Renee Saint-Louis is a major inspiration for the Develomentor podcast, and she also happens to be Grant's sister. She currently works as a product manager at a small K-12 publishing firm, but has worked across a variety of other industries including banking and retail both as a product manager and as a business analyst.
Renee studied social work all through college but after interning decided to switch her major to family and consumer science. She got her first career opportunity when her manager at Nordstrom spotted her skill and advised her to apply for a job in a different department as a business analyst.
According to Renee, the roles of product managers and business analysts can overlap. Both roles help a business understand what its needs are and then work on bringing those needs to life, usually in the form of either process improvement or new technology. But no one is perfect and even the most experienced product managers fail sometimes.
In this episode you will also hear
1. How the business analyst and product manager role overlap
2. Common challenges faced by product managers
3. The importance of a mentor for your career
And much more!
For full episode show notes click here
CONNECT WITH RENEE SAINT-LOUIS
LinkedIn
Twitter
Renee Saint-Louis is a major inspiration for the Develomentor podcast, and she also happens to be Grant's sister. She currently works as a product manager at a small K-12 publishing firm, but has worked across a variety of other industries including banking and retail both as a product manager and as a business analyst.
Renee studied social work all through college but after interning decided to switch her major to family and consumer science. She got her first career opportunity when her manager at Nordstrom spotted her skill and advised her to apply for a job in a different department as a business analyst.
According to Renee, the roles of product managers and business analysts can overlap. Both roles help a business understand what its needs are and then work on bringing those needs to life, usually in the form of either process improvement or new technology. But no one is perfect and even the most experienced product managers fail sometimes.
In this episode you will also hear
1. How the business analyst and product manager role overlap
2. Common challenges faced by product managers
3. The importance of a mentor for your career
And much more!
For full episode show notes click here
CONNECT WITH RENEE SAINT-LOUIS
LinkedIn
Twitter
[inaudible].
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome to the developmental or season one podcast. I'm your host granting herself. We're kicking off our interview series with a very special guest today. The woman you are about to meet is one of my inspirations for making this show. As you'll hear, she's in tech currently as a product manager, which took a pretty nontraditional route to get there. As you'll soon find out. She's worked across a variety of industries like banking, retail and publishing both as a product manager and a business analyst. She also happens to be my sister. Please welcome to the show Renee st Louis.
Speaker 3:Hi grant. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great to have you on. Renee, let's, let's get things started with some introductions. Why don't you just introduce yourself to all of our listeners?
Speaker 3:Okay, great. Well, I am uh, currently working at a small publishing firm here in Minneapolis. We do K through 12 education publishing and as you said, I am a product manager there, but I have been a practicing business analyst and project manager across my career spanning 20, 25 years now. And like you said, it's been a really non traditional path for me. I started off in college really thinking and believing I was going to be a social work worker and what I found my senior year of college I after doing some internships was, you know what? Social work really isn't for me, and so I finished out my degree and family and consumer science for those old school people. That means that's home-ec. Then I just kinda hung out at my current employer, which was not Nordstrom at the time and I was very fortunate because I had a manager there that recognized I had the skills to be a great business analyst and when she had an opening in her spot, her name was Jan Anderson. Thank you Jan. Mmm, okay. Sure. When she had an opening in her department, she asked me to apply for that position and that was the beginning of my business analyst career. I'm very fortunate to find someone like that who can recommend who recognize my talent and then helps guide me into a very successful career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so much on pack in there. I want to come back to the, the mentoring side of it because a, I know obviously the, the hugely important role a great mentor can have in some someone's career and it's something I think we encourage everybody to do. But let's, let's focus in a little bit on this business analyst role and perhaps product manager or you know, it can mean a lot of different things depending on the company. How do you see those, those roles of business analysts and product manager? What do you, what are your main things in, in your day to day job, if you will, to be successful in those roles?
Speaker 3:Sure. Well, the business analyst has changed a lot over the 20 years that I've done it. And more and more of that role is getting different titles. Some company is as a product manager and some companies it's product owner. Uh, in some companies it's um, a functional analyst. It just depends. Okay. In essence, it's the same really kind of work. And that is helping a business really understand what their needs are and then helping bring those needs to life usually in the form of either process improvement or Mmm, new technology. So identifying solutions that will help meet those needs. And then working with stakeholders to implement that technology. As a product manager, it can also mean a, you sometimes take on marketing roles, you sometimes, um, you know, look across the breadth of your industry and figure out where your product needs to be differentiated and then creating the path for your software team to[inaudible] those Mmm features and, uh, new products. Even that will, that you can bring to market that will differentiate eight year company and, uh, hopefully make them a lot of money, a really short answer for a very complex job.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, I think that's super helpful. I mean, I, so when you think about how do you, you know, this process of understanding of business requirements, how, you know, what goes into actually figuring that out. Let's say, you know, I want to make widgets. I'm the acne company. I want to make widgets and I've never made widgets before. How do you approach that as a, I guess, pick, pick your title, pick your poison if you will, business analysts or product manager, how do you approach getting up to speed on that new domain?
Speaker 3:I think first of all, you know, there's no magic formula. Sometimes people thank you. You know, Oh, if I just follow scrum or agile or whatever, that'll help me. But really what it comes down to I think is one, you have to do a lot of research. So whether that's competitive research, whether it's marketplace research, uh, what's missing in a market. Um, yeah. Also listening, so not only listening to people inside of your company, listening to customers who are going to consume the products that you're developing. So taking the time to do all of that research and usually what I've found is through all of those different voices, you can, um, pretty clearly, at least I can pretty clearly figure out, well, what's needed. Once you figure out what's needed, then it's like, okay, well what's the solutions that we can, um, employ to make that become a reality? Sometimes that's buying software, sometimes that's building software. Sometimes, like I said, it's just a honing your processes to make yourself more efficient, your organization more efficient so you can compete better.
Speaker 2:And I would imagine these days, you know, you mentioned these roles have changed a lot. I mean, I, I, I would imagine there are a lot more data-driven these days as well. Right. You know, whereas before it was primarily interview driven now because you can collect so much information about user behavior. So has that changed a lot in your, in your experience?
Speaker 3:It absolutely has changed everything. Um, you know, in a previous employer I was responsible for developing their very first mobile app and thinking back then the data that we had and how you could see what everybody did while they're inside that app. And then taking that data and using it to transform your product roadmap is[inaudible] amazing. But at the same time, you also have to be careful. You know it's data, but you do have to marry that with human behavior, right? And understanding what people are missing, what people want, what people, um, what can make their lives easier. Sometimes data can't always get you. She got to marry the two of those things up to give you the best answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it's that it, you know, it's historical, right? It's the proverbial Henry Ford quote of, you know, if you asked people what they wanted, they wanted a faster horse. Right? Not a, not a car. So there is often, I find the good product managers have a, have a really nice way of balancing kind of the art and science of it. All. Right. Balancing that intuition with the data side, how then do you kind of hone that intuition? Well,
Speaker 3:I think that's where the data comes in, honestly.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay. So it's more of an experience of a look at enough data and over time you feel like you get a feel
Speaker 3:and you talked to enough people. Over time, the data proves out what you're hearing in the marketplace. Right.
Speaker 2:So how, so how good do you have to be at the data side of it? Is this, I mean, are you crunching numbers yourself? Do you have, do you work with data scientists? How do you, how do you approach that side of it?
Speaker 3:Well, I wish my company had data scientists, but we don't in a previous life at my previous company, we did work with an external company that had data scientists. And so that was a constant, uh, like we met constantly looking at the data, what are we learning, what's happening? And then refining, uh, things based on that. Yeah.[inaudible] sometimes, you know, as a product manager where you break out as you see the data, you look up the data, you talk to the people, but you also have to look kind of in that negative space, what's not happening. And that's where real innovation happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So trying to figure out how to fill the gaps, I guess at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:And sometimes, unfortunately that comes with experience. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And by experience you mean like getting it wrong? They called? Well, maybe that's a good question. Like what are, uh, what are some of the places where it's like, okay, these are some of the lessons I've learned because I got it wrong, or because we got it wrong. You know, no shame, no blame, but, uh, you know, where it's like, Oh God, gee, you know, I miss that in the data.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a hard question because there's been so many. Um, you know, I can tell you a recent experience at my company where we launched a product and while it was super innovative and, uh, like, Hm. To me, I thought it was really amazing, but it fell flat in the marketplace. And, um, I think a part of that was we didn't have, we didn't identify the right. Mmm. You know, when you're launching a product, if you ever read anything, Jeffrey Moore, uh, wrote and he talks about, you know, one of the first things you have to do is find those early adopters and then those early adopters have to dangelize for you to really become mainstream in the marketplace. And we didn't identify our market[inaudible] that we were going after. It was too broad. We didn't have a narrow enough definition. I find those really early adopters evangelists and therefore the product really sunk. And um, we discontinued it a year into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean sometimes, sometimes you gotta, you know, the next time around you, you learn from that. I think, you know, much of any career is as much about the, the how you react to the failures as it is about one success. Right,
Speaker 3:right. That's true. You know, but when it's real money with businesses, sometimes you don't like to hear that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That was a real investment. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, I can relate to that very much. You know? So we talked a little bit about you. You might work with some data scientists, you know, who else in your organization is do product managers typically work with?
Speaker 3:Okay. Well for me, I spend most of my time honestly with the CEO, the CFO, the chief assets operating officer, and I'm the head of marketing[inaudible][inaudible] in my current organization and my previous organizations. Um, that's who I spend the vast majority of my time with. And, um, you know, my job, I really consider it as taking the strategy that they've set for the company and figuring out how to bring that to life within our it organization.
Speaker 2:Hmm. And so then you probably then are spending a lot of time within it as well in terms of translating that strategy to tactics, right?
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So does that mean like your managing, like issue tracking and those kinds of things? Or is it more just, Hey team, here's what we need to do and then you hand off kind of the project management side of it. So say like a director of engineering or, or to the engineers themselves?
Speaker 3:Well, if I were to add a larger organization, that would probably would be true, but I am at a very small company right now. So we all wear many hats and we have a small it team[inaudible] but, um, you know, I'll give you an example. I worked for a publishing company and we recently purchased a end-to-end, uh, software package that well, help us streamline our publishing process. Right. Well, normally in a large organization, I would hand that off to an it team that would go then integrate that and um, roll it out. But because I'm in a smaller organization, uh, aye, I'm also the project manager on that. So, you know, my job is not only to take the vision of what our publisher wants and all the problems she thinks the software is going to solve and it will solve a lot. But then I'm responsible for making sure, you know, the change management aspect of it happens. The[inaudible], uh, integration with all of our other systems happen, you know, and as decisions come along as that product manager, I'm really the face of our, um, not only the executive team and their vision, but also the it team, helping them, you know, make the right choices when it comes to issues, questions, concerns.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in many ways your product managers really is, you've got to wear a lot of different hats, right? One day you're in marketing, one day you're in sales, another day you're an engineering. Uh, and trying to[inaudible] you're kind of pulled in all directions and pulling in all directions I guess is maybe a fair assessment there.
Speaker 3:But I also have a pension to get things done. So, you know, and that's, I think one of the key things about a product manager is you really have to love getting things done to be before festival.
Speaker 2:Well, and let's unpack that a little bit because I mean, getting things done often means you have to go motivate other people. Right? Is that, so how do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, uh, you know, part of it is to motivate other people. People are motivated. One not just because it's their job. When I truly understand the vision of what you're trying to achieve, people will rally behind you, I found and do what is necessary to get things done. Yeah. So in this case, with this software that we're rolling out, you know, um, it's been long overdue. People have really lived off of Excel spreadsheets. It's crazy, you know? So it's[inaudible] a great opportunity for people to buy into the vision and understand what life will be like once you know this software is rolled out. So when we kicked off this project, one of the things we laid out, well what does success look like? And so we said what that looks like way up front and we remind people throughout what does success look like? Why are we trying to achieve this? And it helps people just get on board with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep the eye, keep your eyes on the prize as they say. Right? Yeah. Well, so you're doing this complex software rollout or we don't even have to necessarily make this about your current company because I know you've, you've worked on Salesforce, you've worked on mobile apps, you've worked on banking and retail is throughout all of that, you're often working, like you said with it, like how critical is it that you understand, you know, down in the weeds of, of it, you know, maybe not at the code level, but maybe like right above the code level or, or maybe it isn't that the code level, I mean, how, how deep in the weeds do you get when it comes to figuring out what you can actually build in software?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, okay. I don't Recode, I've never code coded align in my life. I leave that to your grants. No, I tried like way back when and I just realized this is not for me, but what I have to understand is really how, how do we best want it? I don't know. Ah, I don't know how to explain it, but it's so hard because it just comes naturally to me. That's what's hard to explain to people. But I have a really innate way of putting things together that don't necessarily belong together. That's a, um, a strength of mine, if you will. And so I innately understand how software works and I ate innately understand what it can and can't do. And so, you know, I always joke that, you know, the first thing may teach a developer in college is how to say no. And then the second thing may teach them is how to estimate and hundreds of hours at a time. But you know, the thing is like, if you can explain to a developer, I found like, okay, this is what I need. Once you get past the no and never take no as an answer, as a product manager or business analyst, there's always a way I phone. Mmm. You and you start talking about, okay, well what if we did this or what are alternatives to that? Maybe that's not the ideal, but there's always an alternative. Right? And so even though I don't read code, um, I don't have to, I just have to know enough that, that I can explain what we're trying to achieve. And then no developers get paid to develop to think about how can I best achieve this? So it's really a, a lot of it is just about building a relationship with someone that you can trust in the organization, in your organization, and then bouncing ideas off of each other and you come up with what oftentimes is the right solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I would imagine prototyping and, and wire framing and a lot of those things factor in here as well of, or even just, Hey look, I want it to look like this thing over here that you know, somebody else has done.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And sometimes people get, I w I would just say sometimes people get caught up in Mmm. How it looks versus what do we need? Right. Um,[inaudible] so I are often caught caution people like, don't worry about how it looks yet. Like there's UI, UX people that'll make it pretty right. But what do we need? We focus on what the need is. Then you end up usually with a more elegant solution and it's oftentimes that collaboration is
Speaker 2:where the magic happens. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I've seen that when I working with good product managers can, can make all the difference there. What's been, uh, perhaps the most surprising thing to you about being a product manager or business analyst?
Speaker 3:Mmm. What's been the most surprising?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, like if you, if you flash back to, okay, you're in this first job at Nordstrom's, you said, and then, okay, I'm going to be this product manager, business analyst, and, and, and then, you know, flashing forward. And now looking back, like what surprised you the most or perhaps been the, the, the, the thing that's paid off for you that you didn't think it would right. Or, or something along those lines. It's just like, Oh yeah, you know, that really turned out nicely. I'm glad I did that.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad I became a business analyst. Like I never am all of my, Hmm. Wild. His dreams did I think that that would be my career path growing up or[inaudible] you know, even through college, I'm glad I took the chance when Jan asked me, Hey, you'd be good at this. Why don't you do it? But the other thing I think, you know, I spent a long time and my career doing like very traditional business analysis, writing the system shell, uh, requirements, right? And I think as I've progressed in my career, what's surprised me the most I guess, and I used to actually love writing system shell requirements, um, is how much I really enjoyed one, the marketing aspect of my job and to the strategy aspect of my job. I never knew that that was something that I would actually enjoy. In fact, marketing, uh, at one point in my career absolutely terrified me. And it wasn't until I took a position as a director of projects in a marketing department that I realized, Hey, one, it's not that scary.[inaudible] too. There's a lot of data that goes behind it. Marketing and three market marketers really have no clue how to interface with it. So they need someone like me who can balance the best of both worlds, uh, because otherwise they just end up very frustrated and can't really get what they need across to it. And it thinks marketers, you know, have a whimsy chip put in them. And what they do is just, um, and so I guess that was kind of really surprising to me that I really enjoyed that part of my career. I was actually in marketing and, um, SA the best of both worlds.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Wow. That's great. I can see that too. That's one of the things as I've[inaudible] some of it is it's the combination of all your experiences. You're, you get to move to this next level where you can start to have these higher order conversations and operate with at the sales and marketing level, whereas before you were primarily at the individual contributor level.
Speaker 3:Right. But you know, I think too, as an individual contributor, part of how you move up into that[inaudible] is one, you've got to take notice, uh, what's going on. And oftentimes we get hung up in our organization and things we don't like and we tend to see leadership as they were. Why did they do that? Or what could they be thinking? Right? Yeah. But I found, you know, first of all, there's no event, uh, as you move up and you interact with leadership in a company, you realize that they put a lot of, uh, the decisions that they make. And, um, there's a lot of reasons behind that. And so the more that you can start thinking critically, okay, like leaders think critically, the easier time you're going to have moving out of that individual contributor role and into a more of a leadership position. Yeah. And as an individual contributor, you know, you can lead where you're at. And I think, you know, I've said this to you before, grant, like you don't need permission to win as an individual contributor, right? If you see something that needs fixing. Excellent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's so true. And you know, you can always ask for forgiveness if it was the right thing to
Speaker 3:right. But your job in a company is to help the company win. And so few people look at their job like that, but that one, I adopted that attitude at work, my career soared, you know, out of that, you know, get out of your own head. And start thinking about how can I make this company better? How can I make it succeed? What can I do differently? And you will get noticed. I guarantee it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, so very true. Let's shift gears here with a couple of questions around kind of
Speaker 3:Hmm,
Speaker 2:opportunities and challenges and then we'll wrap it up with, with some advice for people looking to get into product management that, you know, what do you see as the main challenges of this role? You know, being a product manager, like what, you know, every has its downsides as, uh, as I like to say, like[inaudible] what really challenges you on a day to day basis as a product manager?
Speaker 3:Well, uh, a lot of it comes down to relationships. Honestly. You're not always a popular person and, uh, oftentimes people don't want to hear the truth that you tell them. With the, especially when it comes to like analyzing data and saying, well, we have this myth that we've believed forever. But when you look at the data, it's not true. Uh, people don't like to hear that. And so that can be a challenge oftentimes. Um, are not the most well liked person in the organization because of that. Mmm. But it's still the right thing to do to stand up and say, well, if we look at it like this, it's not telling us what we are always thought to be true. And so what do we need to do about that? And do you approach it with the, uh, let's have a conversation. And, um, instead of like, sometimes I see people taking a very accusatory stance, like we're all dumb or something and we're not, we're all smart people. And uh, so taking that approach, like what can we do if this were true? And, uh, figuring out a path forward and helping your team figure out that path forward can lead to greater success.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I think that, you know, underpins so many people. I think think careers in technology means, you know, you're just going to work on tech all day. But you know, at the end of the day, it's just like any other career and that you, you're going to find the most success when you nurture communication, your nurture relationships. Looking forward then a little bit, you know, where do you see the product management role evolving or how do you see it evolving?
Speaker 3:Well, um, one like you said, I think it's going to be more and more data-driven if it's not are ready. If you're not in the weeds on your data, um, you probably should be. And then okay. To, uh, more innovative. I'd say product managers instead of um, just trying to grow their existing products will be asked to come up with new and innovative ideas for their organization and then help bring those things to life. Um, and then I think two product managers will need, need to have more of a tech background. You know, I've been fortunate in my career I haven't needed a lot of[inaudible], uh, just mostly understanding of tech, but as Mmm, tech evolves and becomes more accessible to the average person, um, the product manager is going to have to get more and more technical.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, you may not ever have to code, but I think it's always good for everybody to at least understand the code because so much of our world is driven by it that you, you, you need to be able to call bullshit, right?
Speaker 3:It is true.
Speaker 2:Or at least you need to be able to say, Oh yeah, that makes sense. I get what that's doing and I or I get what the limits of a computer are. Right? I mean, I think a lot of times computers, especially with AI, are these magical beans and the reality is they're, they're really fast, really capable of calculators that do what you tell them to do and you have to have that understanding. Well, that's fantastic Renee, really thoughtful responses. I want to finish up with one final question, which is just simply know, what advice would you give someone who wants to get into this product management role? Uh, or, or is just beginning their career in product management?
Speaker 3:Okay. Well first of all, since we are on the develop mentor podcast, one, find a kickass mentor. That's the first thing I would do because one, if it's something that you think you're interested in, try it out. Don't be afraid to[inaudible] try it out and not like it. It's okay. Yeah. Um, and then truly like nurture a mentoring relationship and, uh, learn as much as you can from that mentor. Uh, if you have that attitude of I want to learn, be open to feedback, like, Mmm, you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. And when somebody tells you, Hey, you could have approached it this way instead when, uh, and find somebody that'll tell you those things, that's a good mentor. Um, tell you a good mentor tells you things you don't want to hear right? And then coaches you into how to fix it. Uh, if you find somebody who just tells you you're great, that's not a mentor. So I guess that's my advice. Find somebody who tells you, here's how you can be better and then follow their advice.
Speaker 2:That's so true. And I often, uh, you know, uh, from go back to this thing I learned with hockey of, of the difference between a, a good coach or a good mentor and a great one is the, a good coach tells you the things you kind of already know or at least are aware of. Oh yeah, I screwed up that play or I screwed that thing up. A great one. It tells you the subtleties. They point out the things that, Oh, Hey, maybe you should have turned that way or you should have done it this way and they don't beat you up when you're ARD. They already know you're beating yourself up. Right. It's, they come in and tell you the truth when you thought you perhaps did a great job already. And the reality is you could have done better if you had just done one more thing. Right. Wow. So yeah, I mean I think that's just a, a great way to end up here. Renee has such good advice around finding a mentor, especially if you're just starting off in your career. Well, Hey, I just want to thank you again for coming on the show and, and, uh, I look forward to hearing so much more from you here in the future. Thanks for having me, grant. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:[inaudible].