Biggest Challenges Faced by a Product Manager at Levi Strauss and Company
Kanika's biggest challenge as a product manager at Levi Strauss & Co., compared to her experience at larger tech companies, was "lack of resources and lack of budget," specifically citing a small engineering team resulting in project timelines extending and features being descoped. This limited their ability to deliver on ambitious product roadmaps, highlighting the crucial role of adequate resources in successful product management.
Resource Management, Project Management, Teamwork, Overcoming Challenges, Industry Realities
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Kanika Kapoor
Product Manager
Levi Strauss & Co.
Punjab Technical University
UCLA Anderson school of management- MBA
Engineering - Electrical
Apparel, Beauty, Retail & Fashion
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Took Out Loans, Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. Kanika's experience highlights the importance of resource management and negotiation skills in product management.
2. Her challenges at Levi Strauss & Co., such as limited engineering resources and extended timelines, offer valuable insights into real-world constraints.
3. The contrast between her experiences at Levi's and larger tech companies emphasizes the diverse challenges faced by product managers across different organizational structures and company sizes.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge as a product manager?
My biggest challenge, especially with more recent companies like Levi's, has sometimes been a lack of resources or convincing power. It's not about negotiation or persuasion itself.
It's more that it's simply not feasible. At the end of the day, you're orchestrating a product's success with the help of others who are truly driving it. You can't build a product without your stakeholders, especially the engineers.
So, if engineers aren't equipped to build something, are understaffed, or if there's a high churn rate, and the company isn't prioritizing its technical infrastructure, that becomes a challenge. You come in as a product manager wanting to improve the product you're working on. However, if other parts of the organization aren't aligned with you, it's going to be difficult.
With Levi's, my biggest challenge was working with only two to three engineers. This wasn't the case at PayPal or other big tech companies, where you always have more engineers – that's your bread and butter.
Working for a company like Levi's, which is primarily a retail company, made it a challenge to get anything done. Even when engineers agreed to build something with a timeline of three months, it would easily extend to six months, which was frustrating. A lot of times, I had to descopce things I had promised to my customers or even my leadership.
I would start with a lofty roadmap for the next year, but sometimes I would only complete about six months' worth of work, even though I had planned for a full year. For me, that was the biggest challenge at Levi's: the lack of resources and budget.