Learning from Other Product People: Nesrine Changuel on the Product Community of Practice at Google
We’re back with the next interview in our series of discussions with product Community of Practice (CoP) leaders. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Nesrine Changuel, a Product Manager for Chrome iOS, who’s based at Google’s Paris office.
Nesrine shares what it’s like organizing and participating in a CoP at a large, multinational company like Google. Some of the top challenges in this setting involve prioritizing which CoP events to participate in (there are simply too many to realistically join all of them!) and ensuring there’s a diverse slate of speakers who represent the broad range of career levels, interests, and identities among the Google product management community.
Want to read the other posts in this series? Find our interview with Zainab Arilesere of ProductTank Lagos here, Teresa Torres about the Continuous Discovery Habits community here, Patrick Sauerwein about the Deutsche Telekom CoP here, and Jennifer Michelmann about the XING CoP here.
Nesrine, what does the term “Community of Practice” mean to you? And what does it look like in your company?
“Community” for me is a group of people within whom I feel a deep sense of belonging and a high level of trust. It’s also a place where I feel safe to express my thoughts and opinions. When it comes to a Community of Practice, it’s all of that, plus the opportunity to exchange in a bi-directional way, meaning I can learn from others and I can also share my knowledge.
At Google, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to grow and develop. We also believe that we have skills and knowledge that other Googlers can benefit from. There is a program that’s called Googler to Googler or G2G program, where an internal volunteer can teach any type of subject—it could be teaching a course, one-on-one coaching, or designing learning materials. These volunteers can set up courses for their role or main core knowledge but it could also be something outside of work, a skill that they are very knowledgeable about. A big percentage of the internal trainings at Google are provided through the G2G community.
It sounds like there’s already a formal structure in place, so if someone wants to teach a course, there’s a process where they can apply and someone would review their application?
There’s no heavy process for it—it’s meant to be very open and very easy to share and to learn from each other. If you’re skilled in something and you want to share that passion and skill, you just have to set it up in the G2G program tool. You can open that class and see if you have interest, and as soon as you have the numbers, you can set it up virtually or locally.
The G2G program sounds like one aspect of a CoP. Are there are other ways CoPs exist at Google?
As PMs we are lucky in the sense that we have a lot of rituals and opportunities for learning as part of Communities of Practice. In fact, it’s hard to get them all, so we need to prioritize.
Here’s an overview of some of the CoP offerings we have at Google.
PM Speaker Series
I’m leading a Google internal initiative called PM Speaker Series and I’m driving the EMEA version, where we bring speakers who inspire product managers with ideas and innovation in technology specifically. We try to keep a monthly cadence for these sessions.
PM Summits
These are large gatherings that exist on different levels. For example, I’m on Google Chrome, so there’s a Chrome PM Summit. We try to make sure we meet at least once a year. In addition to Chrome, there’s the EMEA PM Summit that happens around twice a year for all PMs in the EMEA region. That one is not product specific at all. I believe meeting others is a benefit in a big company like Google where you work with a lot of stakeholders across the globe and you don’t necessarily meet face to face unless you attend an event like the PM Summit. Generally the PM Summits feature keynote speakers, lightning talks, workshops, and fun activities. It’s an opportunity to meet and do less work together in favor of networking.
Conference clubs and book clubs
Conference clubs are where we get together to prepare for external PM conferences. This raises awareness about which conferences are available and gives people who are attending the conference the chance to meet.
We also have PM book clubs on a regular basis. It’s not that formal. Anyone can initiate, drive, or moderate these.
Brown bag sessions
Brown bag sessions could be on any topic—not like the PM speaker series where it’s more specific to product management. For example, I recently gave a brown bag session about role models and how they can shape our perspectives and personalities and how we can become better people by identifying and following a role model.
Can you share a bit more about how you choose the speakers for the PM Speaker Series?
I personally pay attention to the diversity of the topics as well as the speakers that we invite. Diversity could be addressed from different angles, with internal speakers and external speakers. We believe in the importance of a variety of perspectives, so we cover topics that are more for senior PM level and sometimes more for entry level or career path level in order to open up those kinds of community sharing opportunities both for entry level and highly skilled PMs. We’re also mindful about bringing gender diversity because this is extremely important to inspire people.
One of the key aspects people like is when we bring speakers who could talk about something practical—less theory and more real examples, real products. In fact, last year we invited Petra to speak about product manager capabilities and personal development.
And we collect feedback from attendees so we can learn what they like and want to see more of.
What has made the biggest impact for you personally?
This is a tough question—it really depends on my career level at the time. When I was entry level, some opportunities made a bigger impact than they would at my current level. And because we have so many opportunities at Google, we need to be selective and prioritize those that we value most.
In my case, I value networking. I believe in the importance of having a large network, specifically as a PM, because this is very important for my role. One of my favorite activities that I haven’t mentioned yet is a randomized chat roulette that we can subscribe to. You can set your preferences, for example your time zone, your discipline, the frequency you want to meet people, and then you get a randomized roulette that generates one-on-one chats based on your preferences.
So you could say that you want to have weekly one-on-ones with PMs that are based in EMEA, and every week you’ll get a calendar invite for a one-on-one meeting with someone who meets those criteria. What I love about that is this surprise—you never know who you’ll be meeting and what you’ll share with each other. Most of the time we have the bias towards meeting people we know, but this opportunity allows us to enlarge and open up our network circle. Today my value is networking and it works very well for that value. If you value something else, like extending your skills, being involved in book clubs or conferences could be the best opportunities.
Of course we’re exposed to all of the CoP opportunities within Google, but we’re also encouraged to participate with CoP outside of Google. I had the opportunity to teach professional PM courses through the INSEAD Executive PM program. Yes, it was time consuming to prepare (and I needed to work on this outside of my normal work hours), but it was very highly rewarding. In addition to extending my PM network—which I’ve mentioned how much I value—it’s a great moment of sharing. Teaching professional PMs opens up great discussions and you almost forget who’s the student and who’s the teacher. We get into such expansive and great discussions that when you get back home, you feel enriched and grown.
Is there a reward for participation in the internal Google CoP?
At Google, employees can define their yearly objectives and community work is counted and valued among those objectives. This is great because it encourages everyone at Google to do more of this community work since it’s valued as part of the objectives.
I would also say that when you participate in a CoP, it’s very important to have a goal for why you’re doing it. A couple of years ago, my goal was to extend my PM tooling and perspectives and be a better PM, so attending conferences and trainings and going to book clubs was very highly aligned with that goal. Reaching that goal of being a better PM was the reward at that time.
Later on, you might change your goal and that’s okay. I mentioned that now I value networking—I want to get to know more great PMs and chat with them. So my involvement in the CoP should help me meet my networking goals.
Setting your goals will help you select among the variety of opportunities—especially if you’re in a place like Google where you can be distracted by the number of opportunities. Having your goal set will help you achieve the right reward.
What are the things you would like to see your community do more of? Any plans on how to improve it in the next year?
One particular thing that’s been immensely helpful is getting closer to role models. That’s someone you can relate to, someone who inspires you and drives you towards what they are now. They could also speed up your need for growth and motivate you to develop your career.
This person could be a mentor, a coach, internal, or external—it’s all about getting curious about identifying that person, identifying that what they are doing is what you would like to be doing in a couple of years, and then getting curious about what they’ve been doing in the past and what they’re doing right now. For me this is a great way to identify career goals and keep myself inspired.
Do you see that being something you cover in your speaker series?
Absolutely. As we are trying to bring a diversity of speakers, we’re aiming to bring people who could be that role model. We believe that people tend to be most inspired by those who they can relate to.
Final thoughts from Petra
There are two major things that I want to highlight from the interview with Nesrine:
She mentions that Google keeps processes around G2G training offers as light as possible. And I think this is worth highlighting. Because nobody wants the CoP work to be an additional burden. So if you try to keep things easy, accessible, and lightweight.
And another aspect worth mentioning: It is obvious that without people like Nesrine who are putting a lot of love, time, and effort into the community, this would not be possible. So if your company is running a Community of Practice, make sure you treat your active community members well and reward them for their engagement!
And with these thoughts I’m closing today's interview for now. But I would totally recommend reading the others in this series. Every single one has something interesting and unique. Here’s a quick sneak peek of what you’ll learn:
Zainab talks about how hard it is to start a community and get going and how hard it is to make everyone feel safe enough to start sharing.
Patrick talks about how it is good to have a company-wide community but still helpful to join ones outside of your company's context to broaden your horizons.
Jennifer discusses how the lag of in-person contact has had a negative impact on their product community and how they are planning to bring it back.
Teresa explains why member engagement is not the #1 KPI for a thriving Community and shares her learnings from building her thriving Continuous Discovery Habits Community.
If any of these Community of Practice posts resonate with you, please think about who would benefit from reading them and make you share it with those people. After all, sharing in small groups is your first step toward building your own CoP!