Quali Expands Leadership Team With Key New Hires

David Williams, new vice president of product strategy, brings over 20 years of executive product leadership and is a former Gartner research analyst … Read source

First, the VP of Product will be responsible for most of the company’s revenue. And revenue is the only way to generate profits and grow the company. Even if you are not in the business of making money, you will need to have enough revenue to keep employees and investors happy.

Second, the VP of Product will be responsible for building a competitive product. If you want to build a product that is best in class, you need to have someone who can make decisions based on data, not just opinion and instinct. It’s too easy to succumb to groupthink and worst practices, so you need someone who can lead with intelligence and insight.

The VP of Product should have the following attributes:

Exceptional analytical skills—the ability to synthesize data and make smart decisions based on facts

A track record of leading successful products—they need experience shipping quality products in their careers

A good sense of what users want—this is critical for avoiding common product mistakes (see Chapter 5)

4. The Company Needs A Data Mindset

Data science is the new sexy in technology companies today, but that doesn’t mean everyone gets it. There is still a big gap between companies that understand data science and those that don’t. At some companies, data science is still an afterthought or a specialized function. At other companies, it is viewed as hype or even a threat.

You need to find a company that understands data science and has implemented it across the organization. This means it must have:

A data-driven culture: People at all levels in the organization must understand how to use data effectively (see Chapter 2). This means everyone should be encouraged to use data to make decisions instead of relying on instinct or opinion. This also means everyone must be open to being challenged by data analytics (see Chapter 4). Without this culture, it will be difficult to build a great product analytics team.

A technical infrastructure: The company must have good tools for capturing and analyzing data. If it doesn’t, you will spend most of your time fighting with tools instead of solving problems for your users. You will also spend most of your time writing code instead of thinking about product issues.

An organizational structure that supports analytics—this means everyone in the company must know their role in supporting the analytics function (see Chapter 3). Without this support structure, it will be difficult to get buy-in from senior management or engineers when you need them.

summary

This list of requirements may seem overwhelming, but it is necessary to build a great product analytics team. If you are working with a company that has most of these attributes, you’re ahead of many startups working on product analytics.

But don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Many companies are on their way to becoming great analytics organizations. If you find one with most of these attributes, you will still have a great chance to have a big impact on the business.

Now that you know what to look for in a company, let’s talk about how to assess it.

If you have decided that joining a particular company is the best decision for you, the next step is to figure out if it is the best company for building your career. The company may be perfect for your role, but not perfect for your career growth.