How To Hire Excellent Product Managers with Matt Lemay

Pragmatic Live Chat

This podcast has some strong language, so if you’ve got any little ones around, you might want to pop in some headphones.

“I think there is just this deep, massive insecurity around hiring product managers. Companies are fearful of hiring the wrong person. So they defer to the perceived wisdom and expertise of others. In doing so, they abdicate their most important responsibility, which is to figure out what they need for that team to achieve its particular goals at that moment, at that company.” – Matt LeMay

In this episode of Pragmatic Live, Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing for Pragmatic Institute, interviews Matt LeMay, partner and principal product management consultant at Sudden Compass.

Matt LeMay is an accomplished product leader who has helped various companies enhance their product management practices. He co-founded Sudden Compass, a consultancy that has helped several organizations such as Spotify, Google, Clorox, and Procter & Gamble with customer centricity. He is also the author of Agile for Everybody and Product Management in Practice.

In this episode, Rebecca and Matt discuss:

  • Hiring the right product manager for your team starts with understanding exactly what your company needs, not simply “what makes a good product manager.”
  • The key quality Matt looks for during an interview with a prospective product manager
  • Why you should switch from clarifying the role of product management to clarifying the goal of product management
  • How to incorporate different frameworks into the hiring process

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  • Pragmatic Editorial Team

    The Pragmatic Editorial Team comprises a diverse team of writers, researchers, and subject matter experts. We are trained to share Pragmatic Institute’s insights and useful information to guide product, data, and design professionals on their career development journeys. Pragmatic Institute is the global leader in Product, Data, and Design training and certification programs for working professionals. Since 1993, we’ve issued over 250,000 product management and product marketing certifications to professionals at companies around the globe. For questions or inquiries, please contact [email protected].

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