Webinar: How to Scale Your PM Effectiveness by Amazon Sr PM

Summary

Ryan Dery's talk emphasizes the importance of scaling product management effectiveness through Knowledge Management. Drawing from his experience at AWS and Comcast, he outlines the challenges product managers face with information overload and suggests consolidating knowledge in a single, structured system. He advocates for categorizing and relating data to enhance memory and context, moving from a traditional 'hub and spoke' model to a more interconnected network. Dery provides practical advice on using tools like spreadsheets and databases to create a scalable personal knowledge base, which can improve efficiency and decision-making in product management roles.

Takeaways

• 😀 Ryan Dery, a senior technical product manager at AWS, shares his passion for scaling product management effectiveness through Knowledge Management.
• 🔍 Product management touches various areas of a business, including legal, finance, engineering, and marketing, making it a complex role with a high volume of information to manage.
• 🤔 A thought experiment is proposed to quantify one's current knowledge load, highlighting the staggering amount of personal information a product manager must handle daily.
• 💡 The importance of scalability in knowledge management is emphasized, questioning if one could take on additional responsibilities or maintain personal development projects.
• 📈 Bill Gates' quote is paraphrased for product managers, suggesting that how they gather, manage, and use personal knowledge will determine their effectiveness and scalability.
• 🔗 The traditional 'Hub and Spoke' knowledge model is critiqued for its lack of communication between tools and its limited scalability as a product manager's role grows.
• 📚 The concept of consolidating knowledge into a single system is introduced as a solution to improve scalability and ease of management.
• 📝 Tabularizing data within a single application is suggested for easier management, allowing for timestamped records and better data validation.
• 🗂️ Categorizing and relating knowledge helps with context, relationships, and remembering information over time, moving from a 'Hub and Spoke' model to a point-to-point network.
• 🛠️ Starting with spreadsheets for ease of use is recommended when building a Knowledge Management database, with the option to move to more advanced tools as needed.
• 🔑 Building a basic set of tables and forming habits for data entry is crucial, as is creating a taxonomy or categorization system to simplify finding and relating information.

Q & A

What is the main topic of Ryan Dery's presentation?

Ryan Dery's presentation is about scaling product management effectiveness using Knowledge Management.

What is Ryan Dery's current role in the industry?

Ryan Dery is currently a Senior Technical Product Manager with AWS, working in the marketing and analytics space.

What are some of the challenges product managers face due to the volume of information they have to manage?

Product managers face challenges such as managing knowledge across various business elements, retaining information over time, and dealing with the complexity added by organizational size, multiple product lines, and additional projects.

What thought experiment does Ryan suggest to quantify one's current knowledge load?

Ryan suggests considering tangible aspects like the number of people interacted with, links and documents interacted with, day-to-day tasks completed, and meetings participated in over a specific period, such as the last six months.

Why is scalability an important consideration for product managers?

Scalability is important because it determines whether a product manager can take on additional responsibilities like managing another product line, starting to manage a small team, or finding time for personal development projects.

What is the traditional knowledge model that most people use, according to Ryan Dery?

The traditional knowledge model is a hub-and-spoke model where the individual is the hub, interacting with various software applications and documents to store day-to-day knowledge.

What are the two main challenges Ryan identifies with the traditional hub-and-spoke knowledge model?

The two main challenges are that the tools used to manage knowledge are separated and don't communicate with each other, and the model lacks scalability as it relies on the individual's memory to maintain connections between information.

What concept does Ryan introduce to help manage knowledge more effectively?

Ryan introduces the concept of consolidating knowledge in one location and categorizing and relating all knowledge to one another to improve scalability and contextual understanding.

What are some of the benefits of using a Knowledge Management database as suggested by Ryan?

The benefits include scalability, as the individual is no longer the hub of the model; improved context and relationships through categorization; and the ability to filter, sort, search, and share information across the entire knowledge base.

What advice does Ryan give regarding the initial tool for building a Knowledge Management system?

Ryan advises starting with a spreadsheet application for its ease of use, cloud-based capabilities, and the ability to create basic relationships between data.

What is the importance of creating a taxonomy or categorization system when building a Knowledge Management database?

Creating a taxonomy or categorization system is important because it helps in organizing the knowledge base, making it easier to find information and relate it contextually within the database.

What does Ryan suggest for maintaining the habit of using a new Knowledge Management system?

Ryan suggests starting with a basic set of tables, working on habit formation, and avoiding duplicate copies of data. He also emphasizes the importance of tailoring the database to one's needs and refining it over time.

How does Ryan define the process of building and refining a Knowledge Management system?

Ryan describes it as a journey rather than a destination, emphasizing that there is no one right way to do Knowledge Management. He encourages experimentation and sharing of different approaches within the product community.

What final thoughts does Ryan leave the audience with regarding Knowledge Management?

Ryan's final thoughts are that organization is a continuous journey, and he encourages the audience to think about applying these concepts not only to individual knowledge management but also to the organization as a whole.