A Day In The Life Of A Product Strategy Operations Director At Turnitin
As Director of Program Management and Product Strategy Operations at a global company, Kevin's day begins early with meetings spanning multiple time zones, focusing on facilitating "decision points" for product development and improving team efficiency. This involves coordinating diverse teams, leveraging data, and navigating the evolving landscape of AI's impact on their products and users, resulting in "never a dull day."
Project Management, Product Strategy, Data Analysis, Communication, Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Kevin Tsay
Director, Program Management & Product Strategy Operations
Turnitin
Washington University in St. Louis, 2007
Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, MPP
Education
Technology
Operations and Project Management
LGBTQ
Video Highlights
1. Working in a global, remote-first environment requires flexible scheduling and strong communication skills to collaborate effectively across time zones.
2. A significant portion of the role involves facilitating decision-making processes, using data analysis to improve efficiency and coordination between teams.
3. The work is dynamic and engaging, especially with the integration of AI into product development, constantly evolving to meet the needs of diverse stakeholders (students, instructors, administrators).
Transcript
What does the day in the life of a Director of Program Management and Product Strategy Operations look like?
My day usually starts around six or six-thirty in the morning. We are a remote-first global company, and while a few of us are on the West Coast, much of the work has already begun for our colleagues on the East Coast, as well as in Europe and other parts of the world who have been working throughout my night.
I tend to start pretty early for the West Coast. Many of my mornings involve meetings because there's an overlap in time zones that works out a little better for people's workdays, typically between seven and eleven. These meetings can be one-on-ones with my team, or with my manager, the Chief Product Officer, or with various VPs and directors from different groups, like the VP of Engineering for AI or our software engineering group.
It depends on what we're working through, which products, and which issues we might be facing along the product development lifecycle. In these meetings, I often help facilitate decision points that different teams are trying to make for any given product they're considering and the problems they aim to solve.
At the same time, I'm thinking about the mechanisms my team and I can implement to reach those decisions faster. This might involve the tools we use, our internal and cross-team communication methods, or better ways to leverage different types of data. We consider what data would be helpful to surface throughout the product development lifecycle, from ideation to post-launch.
When I'm not in meetings, I often focus on ensuring that teams who could benefit from coordinating are in touch and understand key decisions. Sometimes this takes the form of documentation. Other times, it involves laying out facts and identifying the next decision points, determining which teams need to be involved, and how I can help facilitate that.
A lot of this comes in the form of meetings, but a key goal is also to be more efficient with them, allowing us to reach decisions more effectively. Part of this involves my team really thinking about the operations behind our product decision-making, as well as the data that underlies our work. We need to know how many customers are using our products successfully and what success actually looks like for those products globally.
It's never a dull day, especially in the world of AI right now. That's something that definitely keeps me going, understanding how AI affects our students, instructors, and administrators worldwide. It also makes me consider how we can develop our products with AI interaction in mind, or vice versa.