Have you tried hiring product managers, only to find yourself disappointed?

You did everything right.   

You wrote the perfect job description, worked with HR, jumped through all the hoops, looked both internally and externally.    

Only to discover that…

• The pool of candidates is very small
• Many don’t have the skills and training
• And the ones who do have the skills are simply too expensive or will be difficult to attract

But what if it does not have to be that way.  What if finding good product managers can be easier 

What if,

• You had more options to choose from
• The candidates were trained and skilled in modern product management and development best practices, and
• That hiring was not just about pay, but finding the right fit for both them and you

To help us figure out how, I interviewed Deba Sahoo. He built a 200+ strong product organization from scratch.  

Deba Sahoo is currently SVP, Head of Product at Fidelity’s Workplace Business Unit, the market leading provider of retirement plans and other workplace benefits in US. He leads a 200+ product organization and is responsible for setting the overall product vision, strategy, roadmap, and execution.

Prior to this role, Deba has held senior leadership roles in Product, Strategy, Analytics/Data Science and Technology. Deba also sits on Forbes Technology Council, member of AI4 leadership council, and a distinguished thought leader and speaker on topics of product leadership, product management, digital transformation, customer journeys and artificial intelligence. He was recently awarded to be among top global CPOs by Products That Count (one of the largest network of product managers) for leading innovation and digital transformation.

What follows is a condensed and lightly edited version of our interview.

Deba, glad to have you on the show.  Given the short time we have together, if it is ok with you, let’s jump right in.

You have built a 200+ FTE strong high performing product team from scratch.  Before we get into the specifics, can you please share with us what is your definition of a high performing team?

Deba Sahoo:  Mustafa thanks for inviting me.

And yes let’s dive right in.  For me high performing teams usually entail the following four qualities.

First, for me, it is a cross functional collaborative team that has representation from all the right groups, whether it’s product management, design, architecture, engineering, sometimes customers, sometimes business stakeholders.

Second, they need to operate like one team.  Day in and day out, they are all working together to solve the problem at hand.  They are all pitching in and helping each other.  And that they need to trust each other.   

Third, these teams are empowered.  They get direction and alignment from a business strategy and top level perspective, of course.  But how the teams then achieve their goals is really up to them.  They have a lot of discretion.  

Fourth, they have the right skills and right balance of skills.  Collectively, as a team, they have the right balance of domain expertise, functional expertise and experience. 

That is a good list.  Google a few years ago did a study on high performing teams.  And believe it or not, their list comes very close to the four dimensions you just talked about.  

I am curious, how do you go about finding these people to put into the teams.  It’s one thing to define the model, it is another thing to find and mobilize the right talent to staff this model.

DS:  You are absolutely right.  Which is why I spend a ton of time finding and grooming the right folks to sit in these teams.

And, it’s not just product folks that I am looking for.  My team has all three – product, engineering, and design – sitting in them.  So I am always on the lookout for top talent, internally and externally.

Deba this talent is hard to find.  It’s not like you can find good PMs, they just don’t exist  So you really have to look hard.  What specific qualities are you looking for?    

DS: You are right.

Most do not have strong product management experience and many have traditional project experience or deeper domain expertise. A big part of my job is to look for both the right experience and aptitude. 

Regardless of their background and title and specific role I am hiring for, I always look for the following qualities in a product manager.

One, the person has the ability or skill set, or has proven that the person can deal with ambiguity and solve problems.  If I want my team to be truly empowered with a lot of discretion, they need to be comfortable with uncertainty.  

Second, is communication.  So much of building a product is storytelling to leaders, to customers, and to others.  If you can’t communicate well, it is not the right fit.

Third is the ability to learn.  Things are changing so fast in our industry, technology and product practices that I need folks in my team who can pivot quickly and learn.  And learning is not only regarding the technical.  But also learning about the customers and the business and the craft of product.

Last is the ability to get things done.  Some people call it high agency.  But for me, it’s quite simple.  Can they get things done?

In addition to these common qualities, I obviously look for specific skills, experience and fit for the specific role I am hiring for.

Great.  By the way do you use the same criteria when you are looking internally and externally?

DS:  Yes basically.

If it is external, I might have a few more.  Like industry experience and desire for the role. If it is internal, I look for a strong desire for the role and demonstrate history to judge aptitude.

But the common qualities are the same.

Plus I am a big believer in diverse and well balanced teams. It is good for the team, good for morale, and good for solving problems and getting things done.

But that is not where you stop, do you? From what you shared with me earlier. You go much further. Like always maintaining a pipeline of likely candidates. Almost like proactive hiring?

DS:  Yes, I have a pipeline.  I want to find the best product talent through my pipeline. I have to as good product people are very hard to come by.

May I ask how many in your pipeline right now?

DS:  I think it’s about 8-10.  

But I am constantly adding and placing folks.  Sometimes in my teams and other times in other parts of Fidelity.  It really depends upon fit.  What the role needs and what the individual wants.  

I actually actively mentor these folks, help them develop skills or network and when the right role comes along, I help them get the roles. Through the process, I actually develop long term relationships and trust and that pays off well. It actually helps in increasing my influence and impact across the organization. 

The long game.  I like it.  

Are there specific areas or groups you like to hire from?  Where do you source these people so that you can add them to your pipeline?

DS: Usually it’s all over the place.  But the three best areas I have noticed are business operations, engineering and of course, product.

Business operations of client service, especially some one customer facing is great.  Because they just bring with them that outside in perspective.  Once in a while we will get someone from strategy.  They make pretty good product managers too if they truly want to focus on execution. 

The other is of course engineering.  Because they understand the technical aspects of what can be done.  But with them I really have to work with them to understand the customer point of view. 

Folks who are in product roles in other parts of the organization are another great source if/when they want to change roles or want to work with the right leader or team.

In all cases, I look for these outliers.  People who are good at their job but want to do so much more.  An engineer who has shown capacity for customer empathy.  Or a client service rep who wants to get deeper into the technical building of products.

That is what I try to put into my resources pipeline.  

What now?  You have found the right person, and have decided to add them to your team.  What happens next?  How do you groom them?

DS:  This is the hard part.  Because once I have them in my team, I consider it to be my responsibility to make them successful.

So, first, it all starts with putting them in the best situation to succeed. If they have limited domain expertise, I ensure that other members of the team have the domain expertise. If they are customer oriented and have limited technical skills, I pair them with an engineering leader for mentorship. If they are engineers, then I pair them with experienced customer-facing folks.  It’s all about getting the right balance.  I can’t always get it perfect, but that is what I am hoping or shooting for.

After that is upskilling.  One of the things I noticed is that many people needed training on product management, especially folks new to product roles.   Folks who are already in product roles needed focus on advanced concepts and practical aspects of the role. So I created something called Product School.  It started with just one to two learning calls per month, but now it has turned into a structured and formal 3-months program, run twice a year, managed by the Learning & Development team and most new product managers go through the program. We have also developed programs for aspiring product managers to develop the bench strength and offer them a path to product. In addition, we also have several informal ways to onboard somebody based on his/her need. E.g., for a senior and tenured product leader coming into a new business unit, we focus onboarding more on learning the nuances of people, relationships, and business.

Next, is to get them face time with their key stakeholders.  Whether it’s the customers or internal executives.  My goal is to get them to the front line as soon as possible.  So that they can learn straight from their users / executives what needs to be built.  

I am sure your Product Academy helps you build the pipeline for talent as well?

DS:  Yes absolutely.  One of the best things we did was to make a lot of content from the Academy open to anyone and everyone.  

This not only helped us get the word out quickly, but also attracted the right people. Aspiring product managers usually leverage the content or I send aspiring product managers to leverage the content. It has now almost become like a filter for me to gauge interest and desire for folks.

Awesome.  It just keeps paying you more and more dividends.  You train your current team and also your future team, all at once.

DS:  Exactly. 

If it is ok with you, tell me more about Product Academy?  If someone else wanted to start something like that, how would they get started?

DS:  Sure…let me share what I did.  And then others can potentially follow their appropriate path in their organizations.

Like I said, it started very small.  With me being the trainer and giving lectures.  I think the first course was on product vision strategy, roadmap and execution.  It was a simple webinar but it was very focused on applying product management concepts to use cases within our business. 

When I marketed it, I was not even sure how many folks would show up.  I send an invite to every single person within product, engineering, design, marketing , etc. Anybody willing to come whether you’re a business person, engineering person, marketing doesn’t matter. Session was recorded for future re-use.

And to my surprise a lot of folks did.  A lot more than what I expected.  And feedback and interest post the first session was extremely positive. So we started to do more of it.  

Since I was the main instructor back then, I kept adding new topics and webinars.  To bring different perspectives, I crowdsourced content creation and teaching to key product leaders with strong expertise in particular areas. The monthly webinars focused on applied learning and included topics such as User Experience Research and Design, Finding Product Market Fit, Product Management in B2B vs. B2C, Product Management with Artificial Intelligence, Product Management for Internal Platforms, Product Marketing, Customer Research and Insights, etc.

Extremely positive feedback and strong impact of the program got the attention of the Learning and Development team and we started working together to create a structured program with appropriate support that we could scale to the broader organization on a consistent basis. We created a well-structured program which we call Product Academy and run the 3-month program twice a year with new product managers as participants. We are now planning to scale this further across the entire enterprise and create a similar program for product leaders.. 

As for getting started yourself, it’s almost like building a product.  We started very small (just me), got feedback, iterated and achieved initial product market fit. Then we expanded, got feedback, and continued to expand and scale. 

What a great story.  Thank you for sharing Deba.  I don’t know about you, but I had a great time.  There are so many other things that we need to touch on.  It would be great to have you back.

DS:  Thanks Mustafa.  This has been great for me too.  And yes, I would love to come back.