January 2025

This course is for CURRENT product leaders - who have product managers/owners reporting up to them.   We'll dig into C-suite challenges!

Rich Mironov

CEO & Smokejumper CPO

Core Executive & Organizational Skills for Product Leaders

With a small group of your PM leadership peers, we'll dig into tough organizational, economic, and executive-level issues. We'll share real-world experiences. We'll discover that most product leaders are wrestling with a common set of internal selling challenges. You'll gain/share insights and techniques around: * Speaking the language of executives: money. Unlike with your technical teams, the C-suite can't hear anything that doesn't include a currency symbol. We'll review the economics of product vs. services companies, how to "sell" discovery work to execs, and we'll practice "count the digits" revenue-speak. We'll peek into the heads of sales and marketing execs. * Understanding and communicating how Product Management team actually adds value. Execs often think PM should make development go faster, so we (as PM leaders) need to continuously highlight how relentless discovery, how savvy PMs reduce "product waste," and how clear product strategy gets more useful value out of our existing engineering/design/maker teams. * Managing priorities and buy-in with sales/marketing/other execs who don't agree with each other. We'll unpack why each department inevitably translates corporate strategy into competing priorities. And why executives have "roadmap amnesia." Then we'll look at various tools (R&amp;D pie charts, swim lanes) to drive grudging agreement for plans and roadmaps. * Constructing maker teams (product+engineering+design) that deliver better products build, boost morale, retain talent. We'll dissect the product manager/product owner problem. * Role-playing some typical challenges supervising PM teams and our obligations as leaders to the folks who work for us. How might we handle single-account thinkers, unhappy senior PMs, self-important technologists? * Merchandizing product wins. Few outside development understand what product managers do, so we need to relentlessly identify and share successes in language our internal audiences understand. This course will make you a better leader, executive, and mentor.

This is designed for is current PM Directors, VPs &amp; CPOs who are managing teams of product managers (and maybe POs, designers/UX, analysts.

Focus is on PM leadership challenges, working better with other functional execs, understanding organizations, why GTM folks do what they do

This will be a safe space to talk about real issues, practical approaches, and the C-level challenges that many of us face

For CURRENT product leaders

What participants have said

This class had the clear exec language and exact sound bites I needed to help convince leadership of the potential financial impact of key efforts, and limited expected value of others."

"Thanks for consistently enlightening us with unparalleled product wisdom and actionable insights!

"An excellent course for seasoned product leaders: discussing key topics and issues that we deal with every day."

"There was tremendous value in the peer discussions and group exercises - this cohort-based course delivered!"

"Packed with insights. This course has helped me frame where I need to grow as a product leader, plus how to help people under me grow."

"Insightful, pragmatic: we navigated real challenges of product leadership. No BS or silver bullet - just sharing decades of experience."

"Content is spot on, Rich is a great coach/teacher/facilitator, and the flow during class was great."

<ul><li>Product waste, distance, and first principles: how do we improve our odds of building what the world wants to buy? </li><li>What do product managers actually do, and how do we add value (versus engineers and designers)?</li><li>What's a maker team? Who's on it? Which org models work, and which are deeply flawed?</li></ul>

Organizing Product+Development+Design teams

<ul><li>"Money stories" and the language of executives. How do we talk about revenue instead of tech to "sell" good product strategies to the C-suite?</li><li>CEO role-playing exercise: why do they act the way they do?</li><li>Trade-offs, portfolio pies to show overall R&amp;D investments, magic bullets, and the chocolate cake problem of adding "just one more thing"</li></ul>

Managing Priorities and Buy-In With Sales/Marketing/GTM Execs

<ul><li>4 core responsibilities of product leaders: building a team, driving strategy, growing collaboration, C-level alignment</li><li>"Poop umbrellas" and "poop funnels"</li><li>Delegation and the PM work we no longer do as leaders</li><li>Typical people management situations</li></ul>

Leadership and People Challenges

Course syllabus

Meet your instructor

Cohort dates are January 6, 13 and 20. All three 2-hour sessions are on Mondays at 8am Pacific, 11am Eastern, 4pm/16.00 GMT. Via Zoom.

Mondays (2 Hours)

Attendees will have some lightweight preparation ahead of each session: mapping out your org; looking at your R&amp;D spending budget, sketching out how your products make money, thinking about your exec peers.

Very light preparation

All participants will get access to Rich's calendar for some private 1-on-1 coaching and mentoring

After the course is over...

Course schedule

We'll meet live via Zoom. A small cohort of your peers means lots of real-time discussion, laughs, honest sharing, and maybe a little PTSD.

Active hands-on learning

We'll have frank and unfiltered conversations about real product leadership issue. You'll get great insights from your peers as well as from Rich.

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