Hi,
I'm mentoring aspiring and growing product managers!
I am leading the purchaser product group on the wlw.de platform as Head of Product, matching the needs of millions of B2B buyers and sellers. I'm driving the strategy and leading product managers, UX and data scientists..
I have been shaping digital teams and products for nearly 20 years: I started as a designer during Germany's dotcom era (2001-2003), studied business and am a self-taught developer. In my past jobs I wore many hats, from COO to education lead for the packaging industry and digital marketeer to NGO CEO. I was a freelancing developer and IT project manager alongside my main jobs for many years. I love to translate between tech and business and have a strong drive to ship and learn from data and users.
My Mentoring Topics
- Product strategy
- Stakeholder management
- Product careers
- Saying No
- Prioritization
- Validating product hypothesis (qualitatively + quantitatively)
- AB Testing
- Unconventional career development
- Personal development
- Productivity
D.
26.July 2022The whole session was very structures. I really liked your approach of asking questions and therefore marking me realize reasons for the problem myself. There was a lot of input I can directly start to work with. As a tiny little thing I think it would have been really helpful to know you want to focus on one specific problem. If I remember correctly this was part of the questions during the booking but honestly I forgot about this as I booked the session more than a week ago. It would have been nice to make this even clearer upfront. But this is really just a tiny little thing as I was overall super super happy with the mentoring and am looking forward to potentially another session in a couple of weeks.
a.
13.February 2022I want to thank Martin for his time, he is a great mentor during our meeting he shared many new ideas and some useful resources that of course will be help me achieve my goals. I really appreciate all what he has done.
And when I achieve some progress, I planning to schedule new session with him again.
A.
10.February 2021Industry shifts, perception of past experiences, book recommendation
B.
28.November 2020MVP, Productization, Networking
M.
17.November 20201. I realised that mentoring is highly underrated and I am glad that I found one from this platform
2. I learned how to manage my team difficulties better
3. I received multiple suggestions for the solutions to my problems
The Squiggly Career - The No.1 Sunday Times Business Bestseller - Ditch the Ladder, Discover Opportunity, Design Your Career
Helen Tupper, Sarah Ellis
THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BUSINESS BESTSELLER 'The Squiggly Career is about navigating work in a way that suits you, it's a timely and brilliant handbook for now' Stylist 'A brilliant guide. Read it and get the tools you need to thrive in your career now and in the future' Marie Forleo, author of Everything is Figureoutable 'Logical, practical and based on tried and tested models' Financial Times's Book of the Month Career ladders and jobs for life are a thing of the past Today, we're living in a world of squiggly careers, where moving frequently and fluidly between roles, industries, locations, and even careers, is becoming the new normal. Squiggly careers can feel stressful and overwhelming, but if you know how to make the most of them, they can be full of opportunity, freedom and purpose. And to make the most of our increasingly squiggly careers we need to answer some important questions: What am I good at? What do I stand for? What motivates and drives me? Where do I want to go in the future? In The Squiggly Career, you'll learn how to: - Play to your super strengths - Discover your values - Overcome your confidence gremlins - Build better support networks - Explore your future possibilities Packed with insights about the changing shape of work and inspiration from highly successful people, this book will fuel your growth and help you be happier, and ultimately more successful in your career.
ViewStrong Product People - A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers
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Are you a product leader looking for advice on how to be certain that every product manager on your team lives up to their full potential? Do you want to make sure your product people are competent, empowered, and inspired, and would you like to know how you can best help them on this journey? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then this book is for you! By the end of this book, you will understand: - Why you need to focus on the personal development of every product manager-and of the team as a whole-to unlock their full potential. - Why coaching is an important part of your job, and how to do it in the most effective way. - How you can define what a good product manager looks like. - How you can accurately assess product managers and provide them with valuable, actionable, and helpful feedback on their current performance that will help them perform even better. - Which methods/frameworks you can use to make sure product managers learn what they need to know to be more effective-enhancing their people skills. And you will be able to: - Reflect on your own coaching personality and define your own areas for development. - Efficiently prepare and use one-on-ones as your main coaching tool.
ViewProduct Management in Practice - A Real-World Guide to the Key Connective Role of the 21st Century
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Product management has become a critical connective role for modern organizations, from small technology startups to global corporate enterprises. And yet the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product management is about building products that people love. The real-world practice of product management is often about difficult conversations, practical compromises, and hard-won incremental gains. In this book, author Matt LeMay focuses on the CORE connective skills— communication, organization, research, execution—that can build a successful product management practice across industries, organizations, teams, andtoolsets. For current and aspiring product managers, this book explores:? On-the-ground tactics for facilitating collaboration and communication? How to talk to users and work with executives? The importance of setting clear and actionable goals? Using roadmaps to connect and align your team? A values-first approach to implementing Agile practices? Common behavioral traps that turn good product managers bad
ViewEscaping the Build Trap - How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
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To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
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In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource. In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore: Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics Best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company’s evolution Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders
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S.
28.August 2022The session was great, because Martin guided me with his questions to find the the answers to my original question. It felt like coaching. I could feel that he is dedicated to the idea of the mentoring club, since he offered me follow up sessions to guide me through along the way.
Of course Martin also could tell me more about how he experiences his job, which was very insightful and it was good to get his insights on my current skillset.