STRONG Product People Book Club: What Is It and Why Should You Join?

Since publishing my book, STRONG Product People, I’ve been on a mission to get it into the hands of as many product leaders as possible. But beyond just getting product leaders to read my book, I want to help them actually apply the concepts they’ve been introduced to in the book. 

This is why I’m excited about one of my newer offerings, the corporate book club for STRONG Product People. Everyone on your team receives a copy of the book and then we hold two 90-minute sessions to discuss any questions your team has about the concepts from the book and how to apply them.

But rather than tell you why I think the book club is such a valuable experience for your team, I thought you’d prefer to hear directly from a past participant. My blog editor Melissa Suzuno caught up with Julia Kirsch, a Product Team Lead at eBay Kleinanzeigen to hear her take on the experience.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role.

I’m Julia Kirsch, a Product Team Lead at eBay Kleinanzeigen for PRO, our offer for commercial sellers, located in Berlin.  Although we have over 35 million unique visitors per month and are Germany’s leading classifieds platform, we’re still a relatively small (but rapidly growing) team of PMs.

How did you learn about the STRONG Product People book club?

Our CPO at eBay Kleinanzeigen Lydia Dreyer introduced us to Petra’s book. We as product leads had a couple of weeks to read it and then we had two sessions to discuss questions with Petra in a book club round. Participants included our CPO, our Head of UX & Design, and three Product Team Leads.

What appealed to you about the book club format?

Petra’s book is very hands-on and informative. But it’s even better to have a format like the book club to be able to dive deeper into certain topics and discuss them with Petra and the rest of the product leads. We gathered questions beforehand on a Miro Board and then did a quick dot-voting exercise to decide which topics to dig into. 

What makes the book club different from attending a conference or more typical type of training? 

Even though the book club happened digitally due to COVID, it had a cozy and safe atmosphere where everyone could speak openly and ask all the questions on their mind. We went through the different parts of the book and asked related questions. We were also able to ask questions that weren’t 100% related to the book (e.g. “We’re currently hiring a lot of people in a short timeframe, what is Petra’s advice on speeding up hiring and onboarding?”). 

The great thing about Petra is that she gives very hands-on advice stemming from lots of real-life experiences on her side. She doesn’t answer on a purely theoretical basis, but instead gives hands-on, pragmatic, and realistic input, which makes it super helpful. 

The book club is a lot more hands-on than a typical training, it was very focused on eBay Kleinanzeigen and its product org. Everyone had the same starting basis, i.e. everyone read the book. A regular conference works more on an inspirational or visionary level, while the book club gives hands-on input on how to use the methods presented in the book.

What were some key insights or takeaways you got from participating?

One key takeaway from the book club was the PMwheel as a great framework for evaluating (and comparing) the performance and development potential of PMs. It enables open conversations by creating a transparent and easily understandable structure that can be adapted if needed to company-specific aspects. It also ensures not to forget about personal growth, lateral leadership skills, and an agile mindset when evaluating a PM, rather than focusing solely on discovery and delivery skills.

We also had a great discussion around personas and that even though they’re hardly ever really measurable and targetable on a platform and thus have strong constraints, they can serve the mission to 1) create empathy for certain user groups in other teams and 2) help PMs to identify potential gaps they might’ve missed when asking the question “How would persona X react to feature Z—would it help solve their need and would they be able to use it?”

Interested in offering a corporate book club for your team? Learn more here!

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about working on the product team at eBay Kleinanzeigen, Julia shares the following note: Looking for a company where you can have an impact? A company where you can have the best of two worlds—an ambitious work environment and an inclusive culture?

eBay Kleinanzeigen is the most-visited general classifieds site in Germany and growing at speed. Currently, we have more than 45 million live ads and 35 million unique visitors per month—with the majority on mobile devices. eBay Kleinanzeigen helps people find whatever they’re looking for and every connection made or item found makes a difference by creating a world where people share more and waste less. We simply bring the joy of sustainable trade to everyone.

Customer centricity and passion for our products is what helps us to develop our platform. Our agile environment, regular usability tests, prototyping and multi-functional teams make our product better every single day. If you’re passionate about joining a purpose driven community that is dedicated to build an ambitious and diverse work environment, join eBay Kleinanzeigen. More info on https://jobs.ebayclassifiedsgroup.com/ebay-kleinanzeigen