Understanding Google's Product Culture
In the last lesson we shared Google's formula for high-performing teams. Let's dive into Google's product culture for a little more context before we begin our story bank.
To recap, cross-functional collaboration interviewers are looking for:
- Thoughtfulness around how teamwork is critical for product success, and how good collaboration is critical for team success.
- Self-awareness around how PMs affect the product team, and desire to act in a way that brings out the best in each team member.
- Experience building, maintaining, or contributing to high-performing teams.
Google’s company culture & values
Google’s about page reads “Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google’s core commitments include:
- Building belonging
- Expanding opportunity
- Protecting users
- Responding to crises
- Advancing sustainability
Read this and the product page and identify key themes. For example, “inclusive products”, “safety and privacy protection” and “growth and learning” are featured prominently.
Understanding important company / product themes will help you pick good stories for your story bank in the next lesson.
Tip: Check out Google’s re:Work site (an effort to share Google HR’s data-driven findings on how people work best), The Keyword, Google’s blog, and any company reports that interest you - these are great resources when prepping for product and strategy questions too!
Understanding the product team
Now you’ve got big-picture context, orient yourself to your immediate collaborators - your product team.
Understanding what each collaborator specializes in, needs, and fears, will help you make better decisions for your team, not to mention answer hypotheticals like:
“Your largest customer is loudly advocating for a new feature which is not in your prioritized roadmap. Sales, eager to please, have gone straight to Engineering to see if they can drop everything and get this done. What do you do?”
Your core collaborators will include developers, designers and marketers. You’ll also likely work with analysts / data scientists, and user researchers.
Engineers build and support software products. They often appreciate PMs who take the time to understand all the “invisible” work that goes into this, including infrastructure decisions and non-functional requirements’ definition. Engineers will be frustrated by PMs who assign work without crystal-clear customer needs identified and prioritized, as this often leads to rework.
Designers champion users’ points of view. They care about delivering the best experience possible – which may sometimes conflict with functional or business requirements. As a PM, you can improve your relationships with designers by cultivating a deep, data-driven understanding of users, and sharing your insight early and often. This will help you align on priorities.
Marketers are responsible for the messaging around new products and features. You’ll work closely with marketers to define value props and develop go-to-market strategies. Marketers may be frustrated with PMs who can’t translate the technicalities of features and products into a product vision that will speak to an audience. Of course, this is a huge part of the job as a PM. Your partnership with marketing can seriously hone your user-centricity, so don’t take this relationship for granted.
Here are some tips for working well with any product team member:
- Acknowledge the differences in each team member’s needs and working styles; make sure each is heard and their inputs taken seriously.
- Involve them early and consult them often.
- Learn to speak their language.
- Be data-driven in communicating priorities and decisions.
- Consistently communicate the “why” behind the work.
- When in conflict, remember you all want the same things.