Hi everyone, the guests for today is Rashid Rashid is from Mexico. He has been working on a lot of global opportunities as a product manager. He has been in the tech domain product management domain, he has done multiple hats like being consulting from doing for other companies to doing things for himself. Look over the last four years has been wearing multiple hats. And so please welcome Rashid to our podcast be remote podcast. Hey, welcome. Hey, Rob. Well, thanks for having me here..........
Read More
Awesome. Awesome. So it's always a pleasure talking to fellow product managers, especially like on this being a product manager, I can fully relate I can fully correlate with what really happens in product management and like, it's always always a different feeling. Whenever I speak to a different product managers associate probably, why don't you just give a quick introduction about yourself? Especially the journey, like come on? How was your journey so far? pre pandemic and post pandemic? Geneva? Sure.Yeah, sure. More than, than a product manager? Yes, of course, this is how we define this kind of job. But I think of myself more than more of, like an intrapreneur, right. And part of being an entrepreneur is managing products. So yeah, I started working in the automotive industry didn't like my own money, when when I graduated, I got together with some engineering friends. And we started working right away into the automotive industry, which, you know, it was really cool. It was really demanding, because there is no room for error that goes because actually, you know, hundreds of 1000s so and then, I just developed a new brand from that company, which was focused on quality, innovative digital products. So we started creating our own products from from scratch and also for for other companies and trying to build spinouts, and companies on top of those products. So that was like a really cool journey. I think that is where I actually learned most of what I know. And for the last four years, yeah, for years, I have been working on my own as a consultant, I set up my consultancy, and I have been doing well, all that I learned just a couple of years before this pandemic started. So I have been working on technical the product side, helping companies launch new products and new business initiatives to digital products. And so yeah, so I was working remotely, really, you know, pretty good before pandemic started. So not much change for me. Okay, thisis super interesting to know Russia, I think that there are very few people who are working before the pandemic as well remotely. I think that's, I think that's a good part of our work. Being in the technology domain, Russia, you get a chance to work remotely.Yes, of course. You know, my parents said that I was born for for the apocalypse. I was ready. No way to work this way, right. Yeah,this is thanks a lot for joining the podcast. Rishi plugin, thanks a lot for it is pretty good podcast. So a quick please get into the deep dive into remote Rashid lekman. So I think I really want to touch upon a couple of points. So especially from a product manager perspective, like I mean, how do you manage remote work? Like I mean, I think it's good that you have been working remotely way before the lockdown or the pandemic part recommend. So for fellow product managers or fellow technology workers or fellow developers like I mean, so how do you share your remote working journey? Russia? So this since this podcast is more towards the remote like men so how is your day in day out stuff? Like I mean, how do you manage yourself? What kind of like human processes that you follow to keep yourself occupied connected with everybody rest of the team, they come in so especially product management, is a domain where there are a lot of interactions with potential customers like when potential stakeholders whether it's marketing team sales team finance team like I'm a technology team, Product Manager is more of a interpersonal communication related work. They come in how do you do that? Rishi like, and how's your day in day on journey probably can start with that. Yeah.Yeah, you know that you said You said something important, I think it's about interacting also with with customers and sales. So I would say that's the first part. That's the entry point for me, I started first selling, you know, selling my services over the internet, with your hand, never seen my face. And that was kind of, you know, what? No one what we used to that. So I started I started from, from, you know, several platforms on our internet, meeting people and trying to sell myself and sell my services to this kind of clients and companies. So that was the first point that first the first entry point, and I had to master it is to be comfortable, trying to explain something that was usually done face to face, right, because no one wants to hurt someone who, who had an unknown face. Yeah, so the first part, and after, after that, you start, you know, working on probing yourself, and gaining the trust of your clients. And eventually, products and brave start getting larger. So now you have to interact with more people, you have to get into your team, more developers and designers, and if you have to integrate with, with a department from from your client, well, then you have to learn how to interact with with other people that is not in your company. So that became a challenge at first, because everyone was telling everyone who was more comfortable, you know, trying to set up a face to face meeting some of them, actually, those that were from from Mexico wanted me to go to their offices in another city. So it actually happened really few times. I mean, the times that I really gave into traveling, but most of the time, we could agree on on our workflow, our remote work. So eventually, my clients got comfortable with this, I got confident with this, we just started focusing on on efficiency, trying not to waste everyone's time with with face to face meetings, and everyone started to go, you know, way faster, way faster, and we start discovering, you know, that efficiency was what was gained by by doing a synchronous work, today, we are all used to a synchronous working, but back then it was kind of new. So that's how it started, then, you know, when when the pandemic came, I was already doing that. And it was actually very helpful, because now everyone has the mindset of remote, remote work and, and synchronous work, even even meetings, you know, a lot, so. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, you have to get comfortable with with knowing different ways of communication. For example, I get some, some developers that like, you know, calling maybe a few times a day because they need some guidance, or they need to do shoot some of the ideas to enhance the product. And they're comfortable talking in video calls and they like that, and they feel appreciated, because you you take the time to jump on a call with with a couple of your team members. And there are others that they clearly prefer not not to be bothered while they are working. Right. And they can tell you a whichever question or whichever request or new task just posted on JIRA, and I will take a look. And if I have any question, I will read your back. Right. And they avoid all kinds of human communication. But but that's the way they work. Right? So you keep learning, I still keep finding new ways of communicating with people because not everyone has the same availability towards other other people. Right? And you just have to juggle with that and make everyone comfortable in the way that the whole team is working.Make sense? Yep. So I think I think you're really touched upon an interesting point in remote working Rashid. So remote is majorly asynchronous. And not in person, right? Like, I think that these are like two key attributes that really defined remote work. So one very curious question I have received like him. And so like when you mentioned some of the industries that you work are, like, let's say in automotive, automobile and different set of wider industries, like when I completely understand if it's a technology pure technology product, like I mean, it's easier to interact. But let's say if we are a product manager working in anything related to supply chain, or auto mobile or anything related to like, real world interactions, like how do you think product managers should be able to pick this up? And do this work remotely? Generally? Rachel, your thoughts on that? Yeah.Well, I may not be the best person to answer this question. Raghu, because I stepped out of that industry. years ago, I actually migrated towards software products, you know, because of all the culture that is involved, right, which is more more, it's a better fit for me. Yeah. So but, you know, my co founders are still working on this part. And I didn't see that remote work, at least here in Mexico is in this kind of very established industries is not as widely accepted or adopted, as in, in restaurant, software industries, right, they still have to travel a lot. And of course, you have to do a lot of infield work, right, because we're you're dealing not only with with software, but But yeah, so I think that there are some industries that will have, you know, a harder time adopting remote work. But I have also seen that for several processes that do not require hardware are or insight visits, they are they are moving towards it. But you know, people is kind of getting mixed signals, because they're getting more freedom to work remotely, but but their their duties require them to be present. So a lot of my friends have migrated 50%, remote and 50% inside, right. Yeah, the companies in the automotive industry, for example, are more flexible, but they cannot enjoy the whole the whole benefit or new benefit of 100% remote work remote. Yeah, that's right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that would be a very particular case for several industries.That's right. In fact, I actually recently read this article, Rochelle again, bumped into this article where large automobile manufacturer like Ford, they also started getting into hybrid working like him. And so people call it hybrid, like, let's say, you have to be like, let's say a couple of days in a week, like I mean, for two days of the week, we had to be present, physically and rest of the disk can be remote. I think some of these companies are really drying out. I think, I think I think in that perspective, I think remote is still like, pretty going really, really good. Even for this domain. Sarah sheet. I think that's a good point, valid point you mentioned or they're awesome. Yeah, certainly what I want what I was saying, Yeah, yeah. So coming to the next part, Rashid Lachman, so how do you manage communication? Like, the kind of tools like having the kind of processes, like even the documentation that you follow? Like, I mean, everything being a product owner, like I'm being from a product in charge, or product owner, like when How do you manage the communication across multiple stakeholders? How does the communication part like, do you regularly get on scrums? Daily, like a daily sync a weekly sync upon things around that? Like, probably some thoughts on that direction?Yeah, well, that's, that's still a challenge. Because you have very different profiles, you know, that every stakeholder from different area has a different profile and different requirements and different different ways of communicating. Right. So let's start for the longest part, which is engineering. I used to work a lot with Scrum. But yeah, you know, a lot of there's another stream right now that you probably know that that there there are some authors claiming that Scrum is an agile framework, not that agile, became quite rigid, right? It's so I don't take any part on this debate, but it made me think Right. So it made me try some some new stuff and try relaxing part of that framework. So yeah, let's say for engineering, or new engineers, when there is something going, Yeah, I like having daily standards, because that, that helps everyone to get the context of not only one project, but also who is who who are, who your teammates are, and what their attitude is, and what what how they, they get involved on how they participate, you start getting information about the project task and and the team, right. And as soon as everyone the new commerce start getting comfortable, expressing and interacting and developing, well, we start relaxing, and then let's let the team that particular team because, you know, sometimes I have to manage different, and every team gets their own organization, their own way of organizing, depending on who's on the team at that moment. Right, then I just jump into into the way that they like to work, right. Some of them like keeping daily standards, and some of them just like, you know, getting closure, closure meetings, and some of them just, let's let's just keep communication whenever we need it. And let's not plan any kind of, of meeting or code. Right. So that's one thing, but I think that this party is working, for me at least is working with engineering, then you have creative teams, and they have their own workflow. So yeah, for when when I get to work on projects that are mostly creative, for example, for advertising, or creative agencies, then well, you have to juggle with with how your engineering team is, is working. And then you have to agree on a way of communication with with another team, right? Usually, yeah, I like just setting communication with one person from from that team, and just a feel, fill the gaps about what they are doing what we're doing and how we can fit feeds the work. And then the next step is presenting the work to another stakeholder, maybe the product owner, maybe the client or the manager or any other stakeholder, they're usually they fall farther from the technical part. So you have to, to get another way of communicating because with UX designers and web developers, you can just show the briefs or show some mock ups and just get right or maybe some reports about testing, or, or whatever technical thing you have to express. But when it comes to people that is falling outside the technical part, well, you have to be creative there. Right? Because sometimes the best, the best way to communicate with the progress is showing a part of the product. But if you're working on, let's say, databases or cloud services or something that is not yet user facing, then you have to think of another way of communicating progress towards your non technical stakeholders, right. Sowhat I do is trying to set up to agree on a framework or maybe it could be a timeline or it could be a child checklist or it could be some other deliverables like performance reports that even though they are not known, they are meant to be read by technical people, you can still explain what that means to your non technical stakeholders, right? So they, they need to get the confidence that the brain is going forward on under time and under requirements, right. And then when you get to the user facing features, well, it becomes you know, easier And that's when you can start, take leveraging some really cool tools like, for example, visual tool back visual, visual feedback tools, a lot of DevOps. So everything you start pushing can be reviewed by your QA team or your non technical stakeholders, or even the first prototypes get to, to your final clients or your final users. So I would say, you know, close in this point, I would say that you have to agree most of the time for every profile of stakeholder that you have on the project, how how, what the the way, the way of making them comfortable following the project's bro, progress would be for them, right? Like, let you have to understand they are your clients, of course, if you're a project assigned something for them, so they can enjoy and they can understand what's going on. But I would say that will usually be very different depending on the type of stakeholder and sometimes even the profile of that person. Because, you know, not everyone understands progress in in, same, same Andreas. Want to play two push buttons to see to see it in action? And some of them are good with with reports and mock ups.Yeah, yeah. Visual output, right. Anything that's visually tangible output? Yep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So in fact, that that brings me to a very interesting point that keeps happening revolving around remote Rashid. So let's say when we are in a very office or physical environment, we know the person is in front of us, we, we keep seeing him constantly, day in day out in front of us, like when we see the colleagues, everyone in the office, like in a remote setup like him, and we don't know how long the developer has been spending developer or any other stakeholder has been spending time. Like how do you think like that comfort or layer of trust, recommend for a completely new person who is newly getting on boarded onto the team. I think for the existing people, we know their work style, we know their work ethics, we know how good they are with their work. But let's say for example, we are onboarding a completely completely new person we haven't ever met, or we haven't seen completely, how do you think remote plays out in such scenarios? rational? And what do we do to build that initial trust initial icebreaker initial moments of comfort, like from both sides writing when even the developer or the particular stakeholder needs to get a comfort on the team like Meanwhile, building the relationship with the team, and he has to do all this through digital channels like on whether it's like a slack, that we have a communication channel, or some of the communication groups that every company has? How do you think this new onboarding and this new trust building in a remote scenario, your thoughts on that rushing? Well,yeah, that's natural process, it always happens when you get to work with with new clients and new teammates. So I think it that part has hasn't changed at all, you know, being responsive, and having a will to communicate any progress or even any issue or unexpected problem, that's the first part, you know, you shouldn't lose that. Just because you're working in a synchronous, like, I have seen some, some people that, you know, they tend to leverage the synchronous work to, to start making gaps, bigger communication gaps bigger just because they don't like to communicate when when things go wrong. I think that's pretty big mistake. You keep communication flowing, even if things are going bad, right. But when when you are working with new people, it could be a teammate or it could be a new stakeholder, right? The first two weeks are crucial, you have to be as responsive as you can, with obviously without losing efficiency, right because you're building a lot of parts of this project. To to set apart some time to communicate with a new commerce at a certain point of the day, even even a message you can record a loom video or you Can you synchronously record a video and share it with? Yes. But But not only sending, you have to you have to wait for a response and if you get it, because maybe the other person is comfortable with, with what you sent, but maybe they had some issues or, or they have some, some problems or questions. So you should be there to, to answer those questions. And so so they can know that you're, you're you have their back, right. And that means as you're working with people all over the world, that means not showing your, your, your phone to everyone after a certain rate. Right. And that's how it works for me. And my team knows that after a certain time, we'll we'll get some rest, right. So you know, when I went to search for anyone on your team, but when you have WooCommerce, you have to be more open and more available, because you're building trust, as you said. So, you know, it doesn't take you much to to shorten a message or, you know, to text this person or to to answer a call, even if it's midnight, just five minutes. So so they know that you're responsive, and that your team is, is is working someone in your team's work, not someplace work. Just there. And once you have built the trust, then everyone starts relaxing, and they start trusting each other even if they don't get award in three days from from them, right, because they know that everyone is is doing their job. So when when when the milestone gets here, and the date comes with you, everyone puts out the work that they have developed. And you see that that everyone has a piece that is fitting. Right. But that will only happen if you invest the time at the beginning in building. relation of trust. Yep,I think I think being there for people I think always being available, I think whenever the need and building that trust is the key. I think that's a pretty good point that you touched upon. Going Yep, they need guidance on some of the the one two goals, right. Yep. Yeah. The more that mentoring, they need that coaching, like when they need that support, whenever they especially Yep, yeah, more important than really being physically rigid. I think that's a very good point that you touched upon. Yeah. Yep. Going to the next question, Richard, like next point in general, like, I mean, so how do people cope up with I think you're really touched upon in the previous one, like, You touched upon, like, let's see if the team is distributed working across different time zones like man. So I keep getting constantly asked a question like, I mean, so which time zone the entire team has to work in like, when, because now that the teams are across the globe, like him until there could be any way people working like in a in a at any point in time, like when you will have certain set of people working? And always available? Right, like, and and so and also, how do you measure few things like productivity in a remote setup? And so any thoughts on that, especially the productivity part, like even so I understand in a physical world, we have things like attendance and things like that. And in remote, there is nothing called as attendance like I mean, it's not the number of hours or count of hours that person has worked on, but the impact or real metrics that he was able to move it on project, but generally, what's your views in terms of productivity measurement and things that don't? Like whether it's in terms of appraisals, whether it's in terms of doing the entire process that we do in a regular way? Any thoughts on that?No, I think that's a really good question. And I would say, well, you said that in a physical environment, you know, people has this feeling that everyone is being productive, right, that that has, yes. It has been like that for the past years. But now things are changing. I think that part of the physical work environment is, is misguiding because some organizations tend to measure false is it's false productivity. By by how many people they have in the office, or how many hours they are sitting in front of a computer or movement of whether if they are showing up early or late thatwhether they're pulling in late later or like late in the office, like staying late and all this stuff, right? Yeah.And so far those are those have been the metrics to measure part part of the productivity. But I saved that is misguiding. Because I have seen that you can do the same or even more, you know, a bigger amount of work in less time. When, when, when you're around and when you're remote. Because, yeah, I mean, you're you're, you're putting away that that social part of, you know, having having a break at the kitchen, and catching up with with your friends at the office, which is really nice. But now as you don't have everyone around you, well, you just can get, you just focus on doing the job done. And then after that, you can hang out with your friends, either remotely or or maybe you know, in person or whatever, depending on how things in the pandemic are going for you. I'd say productivity should be measured by by your roadmap, if you milestones and dates, then that's how you measure productivity. It doesn't matter if someone did it in one day, or did it in one week, as long as as you hit the milestones, right? Yeah, but when when you have new people on your team, and you don't know what what pace they have, my way of measuring productivity or potential productivity is just spending a lot of time with them. You know, like, as I told you, not not supervising, not as a supervisor, just like, hey, show me Show me how fast you're going or show me what you have done so far. Because not micromanaging or supervising. Yep, no, no. But as a as a as a guide, as a mentor, hey, how do you see this picture? so far? Have you Do you have a question about this, this development environment? Or about the tools that we're using? What do you think of this approach? Do you have any any new ideas, and you open a space for conversation with with your new teammates, and and, you know, you can start if you're sensible enough, I mean, sensitive enough, you you start getting the idea of how they think and how fast they sell things, and you start getting an on an idea of when or how, what their pace is, right, because you have interacting with with that person, or that group of people. So, spending time with the new commerce gives an extra tool to to estimate your whole timeline in you know, if you see it as a sub project manager, unit, you you're building on top of people people is the factor or the people are the ones building the product. So, if you're managing the product, you need to understand people I need to trust people and you need to try to predict people people in your team right yep. So that way you create a you know, more precise calendars and give a better picture and timeline to your stakeholders on on when and why features will be ready or not right because you know for people so I think the secret is getting to know the people. So you can estimate and of course, the the usual productivity tools and measures. You can measure by story points are by by quantity of finished by, you know, in a week or in in a sprint. So, I would say that if you want to monitor productivity, you should focus on on the things that you are producing, right, the time that the band's online or in the office.Awesome. Also, Russia. This is really, really insightful. Rashid. So you're one of the very few guys who have been doing the remote way before this pandemic and lockdown. So how is that part received? Like, I mean, from seeing people around you like even getting into remote or the last one one and a half year like human so you have been being a remote person like even from a long time. How's that journey so far? Like even probably you're like me you have been doing it much before this dynamic was there.Yeah, well, you know, I enjoyed remote work as soon as I jumped in, right? It has very obvious advantages. And it's kind of funny because I was, you know, I was the weird one among my friends who was working remote. You know, there is this digital nomad concept that was it was fictional, for so many months ago, but now that everyone is more or less, you know, in less or a bigger quantity, jumping into remote work. You know, the, some of my friends come in and say, Hey, now I get you now now. Now I know what you do now. Now I understandwhy youwant to wait, you didn't want to hang? You said you were easy, but I would think that you were just home. And now I understand that being home, it's actually you get to work even more. Right? Yeah. where we come from more intense. Because you're just focusing on work. Yeah. So that's one part. And when, when, first at first, family and friends were asking me a, my, they were saying, hey, my life has changed this way or this other way. And I miss, you know, this part. And I'm not sure if I'm gonna adapt to this new new reality. What about you? And I will say, Well, I miss going out for the pizza. Now the pizza is delivered. That's the only thing that has changed for me, right?Yeah, I think I think just like you mentioned on a lighter note. I think probably your, your bond for remote I think maybe for remote was there. Yeah. Yeah.Again, trying to learn from that joke, I think that I have always been focusing on on efficiency and productivity. I'm, you know, I'm an engineer and we tend to obsess with efficiency, right? Just Just because that's who we are right? for social aspects and other other aspects of life that are not meant to be efficient, right? I always want them to be efficient. So so I wasn't saying that.I would do a lighter note on remote. You're meant for remote direction.Yeah, yeah, of course. So when we're remote GM, it's just the opportunity the perfect opportunity to prove your point right to prove that everyone can get rid of so many things that we're taking productivity away and efficiency away and eventually what those things hit your quality of life because spend more time at the office that with your family. I have seen so many organizations that have a reduced have have reduced their working hours and they get same or even better results and people spend more time with their loved ones. Exactly. Yeah.Agree very good positive outcome of a remote is having a good work life balance sheet which was missing in the previous way. Like a lot of time used to be spent in commute like unproductive things and things around that like even so now I think the people are having like pretty good work life balance and all machine learning people are seeing the merits of remote working.Yes and after this is this is responding nice over you know, everyone will have the option to go back to their office. And you know, many people will enjoy going back but we will all be more. We will more we will be aware of what Things bring value to our lives and what not, right? Yep. Yep. very valid point. I should. Yeah. Richard.
