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Embarking on the dynamic journey of developing and managing a product is a multifaceted task involving a dedicated team's collaborative efforts. From conceptualising innovative ideas to steering the Leadzai product through its lifecycle, these professionals work tirelessly to bring our vision to life and ensure it aligns with customer needs and organisational goals.
Curious about the inner workings of our team? Join us as we delve into the daily routines of Rita, Gabriel, Daisy and Pico in this insightful article!
A Peek into a Varied Work Week in the Product Landscape
Rita Amaral, Product Manager
I like that no week is the same. The challenge is to keep focused.
My days usually involve talking with engineers, understanding how the sprint is going, preparing upcoming initiatives, and solving problems frequently to drive value to the product. I also like to meet with different stakeholders, like people from the Partners Team, Customer Success Team and Performance Team, to receive useful information about what the users are doing.
I prepare for each meeting beforehand so that it is efficient. I like to hear people’s suggestions, ask why we are going down a particular path and figure out better ways to do it. I focus a lot on the operation side and try to remove blockers so we don’t over-process what we do. When we have defined a problem, speed is essential. The sooner we get a solution out the door, the sooner users test it, and the sooner we learn.
Other than meetings, I need to take time to write requirements and study. I want to learn more about technology and the product itself every day.
Once a week, I go to the office in Lisbon, where I can speak with people face to face. I usually talk with people I don’t work with daily, so catching up with them is nice. When Spring comes (and the weather is great!), we organise after-hour meetings - in the last two, I connected with people from other departments and was able to understand better the way others work.
Bug Triage and Investigation
Gabriel, Quality Assurance (QA)
A typical day starts with a visit to the frontend BT (Bugs & Tickets) board in JIRA to check for new arrivals. Bugs are for errors; Tickets are for questions or small requests for the app. It is quite common to mislabel these!
Afterwards, QA triages the bugs and tickets with the highest priority because they are super important and must be fixed within 48 hours. QA also programs automation to help find defects in our product. This means transforming manual tests that are lengthy and repetitive into tests that are done automatically.
Another way QA is involved with BT is by doing the initial investigation for the new ones. We try to replicate the issues using the reproduction steps in the report and, with some luck, find the problem’s source (usually with graphQL helpful insights).
What is QA at the end of the day? You could say that it is simply a person who usually dislikes being reactive about dangers, so they will proactively question every tiny detail of a feature, be it a priority or not. This requires knowledge about the product, understanding how things currently work, and the case-specific definition of success and failure. I believe this brings the responsibility of providing unconditional acceptance towards others who may have questions and would benefit from these learned lessons being shared. Ultimately, it's all about helping increase our confidence in the product and the work.
Navigating Brainstorms, and Agile Collaboration
Daisy Sherwood-King, Product Manager
I start every morning with a cup of tea (English breakfast, naturally ;) ) and check my Slack messages and calendar. There are usually ideas I’ve had the previous night, so I jot them all down on my notepad and send some quick messages to get things out of my head and to the rest of the team.
Depending on my meetings that day, I’ll check Posthog to see how our users are interacting with our product and look at our reporting dashboards to see how the product is performing. We like to keep our work as flexible and agile as possible, so this analysis may alter the rest of the day.
I have a stand-up with the team at 11 am each morning, where we share any updates or blockers. Because we work remotely, it’s really nice to come together and talk things out.
My meetings range from stand-ups and mock-up reviews to brainstorms, estimation sessions and planning. Every day is so different, and each has its challenges, but we get through them as a team, and that’s the best bit!
Coffee, Cats, and Cross-Functional Collaboration
Pico, Senior Product Manager
I work from home in Porto, my hometown, so I spend an unhealthy amount of time sitting at my desk. I do try to use any excuse to leave the house, though, so every day invariably starts with brewing some coffee in a French press and letting it sit while I go out to buy fresh bread.
I'm a morning person, so I try to get as much work done as possible at the start of the day while my energy levels are still pretty high. Nevertheless, my attempts to schedule most of the meetings in the afternoon have not been very successful (yet).
When I do get a (rare) big block of uninterrupted working time, it's usually spent either:
- Analysing data and developing KPIs and metrics that fulfil our vision,
- Keeping the roadmap and all of our product managers aligned with our product strategy,
- Writing user stories and other product documentation that operationalise our product strategy.
My role is all-encompassing, and meetings can be about almost anything at Leadzai. I can be discussing the high-level implications of our pricing strategy on campaign performance in one meeting and, in the next, get pulled into the weeds of how our in-house AI technology uses similarity matching models and reinforced learning methods to suggest Ad Groups that are closely tied to our client’s businesses.
A non-insignificant amount of time can also be spent talking about one of my two cats. In true cat fashion, they crave the spotlight and tend to climb all over me. They also try to sit on my head at the most inappropriate moments.
Are you intrigued by Leadzai's captivating Product Team journey? Explore our career opportunities here if you're ready to make a lasting impact.
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