Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov

Mor and Sergey discuss how to run a product team and coordinate with bright developers without having technical skills. Mor shares his experience running 7 SCRUM teams and describes the execution process as a ‘cold war’ of sorts. They explore the similarities between professional sports and product management, why you should ask ‘why not’ more often, and how to reframe conflicting priorities as collective priorities.

Show Notes

You can be a product manager and have 0 technical skills. Sound controversial to you? Today’s product director has never written a single line of code - he has played professional soccer though. Find out how not having technical skills makes him a sharper PM.

About Mor AviHanan
Mor AviHanan is the Director of Product Management at ZoomInfo. He doesn’t consider himself a technical guy, in fact, he never wrote a line of code in his life. To him, coding is just another language, and communication is not restricted to it or by it. In another life, Mor played soccer for the Israeli national team. He has to leave soccer behind due to an injury.

Links We Mentioned
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography https://www.amazon.ca/Pep-Guardiola-Another-Winning-Biography/dp/1409129462
Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long Strange Journey https://www.amazon.ca/Mindgames-Phil-Jacksons-Strange-Journey/dp/0803259980
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Mor AviHanan?
01:03 | Do you need to have technical skills as a product manager?
05:28 | Talking to developers when you aren’t a technical PM
08:20 | Being an athlete vs. being a product manager
12:17 | The secret to running 7 SCRUM teams
16:43 | Running a team of genius minds
19:42 | Book recommendations from sports and tech
21:30 | Saying ‘why not?’ instead of ‘no’ 
22:22 | Visualizing your ideas and innovations
23:17 | Turning sport into a product

Follow Mor AviHanan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/moravihanan/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

What is Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov?

Product Innovation Series is an in-depth interview series featuring product & innovation leaders from small startups all the way to Fortune 500 behemoths. Our guests share their battle-tested perspective on what prevents teams from shipping a great product.
The show is hosted by Aram Melkoumov, the CEO of Crowdlinker.