How To Break Into (& Upskill for) Product, Project And/Or Program Management - w/ Farah
In this episode, featured not-expert is Farah Fallah Toosi. Farah is an Engineering Mgmt student at Purdue with extensive experience as a program slash project manager professional in organizations such as Apple and Capital One bank - having many coveted certifications in her belt including Scrum, Safe and Agile Product Mgmt. Our discussion today is centered around the PM roles - product, project and program management. We go over exactly what each of them entail, the overlaps and differences, and how one can break into each of the above in great detail. Indeed, Farah takes us thru all the skillsets that one has to cultivate for their PM role of choice as well as why, and spoiler alert, those can look very different depending on which “PM” you’re aiming for. Finally, we top it all off by discussing some common criticisms around Agile and whether or not they’re justified, and some amazing resources which I have linked in the description for you to get a strong grip on Agile.
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Resources: https://agilemanifesto.org/ PEAK book: https://a.co/d/10zNJw2 The PHOENIX Project: https://a.co/d/66VvfIP Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction + Background (02:23) Farah's Career Snapshot (04:18) Apple AI/ML EPM Internship + Naman's Brush with Google TPM (07:04) Interviewing for PM Positions (10:47) Understanding Product, Project, and Program Management (14:03) Product Management Deep-Dive (17:46) How Much Tech Expertise Do Product Managers Need? (19:37) PM Roles Analogies to CXOs - WATCH THIS PART!! (21:51) Importance of CSM Certification for Product Managers (23:54) Farah's Passion for PM + Purdue MEM (26:55) Program Management Deep-Dive (29:17) Tools for Program Management (31:48) The Art of Escalation (35:00) It's All About Proactive Communication (37:23) Navigating Change and Adaptability (41:14) Project Management Deep-Dive (44:19) The Future of Individual Contributor PM Roles (47:55) Agile Methodology Criticisms + Farah's PM Certifications Journey (51:53) Agile Resources + Book Recs (Also Linked in Bio) (57:05) Outro + Gratitude
