Becoming a super IC: Lessons from 12 years as a PM individual contributor | Tal Raviv (Product Lead at Riverside)

Sep 22, 2024 1h 31m 24 insights Episode Page ↗
Tall Raviv, a 12-year IC PM, shares insights on IC career paths, leveraging AI for productivity, cultivating self-reliant teams, and making "street smart" product decisions. He also candidly discusses his career failures and lessons learned.
Actionable Insights

1. Empower Team, Reduce Bottlenecks

Cultivate self-reliant teams by shifting from a hub-and-spoke model where you are the bottleneck; instead, encourage team members to figure things out among themselves and involve you at the very end.

2. Shift DMs to Public Channels

Actively encourage team members to move direct messages into public channels, explaining that this promotes transparency, discoverability, and broader team input for decisions. This creates a snowball effect as others see and adopt the practice.

3. Reward Team Initiative

Shower team members with positivity and excitement when they take on tasks typically done by a PM or bring new ideas, encouraging them to be more bold and self-reliant. This fosters a culture where people feel comfortable taking things off your plate.

4. Solve Problems Live with Team

When a team member asks for data or a task, do it live with them instead of promising to get back to them, demonstrating how easy it is. This encourages them to naturally want to do those things themselves over time.

5. Design Your Deep Work Days

Strictly block off mornings for deep work by avoiding Slack and meetings until noon, reserving afternoons for ‘ping pong’ communication. This helps prevent your brain from feeling like ‘scrambled eggs’ and allows for focused thinking.

6. Batch Slack Messages

Keep a running list of Slack messages in your to-do list and send them all at once after your deep work block, rather than sending them as they come to mind. This prevents constant interruptions and maintains focus.

7. Establish Urgent Contact Protocol

Provide key colleagues with your phone number and tell them to call or WhatsApp for truly urgent matters if you’re not on Slack. This creates a high barrier for interruptions, ensuring only critical issues break your deep work.

8. Practice Product Scrapbooking

Maintain a massive Notion database of every product opportunity and piece of customer evidence (support tickets, Slack threads, data) by actively filing screenshots or notes. This allows you to quickly retrieve real-world clues to start new projects or persuade stakeholders to dig deeper.

9. Dictate User Stories with AI

Use AI (like ChatGPT with Whisper) to dictate detailed user stories and epics based on a specific template after a kickoff meeting. This significantly reduces the tedious paperwork and bottleneck of writing detailed specifications.

10. Identify Two Key Departments

Research a company’s growth model and what customers truly pay for to identify the two departments that matter most for its success. This helps understand where the company’s biggest levers for growth and impact lie.

11. Align Your Role with Core Drivers

Position yourself within the departments that are the primary drivers of company growth to maximize your career impact and value. Being in a core department will lead to career-defining work and attract the best colleagues.

12. Weigh Customer Perception Equally

When making decisions, give customer perception and narrative as much weight as logical, data-driven analysis to avoid negative reactions, even if changes are technically beneficial. A logically sound change can still fail due to poor perception.

13. Deep Dive into Customer Raw Data

Develop ‘street smart’ intuition by spending time in customer communities and support tickets, noticing patterns in feedback and customer suspicions. This helps you understand your target persona’s sensitivities and thought processes.

14. Assess Sales Demo Impact of UX

Before launching UX changes, consider their impact on the sales demo, as logical optimizations might inadvertently make it harder to communicate product value. A smoother user experience could hinder the initial ‘aha’ moment for prospects.

15. Invest in Qualitative Research

Conduct thorough qualitative user research, especially with non-users, to understand motivations and mindsets, even in areas traditionally seen as quantitative. This can save significant development time by preventing failed AB tests based on incorrect assumptions.

16. Practice ‘Disagree and Commit’

Once leadership makes a decision you disagree with, commit fully and support the initiative, trusting that if it fails, the team will adapt, and if it succeeds, you’ll learn. It’s more important to be supportive than to be proven right.

17. Be Vulnerable in Tough Situations

When facing career challenges or misunderstandings, proactively and vulnerably share your perspective, including your perceived mistakes, to build trust and resolve issues. This often brings people closer and clarifies unspoken concerns.

18. Run AB Tests for High Stakes

Always run AB tests for sensitive product flows with high stakes, even if changes seem logically safe, to prevent significant negative impact. Failing to test can lead to major issues like tanking new payments for a week.

19. Build Trust to Take Risks

Consistently demonstrate diligence and seriousness in your work to build a ’trust bucket’ with leadership. This provides the confidence needed to take creative risks or make occasional mistakes without severe repercussions.

20. Embrace Life’s Unstoppable Waves

Adopt the motto ‘You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf’ to navigate inevitable emotional and organizational challenges. This mindset encourages adaptation and learning rather than resisting uncontrollable circumstances.

21. Believe in IC Value

Genuinely believe that an individual contributor PM can have significant scope, ownership, and impact, as the industry increasingly recognizes this value. This self-belief is crucial for pursuing a long-term IC career path.

22. Advocate for IC Compensation

When discussing compensation, clearly state your intention to remain an IC and emphasize that your desired salary reflects the value of an experienced IC, not future management promotions. This helps secure fair compensation for the IC role.

23. Create Clear IC Career Ladders

Companies should establish clear titles (e.g., Principal, Distinguished PM) and rubrics for IC product managers to provide a recognized path for growth and respect. This formalizes the IC career path and acknowledges its progression.

24. Seek Challenging Work for Growth

To become a leading expert, focus on doing really good work at a successful company with good people, solving novel and difficult problems. This hands-on experience is the most effective way to learn, grow, and eventually share your own insights.