Director-level and VP Product leaders do different work than individual contributor Product Managers. How do you signal that you’re interested in “the next job up” while respecting your current manager? How have attendees gotten promoted to Director?

1. Product Management
Career Ladder: Getting
Promoted to Director
Rich Mironov
March 25, 2017

2. • Product Manager role is different from Director, VP
• Not everyone product manager wants to be (or
should be) a Director
• Can you demonstrate interest/skills/scope
ahead of Director role?
Product Roles

3. Mythical Product Organization
Dir PM Dir PM
Pricing
Analyst
Sr PM
PM/PO
Sr PM
Competitive
Analyst
Sr PM
PM
PM/PMM
Product
Owner
Channel/
Partner PM
VP Products

4. • Champions individual products
• Knows more about product, market, roadmap, competition, use cases,
personas, trade-offs than anyone else
• Talks benefits with customers; talks tech and benefits with engineers;
talks strategy with execs
• Relentless communicator of the truth
• Ships great (individual) products
• Timeline: Next 2-4 quarters
Product Manager (Individual Contributor)

5. market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, epics,
user stories, backlogs,
personas, MRDs…
product
bits
strategy, forecasts,
commitments, roadmaps,
competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,
targets
Field input,
Market feedback
Segmentation, messages,
benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
Markets &
CustomersDevelopment
Marketing
& Sales
Executives
Product
Management
What Does A Product Manager Do?
W W W . M I R O N O V . C O M

6. • Focus on processes, resources and teams
• Cross-functional cooperation and priorities
• Role/tools standardization and simplification
• PLM-level trends and market input
• Mentor your replacement
• Keep the trains running
• Scope
• Next 6 quarters
• Broad product strategy and budget
Director of Product Management

7. • Focus on aligning strategy, organization and products
• Is the company succeeding? Is Product succeeding?
• Company-wide issues and disconnects
• Market success (= revenue!)
• Build cross-functional organizations
that do the right things
• Scope
• 3 year trends
• Unbiased member of executive team
VP Products / CPO

8. How to demonstrate
director-level
interest/skills/scope?

9. • Be appreciative
• Never go behind your current manager’s back
• Never talk trash about your current manager
• Avoid accidental ultimatums
• Understand situation and incentives
The Conversation…

10. • Organizational levels have different roles
• Decide what you want
• Demonstrate skills one level up
TAKE-AWAYS
10W W W . M I R O N O V . C O M

11. CONTACT
Rich Mironov, CEO
Mironov Consulting
233 Franklin St, Suite #308
San Francisco, CA 94102
RichMironov
@RichMironov
Rich@Mironov.com