In Conversation with Chiemela Ogu

Welcome to the SECOND issue of The PMist Newsletter - a series of insightful conversations with product and project professionals and newsletter articles to help you thrive and excel at work - especially as a new and aspiring product manager! 🚀

In this second issue, we speak with Chiemela Ogu, a product manager with over 6 years of experience building B2G, B2B, B2B2C SaaS, Fintech & Payment products across several industries - power, financial services, mobile payment, social intervention, telecommunication and currently the automotive industry.

The PMist: Thank you for taking out time of your busy schedule to chat with us! Please, introduce yourself and tell us about your career journey so far.

CO: I finished my BSc in 2013 and did my NYSC immediately afterwards. At the time I was big on System/Network Engineering and was almost certain I’ll end up as a lecturer and then professor somewhere down the line. I lived and grew up in and around a University campus (the same one I attended). So this seemed very logical for me. Also my dad worked and retired from the university, while my elder brothers were already lecturing at the time.

I had always been entrepreneurial. In school I sold a lot of phones as a side hustle - all versions of the blackberry phone, tabs, you name it. And I was a bit popular so it helped. I was also involved in school politics in my final year.

After my NYSC in 2014, I started a company with a cousin of mine (at least that’s what we thought). We built a therapy and anonymous counselling product targeting university students. We tried to sell it to a few private universities at the time but it didn’t go well, so we closed shop and moved on. I continued writing academic publications and articles with other lecturers in my department, with the hope that one day I’ll join them officially but that opportunity never came (at least not while I was still available). A lot of things happened between 2014 & early 2017. Let’s just say I tried to get any corporate job available both within my skill set and outside, and none was forthcoming - from banking to telco mast setup to call center agent.

In 2017 I applied for the Executive Trainee Programme (ETP) at Venture Garden Group in Lagos and was selected alongside 10 other participants, and that was the beginning of some formal structure in my career. It was an 18-month hands-on training and the things we learnt and did in those 18 months were simply mind blowing! The absolute best training ground I had ever known. I made lifelong friends both from the Programme and also from the company. I learned about Entrepreneurship (launched a startup with a few ETP colleagues as part of our program deliverables), System Networking, Project Management and eventually Product Management. I met and worked with really influential people and on very significant projects with national impact. It was definitely one of the highlights of my career.

Quite an interesting journey. Thank you for sharing. How was your transition into product management? Did you face challenges? How did you overcome them?

My transition wasn’t as seamless as I would’ve liked it to be. Coming from a background in computer science and hardware, I’ll say I had the rare privilege to be anything I wanted to be, as part of the ETP I was on. I learned a whole lot and eventually chose product management. At the time, I didn’t understand the difference between project and product management until when I was reassigned from a project I had worked on for several months, it had taken off the ground really successfully and now I was being assigned to something new, to start all over again from scratch. I was really confused. Then my manager told me they were getting a product manager to take over, that the project had now transitioned and my role there was done. I then said to myself - “that’s where I need to be; among those that stay till the very end on a thing”. It was then I started reading a lot more about Product Management, taking trainings and certifications.

I don’t remember any challenge as outstanding/backbreaking, only that working with government clients at the time was a hassle. Deadlines were tighter, their availability weren’t the most flexible and sometimes the product requirements were very ambiguous, but I had the best team for such complexity. We were able to walk through every challenge together. I’ll say the team spirit and bond we created was the secret sauce. We knew the capabilities of each other and the trust in the team was great. I’ve held on to this secret sauce and replicated it in all my teams since then. I’ll say the success rate is on the high.

Take us through your product management experience so far?

I’m a certified product manager with Product Focus, a Certified Scrum Master and Scrum Product Owner. I have over 6 years of experience building B2G, B2B & B2B2C SaaS, Fintech & Payment products across several industries - power, financial services, mobile payment, social intervention, telecommunication, and currently automotive. I have worked in various capacities as a Technology Project Manager, Product Owner, Technical Product Manager, and Senior Product Manager. I think all of these make me a product management generalist, which is also how I like to see myself.

You've gathered such an amazing wealth of knowledge and certifications in Product Management. Let's dive into some practical conversations!

On Gathering Customers Feedback and making Informed Product Decisions:

I think it depends on a lot of factors - type of product, stage of the product in it’s lifecycle, target market, etc. Also there are a bunch of resources around customer feedback generation but I’ve found user interviews, focus group sessions, user data & product analytics to be my best sources. The reason is these options give me an opportunity to ask ‘why’ (both to myself and to the customers in some cases). ‘Why did you click this button and not that?’, ‘Why did you open the burger menu?’ As an inquisitive person I like to understand also the thought process behind how the customers user the product, and I’ve found these methods work great for me.

On features prioritization and roadmap determination:

Features prioritization is an interesting concept and I think a lot of PMs have different ways they go about this. I’ll also like to mention that this is sometimes dependent on the type of company you work with, and the processes in place. I currently work for a large corporate and we use the SAFe framework. Our prioritization is done using the WSJF prioritization model, which essentially looks at the cost of delay, divided by the job duration. The goal being to get the best economic outcome on every decision or work done. The roadmap side of things is then how we breakdown these jobs into program increments (PIs) which run for 8-12 weeks usually, assign them to the relevant Agile Release Trains (ARTs) which are comprised of engineering teams that deliver on those objectives. Again, for anyone who’s not familiar with the SAFe framework, all these might sound a bit new or foreign, but the overall goal in prioritization is to ensure that you’re focusing on what matters most, at every point in time. Sometime last year I got the opportunity to meet Janna Bastow who’s the proponent of the ‘Now/Next/Later’ framework for road-mapping and I think the benefits of her framework are revolutionary. You should check it out.

On measuring product success and determining time for change:

When measuring product success, a lot of things come into consideration. The key element being what you’ve defined to be the success metrics for your product. It’s important to note that sometimes this is not always in revenue terms. Depending on the product, the target market/industry, if it’s a new or existing product, many things can be tracked to measure its success. One sure way is to set out some hypothesis/key metrics/success criterion that must be delivered by the product (before a new launch, new feature added, or just any change from the normal), within a stipulated timeframe. When this is passed, you can say your product is successful. This is best done with all ‘relevant’ stakeholders or critical parties who have stake in the product.

Earlier I mentioned my most preferred feedback mechanisms. So once you have your success factors, you keep monitoring the product performance using those mechanisms. The product data would tell you how users are interacting with the product, where they have the most challenge or spend the most time, where they drop off from, etc. With this you can equally make informed decision. And when all these go in the opposite direction from what was planned, as a product manager you need to make the difficult decision of aligning everyone to a decision to pivot the product in the direction recommended by the data/feedback. I’ll like to include a caveat here that sometimes when you notice your product not performing as planned, the best cause of action may not always be to abort everything and make a pivot decision. Sometimes it may be wiser to remain on that path, double down on maybe marketing or publicity, or whatever else might be relevant. The important thing is to ensure you’re pulling the right lever at all times, before you arrive at a decision to pivot.

On solving challenging problems as a product manager:

This is a really difficult question because I think challenges are a big piece of product management, but one that comes to mind is a time I had a team member who wasn’t a good fit in the team. I’m a firm believer in having the right team (in composition, personalities and morale) working on any product at every point in time, and I ensure nothing breaks or disrupts a team dynamics. For some reason he was having issues working in an Agile team and wasn’t able to keep up with the many changes that came after a customer feedback loop. It didn’t take long till this started to affect the entire team and I had to take it up with him. I tried to explain the situation and the challenge we were facing as a result of his lapse and push backs but he still didn’t come around. We eventually had to ask for him transfer out of the team. I think it was challenging for me because people management is a part of product management I like to solve at the very early stage so I don’t have to come back to it down the line. Dealing with this at the early stage leaves room to focus on the real work. This was a draw back to both me and the team.

On working with cross-functional teams:

Effective collaboration is the key ingredient in this process. As I already mentioned earlier, its important to first get the people management part sorted, so the product development can go on smoothly. Everyone needs to be aware of their role and it’s importance to the product delivery, and ultimately the value it brings to the customers. So it’s my role as the product manager to present this value to the entire team. In a situation where some of the cross-functional members are shared resources (i.e. not fully dedicated to your product), then you need to define a clear working model, a feedback/progress update loop and a realistic timeline with them. This helps eliminate any last minute surprises that can impact on the deliverables.

On balancing short-term and long-term goals during the product development:

I do this by focusing solely on the value that needs to be delivered to the customer. It’s important to have a real-time document of all the goals and objectives you’re exploring or looking to get, preferably spread out over a time period. There are frameworks that can also help you here, if you don’t have full authority on the decision making. I recommend the action priority matrix which just looks at the impact and effort of what needs to be done (computing them between say 0 & 10), and place the goal into different quadrants relative to these two factors. Once this is done, you can directly know where to start, and what needs to be pushed further down the line.

On measuring and communicating the performance of a product to stakeholders:

Since I’ve already shared how to measure a product success, I’ll share how to communicate a product performance - be it failed or successful. The first thing is to understand your stakeholders, their interests and preferences, as it relates to the product and also generally their working model. I’ve found that biweekly/monthly updates (in whatever preferred form your stakeholders want) works well because it’s a realistic timeframe to have made a tangible progress. In situations where there’s a bad news or a sign that a failure is imminently, it’s important to communicate frequently, loudly and early. This is to ensure that the failure is no surprise to anyone, especially when the team has done everything within their power to mitigate it but couldn’t. Also when you have good news, share it with the same energy. Let stakeholders know if you need to shoutout to a particular team member for an exceptional contribution to this success. It shows confidence on the part of PM.

You've dropped really insightful thoughts for the PMists and this shows how informed you are about the PM industry. In light of all the above, tell us how you stay informed and up to date on industry trends and activities of competitors in your field.

A number of ways really. I like to read a lot so I’m mostly always reading a book (not every time on product management). I read a lot of specific articles, I belong to a couple of product management, consulting and tech communities and as such, I get access to real-time updates. I use LinkedIn a lot too and I’m subscribed to a bunch of newsletters from thought leaders I respect. There’s a lot of noise on there right now, so you need to be critical of who you follow and what you are subscribed to. Lastly I have a bunch of friends in the industry and we also just share information amongst ourselves.

My best way to stay updated with competitor activities has been to have PM friends/acquaintances working there and they can easily share these information with me (as long as it’s no trade secret or would cause them to violate any company code). This is always very possible but I don’t think many PMs know this. You just need to ask the right questions.

What advice will you give to PMs looking for global and international opportunities? How should they position themselves and upskill?

First thing I’ll like to say is that the core duties of a product manager are almost the same all around the world. Once you get it right, it doesn’t matter where you come from, you’ll thrive in whichever setting, team or country you find yourself. So the first step would be to learn as much as you can, and then have a track record of the work you’ve done. Having a portfolio can be helpful because you may not yet be a part of a company but may have projects you’ve worked on which would be good to showcase. Prepare a portfolio, work on your resume and cover letter and have it reviewed by professionals in the field. A final key point (which was also lacking in my life at the early stages) would be to have a career mentor(s). The benefits of this can’t be overemphasized. Someone (or people) to guide you, grant you access to bigger opportunities, recommend you for positions, connect you with relevant people and so on. The benefits are endless and it is why I’ve since invested a large part of my time to mentoring because I see it’s a key ingredient necessary for growth.

Chiemela Ogu has a passion for product management, tech consulting and more recently, angel investing. In his spare time, you'll find him visiting a gym, watching movies or playing badminton and football. He has an MBA in Technology Management and a BSc in Computer Science.

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