Coaching for Product Leaders/Executives

I’m thrilled that you’re interested in working with me as a coach. You’ll find a brief guide to my offerings for people managing product people below.  Please note that my coaching packages are available both for leadership teams and individuals.

 
 

Coaching Packages

Team Coaching Formats

Public Product Leader GROUP SESSIONS - I’m no longer offering this format in 2024 and the current cohorts are sold out.

Team Coaching for Product Leaders - Unlock the full potential of your existing leadership team through guided conversations on product topics that matter most to your organization. Over the course of six 90-minute sessions, we'll explore topics like optimizing your product strategy, enhancing your hiring process, and promoting a comprehensive understanding of modern product management within your organization. As a team, you'll be able to bring your collective experiences to the table, making for a richer, more focused discussion. You can expect my full guidance throughout, but the sessions will be highly interactive, offering each team member the opportunity to share their challenges and learnings.

This corporate package includes six 90-minute sessions over a three-month period.
Earliest possible starting date: November 2023. Please feel free to get in touch so we can discuss a tailor-made option for you!

Corporate Book Club - Get your team on the same page when it comes to product leadership! The Corporate Book Club package includes a copy of my book, STRONG Product People, for each member of your team (up to 12 participants), plus two 90-minute “Ask Me Anything” sessions to answer all your questions about the concepts from the book and how to apply them. Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested in hosting such an event.

 

Individual Coaching Formats

PHONE-A-FRIEND - Looking for a little extra support as a product leader? Whether you’re stepping in as an interim leader, it’s your first product leadership role, or you’re an experienced product leader who is looking for some outside support and perspective, I’m happy to be your sounding board to help you work through whatever challenges you’re facing. For these one-hour sessions (generally held twice a month), you bring the topic and we’ll discuss whatever is on your mind that day. This is a five-month program that includes 10 sessions.
My 1:1 coaching capabilities are limited, and I select my coachees carefully to ensure a good fit and maximum impact. If you're interested in this individualized coaching, please reach out. We'll provide you with more details, pricing information, and a link to an application form.

360° Leadership Feedback - As a product leader, you would like to uncover your development areas, but do you find it challenging to get good feedback from your employees and colleagues? Rather than finding the time to schedule feedback sessions, deciding on the questions to ask and frameworks to use, and synthesizing all that information on your own, you can outsource it to me! I can collect feedback for you and bundle it up in an easily digestible format. This six session interview series will help illuminate your leadership performance from different perspectives and give you a solid basis for starting your self-progression journey. If you want to learn more about the format, you may want to read this client success story.

 

Please note

Good to know

  • The product people who benefit most from my coaching are already familiar with state-of-the-art product management concepts. You already understand that product discovery is a vital part of your job, that teams work best when they’re empowered and cross-functional, and you’re well-versed in agile working practices. If this doesn’t sound like you or your organization is not committed to working in this manner, my coaching is probably not the best fit.

  • You will have to fully commit to the coaching if you decide to join. You can find the list of commitments in the T&Cs.

  • All sessions are remote/virtual sessions.

  • Packages include access to my Slack community and product templates and resources as needed.

  • We will use a Mural board to facilitate/prepare for the sessions.

  • Group sessions start quarterly or once five participants have signed up.

Please see my Coaching T&Cs for more information and if you want to learn about different types of coaching you might want to read this blog post.

 

What others say

"Petra was a perfect guide while I navigated product leadership for the first time. She is a great listener, provides actionable feedback and doesn't shy from asking the tough questions. The sessions in combination with her book have helped me find my approach to being a product leader. Above all, time with Petra has left me with confidence and clarity which I will always be grateful for."
Shreeti Badhani, Head of Product, MAJORITY

“I have been meaning to write as well to thank you for the time we did spend and the coaching and insight that you provided me as I joined the team here. It was a very meaningful experience to me to really grow my confidence into becoming the type of product leader I want to be and also helping me define better what that meant. I do think that your encouragement, grounded insight, and general delightful spirit really helped me be in the position that I am today. I can only hope that more people can experience for themselves the guidance that you can provide. So a belated thank you for those many hours of coaching, patience and laughs.“
Molly Thompson Zeugner, VP Product at Babbel

“My company was going through a digital transformation to become more focused on outcomes and empowered product teams, and I had no idea how to lead a team with strategic context or what good looked like in this new way of working. After I read Strong Product People, I knew I wanted to work with Petra as my product leadership coach. Petra patiently helped me work through defining my good and coached me to take advantage of changes in my organization to create an environment where I could be successful. I feel well-positioned for this next phase of my career - becoming a STRONG Product Leader. Thanks, Petra!!”
Sasha Morris, Director Product Management, Learning & Development, Relias.com

“What I love about Petra's approach is that she does not teach their customers one methodology, she teaches the product mindset and methods/techniques tailored to the individual product situation. There is no "one fit all" with Petra.”
Alicja Marcyniuk, Digital Transformation Consultant, Maersk

“Petra helped me a lot in my new role as a product leader in a quite conservative product development organization. With her help, I was able to find my way to develop the Product Managers and significantly increase the quality of our product work. The road still is quite long, but seeing the PMs beginning to question the "waterfall-ish" way of working and start validating new product initiatives instead of just building what the are being told to build is a big achievement.“
Maike Ramcke, Product Lead, Serviceware SE

“Petra is great at highlighting the human side of product leadership. She has tons of very hands-on advice on how product leaders can help their teams grow. Never dogmatic, always keeping the company culture and team set-up in mind, her input and ideas are extremely valuable. I can't stress enough how much I can recommend bringing Petra in to build up a truly product-driven and people-focussed culture.“
Sophia Höfling, Lesson Nine GmbH, Head of Product (Travel)

“Getting challenged by one of the top executives on whether we have collected sufficient evidence through user testing is exactly what I was hoping for when I asked Petra to help me transform Engel&Völkers towards a true product culture.“
Alexander Schardt, Director Product Management, Engel&Völkers


Some of my free Resources for Product Leads

Empfohlen
The Product Leader’s Guide to Giving Feedback
The Product Leader’s Guide to Giving Feedback

Good employee performance is critical to the success of an organization and the products it builds, and feedback is one of the most important factors in employee performance for good reason. As management professor Christine Porath points out in Harvard Business Review: “High-performing teams share nearly six times more positive feedback than average teams.”

But most of us are guilty of not giving enough feedback to our peers, colleagues, and direct reports. Why is that?

Leadership Communication 1o1: How to Make Sure Your Messages Stick
Leadership Communication 1o1: How to Make Sure Your Messages Stick

How much time do you spend communicating with the other people in your organization? Chances are, it’s not enough. Megan Murphy, VP of Product at Hotjar, told the MTP Engage Leadership Forum that she spends 50% of her time on internal communication. This was such an important tidbit that I called it out as a key learning in my blog recap of the event.

Communication is one of those tricky skills. Since we all do it all the time, we tend to think we’re much better at it than we actually are. But there’s often a gap between the way we view ourselves as communicators and the way our teams view us. Here are a few of the most common communication problems I see in product organizations.

How the “Learning Menu” Concept Can Help Develop Your Product Team
How the “Learning Menu” Concept Can Help Develop Your Product Team

When it comes to offering development opportunities, some companies struggle with doing this in a strategic way. They essentially throw money at the problem, opting to pay a premium for coaching and training. So what’s wrong with this approach? As a coach, shouldn’t I be happy to take money from any potential client who would like to pay me?