Vikrama Dhiman's Blog

Recently, I interviewed the Chief Products Officer, Make My Trip, Amit Somani at the Scrum-India NCR Meetup. The meetup was held at Xebia India Labs, Gurgaon (great hosts as always).

The talk was on the theme "Product Manager 2.0 : Beyond Product Ownership". It was a rich talk and touched on a variety of aspects of Product Management - right from hiring to culture to growth to metrics. The talk video is available below. It goes roughly like this:

1. First 3 minutes : Journey of Amit Somani to CPO, MakeMyTrip.com
2. Next 6 minutes (up to about 9 minutes): What does it take to crack a Product Manager Interview at Make My Trip
3. Next 4 minutes (up to about 13 minutes) : Where should Product Managers be recruited from
4. Next 7 minutes (up to about 20 minutes) : Product Management at Google
5. Next 6 minutes (up to about 26 minutes) : Why is the culture of building and excellence so less in India?
6. Next 4 minutes (up to about 30 minutes) : Role of Product Manager in an Agile and Scrum world
7. Next 6 minutes (up to about 36 minutes): Integration of Product and Services side in B2C portals like MakeMyTrip, and the role of Product Managers
8. Next 2 minutes (up to about 38 minutes) : What's the conversion rate for users to customers at MakeMyTrip, and is this a Product Manager metric
9. Next 3 minutes (up to about 41 minutes) : What is the role of Research in Product Management, and what role do Product Managers play in Positioning
10. Next 2 minutes (up to about 44 minutes) : Why is it hard for companies to be customer focused unlike say Google
11. Next 6 minutes (up to about 50 minutes) : Does Indian culture comes in the way of Innovation or following your passion
12. Next 3 minutes (up to about 53 minutes) : Does Domain Knowledge matter for Product Managers?
13. Next 4 minutes (up to about 57 minutes) : Who makes the best Product Manager?
14. Next 3 minutes (up to about 60 minutes) : How do you decide if a product has reached its shelf life?
15. Next 4 minutes (up to about 64 minutes) : When should a startup look to hire a Product Manager?
16. Next 4 minutes (up to about 64 minutes) : How would you respond to Product Managers, who say that "They did not have the authority to get things done"
17. Last few minutes : Book recommendations