Driving alignment and urgency within teams, work-life balance, and the changing PM landscape | Nikita Miller (The Knot, Trello)

Brought to you by Wealthfront—Make smarter stock investments | Lenny’s Job Board—Hire the best product people. Find the best product gigs | Ahrefs—Improve your website’s SEO for free — Nikita Miller is a product leader, angel investor, and advisor. She has built and led product teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to multinationals, and she is currently SVP of Product Management at The Knot Worldwide. Nikita is passionate about scaling product teams to support high-growth businesses and was a product leader at Trello and Atlassian for five years. In today’s podcast, we cover: • Lessons from building and growing Trello • Nikita’s roles and responsibilities framework • How the PM landscape is changing • Lessons about managing remote teams • Tactics for driving urgency within teams • Why working cross-culturally was such a formative experience — Find the transcript and references at: ⁠https://www.lennyspodcast.com/driving-alignment-and-urgency-within-teams-work-life-balance-and-the-changing-pm-landscape-nikita-miller-the-knot-trello/#transcript — Where to find Nikita Miller: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikitadyer • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikitadyer/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Nikita’s background (03:56) How Nikita helped Trello develop enterprise features  (09:41) Trello vs. Jira (10:28) Similarities and differences between building for users at The Knot vs. Trello (15:02) Pro tips for Trello users (15:41) Nikita’s roles and responsibilities framework (21:10) Why scrum masters are disappearing and what shifts are happening on teams (21:56) Why every team should have a data scientist embedded in it (23:27) The proper cadence for the rules and responsibilities framework, and problems around execution (25:27) Outcomes and output (28:34) The importance of urgency, and how to cultivate a sense of urgency (29:52) How to determine if your team is moving quickly enough (31:03) Prioritization between big bets and optimizations (31:29) Questions Nikita asks to understand her team’s speed  (33:30) Changes in the field of product management (36:42) Advice for people who want to get into product (38:40) Why being a PM is hard, and thoughts on work-life balance (43:03) How to manage remote teams and how to do successful, short, in-person meetups (47:59) The importance of having overlapping work hours and onboarding in person (49:09) The advantages of working in different cultures  (52:58) The question Nikita finds most useful (55:07) Lightning round — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Disclosure: I am a Wealthfront client and I have received non-cash compensation for the testimonial in this episode. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe