What A Product Owner At A Foreign Bank Wishes They Had Known Before Entering The Banking Industry
Cynthia, a Product Owner at a Foreign Bank, wished they had known the extent of "influencing others, influencing people, negotiation" required in the role, a skillset extending beyond the individual and team-based work of previous roles as a program list. This highlights the importance of soft skills like empathy and understanding others' priorities for successful product ownership.
Project Management, Communication, Influencing Others, Negotiation, Empathy
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Cynthia Panez Velazco
Product Owner
Foriegn Bank
Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2014
UCLA Anderson School of Management, MBA
Engineering - Industrial
Finance (Banking, Fintech, Investing)
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. Product ownership requires significant interpersonal skills, including influencing, negotiation, and empathy.
2. Success as a product owner involves collaborating with individuals across different departments.
3. Soft skills such as understanding others' priorities and effective communication are crucial for product owners
Transcript
What have you learned about this role that you wish someone had told you before you entered the industry?
I think I prefer to answer these questions in a more general way, not specifically tied to one industry, because I believe the insights apply to several. As a product owner, I wish I had known how much influencing others, negotiation, and similar skills are required.
Before this role, I worked on several projects as a program list. I proposed data and solutions, implemented them, and so on, but it was more individual work or with colleagues on my team.
Really, as a product owner, you go beyond that. You have to knock on doors of people from other departments. It truly requires the soft skills I've been talking about, like being empathetic and understanding what's important to others. Sometimes, it's also about finding the best way to ask for something.
I think that knowledge would have been very helpful.