Let’s Become Better Product Managers Together

So, Who Am I ?

Well, I am a software product management professional from India. Passionate! and now on a quest in search of contentment and a motive to give back to the corporate society, primarily aspiring product managers, by teaching fundamentals of product management, learn and upskill myself by connecting and collaborating with product managers within & beyond my network.

To give a background about me, I am an Engineering (Computer) graduate from Pune University & an Executive MBA in General Management from the Indian Institute of Management. As of today 19th Oct’23, I work in Oracle as a Senior Product Owner in their Oracle Health department ( under the acquired Cerner Corporation). I have predominantly worked in US Healthcare, Life Science & Clinical Trails domain. I’ve previously worked in companies namely: –

1. Dassault Systemes
2. Infostretch Corporation
3. Nitor Infotech
4. Anand Rathi Insurance Brokers
5. Valuefy Solutions

Yes, I might come across as a job hopper but along the way as I open up about myself, I’ll share my experience in each company.

Why Am I in Product Management ?

Once Upon a time…

Well, it is a long story coupled by luck and circumstances. To start with, I was really bad in programming while studying “computer engineering”. But while dragging myself through it, around second year of college I got hooked up to film making. Before this, I used to watch a lot of film. Some fascinated me and some made me feel, “Man I could do a better one than this”. Yes, quite pompous as it sounds today, but this innocent thought drew the teenager I was back then to explore the art and process of film making. I started to read a lot more, started watching more films and studied basics of writing a screenplay. I was in my own zone. Slowly, I started writing short stories but in a text book taught screenplay format. It gave me a sense of accomplishment after completing one, sharing them with my friends, obviously not everyone but those who we equally cinephiles like me. One of my friends ( also a cinephile) introduced me his friends who were students and graduates from film schools. I showed them some of my work, they liked it and offered me a gig to write a screenplay for a short film as a “ghost writer”. A ghost writer is someone who writes a piece but does not claim the ownership or credits for this work in exchange of some renumeration. In the next year and two, I worked as a ghost writer on over 10 such short films in Pune, making quite a some. That was my pocket money.

It was during this time, while writing screenplays as a ghost writer, I was subliminally introduced to product management. Let me tell you how. After accepting an offer, I used to sit with the makers, this included the director, the writer (the dude who thought about the story but was too lazy to articulate it in a screenplay), the editor and every other guy who had an opinion about the project. It’s during this briefing, I used to get a sense of what the makers want, their requirements. My usual questionnaire included asking the desired number of characters in the story, the budget of the film, location, etc since whatever goes in a screenplay has to shown on a screen unlike a story which is left to reader’s imagination. Considering these basic things, I used to write a screenplay, get it proof read, present it to the makers, get feedback & incorporate it in the draft, submit it and walk away with a heavy pocket.

As I reached last semester of my final year in engineering, we were taught a couple of really interesting subjects namely Software Design Methods & Business Analysis & Intelligence . Both subjects talked and taught on the lines of how a software is developed in an iterative manner. For me, I felt a sense of relief as both were theoretical subjects with minimal to no programming to clear them. But then, something interesting started to happen, for the very first time, I was actually enjoying learning these subjects, proactively going beyond the textbook to know more and for the first time explored a path, a possible career that won’t require me to write a line of code yet be someone at the helm of matters to let engineers know WHAT needs to be built.

You may ask how is working as a ghost writer in college relates to you being in this discipline.

Well, today & back then as well when I sat down deciding what path I should take ahead after graduation, as I see in retrospect, I drew an analogy between my experience developing a screenplay as ghost writer to what it takes to build a software product as a product manager. One thing then led to another thereby shaping me to become who I am today.

Why Am I Blogging and What will this site offer?

Why Am I Blogging?

With 2020, came the pandemic, with the pandemic came the rise in audio video based content to consume, which led to long form podcasts and short form shorts, tiktoks and reels. Most of us have lost the discipline of reading. This place is for those patient souls who prefer learning at a calming pace while thoroughly understanding nuances of it. Product Management is my expertise and I will utilize this space to write about it.

What will this site offer?

When I started my career back in 2017, the Indian Software Industry which was primarily a service based industry was moving into a new phase, the start up phase, meaning, now India had started developing products for themselves. But the 2010s was the dawn of these times. Because of market share of service based organizations, the giants, there were no “Product Manager” or “Product Owner” jobs yet in the country. What you had and still do is a Business Analyst, who used to work as a scriber for a Product Manager who was a client of the service based firm.

So, product management in itself was quite niche of a career path back then. Many aspiring product managers back then were trained as a scriber to serve the client as a Business Analyst than having a whole outright product mindset.

Having worked in both, service based firms and product based firms, with this website, I would like to help aspiring product managers, be it fresh graduates or professional seeking a transition into product management, a place to learn, understand, explore and be a product manager. Back when I started as an intern, I was clueless, directionless & scared about how things will turn out for me. Today, I sit firm and would like to extend my arm to anyone who’s willing to choose this path.

This website will offer structured & directed learning which will help you all in your journey to be a product manager.

Hi, I am Malhar Bhambure & Welcome to…

Malhar PMinc