the problem when building a product or service. He explains that many teams make the mistake of starting with a solution and then trying to retrofit a problem to fit it.

The Importance of Working Backwards

• Teams often start with a solution instead of working backwards from the problem.

• Starting with a solution can lead to retrofitting the problem and customer, which is not effective.

• It's important to start with the problem you're trying to solve and work backwards from there.

• Jeff Bezos' brain is wired to focus on the problem and customer first before processing any information.

Learning From Mistakes

In this section, Jeff Bezos shares an example from his early days at Amazon where he learned about using the working backwards process but not really working backwards. He also talks about how he shut down a project that wasn't successful because it didn't start with the problem.

Example from Early Days at Amazon

• When Jeff Bezos started Amazon Community, they had a business of automated merchandising using community content as their core focus.

• There was already momentum around building another project that was actually a Jeff project called "asin-to-asin linking."

• The team was excited about it, but it wasn't in spirit of working backwards since it didn't start with the problem or customer.

• This project ended up being unsuccessful and was eventually shut down.

Working Backwards Mechanism

In this section, Jeff Bezos talks about how he still uses working backwards from what you're trying to accomplish for his teams. He also explains how Amazon used the press release and fact mechanism to enforce working backwards.

Working Backwards from What You're Trying to Accomplish

• Jeff Bezos still uses working backwards from what you're trying to accomplish for his teams.

• It's important to start with the problem or goal you're trying to solve or achieve.

• This is different from the working backwards mechanism, which is the press release and fact that Amazon used to enforce working backwards.

• The press release has a paragraph about the problem, solution, customer quote, and fact.

The Working Backwards Process

In this section, the speaker explains that the working backwards process is not just about thinking of what to build but also about identifying the problem and finding a solution. The press release is used as a tool to help think about the problem and its solution.

Using the Working Backwards Process

• When using the working backwards process, it's important to write out the problem you're solving.

• Different companies have different ways of going about it. Some use slide culture and presentations while others use documents.

• Using documents can lead to better information content and richer discussion compared to slides with a couple of bullets.

• Depending on your organization, you may need to find opportunities to try something new instead of training senior leadership on your preferred process.

Working Backwards Template

• The speaker has shared posts on LinkedIn and his newsletter that contain a working backwards template and tips on how Amazon does the process.

• The template is free for anyone to copy.

Applying Working Backwards

• For significant new products, it makes sense to use the working backwards process.

• While some products at Amazon may not use this process, in general, they enforce having a working backwards review ideally at the outset or added later.

• It's possible just to have the spirit of working backwards from what you're trying to do for customers and what problem you're solving.

Working Backwards

In this section, Jeff discusses the importance of working backwards when developing new ideas and products. He explains the three criteria for investing in something new and how to test if you are truly working backwards.

Criteria for Investing in Something New

• Jeff Bezos' criteria for investing in something new is that it must be a big idea, something Amazon should be doing, and have a legitimate plan to succeed.

• The first step in the working backwards process is to ensure that there is a legitimate plan to succeed. This involves thinking through the internal components, finances, key technical hurdles, etc.

Signs of Not Working Backwards

• One sign of not working backwards is when different pieces are combined without a clear customer problem or solution.

• Another sign is when technology or assets are discussed before identifying a compelling customer problem.

Lightning Round

• Two recommended books: "Getting Real" by 37 Signals (specifically the chapter on epicenter design), and "The Wool Trilogy" by Hugh Howie.

Introduction

In this section, the speaker introduces himself and talks about his work in the electric vehicle space. He also shares his favorite movie and TV show.

Introduction

• The speaker runs a daily digest of what's going on in the electric vehicle space called EV News Daily.

• Watching Yellowstone is the speaker's favorite pastime.

• The speaker recently watched a movie called "Everything Everywhere All at Once" which he found to be very creative.

Interview Questions

In this section, the speaker talks about his favorite interview question and what he looks for in candidates' answers.

Favorite Interview Question

• The speaker likes to ask people what they have learned about themselves at this stage in their career and how they are different from other people.

• There is no right answer to this question, but it helps candidates reflect on their strengths and become more self-aware.

Favorite App

In this section, the speaker talks about his current favorite app.

Favorite App

• The speaker's current favorite app is YouTube because it is a great resource for learning new things.

• He taught himself woodworking by watching YouTube videos a couple of summers ago.

• He mentions that even an Olympic javelin thrower learned how to do it by watching YouTube videos.

Thought Leaders in Industry

In this section, the speaker talks about who he most respects as a thought leader in the industry.

Thought Leaders in Industry

• The person that the speaker most respects as a thought leader is Gibson Biddle because of his tremendous amount of product experience and communication skills.

• Gibson Biddle invests time into sharing his knowledge with others through newsletters and speaking engagements.

Reconnecting and Making New Connections

In this section, Lenny reconnects with Ian and expresses his appreciation for making new connections in the world.

• Lenny expresses his gratitude for reconnecting with Ian after 10 years.

• Making new connections is a good thing according to Lenny.

Show Subscription and Review

This section covers how to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

• Listeners can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or their favorite podcast app.

• Leaving a rating or review helps other listeners find the podcast.

Conclusion

The final section concludes the episode.

• Listeners can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com.

• The episode ends with music playing in the background. No additional content is provided.