HOW TO DEVELOP A
STRONG PRODUCT CULTURE
I’m a freelance Product Leadership Coach who’s been helping companies to improve their product culture and product teams to up their game since 2013.
Considering starting a product community of practice in your organization but don't know where to begin? My new book STRONG Product Communities will guide you on this journey. Get your copy on Amazon.
My Mission
Product Management is a challenging profession. But it’s also one of the most rewarding. You learn a lot about humans and the world in general while creating products for people.
And if you do your job well, they’ll actually love the product you created with your team. How cool is that?! I strongly believe with the right mindset, goals, methodologies, and people around you, it’s the best job on the planet.
My mission is to help Heads of Product discover THEIR way of being strong and put that knowledge into practice in their organizations.
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What others say
Petra brings a blast of positive, product energy that can help you blow out any product-cobwebs in your system.
Geoff Stead / CPO / Babbel / 2021
What I do
After working as a full-time product leader for several years, I began my coaching journey by taking on interim product leadership roles, working with product teams and trios to build up their product discovery practices as a product discovery coach, and consulting on the topics of agile/digital transformation, moving towards empowered product teams, and becoming a product-led organization.
In 2021, I published my book STRONG Product People and my coaching now focuses on product leaders (Heads of Product, VPs of Product, etc.) who manage product people.
I take a flipped classroom approach to coaching. This means that I expect my coachees to bring the topics and questions that they would like to focus on. You will be the driver of our conversations. Similarly, I’m not here to provide you with the answers or do the work for you. My job is to prompt you to reflect and come up with your own solutions.
Just like when you learn a musical instrument, you will need to practice on your own outside of our sessions. I’ll expect you to commit to doing your homework so we can accomplish as much as possible during our time together. Read more on this topic in How to Make the Most of Your Coaching Sessions.
If you’re looking for someone to create your strategy or design your OKRs, that’s not me. However, if these are topics you’re struggling with and you’d like someone to bounce ideas off of, that’s exactly what I’m here for.
Whether you’re trying to apply some concepts you’ve learned, want to determine the best framework for your situation, or need help overcoming office politics, I’m here to offer support, but it is on you to do the heavy lifting. To get a better sense of the product coaching landscape (and better understand where I fit in), see How to Decide What Type of Product Coach Is Right for You.
The people who get the most out of working with me have already invested some serious time and effort into their own self-development. They have a good sense of the areas they want to focus on and just need a little extra guidance. If you are just beginning your professional development journey as a product leader, I recommend starting with some of the excellent free and low-cost resources that are out there before investing in coaching with me. Read more on this topic in How the Learning Menu Concept Can Help Develop Your Product Team.
How I do it
I work on a freelance basis, generally out of my Hamburg office, though your team can be based anywhere. We can easily work together remotely, and I open to occasional travel when it it safe.
Experience has shown me that it’s particularly vital to be in one place with everyone involved at the start of projects. Getting to know one another personally is crucial, and it presents the perfect chance to sit down together to come up with a tailor-made consulting package for your company.
17+
years of PRoduct MGMT Experience
10+
YEARS OF WORKING for my OWN CLIENTS
73+
Clients
Publications
STRONG Product Communities
Strong Product Communities is a comprehensive guide that empowers product people, product leaders, HR, and Learning & Development professionals to develop and nurture successful product Communities of Practice (CoP). The book offers valuable insights gathered from survey data, interviews with CoP leaders, and the author’s hands-on experience.
STRONG Product People
You’re a product leader looking for advice on how to be certain that every product manager on your team is living up to their full potential?
You want to make sure your product people are competent, empowered and inspired, and would like to know how you can best help them on this journey? Then this book is for you!
