Driving Outcomes Together:
DoiT's VP of Product Management, Ryan Pugatch, shares his perspective on Product Management.
Introduction
Hi all, my name is Ryan Pugatch, and I am based in Boston, MA, in the US. I’m a product leader with 20 years of experience spanning media, tech, e-commerce, and professional services. I am passionate about solving problems, building relationships, and driving strategy. Outside work, I enjoy walking my 13-year-old Maltipoo with my wife and capturing moments through my camera lens as an aspiring amateur photographer.
About Your Role & Vision
Journey to Leadership:
What inspired you to pursue a career in product management, and how did your journey lead you to DoiT? Why did you leave EY to come to DoiT?I started my career originally as a technical individual contributor (Systems and Network Admin). I was fortunate to find myself in a rapidly growing company, so I had the opportunity to grow into a leadership role and build a global team. Over time, across different industries, I started getting closer to the strategic side of technology and focusing on business outcomes. I enjoyed that more than the nitty-gritty details of software engineering, and I really enjoyed mentoring people and seeing their careers grow. Along the way, I also got an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, which helped me bolster my business and leadership skills. So, I naturally gravitated toward strategy and, subsequently, into product management.
I joined DoiT for several reasons:
- The opportunity to become the VP of Product Management at DoiT is a culmination of the different aspects of my career. It’s an opportunity to apply my technical background as someone who would have been a customer of DoiT (and thus have a lot of understanding and empathy for our customers), plus the ability to bring my strategic and organization-building expertise, together with the domain and industry expertise I have in cloud management, FinOps, data and analytics, and several other key areas.
- As DoiT is a growing yet nimble company, it allowed me to make a more significant impact on the organization, both internally and for DoiT’s customers. I wanted to drive more outcomes and achieve more in a high-performing organization while being closer to customers.
Vision for Product Management:
What is your vision for the product management team at DoiT, and how do you plan to achieve it?Product management is a team sport. I’m big on collaboration and creativity. I am ensuring that product management is helping to synthesize and align the company toward the goals and outcomes we hope to achieve and the value we strive to bring to our customers. The better we do with this, the more empowered all of our employees across the company can be to “do it” and help meet our goals and bring customer value.
One of my major priorities right now is ensuring our product management team and R&D organization are set up for success. This means having the right ways of working and ensuring we have the right rhythm to how we execute in a scalable way. It also means ensuring that our product managers are in a good position to engage with our customers and really understand their needs.
Lastly, our organization needs to be data-driven, and we must ensure that the correct data is readily available. This is key to making decisions quickly, especially in a fast-moving organization.
Defining Success:
How do you define success for the product management function in a fast-growing organization like DoiT?I could talk about how success in product management means meeting goals, OKRs, KPIs, etc. And sure, that is important, don’t get me wrong. However, in a fast-moving and growing organization that is developing products in a quickly evolving space, one of the most significant success factors will be whether or not we have a well-oiled machine for turning customer problems and needs into product capabilities and solutions. Thus, I’m keen to ensure that we can demonstrate and measure how ideas come into our team and turn into value for customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It’s also critical that we articulate our strategy and where we are focusing with the product so that our stakeholders, customers, and partners know what to expect!
Insights for Candidates
Expectations for Product Managers:
What key traits and skills do you look for in product management candidates joining your team?I’m a fan of Ravi Mehta’s product manager skills framework. I leverage the framework to consider the skills of a product manager across these four dimensions: product execution, customer insight, influencing people, and customer strategy. Each person will have different strengths across the dimensions, and the amount of time a person will spend on each depends on their role and seniority. However, my goal is to ensure we have a well-balanced team across these dimensions and strike a balance between domain expertise and product management expertise. I always want to have diverse voices and experience on the team to ensure we have the best ideas.
I also look very closely for customer-centricity and that candidates demonstrate a knack for driving outcomes, not just features.
Another fundamental trait I look for is natural curiosity. A good product manager is always curious, asking questions, and trying to understand why, what, how, etc.
Lastly, I look for a demonstrated history of a strong problem-solving mindset and systems thinking. These are some of the most essential skills. If you are a strong systems thinker and problem solver, you will be successful even if you are diving into an area where you lack experience or expertise.
Team Dynamics:
How do product managers collaborate with other teams, such as engineering, marketing, and sales?Within R & D, product managers should work very closely with engineering and design. I view product, design, and engineering managers as the triad accountable for goals and outcomes. When it comes to solving problems and making things happen on a day-to-day basis, while each function has its own responsibilities, I really want to see these people work together, be creative, and do what is needed to deliver. For example, while the product manager may own the product brief/requirements artifact, I love to see other functions contributing to the document—especially for a technical product where the person with the most information to bring to the table may be an engineer. Likewise, I love seeing a curious product manager get into the weeds of new technology to help the team succeed.Functions like sales and support are also vital partners. For one, they are a channel for bringing customer insights and feedback. However, they are also crucial when it comes to delivering new products and capabilities. It’s one thing for the product and R&D team to deliver a feature. It’s another thing to ensure we are building the right thing for the right people and that our customers know about it (and can get the help they need to leverage the capability). That’s where the sales and support teams come in and why we need to ensure they are in the loop on what we are working on so that they can plan accordingly.Likewise, the relationship between product and marketing is key. Again, we need marketing to help us get the word out about our capabilities and features. However, they are also a key resource to help us land the positioning of our offerings and articulate the message we want our existing and potential customers to understand about our capabilities.
Company Culture and Values
Culture Fit:
What aspects of DoiT’s culture set it apart from other companies, especially for product managers?A strong desire to solve problems for our customers is prevalent across the whole company. As a product manager, this is an ideal circumstance because it means we get a lot of insights and inputs to guide our product plans. I think you could talk to any Do’er, regardless of role or what part of the business they are in, and they will have some insight or information that will help us improve our products.
Supporting Growth:
How does DoiT support the growth and development of its product management team members? And how does that resonate with you as a leader?We offer an annual professional development budget and on-the-job training, which are great opportunities to grow and expand skills. We provide these as ways for self-starters to take initiative and learn continuously.
Furthermore, DoiT’s culture of transparency and openness allows product managers to explore various opportunities to contribute, innovate, grow, and be entrepreneurial.
Future of Product Management at DoiT
Innovation and Challenges:
What exciting projects or innovations are on the horizon for DoiT's product management team?It’s an exciting time to be a Product Manager at DoiT! We are investing heavily in expanding our DoiT Cloud Intelligence Platform, both from a feature enhancement perspective as well as bringing in brand new capabilities. I’m most excited about the work we are undertaking to bring together innovative technologies with the amazing cloud expertise we have across DoiT to solve big challenges for our customers. I’m also excited about our continuous effort to stay on top of the rapid advancements in Data and AI to bring new capabilities to our platform and also to help our customers navigate this space.
Evolving Landscape:
How do you see the role of product management evolving in the tech industry, and how is DoiT preparing for these changes?AI is accelerating a paradigm shift that has already begun. More organizations understand that Product Managers must focus on outcomes rather than just feature delivery.
AI is helping Product Managers save time on various tasks, from quickly interpreting large amounts of user feedback to writing succinct product briefs. This will likely free up more time for Product Managers to focus on stakeholder management, customer engagement, product strategy, and driving business outcomes.
The good news is that DoiT is well-positioned for evolution and the changes happening around us. Our product and R&D teams are focused on continuous improvement, which is part of our DNA. We always reflect on how our team is performing and find new ways to make a bigger impact on our customers. We also understand that failure is just a part of learning, so we have a culture willing to experiment and try new things as long as we are learning and continuously improving.
Personal Insights
What’s one valuable lesson you’ve learned in your career as a product management leader?
Regardless of what industry or sector you work in, as a product manager, you are in the business of people. You have engineers, designers, salespeople, marketers, customers, and other stakeholders that are key to your success. What do all of those roles have in common? They are done by people! Cultivate relationships, be helpful, and find opportunities to collaborate. Plus, work is more fun that way!
Join my product team today!
