Ep 98: Offering Management at IBM, Alex Bentley, Product Management Leader & Coach @IBM

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Alex Bentley, Product Management Leader and Coach at IBM, describes the role of an Offering Manager at IBM (IBM has renamed Product Management to Offering Management). Alex has over 10 years of experience working as a Product Manager. He also leads the Associate Offering Manager program at IBM. You can check out IBM's Associate Offering Manager program here: http://ibm.biz/aomprogram Some of the areas that Alex talks about in this episode include: 1. How Offering Management is very similar to Product Management 2. Why IBM renamed Product Management to Offering Management - To emphasize the focus on building a business, as opposed to a product only 3. Difference between Offering Management at IBM and Product Management in some companies and Project Management 4. Examples of projects an Offering Manager might work on 5. How an Offering Manager/Product Manager needs to think like the CEO of the business 6. Examples of metrics that a Product/Offering Manager is evaluated on and how they vary with where the product is in its lifecycle 7. How Product/Offering Managers need to understand incentives of various stakeholders they work with - their customers, as well as internal stakeholders 8. Ability to say No and prioritize is critical 9. How Product/Offering Managers need to be able to context switch a lot. Alex blocks his calendar on Fridays to have some focused time for work. 10. Advice for candidates interested in breaking into Product Managemnt 11. Tons of helpful resources for interested candidates 12. Translate your work into measurable business impact when applying + what you did 13. Alex interviews a lot - common reasons why he rejects applicants for Product/Offering Management roles 14. Skills needed to do well in this job