PMs & Metrics: Net Promoter Score (NPS)

During our last post of the PMs & Metrics series, we covered the details of retention rate. In today’s post, we’ll be going over another important metric that PMs should be familiar with – the net promoter score, also known as NPS.

For our discussion, let’s break it down into the following sections:

  1. Definition: What is the net promoter score?
  2. Measurement: How do you measure net promoter score?
  3. Impact: Why does the net promoter score matter?
  4. Insights: What insights does the net promoter score yield?
  5. Limitations: What are the shortcomings of the net promoter score?
Definition of the Net Promoter Score

The net promoter score is a great way to gauge how well you are serving your customers.

To calculate your net promoter score, all you have to do is ask this single question:

How likely is it that you would recommend this product to a friend or colleague?

Your respondents should be given a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being “extremely likely” and 0 being “not at all likely”. You can then classify your respondents into the following 3 categories: Continue Reading

Work-Life Balance as a Product Manager

The role of a product manager is to fill in the white space between departments, to ensure that the customer receives a product that produces value, and that the company has a product that generates value.

Of course, there’s one big problem with the role: there’s infinite white space, and therefore infinite tasks that a product manager could do!

To be an effective product manager, you need to create clearly defined boundaries so that you can perform the most valuable work that you can. After all, each additional hour of work has diminishing marginal returns. At some point, you may even wind up with negative returns for each additional hour.

Below are a few tips on how to ensure you maintain work-life balance as a product manager. Continue Reading

The Gift of Product Mentorship

One of the biggest gifts I’ve received in my life is product mentorship.

Honestly, without mentorship, I would not be who I am today.

Regardless of your seniority, product mentorship will always prove useful.

Whether you’re an associate product manager or the Head of Product, there’s always so much more to learn – new perspectives and frameworks to consider, new technologies and methodologies to stay on top of, new industry trends and competitors and partners to evaluate.

Given the transformative power of mentorship, I’d like to break down best practices on both sides of product mentorship: how to get mentorship, and how to give mentorship.

Getting Product Mentorship

Let’s be real – product management is still an emerging field. Continue Reading

Product Manager Interview: Pre-Interview Research

As a product manager, you will be expected to know quite a few different areas of knowledge. Not only are you required to become a domain expert in the product that you’ll own, but you’ll also need to understand the industry within which you work.

While most companies have some sort of on-boarding process for new hires, in my experience, I’ve found that interviewers appreciate when candidates are already knowledgeable about the role, the company, and the industry.

Candidates who conduct research before the interview are likely to be more successful, because they remove the burden from the interviewer in needing to explain their company and industry. The interviewer can then spend more time in better understanding the candidate’s fit for the role. Continue Reading

Critical Skills to Develop as a New Product Manager in Your First 6 Months

Members of the PMHQ Slack community regularly host awesome events for product managers to swap tips and learn from one another.

In San Francisco, Vinay Melwani (Product Manager at HouseCanary) has organized a monthly morning meetup called AM | PM. Attendees answer a thought-provoking question-of-the-month in a round-robin fashion and reflect on each other’s responses.

Below is our summary of November’s AM | PM meetup!

Our question of the month for November 2017 was provided by Rob McGrorty, Head of Product at Webgility:

“If you could learn anything from anyone in your first 6 months as a PM, what single thing would you want them to teach you?” 

Interestingly, few people shared the same perspective on what one thing they wish they knew as a new PM. Continue Reading

How I Became a Product Manager

In the PMHQ Slack community, we regularly get thought-provoking questions that we feel should be explored in-depth and documented for future reference. We’re starting a new set of Q&A posts called Highlights to dive into these kinds of questions, and enable everyone in the community to revisit the answers and contribute further!

“Hi Clement –

I saw on your LinkedIn that you went into a Product Analyst role before being a PM. I’m curious why you started as an Analyst, if being an Analyst offered a great platform to being a PM and figure out if that’s what you wanted to do for a career.

I’m trying to figure out what the best way is for me to enter a PM role, if I’m qualified for one today (if so, how do I find one?), and if not, then whether a Product Analyst role offers the best way to become a PM.”  Continue Reading