“HR Talks with IT leaders” is a campaign organized in collaboration between The Recursive and BICA Services, one of the most prominent HR service providers in the Bulgarian market. Our goal is to give more visibility to the knowledge of how great tech teams are built. Every week, we will meet with accomplished entrepreneurs and managers who will share their personal experience and what’s their approach to leadership, communication, hiring, talent development, and much more.
For the fifth article of our series, we met with Mariya Rashkovska – Head of Product Management at PubGalaxy and co-founder of ProductTank Sofia – the first and biggest local product community. Rashkovska is a well-known product specialist in the Bulgarian IT ecosystem. Throughout the years, she occupied product management positions at acclaimed companies, such as Telerik and Financial Times. In May 2020, she joined the team of PubGalaxy – a Bulgarian adtech scaleup that helps publishers worldwide maximize their ad revenue through its end-to-end website monetization platform. Btw, PubGalaxy was just acquired by the fast-growing Dutch scaleup Azerion.
+++ HR Talks with IT Leaders ep. 1: Boyko Iaramov on giving back, transparency and leadership
+++ HR Talks with IT Leaders ep. 2: Radoslav Georgiev on the art of scaling your company fast
+++ HR Talks with IT Leaders ep. 3: Stoyan Angelov on successful team collaboration
In your experience, what are the prerequisites for the development of a strong product team?
Mariya Rashkovska: In a nutshell, leadership, effective management and hiring. First, the product management head needs to clearly communicate with every member of their team the long-term vision for the product as well as the company strategy and the objectives aligned with it. Then, each product team needs to be assigned a clear area of ownership, so that they can autonomously work towards achieving their goals – this is especially important when multiple teams are working to improve the same platform.
All this, however, would still not make a difference without the third crucial component of an effective product team – having the right people in place. Going a bit deeper into the hiring process, a team lead should optimize for hiring people with the skills that are a good fit for the product the company is developing. Not every product manager is suitable for every product or project. For example, a product that is based on machine learning would probably require someone with great data analysis skills whereas a product that requires impeccable user experience would need a person with an eye and passion for UX design.
Determining the right person for the current product life-cycle stage is also vital. Working on a product that is still just a concept or an MVP requires strong entrepreneurial skills as well as the ability to define and prioritize solutions in a complex unstructured environment. Working on a mature product on the other hand is very different because the boundaries there are already well-defined.
What’s your strategy for talent development and creating more product leaders in the local ecosystem?
Using everyone’s strong sides instead of focusing on their weaknesses. At PubGalaxy, every 6 months, we create the so-called “personal growth maps” in which every employee discusses with his team leader their strong and weak points and areas of interest. When it comes to areas that need further development, the two then come up with means to make them stronger through educational training, additional resources, or suitable tasks, and projects in the area.
The role of the team leader in this process is to stimulate and help people to continuously develop new skills and gain knowledge. We have regular feedback sessions at which we discuss what could be improved and what is working well. We strive to focus on every person’s strong sides and assign projects that they are interested and motivated to work on. The ultimate goal is to continuously develop people which in turn would make the product (and the company) stronger.
How would you measure your success as a leader?
First and foremost of course a successful leader must achieve the company goals. In addition to that, at PubGalaxy we conduct quarterly surveys in which each employee can assess the performance of their direct manager by answering 17 structured questions. This is a very useful approach which helps us stay on top of best practices for effective leadership.
Finally, I ask myself if the members of my team would enjoy having a drink with me after work. Such reality check questions help you understand whether or not the rest of your team like your approach to leading and if they accept you as a part of the team. The successful leader has built an emotional connection with their colleagues. It is when team members get inspired by your enthusiasm and see you as a mentor. As a result, they become passionate to develop side by side with you and to develop the company.
In the second part of this interview among other things we explore Mariya Rashkovska’s tips on the recruitment of product talent and her approach to giving feedback to the team.
