October 28, 2013 — Product Managers, the unsung heroes of the tech industry, are the “mini-CEOs” responsible for managing every stage a product’s lifecycle, taking it from an executive-level concept and guiding it through development. While they aren’t the direct supervisor of the engineer or designer, they must express a deep understanding of both disciplines to cultivate trust among team members to realize the company’s vision. Last Thursday, dozens of product managers from LinkedIn, Desk.com, Yelp and several other innovative firms across Silicon Valley met at Rocket Lawyer headquarters in downtown San Francisco for a Meetup to share lessons learned, useful tools, helpful processes, and tips and tricks of the trade.
“Product management is a relatively new role in the tech industry,” said Vrushali Paunikar, a product manager at Rocket Lawyer and co-organizer of the SF PM Meetup group. “There are best practices and role definitions floating around in different corners of the internet, but there is a lot of value to be gained from just coming together and sharing experiences with other product managers.”
After kicking off with a fun-filled networking section (with plenty of pizza and beer), attendees sat down to listen to Desk.com’s Vice President of Product, Chris Abad, talk about Design Sprints, their value and lessons learned. Next up, Stan Withouski, another Rocket Lawyer product manager, shared the company’s “Product Development Playbook”, which contains the entire development cycle. To illustrate, Stan walked the audience through one of Rocket Lawyer’s most recent success: the development of its own e-signature service. “It's great to be able to contribute and share our product development process with the tech community,” said Stan. Through events such as this, Rocket Lawyer hopes to help other disruptive firms achieve their visions as we work towards our own mission of leveraging technology to democratize the law.
This article contains general legal information and does not contain legal advice. Rocket Lawyer is not a law firm or a substitute for an attorney or law firm. The law is complex and changes often. For legal advice, please ask a lawyer.
