Blair Reeves was frustrated.
Like all of us, he wants to learn be a better product manager. But much of what's been written about product management in recent years applies best to startups and consumer-focused products, not business-to-business organizations at the highest end of scale.
For example, at SAS, the 40 year-old software leader where Blair manages the Customer Intelligence 360 platform, the ratio of employees to customers is about 2000 to 1. This changes the way innovation happens, the way customer development is handled, and how "agile" the product development process can truly be.
*So where's the book on building products for the enterprise? *
As it happens, it's available today at O'Reilly Media, thanks to Reeves and partner Ben Gaines (Adobe Analytics), who thoughtfully set out to fill the void with a practical guide to product management that helps enterprise PMs navigate the challenges that are unique to large-scale organizations.
100 PM caught up with Blair during his last week in NYC (he's since relocated to SAS's headquarters in North Carolina) to learn more about enterprise product management, why "moving fast and breaking things" isn't a mantra that flies well in his world, and to (sort of) settle the score on whether agile is possible when delivering products by and for big companies.
Listen to the episode below and buy the book! today!
In this episode:
- Where do startups go wrong with implementing OKRs
- Can OKRs really scale for enterprise?
- What are pipelines and how do they change the way we think about product roadmaps?
In this episode:
- From retail to product management
- Why relationship building is the number one required skill a product manager could have
- The value of having confidence with humility
In this episode:
- Establishing a clear vision of your career path
- Using metrics to answer burning product questions
- What product managers can learn from biology
