---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'NOTES: Webinar: Step Up and Lead by Google Product Lead'
tags: [' Note', ' Product School', PM]

---

---
title: "NOTES: Webinar: Step Up and Lead by Google Product Lead"
image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D7Wa1Qt8gJw/hqdefault.jpg
tags: PM, Note, Product School
GA: UA-165294171-1
---


# [Webinar: Step Up and Lead by Google Product Lead][1]

<div style="text-align:right;">Speaker: Yariv Adan</div>

[//]: # (LINKS)
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw "Watch on YouTube"


## Five Bullets Guide to "Being more stretegic" [[02:12]][2]
### Own the problem, not the solution [[02:51]][3]

Owning the problem is the most important thing that will actually take you to the stretegic place. From the career perspective:

- Junior PM: learns how to get hard things done; focus yourself and your team on the most important task and execute
- Senior PM: shift focus from building solution to actually addressing and owning a problem

So, what should you do to own the problem?

1. Articulate
    Articulate to yourself and the team what is the user problem that you're trying to solve for. (Not what you're trying to build.)
2. Review
    Review critically on a regular basis whether you're actually solving the problem. If you are not, you're actually not making progress.
3. Own
    Don't make excuses. If the problem is not solved, people will not choose your product at the end.
4. Don't fall in love.
    Don't fall in love with your solutions and features. Maybe it's an elegant solution, but you find out that certain things actually don't add value. Throw away stuff. Your point is the problem, not the solution.
5. ***Challenge reality.***
    If there are critical dependencies that can't be solved with the current resources or setup, try to change resources and setup.

> (Example): 
> 
> Google Search
> 
>- If users can't spell, it's our problem.
>- If they don't know how to form the query, it's our problem.
>- If they don't know what words to use, it's our problem.
>- If they can't speak the language, it's our problem.
>- If there's not enough content on the web, it's our problem.
>- If the web is too slow, it's our problem.

### Full Accountability [[09:21]][4]
**Don't limit yourself to your role.** If you want to be a leader, you need to be 100% accountable for the goals of the project. You might receive them, but once you accepted them, these are your goals. You need to believe in them and have conviction.

### Think critically [[10:59]][5]
Think about your product from the perspective of the CEO or executive. *Ask yourself,*

- *"Are you actually moving the success of the overall organization in a meaningful way?"*
- *"Are you duplicating?", "Are you going against the partnerships?"*
- *"Are your goals realistic?"*
    ( Put your plan based on what we've learned in the past, based on what we know. )
- *"Are you thinking about it holistically and creatively?"*
    ( Don't go into leadership and have others ask you what you've considered. )

### Think beyond your team [[14:06]][6]

Once you think outside your team, you have the opportunity to chase a bigger goal. There are many more resources outside to get whatever you are doing and scale it and make the impact much bigger.

### Be recognized as a leader [[15:29]][7]
*Ask yourself,*
- *"Do people go to you as the goto person for your domain?"*
- *"Do executives know your name that you're the one owning it?"*
- *"Are you the contact person when external people have questions?"*

If not, ***CLOSE THE GAP!!***

:::info
==**!! STEP UP AND LEAD !!**==

Leadership is not granted or given. It's demonstrated and taken. People will love and appreciate you to do that.
:::

[//]: # (LINKS)
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=2m12s "Watch on YouTube"
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=2m51s "Watch on YouTube"
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=9m21s "Watch on YouTube"
[5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=10m59s "Watch on YouTube"
[6]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=14m06s "Watch on YouTube"
[7]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=15m29s "Watch on YouTube"


## QA [[17:33]][8]
1. What would you say would be the thing that you would tell a pm should do in their first 30 days on the job?
    > (Answer):
    > 
    >- Learn. Usually, over 80% of what you learn overall in your roll was actually in the first 30 days. Afterwards, you are kind of in execution.
    >- **Write down all the things that don't make sense to you.** At the beginning, you can see all the nonsense that everyone else is already blind. **It's impossible to recreate fresh eyes.**
    >- Ask stupid questions. Stupid questions are not stupid in the first 30 days. Afterwards, they become worrying.

2. Any tips or advice when you work towards solving the problem, but executives above have different ideas?
    >- Come up with data that backs up your story. Once you have good data, people will struggle to disagree with you.
    >- **Minimize the number of people in the meeting that are seeing for the first time.** Before you present, have a briefing with as many people in that meeting. You will get good feedback and they will also support you.
    >- **The strongest person is an engineer with a demo.** The discussion might go from "Should we do it?" to "How do we do it?". Also, it creates a lot of excitement.

[//]: # (LINKS)
[8]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Wa1Qt8gJw&t=17m33s "Watch on YouTube"