This week, Product College hosted Melih Özbekoğlu, fmr Head of Product at Letgo, for a particular #AskMeAnything session. Melih talks us via an important abilities for PMs to develop, transferring from particular person contributor (IC) to supervisor, and the distinction in Product Administration between a big and small firm.
Meet Melih
Melih Özbekoğlu is an skilled Product Administration skilled with a powerful technical background. He helps corporations ship merchandise that individuals love to make use of on the intersection between UX, enterprise, and expertise, with an analytical and inclusive strategy.
As a Head of Product at OLX Autos, Melih is now main a crew of Product Managers to make sure buyer excellence throughout totally different enterprise traces. He focuses on Development, person onboarding and pricing facets of OLX Autos platform, which is operating a multi-billion greenback automobile transaction enterprise in a number of markets all world wide together with Turkey, Indonesia, India, Mexico and Latin America.
Earlier than the merge of Letgo crew to OLX Autos group, he labored at Letgo for 3 years the place he started as a Senior PM earlier than being promoted to Head of Product, main a crew inside the Automotive tribe. Previous to becoming a member of Letgo, Melih labored at totally different ranges (Head of Product, Senior Product Supervisor, Product Supervisor) in C2C, B2C and SaaS B2B corporations. In whole, Melih has over ten years of expertise within the Product Administration world.
What abilities (tender skills-hard abilities) do you suppose are most necessary for an individual making ready to grow to be a PM?
An excellent query. For my part:
- First is to have an analytical mindset. The extent of proficiency might change, however you undoubtedly have a sure degree of ability on understanding knowledge.
- One other necessary one is to be nice at communication. Both written or verbal. You don’t need to grow to be an extrovert, you could be good at written communication too.
- And possibly an important one: a PM must be curious. PMs ought to continually search for methods to have higher merchandise and enhance themselves.
What modified throughout your transition between totally different Product Supervisor roles (PM, senior, head, and so forth.)? What was the very best factor about transitioning to roles with broader obligations? And did you miss one thing from extra IC roles?
The largest change is concerning the degree of affect which you can have on drawback fixing. While you go into an administration position, you progress right into a supporter position, somewhat than fixing issues by yourself. You must empower the Product Managers in your crew, you shouldn’t be micromanaging them. However it’s essential make certain that they’re doing the proper factor.
Smartest thing about transitioning roles is to have an even bigger impression. Sure, you do much less palms on stuff, however you could have extra impression on the corporate’s and customers lives. I nonetheless generally get my palms soiled and do IC stuff. However typically, I can say having discussions with engineers and designers to discover a answer is the very best factor as an IC from my standpoint.
How did issues change within the Product Division after Letgo obtained acquired? How do you lead the crew at OLX vs. at Letgo? Any key variations you observed that PM’s ought to concentrate on going from a small to massive org or going via an acquisition?
The largest change is the scale of the crew. And with the growing measurement, communication turns into the most important problem. In a smaller org, you could have simpler entry to your friends, management, knowledge and so forth. However in an even bigger one, it’s essential present extra effort to get alignment, to unravel dependencies between groups or to only persuade somebody. The PMs going via this transition ought to be able to over talk every part. That’s greatest change that I noticed thus far.
Any closing recommendation?
There are a few issues I can say:
- Don’t neglect that there’s no answer that matches each org. Don’t stick with just one framework or philosophy. Perceive the necessity, circumstances and act accordingly.
- You’re not the boss of every part, however you’re the individual that would have affect on every part. Hearken to folks, grow to be a facilitator.
- Keep curious, don’t cease studying.
