12: Adapting to Changes as a PM

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem collaborates with Women in Product members Parul Shorey (Compass) and Rekha Raghu (Smartsheet) to talk about adapting to changes, dealing with changes in processes, management, or system, managing teams throughout the new structure, and just use change as an opportunity to continuously learn.      Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.   What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 02:03 In collaboration with Women in Product, let’s talk about why adapting to change as PM is important 06:27 For PMs to survive and for the company to flourish, you need to learn to adapt to change 11:41 Changes can be internal, customer, market, and product 12:39 What to do when upper management wants to change strategy or direction 18:08 Tips for PMs on adapting to changes 23:52 Identify the product’s mission and goals when dealing with changes 28:08 When is it time to change the north star? 30:10 Your metrics are going to tell if you’re progressing in the way you want to 35:26 Coaching teams to navigate through changes 37:58 Managing teams is not a scale game 41:16 Take a break to think about the situation before acting on the change 44:07 PMs on evolving best practices and management terminologies  47:32 If there is change fatigue, there is something wrong with the process 49:25 Look at change as an opportunity  51:06 Pms shouldn’t overuse the sense of urgency 52:57 Change is what you really want other people to achieve