Productside Webinar

How Product Managers Excel in a Time of Crisis

Date:

07/15/2021

Time EST:

1:00 pm
Watch Now

You or your team are now working remotely—let‘s discuss the challenges you are facing in coordinating product efforts. What challenges are your products and services facing now?

In this webinar, we’ll discuss how your fundamental skills as a Product Manager can serve you well in this time of crisis. We’ll consider how you can go faster to react more rapidly to the sudden, huge shifts in demand and market needs we’re seeing right now. We’ll also provide some tips on which shortcuts you can safely take—and which you shouldn’t. If the turmoil outside your company isn’t enough to deal with, we’ll also provide some tips and resources on how to keep you and your product team productive in these dynamic and challenging times.

We’re going to shake things up with this webinar, splitting the time up in two sections. First, we’ll briefly go over the topics above to give you the tips and resources you need to survive and even thrive during this time, personally and professionally. Then we’ll provide a longer Q&A time in an “Ask Me Anything” style to answer questions you have that are specific to your business, products, and market situation. We’ll have a few extra expert Product Managers on-hand to give you multiple perspectives on the issues you want to talk about.

Welcome & Setting the Stage

Rina Alexin | 00:00:00–00:02:40
Hello everyone, welcome and good morning. My name is Rina Alexin and I am the CEO of Productside. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We know that things are certainly moving fast right now. At Productside, our goal has been to address the challenges the product management community is facing head-on. We listened, and we felt that the best way we could help was by creating communities and spaces for learning.

I hope some of you were able to join us at last week’s event, where we did an “Ask Me Anything” live event on Facebook. A video of that is available on our Facebook page and I’ll be posting the link so you can feel free to watch that.

Today we’ll be covering some tips for managing as a Product Manager throughout this crisis, and I am very, very pleased to be joined today by Roger Snyder, our Vice President of Marketing at Productside.

Rina Alexin | 00:02:40–00:03:30
Roger has over 25 years of experience in product management, leading teams at Openwave, Immersion, and Microsoft. As a consultant and trainer for Productside, Roger has worked with companies in all sorts of industries, including consumer products, technology, health insurance, and professional services.

Thank you for joining us, Roger.

Roger Snyder | 00:03:30–00:03:55
Thank you, Rina. Good morning, everyone.

Rina Alexin | 00:03:55–00:05:00
I’d also like to welcome our guest today, Sam Stone. Sam is a Product Lead at Opendoor. Opendoor is a late-stage startup focusing on making it easier to move by allowing homeowners to sell their homes instantly.

Sam oversees the company’s machine learning and data products group, which leverages algorithms to buy and sell residential real estate. Prior to joining Opendoor, Sam was a co-founder of an HR software startup, and he has a background in consulting and investing.

Thanks for joining us, Sam.

Sam Stone | 00:05:00–00:05:15
Thanks for having me, Rina.

Rina Alexin | 00:05:15–00:05:40
I’d also like to give a shout-out to our own Nicole Solas from our marketing team, who is helping us today. She has been putting in a lot of work promoting and creating this webinar for all of us and will be helping me moderate the questions. Thank you so much, Nicole.

Housekeeping & About Productside

Rina Alexin | 00:05:40–00:08:10
So for now I’d like to go over a few housekeeping items for this webinar.

After the webinar, please stay engaged with the product management community. Get connected with your peers. You can join our LinkedIn group, but there are certainly many resources out there for you. Stay together—this is an important time to do that.

I’ll be pasting a URL into the chat box so you can join our LinkedIn group and stay positive. Right now it’s crazy out there, and what we can do as a community is to make sure that we’re not just focusing on negative media, but we’re staying positive and staying together.

At Productside, we really do love interacting with our fans. During this webinar we encourage you to ask questions and give feedback. You can use the chat box on the right of your screen to type in questions or comments at any time.

We will, of course, leave plenty of time for Q&A at the end of the webinar—in fact, for this webinar we’ll be leaving most of the time, I think about 30 minutes, for Q&A.

I’d like to address our most popular question up front, which is:

“Can I watch the webinar later?”

And the answer is: yes. All registrants will receive a link to view this webinar recording after it has ended.

Rina Alexin | 00:08:10–00:09:30
On to the agenda for today’s webcast. First, I’ll take a minute to introduce Productside, and then we’ll go over what you can expect from our Product Management Leadership webinar series, after which I’ll be turning things over to Roger and Sam.

At Productside, our mission is to empower product managers to do great product management and become product leaders. We do that with our methodology and framework, the Optimal Product Process, which was designed by senior product leaders with a combined 150 years of experience.

It’s a powerful framework and it works for products in any industry, at any stage of the lifecycle, and with any development methodology.

I’m also really proud to introduce a brand new product that we launched this week: the online Optimal Product Management and Product Marketing course. It provides everything that you would find in our flagship three-day course. It teaches you all the core skills that you need as a product manager, covers the entire product lifecycle, and is held live online by expert senior product management instructors over two or three weeks.

Courses begin on April 20th, and it’s a wonderful way to learn right at home.

Rina Alexin | 00:09:30–00:10:40
These continue to be project-based virtual workshops. They’re very hands-on, and you’re able to still stay on top of your work because the sessions do not last a full day.

As of today, we’re offering a very special coupon, STAYATHOME500, to encourage you, while you’re at home, to continue learning.

I’ll also be covering a little bit more about what you can get from our Product Management Leadership series. As you know, we’ve been covering various topics throughout the past few months. Our overall goal is to help you grow as a product management professional and leader in your company, and to give you advice on how to improve your teams and take professional development opportunities together.

Our ultimate goal at Productside is to help you build better products, because we believe that when product managers do their job well, all of us are better off as customers.

Today’s audience is a pretty broad mix. We really wanted to share this knowledge with product managers across the whole career spectrum. We see about 62% of you are product managers or product marketing managers, and about a quarter are VP or director level.

Thank you so much everyone for joining us today.

Poll: Current Challenges in a Time of Crisis

Roger Snyder | 00:10:40–00:12:30
Thank you so much, Rina.

Today we’re going to go over a number of different areas of advice: how you can set yourself up for success at home, particularly if you’re not used to working from home; how you can be a product manager in this type of crisis; and how your fundamental skills can really help you in this time.

We’ll start with setting yourself up for success at home, then we’ll talk about getting back to fundamentals as a product manager even in a critical time like this. It’s important to take a breath, remember you’ve got this, and use the skills you’ve gained as a product manager to really assess the landscape and figure out what’s going on with your customers.

Then you’ll make the decision: is it time to do a major change—a pivot—or is it time to make minor adjustments?

We’ll close the content portion with how you can lead your team to victory—some ideas for working with your teams, especially when you and probably most of your team are remote right now.

And then we’ll have a recap of resources. We’ll just recap them here, but in the follow-up email that we’ll send after the webinar, we’ll include links to all of these resources.

After that we’ll move into an Ask Me Anything segment. My intention, if I time this right, is to spend the next 20 minutes or so going over content and ideas that will help you. That will give you time, as you’re listening, to enter questions into the chat box so we can gather those questions. We also have some questions left from our last Ask Me Anything session and we’ll kick off with those.

We’ll try to take as many of your live questions as we possibly can, and we’ll loop Sam into the conversation as well so that we have a good dynamic discussion and can hopefully help you out in this extraordinary time.

Roger Snyder | 00:12:30–00:14:00
I want to kick things off by understanding a little bit better what your challenges are right now. So, Rina, if you could launch that poll.

We’d like to ask: What are your challenges right now?

We’ve given you a few options. I’m sure there may be more challenges than this, but choose the ones that resonate most:

Are your product sales dropping right now?

Is communication and coordination harder because so many people are working remotely?

Are your schedules slipping? Are you finding it challenging to stay on track?

Is your team morale suffering?

Or do you feel like there’s a lack of work-life balance right now?

We’ll leave this open for a little bit so responses can come in.

Sam, while we’re collecting responses, I’d love to ask: how are things at Opendoor or in your community right now? What do you think are some of the hardest things that product managers are going through?

Sam Stone | 00:14:00–00:15:00
Yeah, it’s definitely been a tough time at Opendoor. We’re a heavily operational, in-person company in many ways. We buy and sell homes, and that involves a lot of in-person interactions that are either much harder to accomplish given shelter-in-place orders, or in some cases are simply not allowed to happen right now.

So we’ve had to change pretty much all the ways that we interact with our customers, and we’ve had to do some of that—sometimes as required by law—in a matter of just hours or days.

Roger Snyder | 00:15:00–00:15:55
Thanks, Sam. I’m going to share the poll results now.

About 37% of you reported that the most important challenge is that product sales are dropping. Twenty-eight percent said communication and coordination is harder, 13% said schedules are slipping, 10% reported team morale issues, and 13% said work-life balance is out of balance.

So clearly sales dropping is a big concern, but all of these are real challenges. I kind of suspected that sales would be the biggest one, so that’s where the bulk of my content is focused today.

Working From Home: Setting Yourself Up for Success

Roger Snyder | 00:15:55–00:19:40
Let’s talk about working from home. A lot of product managers are probably used to doing this occasionally, but there may be many of you who have not worked from home regularly, and probably not many of you where your entire team is now working from home.

This first set of tips is more on the personal side: how do you maximize your capabilities as a product manager at home?

The first one is: set up a workspace that helps you be successful.

Ergonomics matter. You want to have a good chair and desk setup. You might want to grab a big screen. When we started working from home, I actually anticipated that this was going to be a while, and I grabbed my big monitor from work and took it home so I’d have the same screen real estate I’m used to having.

My desk chair at home is not the best chair, so on my next trip to the office I may grab my office chair because I’m starting to feel it in my back.

You’re also probably not going to take as many breaks as you’re used to when you’re in the office, so I want to emphasize: take breaks. It’s important.

You also need to establish a routine.

I worked from home for years, and when I work from home I still get dressed. I’m not in bunny slippers, I’m not wearing pajamas. I dress for work, because that puts you in the right mental space.

They always say: “Dress for success” when you’re going to get up in front of a crowd of 200 people—you put on your suit or your best business-casual look. The same thing applies here. You’re showing up for work.

So establish a routine: get up at the same time every day, exercise, get ready for work. That routine helps you mentally separate work and home, even when they happen in the same space.

Roger Snyder | 00:19:40–00:21:00
I also noticed that work-life balance was an issue for some of you in the poll. Try to set some hours that are as consistent as you can make them. If you’re in the middle of a launch, obviously that changes things. But if you can get into a regular routine, that’s going to help you also say “It’s quitting time” at 6 o’clock or whatever the right time is for you—even though there’s always more to do.

Some of you may actually find that there is a little bit more time in your schedule than usual. Set some learning goals. Use this as an opportunity to grow in your career.

Of course we’d love for you to sign up for one of our online training courses, but there are lots of things you can be doing right now: grab a book, sign up for a webinar series—you’re here today, so clearly you’re interested in learning. Keep that going.

Rina Alexin | 00:21:00–00:22:05
I think this is just generally good advice, whether you’re a product manager or anybody else. It actually is probably even more important for product managers, who have to communicate all the time. The boundaries between work and home can blend more and more, so take these tips seriously and really take them to heart.

Sam Stone | 00:22:05–00:22:50
Yeah, I think these tips are great. One thing that I’ve found personally helpful is that now that I don’t have the physical separation of work and non-work time I used to—my commute, leaving my apartment—I try to recreate that transition.

Even something like going for a quick walk around the block at the end of the day just kind of signals to my subconscious that I’m done with work and now I’m going to spend time with my family.

Remote Communication & Coordination

Roger Snyder | 00:22:50–00:26:40
Because product managers are such communicators, communication is crucial right now. If you’re using GoToWebinar, Zoom, or any other tool, video conferencing is critical, but there are a couple of things to put in place that you might not have done before.

You’re used to a daily stand-up if you’re working with your development team, right? I recommend you also start doing “huddles” with other groups.

As soon as we started working from home, I started a daily team huddle with my marketing team so we would sync up every day. Then Rina started an executive huddle as well, so we have a small group of folks who get together for 15 minutes.

It’s the same idea as a stand-up, but now you’re doing it with other groups that you need to stay in sync with: maybe sales, maybe customer support, maybe your extended launch team.

If you’re approaching a launch in eight weeks, you probably want to start having bi-weekly huddles with the larger launch team—not just your core product team.

Use the same basic formula as a stand-up:

What did I do yesterday?

What am I doing today?

What blockers do I have?

That allows everyone to quickly surface issues and keep moving.

Another aspect is: write everything down.

Now that you can’t just go over to the cube next door, you want to be using tools like Slack or other messaging tools, have quick Zoom meetings, but you also want to document decisions.

Use whatever collaboration tools you have—Asana, Trello, Jira, SharePoint, Confluence—so that everybody stays in sync not only through verbal communication, but through written decisions and shared information.

Roger Snyder | 00:26:40–00:28:25
If you’re distributed across time zones, establish some communication norms.

I once had a team distributed across Ukraine, Canada, Hong Kong, and here in California. We created a simple one-page document that each person filled out:

Here are my normal work hours

Here’s the best way to get hold of me for responses within a day

Here’s the best way to get hold of me if you need a response within 30 minutes

Here’s how to get hold of me in an emergency

That way everyone knew what to expect and what was okay. It also makes it clear what your boundaries are, which helps a lot with work-life balance.

Once you establish those work hours, be there. Be available. Your team is going to turn to you more frequently right now and rely on you to be that point of coordination.

Rina Alexin | 00:28:25–00:30:15
We’re getting some questions about this in the chat, and I want to bring up one that I think a lot of people can relate to.

In addition to communication and everything else we listed as challenges, schools and daycares are closed. So how can you continue your professional life while also having kids at home expecting to be homeschooled?

Roger Snyder | 00:30:15–00:32:10
That’s a great point. One thing I’d suggest is to calendar time as a household to talk about it.

Make it something of a game, especially if you have younger kids. Let them know: “Right now I have a webinar, this is an important meeting, so I can’t be interrupted for the next hour.”

I actually forgot to do this today—I should have put a little sign on my door that said “Webinar going on right now, please be quiet.” My daughter, who is also working from home—she’s a high school junior—came in and grabbed a printout. I don’t know if you noticed on camera, but she came in.

So put a simple sign up when you truly can’t be interrupted, but use that sparingly.

The rest of the time, try to be a little more available. Take 15-minute breaks and touch base with them. Your school district should also be publishing a set of resources you can use to keep your kids engaged in learning. And if you don’t have those, reach out.

The key is: be intentional. Plan your day with your family, not just your team.

Back to Fundamentals: Product Skills in a Crisis

Roger Snyder | 00:32:10–00:36:50
Now I want to emphasize something important: get back to fundamentals. Don’t panic.

As a product manager, it’s important that you deeply understand your customers. This is a critical time to get back to basics.

First, review your segments and personas.

Ask yourself:

Are there new customer segments emerging?

Are existing segments changing in size or behavior?

Are personas shifting?

Then do customer research, because things are changing rapidly.

In normal times you might schedule a series of in-depth customer interviews, ethnographic studies, or usability tests. Those are still valuable, but in this environment you also need faster feedback loops.

So lean more heavily on methods that give you rapid signals:

Surveys

User behavior analytics

Sales reports

Customer service reports

Digital usage data

Interview if you can, but augment that with high-frequency data.

Then look for new needs that are emerging and size the opportunity for those needs. Don’t immediately run after what looks like a cool new idea.

You want to ask:

How many customers are going to have this problem?

How often are they going to have it?

How much value would we create if we solved it?

Roger Snyder | 00:36:50–00:40:30
Let me use a concrete example.

Imagine you run a grocery shopping app. If you had a grocery shopping app in the past, what has happened in the last three weeks? A lot.

Segments: maybe there aren’t brand-new “grocery shoppers,” but the composition of who is doing the shopping may have changed. With so many people working from home, household responsibilities are being split differently. In my case, I’m now working from home every day, my college-age child is home again, my wife is still going into the hospital because she’s a nurse—so we’re divvying up tasks differently than before.

Personas: if your app was primarily used by one primary shopper per household, now maybe you have multiple shoppers in the same household. Some of them don’t know the usual brands or quantities you buy. That’s a change in persona behavior.

If you look at your journey map or a jobs-to-be-done framework, you’ll see new problems emerging:

The need to coordinate a shopping list across family members

The need to keep track of who has already bought what

The new pain of shortages

So we’re zooming into the problem space and seeing new, concrete problems your customers are trying to solve.

You can then do quick surveys, talk to customer service, look at spikes or drops in particular SKUs in your data, and quickly validate: “Yeah, this is real.”

Innovating in a Crisis: New Benefits & Whole Product Thinking

Roger Snyder | 00:40:30–00:45:20
Once you’re clear on the problems, then you can start thinking strategically about the solution space.

For our grocery app example, here are some new benefits you might consider:

Multi-shopper coordination
Can you support a shared list so multiple household members can add items and see updates in real time? As soon as one person checks off “almond milk,” everyone else sees that it’s done.

In our house, three of us bought almond milk on the same day—that was not good planning. Your app could solve that.

Shortage-aware shopping
If there are shortages of particular products, how do you help your customers?

Could you add a feature that says, “This item isn’t currently in stock here—tap to search nearby stores within a five-mile radius”?

Could you learn restocking patterns of local stores and show, “This store usually restocks this product on Friday mornings,” and notify users?

If you already have some of these capabilities, this might be a marketing opportunity: now is the time to highlight them.

So this is not just product; it’s product and marketing working together.

You also want to look at it from a whole product perspective. If you can’t immediately change the core product, what else can you do?

Pricing & financing – Can you offer more flexible payment terms?

Customer service – Can you offer new digital support options?

Delivery and channels – Can you add curbside pickup, new delivery partners, or contactless options?

Maybe you can’t pivot the core product quickly, but you can pivot how it’s delivered, how it’s purchased, or how it’s supported.

Roger Snyder | 00:45:20–00:47:20
Let me give a simple marketing example.

I was working out the other day and saw a new Pillsbury commercial for biscuits. The ad didn’t mention COVID or coronavirus at all. It simply acknowledged: “You’re spending more time at home—make a new tradition where Dad makes breakfast on Saturday morning.”

Then it showed him making breakfast sandwiches using Pillsbury biscuits.

They didn’t change the product. They changed the context and showed a new use case that fit the moment. That’s whole-product thinking and smart marketing.

So even if you can’t change your product right away, think about how to reposition it for emerging needs.

Time to Pivot? Frameworks, PESTEL & Scenario Planning

Roger Snyder | 00:47:20–00:51:10
Now let’s talk about the big question: Is it time to pivot?

I want to start by saying:

Whatever your product process is today, don’t abandon it.

If you’re already using the Optimal Product Process—or any solid product process—use it. You might move through it faster, you might choose some shortcuts, but don’t throw it away.

Good processes force you to ask the right questions:

What problem are we solving?

For whom?

How big is the opportunity?

What are the alternatives?

What are the risks?

In a crisis, you want to move faster, but you still want to make decisions intentionally.

One tool I recommend is a quick PESTEL analysis:

P – Political

E – Economic

S – Social

T – Technological

E – Environmental

L – Legal

In this environment, for example:

Legal: suddenly restaurants can sell cocktails to-go in some regions; regulations changed almost overnight

Economic: customers are losing jobs or uncertain about income

Social: people are at home, kids are out of school

Technological: remote tools are exploding in usage

A fast PESTEL analysis doesn’t have to take days. You can do a first pass in an afternoon. The goal is simply to zoom out, see the broader landscape, and then zoom back in to ask:

What does this mean for our product?

What opportunities does it create?

What risks does it introduce?

Then you want to think both short-term and long-term.

Ask:

What can we do in the short term that has immediate impact?

Which of those short-term changes are worth building as long-term capabilities?

Some changes are clearly temporary—like curbside cocktails. Others might be things you “should have been doing all along” and are worth investing in after the crisis.

Roger Snyder | 00:51:10–00:53:50
We’re also in a time of extreme uncertainty.

There’s a great McKinsey article that talks about planning your future when there are so many variables. The key idea is to develop multiple scenarios:

A conservative scenario

A moderate scenario

An optimistic scenario

For each one, sketch out:

What happens to demand?

What happens to revenue?

What happens to constraints—like supply, staffing, regulations?

You don’t have to be perfect. But by thinking through known unknowns and unknown unknowns, you’ll be better prepared to adjust quickly as reality unfolds.

This is especially important for PM leaders—directors and VPs of product. When you walk into an executive meeting with a couple of thoughtful scenarios, you’re not just reacting; you’re leading.

So to summarize this piece:

Keep your process, move faster, but be deliberate

Use PESTEL to scan the environment

Think in short-term and long-term horizons

Use scenario planning to prepare your team and your stakeholders

Leading Your Team: Calm, Context & Collaboration

Roger Snyder | 00:53:50–00:56:40
We’ve talked about your customers; now let’s talk about your team.

As a product manager, you’re not just a roadmap owner—you’re a leader, whether you have the title or not.

One of the most important things you can do right now is to be a steady hand.

If you panic, everyone around you will panic. If you’re calm, focused, and transparent, your team will feel more grounded.

A few concrete tips:

Share context frequently.
Don’t assume people know what leadership is thinking or what the business is facing.

Use cross-functional “product roundtables.”
Bring sales, marketing, customer support, and engineering together. Sales is hearing things. Support is hearing things. Marketing sees changes in campaign performance. Use that collective intelligence.

Recognize the emotional load.
People are worried about their health, their families, their finances. Make space for that. It’s okay to start a stand-up with “How’s everyone doing?”

Be transparent about trade-offs.
If you’re deferring some projects to focus on others, explain why.

Sam Stone | 00:56:40–00:59:40
I’ll add one thing we’re doing at Opendoor.

I’d say before coronavirus, maybe 20% of my time was focused on communication between individual contributors and the executive team. Today it’s probably 70%.

This is not a one-time all-hands where you say, “This is what coronavirus means for our business.” We did that in mid-March, and by the next day, some of the assumptions had already changed.

So it’s an ongoing process:

As of today, what does this mean for the business?

What do we think is going to happen?

And just as importantly: what are we unsure about?

Then we ask our teams:

“Given your expertise on this part of the business, where might we be wrong?”

That two-way communication is crucial.

Roger Snyder | 00:59:40–01:01:10
I’d also say: celebrate wins, even small ones.

If your team ships a feature that helps customers navigate this crisis, celebrate it. If someone runs a great customer interview, celebrate it. The more you can keep people in touch with the impact of their work, the more resilient they’ll feel.

Q&A Highlights

Rina Alexin | 01:01:10–01:02:00
We’re going to move into Q&A now. There are a lot of great questions coming in, so we’ll try to get through as many as we can.

If we don’t get to your question live, we’ll follow up with a blog post afterward addressing some of the ones we missed.

Audience Question | 01:02:00–01:03:30
“Is my existing roadmap even relevant? Should I throw it out and start over?”

Roger Snyder | 01:03:30–01:05:10
Hopefully it’s still somewhat relevant. If you’ve done a good job of developing your roadmap based on real customer needs, a lot of it is probably still solid.

What I’d suggest is: as you do the research we’ve talked about—new customer problems, new constraints—re-prioritize.

You might postpone some items. You might bring forward others. You might add a few things that weren’t there before.

I would not throw your roadmap away, but I might slide it out in time. Make room for a couple of high-impact things you can do now, while keeping your long-term strategy in sight.

Audience Question | 01:05:10–01:06:30
“What do we do about products that have finished scoping but have not yet been developed? How do those compare to new post-corona ideas?”

Roger Snyder | 01:06:30–01:08:20
Great question. I’d come back to consistent prioritization criteria.

Look at the items already in your pipeline: you probably had some rationale for each one—market size, revenue potential, strategic value, margin, etc.

Now evaluate your new ideas with the same criteria:

What’s the market size?

How urgent is the need?

What’s the revenue or strategic impact?

Once you’ve done that, you can line them up side by side. Some of the “old” projects will still win. Some of the new ideas might clearly outrank things in your pipeline.

The key is: use the same lens for both.

Audience Question | 01:08:20–01:09:40
“How do we deal with massive layoffs and restructuring? That’s a big challenge you didn’t have in the first poll.”

Roger Snyder | 01:09:40–01:12:00
You’re absolutely right—and I want to acknowledge that directly.

I’ve been through several business cycles in my career, on both sides of layoffs. It’s hard.

If you’ve been laid off, you’re still the same capable product manager you were before.

Take a little time to process and grieve—that’s human.

Then, when you’re ready, look at this as an opportunity to re-invest in yourself.

Identify skill gaps you want to close and use this time, as much as you can, for learning.

If you’re a “survivor”—still in the company—then do everything you can to make every dollar count.

Be a team player. Sometimes the right call is to say, “We should invest in this other product, not mine, and here’s why.”

Volunteer to help where the company needs it most, even if it’s not your original product.

And for everyone: this is the time to take care of each other. Reach out to colleagues and friends who’ve been affected. A quick message can mean a lot.

Sam Stone | 01:12:00–01:13:30
I’d add: be transparent.

Don’t tell your teams “Everything is fine” if you don’t know that for sure. I don’t know many businesses right now that can say with high confidence, “We’re definitely going to be fine.”

It’s much better to say:

Here’s what we know

Here’s what we don’t know

Here’s what we’re doing about it

People can handle bad news better than uncertainty mixed with silence.

Audience Question | 01:13:30–01:14:50
“Is product-led growth more relevant now than sales-led growth?”

Roger Snyder | 01:14:50–01:16:20
I think both have a role, and it depends on your business.

Product-led growth is powerful, especially when customers can self-serve, try, and adopt digitally—that’s very relevant right now.

But don’t underestimate the value of your sales teams. They often have the closest relationships with customers, especially in enterprise. They can bring you early signals about new needs and constraints.

I’d say: lean into product-led growth where it fits, and also treat sales as a discovery channel. Just be sure to run what you hear through your product process, not simply react feature-by-feature.

Closing & Next Webinar

Rina Alexin | 01:16:20–01:18:15
We’re just about out of time, so I’d like to start wrapping up.

First, thank you to Roger and to Sam for sharing your experience and your advice. And thanks to all of you for joining us today and for the thoughtful questions you asked.

Our next webinar in this series is going to be focused on how women in product can get the recognition they deserve. We’ll be joined by executive coach Linda Thompson, who will be hosting that webinar with us.

It will be on Thursday, April 16th, and we’ll share a registration link in the follow-up email.

I’m really proud of the product management community at large. This is a hard time, but I’m seeing a lot of really positive, inspirational things out there—people helping each other, sharing resources, and being generous with their knowledge.

So stay connected, stay inspired, and stay safe, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Webinar Panelists

Roger Snyder

Principal Consultant at Productside, blends 25+ years of tech and product leadership to help teams build smarter, market-driven products.

Rina Alexin

Rina Alexin, the CEO of Productside holds a BA with honors from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is also a member of the AIPMM.

Sam Stone

VP of Product & Design, EvenUp

Webinar Q&A

Product Managers can excel in a crisis by returning to fundamentals: deeply understanding changing customer needs, prioritizing value-driven initiatives, and rapidly validating assumptions. Effective crisis leadership requires clear communication, fast decision-making, and the ability to guide cross-functional teams through uncertainty using frameworks like customer research, lightweight roadmapping, and scenario planning.
When sales decline, PMs should quickly analyze customer behavior shifts, conduct rapid surveys, review usage analytics, and identify new customer pain points created by the crisis. This allows PMs to pivot fast—adjusting pricing, packaging, messaging, or features—and creating short-term wins that stabilize the business while planning longer-term product strategy adjustments.
During uncertainty, PMs should re-evaluate their roadmap using frameworks like PESTEL, impact/effort matrices, and opportunity sizing. Prioritize features that address urgent customer needs, improve retention, or reduce churn. PMs should also run shorter planning cycles and reassess priorities weekly to account for rapid market shifts.
Successful remote PM leadership includes establishing consistent communication rituals (standups, huddles, and written updates), documenting decisions transparently, aligning team expectations, and reinforcing outcomes over outputs. PMs should also help maintain team morale by offering clarity, reducing ambiguity, and supporting healthy work-life boundaries.
A PM should consider pivoting when data shows sustained changes in customer behavior, unmet needs emerge, or current offerings lose relevance. A pivot may involve repositioning the product, launching new value-add capabilities, altering pricing, or adjusting distribution channels. PMs should validate potential pivots quickly using customer feedback and short discovery cycles.