My first PM Teatime is with Shyvee Shi, a Product Manager at LinkedIn and more specifically within LinkedIn Learning. Shyvee is also a highly successful PM content creator, regularly facilitating PM learning sessions to help inspire people to level up within their careers.

I spoke to Shyvee about her own journey into PMing at LinkedIn and her advice as to how others can transition into the field.

Some of the interview highlights include:

• When transitioning into PMing it is so important to talk to lots of people. Try and get as many different perspectives as possible to get the most informed view of the field.
• Don’t make the mistake of thinking that need to have a Computer Science degree – PMs come in all shapes and sizes and with many different backgrounds (consulting in Shyvee’s case!)
• During your early PM career, leverage all of the many toolkits out there. You can use many frameworks to guide you through every stage of your career.

Read the full conversation below 👇🏼

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Hassiba: Hi Shyvee, great to chat with you today! Let’s start with your path into product management – what did this look like for you and how did you first learn about PMing as a field?

Shyvee: Yeah, sure! So, actually, my path to product management is definitely not a very straightforward one. I think I actually stumbled across PMing! My educational background is in economics and finance, and I interned at an investment bank during my junior year and realised I was not into finance. So from this, I decided to join consulting so that I could work on different projects in different capacities to explore what I like.

I feel like I was doing a lot of product jobs, but without the title, and I actually didn’t know that it was product management at the time.

So during the first one and a half years after business school, I spend most of my time working with different clients, actually spanning 6 different industries, and 12 different projects, some of which included building retail apps, and doing CRM transformation. For those who don’t know, CRM means Customer Relationship Management software – so, like Salesforce for example. So I was working on various digital transformation projects, both internally and externally. I feel like I was doing a lot of product jobs, but without the title, and I actually didn’t know that it was product management at the time. I was just kind of throwing myself out there and helping people with problems, pushing progress, and making an impact. And that was how I sort of stumbled across product management. 

Also, for folks who are looking to transition into product, I made two mistakes that newbies always made when it comes to exploring a new career. At first, I thought that not having a computer science degree would mean I wouldn’t be a good PM. That imposter syndrome was actually all internal, and it’s all me, talking myself down – it’s not actually reality. And there’s a lot of counter-evidence to this too, right? Steve Jobs was maybe the greatest PM ever on earth and he didn’t have a computer science degree. So I talked myself into it and I was like, I have a strategy background, I love making slides – and I’m proud of making slides!

You should talk to multiple people, to get multiple perspectives, I would say at least five to ten people.

And then the second mistake I made was that I talked to two people about product management. The emphasis that I want to make there is I only talked to two people. I should have gotten way more perspectives, right? You should talk to multiple people to get multiple perspectives, I would say at least five to ten people, you know, to get a good feel, versus only two people. Unless it’s about working at a specific company, maybe then it’s okay to not talk to that many people but generally about occupation, I think it’s it’s helpful to get multiple perspectives. 

So I think from there on, I went back to consulting after business school, and hated it almost immediately. I love owning the problem and I have a better understanding of product management at that point. So I looked for a job and got an opportunity at LinkedIn – I mentioned CRM digital transformation earlier and that’s actually how I got the job as I had some relevant experience being a PM for internal tools. And so in this role, I got the opportunity to work with designers and engineers firsthand, and then also shadowed other PMs that were working on external-facing products.

So, two years after my journey a LinkedIn, I then successfully transitioned into the official product management org within our R&D organisation – into the LinkedIn Learning team. Because before I was with Sales, creating internal tools, and obviously internal tools have a different set of challenges than a lot of the external facing products. 

Another thing to add is I am the first generation in my family and to have received the prestige education that really opens the door to so many opportunities, so I am very fortunate to be joining a team that focuses on learning and especially adult learning so that people can level up –  so it’s very much a passionate area for me!

I’ve been rotating within three different roles to grow as a PM. I started out working more on the platform side, so it’s leveraging my old sort of superpower of being like a project manager, rallying teams, and trying to build a large platform-based product. My second role was more on search and discovery, working within AI machine learning and being more data-focused. And then my latest role, which I just took about a month ago, was much more strategy-oriented and that is helping to make a better learning product on LinkedIn and how can we activate more people to share their knowledge and expertise on LinkedIn. So it’s very blue sky and I’m doing a lot of prototyping, testing and user research so it’s all exciting stuff!

Hassiba: Oh amazing!  I think that’s such a common thing that people stumble into PMing because that also happened to me. Similarly to you, I worked in consulting and somehow found out about product management. I feel like it’s also not as well known here in the UK, as much as the US, which is also a big factor.

What is it like to be a PM LinkedIn and specifically within LinkedIn Learning?

Shyvee: Yeah, so I think a couple things I want to mention. First LinkedIn is a very mission-driven company. Our mission statement is to create economic opportunities for every member of the global workforce. One thing you should take note of is that I worked at 12 different companies, as part of being a consultant, I do not remember any of the mission statements of any of those companies! So I think that tells you the power of working in a mission-driven company where every employee can remember the mission statement and every deliverable that we start we kind of speak to the vision first, and we try to be very principal driven and remember the meaning first. For example, if we were to build this feature, how does that benefit our members? So, I feel very privileged and very lucky, and grateful to be working at a company that cares so much about its mission. 

Jeff Weiner, our former CEO had these three things: dream big, get things done, and have fun. So that’s the kind of ethos that we embrace as a team. 

Second, I think what’s unique to LinkedIn is that people here are just also very mission-driven. So they’re all very smart and talented but also working hard and know how to have fun. While we are trying to dream big and how to achieve that mission. So whether it was working in Sales on an internal tool or being a PM right now working at LinkedIn Learning, one thing that I really like is just the people and the calibre of the people that I’m able to work with.  Jeff Weiner, our former CEO had these three things: dream big, get things done, and have fun. So that’s the kind of ethos that we embrace as a team. 

And then, lastly, I think the third thing about building products at LinkedIn, that’s very unique to a company of a scale like LinkedIn – I’m sure maybe Facebook and Google have some of that too-  is the concept of ecosystem thinking. So LinkedIn actually has five parts of the business, right? There’s the premium or consumer side of linkedin.com that most members face, but that business actually powers the other money-generating business lines, and recently it’s been combined into three. But basically, you can think of it as the talent and learning business, which includes jobs and LinkedIn Learning. And then there’s the second pillar which is the marketing business that’s the product and services pages where people can search and research different service providers on our platform. And then the last piece is Sales Navigator, which is mostly for sales professionals and business development professionals. So everything that you implement could potentially tap into any part of those areas and have cascading and ripple effects. So how can you build something that plays well with the rest of the ecosystem and amplify it, you know?

And so each has a role to play in collectively doing better together. So that’s something that if you work for a small startup- where you only have one product- you would maybe not have to think about this. This ripple in cascading effects is what we call ecosystem thinking. So it’s pretty unique and very centric to LinkedIn.

Hassiba: I know you have a lot of conversations with many prominent PMs, what are some of your most memorable learnings from chatting with these inspiring PMs? 

Shyvee: I do recap some of the main themes in my newsletter. So for anyone who’s listening, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out my profile, you’ll see the PM Learning series newsletter. And there, I recap, some of the top takeaways I have.

I would say if I were to channel the top learning for me is just there are so many good methodologies out there, even just for customer discovery. For example, last week I talked to Teresa Torres, who has a continuous product discovery framework, and then this Friday I’m going to talk to Kristen Berman, who has a whole behavioral science methodology around how to build habitual products to influence people’s decisions and behaviors. So I think eventually my dream is to be able to piece all of that together and form a master framework that can help people to level up.

I feel like there are so many toolkits that you can pull out that can really benefit you at every stage of your product career.

So I’m really bullish about this idea of building a collective of PM knowledge and wisdom and that was just user discovery, right? And then for some of the people that I talked to like, Liz Lee, who’s more focused on transitioning from, or up-leveling, from individual contributors to a product leader or people manager. Others are more focused on product rituals – so what kind of rituals or processes can you build to enable teams to better solve problems, or build a better culture and sense of belonging. 

So I feel like there are so many toolkits that you can pull out that can really benefit you at every stage of your product career. So I invite everybody who’s interested in this initiative or thinking about building this collective PM wisdom to join me to help see what this could be. I am envisioning it almost like a library or something that you can like tap into for different frameworks at different points in time.

I think that’s a tangential way to answer your question. But yeah, that’s something that I took away – and I’m hoping to build that into a bigger cause!

Hassiba: What advice would you give to people who are trying to transition into/have recently transitioned into PMing?

Shyvee: Yeah. So I think for me, let’s put it in two stages. One is how you get into PM, second is as a PM, how you level up and excel in your career. I have this framework that I call MVP. But instead of standing for a minimum viable product, it stands for Mindset Value Prop and the P actually breaks into three: people, process, and projects.

The first one is the mindset, whether you’re a college grad or a career pivoter, you need to know why and have that clarity and conviction of why you want to get into PM and have a story around it. The second aspect of value prop is: what are you bringing to the table? I keep emphasising how digital transformation, CRM was my way into PMing and I made sure to pitch how my skills were transferable, right? The first role that I took on as a platform PM was actually leveraging all of my consulting experience to get me through the door. So what is your value prop? What is your superpower that you can bring to the table? They’re transferable from a different domain to make you a better PM.

The next of the three P’s are the people that you need to connect with whether it’s mentors or peer support groups that can do mock interviews with you. They’re hiring managers or hiring teams that you need to connect with. How do you reach out to them with specific techniques (I cover specific examples in my newsletter that I can share with you) . The second P I say is project- do you have experience actually building products on your own or as an intern or for your 20% project for another product team. So make sure you have those experiences and projects under your belt.

…stay curious. Always ask a lot of questions, empathise with your stakeholder and your user.

Lastly, the third piece is process. Just the act of reaching out, people following me up, getting through the interview, doing your mock interview is all very important. I know it sounds weird because, for a lot of occupations outside of product, you might not need a single mock interview to get offers – but for product it’s different. So I encourage you to actually step up your game there. 

And so now the second part is once you get a product job, How do you level up? I think a lot of it is learning on the job. I would say the first thing is to stay curious. Always ask a lot of questions, empathise with your stakeholder and your user. So I would always come in not with an assumption, but with an open mind so always be curious asking questions, thinking deeply, not just on the surface, but observing who’s doing really well in that space and learning from them because great artists steal. And so do great product managers- observe and steal. Whatever style works for them.

The second thing is how do you influence without authority? Learning how to be a great communicator. There are a lot of resources there. I also have certain articles and posts that I wrote about it, just learning about how to communicate well and then learning about the importance. That’s a real skill that will get you really far as a PM.

As a PM, don’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes, but you need to embrace it and not make the same mistake again.

And then the third aspect, I think it’s just to keep iterating like that, learning is very tied to the curious mindset, right? You may make mistakes. Not a big deal. It’s not about the fact that you make mistakes, I think the better part of thinking about it is, how fast you come back from it. Pick yourself back up and pick the team back up.  As a PM, don’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes, but you need to embrace it and not make the same mistake again.  You will build up a lot of resilience from these experiences and I think those are some of the core skills. 

Hassiba: What do you do to switch off from work-related stuff? 

Shyvee: Yeah, for me there are three things. I love cooking, art projects, and traveling. So since covid, I haven’t been able to really travel a lot and but before covid, I did a lot of world travel. I’ve been to all six continents. So it’s been a very, very cool experience – like hundreds of cities and so yeah, that’s a great experience for me to unwind. Recently, I went to Alaska and did a lot of crazy stuff.  But day to day I like to learn how to cook or like noodling on different dishes, combining recipes and trying things, or just exploring the city I live in. 

I do enjoy art projects because I think art teaches us a lot of things and it helps me to release and completely concentrate. You don’t look at your phone anymore, you focus on what you do. And I think the biggest lesson that art teaches me is that whenever we make art, we always judge ourselves, we always criticise. We’re always fearful of if we make a wrong mistake. But the good thing about art is even if it doesn’t look good- just cover it up or try it again and it will become something unique that you created. And so it will always turn out to be great!

And there are a lot of life lessons in that, right? Like, you can always pick yourself back up, and if you just judge yourself, you won’t enjoy the process. 

Hassiba: Of course! I think being a PM is a really mentally demanding job, so taking time out to let your mind release from all that pressure and stress is really essential.

I feel like so many people will learn so much from you. So thank you for sharing your insights Shyvee!

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Follow Shyvee on LinkedIn and sign up to her PM Learning Series newsletter for insights and resources to level up your PM career!