My First Semester as a Product Analyst in Blibli
This is the story of my first 6 months as a Product Analyst. I’m currently enjoying my job as a part of the Product Management department because I always learn new things day by day. It’s been really fun!
So a Product Analyst is a part of the Product Management department in Blibli. Other companies may call it Junior Product Manager or Associate Product Manager. The role is considered an entry-level for newcomers, and usually filled by fresh graduates in the company.
Check out this illustration to get the idea of what entry-level and mid-level Product Manager do in a tech company:
I learned a lot of things as a Product Analyst and here are some important lessons that I note during my first 6 months working in Blibli.
- Know your product
I was joining Blibli as a Product Analyst on the customer facing product. Customer facing product includes the apps or web that Blibli customer always access.
As a Product Manager, you have to know the 5W+1H of your product. It is a must to know all the details in each component. You will be the one who bridges the gaps between different functions in the company (the UI/UX team, tech team, and business team). They will come to you when they have questions related to the product your team handles, that’s why you have to really understand everything about your product more than anyone else, like a mom who knows best about her child.
2. Meeting is your daily activity
It’s because all of the initiatives will come to you first. Yes.
As a Product Manager, you have the responsibility to choose which task will be included on each sprint. That’s why, if the business team or another team need support from your team, they will call you first and arrange a meeting to talk about the mechanism and the details.
You will need good communication and negotiation skills in these meetings because you will be facing a list of problems and you will need to participate on the discussion about concerns from each teams, decide on the best solution and the tasks your team could work on at the time being, and also make sure that the things we develop would give impacts in the future.
And that’s why a PM can’t be a yes man.
3. Follow up and check on all the details!
As a PM, you will always have things to do. Being free from meetings doesn’t mean you’re free from responsibilities. Here are the things you can do at this step:
a. Create or check the list of tasks included in the current sprint, or you can start preparing tickets for the next sprint.
b. Next, follow up on the status of the task that has to be done by other teams related to yours. We have to make sure all of the plan that we have arranged will be delivered on schedule and that we don’t miss anything.
c. After that, don’t forget to check the product to make sure everything works well and the user experiences the best journey. If we find any bugs on production, immediately report to the tech team (yes, you will need the QA skill as well).
4. Data is your best friend
You can use data to find out which part of your product works and which part doesn’t. If according to the data your product is not working, then you need to analyze “why”. Once you find the answer, try to come up with some recommended actions. It can be an improvement or a new feature, make sure to also prepare the details.
Don’t forget to explain why you recommend that solution and be prepared with the requirements, the user journey, and the benchmark from competitors. You can also recommend A/B testing to find the best solution (remember to note the details of the area that you want to test).
Beside those 4 points, I also have compiled a series of general questions and answers you can learn from.
Question: What’s the workflow look like when the team wants to develop a new feature?
Answer:
According to my experience, the step-by-step process of how we get ideas transformed into a product is more or less like this:
- PM and business team usually come up with some initiatives.
- PM will list the details, get to know the problems, find supporting data, research result, and user needs to cover the use cases; and present some solutions. The best solution will be decided during your daily meetings.
- Next, the UI/UX team will provide the user flow. Then we arrange a meeting to check if the proposed flow has all the cases covered, and to check the possibility from the tech side. Once it’s clear, the UI/UX team will provide the mock-up and hand it over to the tech team.
- The tech will develop the feature.
- The team will check on the result to make sure that it meets the acceptance criteria.
As you can see, PM is included in every step of development.
Question: What are the differences between a UX designer and a PM?
Answer:
I think the picture above is clear enough to explain the differences.
In short, PM is responsible to make decisions and to coordinate with a different department. As the decision maker, PM handles the end to end process in all sectors.
Meanwhile, UX designer is more responsible on developing wireframes and task flow based on user needs. The UX team then work on the user journey, and the PM will decide if we can bring that journey to development or not.
Question: How to start a career in product management?
Answer:
Start with your CV!
This is one of the CV template recommended in Cracking the PM Interview book. What to include in your CV?
- Relevant experiences. It can be your internship experience, your part-time job, freelance job, etc.
- Contribution on related projects. This can be school project or real project that comes from your client.
- Participation in school organization, community, or online courses.
- Participation in competitions.
If you’re interested to become a product manager, I highly recommend you to join an internship program. It allows you to experience the day to day role as a PM and what kind of things that you can improve from yourself. Try to explore and challenge yourself more and more, it would give big impacts to your career path.
You can also read articles I’ve written in my Medium about my experiences since high school until now. Hopefully it could help you find your dream job, especially in the product management field.
Lastly..
Based on my experience, being a full timer for the first time is quite a shocking experience. There are so many challenges that you will face. You will find many surprises. But it’s been enjoyable for me.
As a former fresh graduate, I hope you can do your work well and never give up. If you’re looking for a job, I hope you will find the right job for you soon!
“Our progress, the realization of our dreams, and the quality of our life depend directly on the level of our commitment to the process.”
― Dr Prem Jagyasi
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via direct message on any social media or my LinkedIn.
If you’re interested in applying for a full-time position or intern, Blibli is currently hiring! Send your resume to recruitment@blibli.com and get the chance to work with our PM and UX team and our own unique stories.
