Mitsurus PM Talk in Waseda University

1. What’s PM?
Mitsuru Saito
General Manager
Rakuten.inc

2. Introduction
PM
Windows/IE/OE
Microsoft Japan
PM
Windows
Microsoft USA
PM
Rakuten Travel
Rakuten.inc

3. The Products I Contributed to

4. • Dividing role
• Sharpen each talent per role
• Help each other with professionalism
Program Management Trends
Require professionals who
orchestrates engineering team

5. Triangle of Company
Sales
Marketing
Product
(Development)

6. Product
（Development)
Triangle of Product
Sales
Marketing
Product
(Development)
Developers
QAPM

7. Each org should have each style of PM
PM is well defined in books?

8. Define and design products and services that delight customers
and add strategic value to the company.
What’s PM?

9. PM Cycle
Brain
Storming/Wish
Wish List
Conference/Us
er Research
PRD Sign Off
Development
m1, m2, m3
Close Beta,
Public Beta
Development
RC, RTW
Conference, PR
Feedback,
Watch,
Criticism

10. • Individual Excellence
• Action oriented
• Composure
• Conviction and courage
• Creativity
• Dealing with ambiguity
• Integrity and trustworthiness
• Intellectual horsepower
• Self confidence
• Self development
• Results
• Decision making
• Drive for results
• Managing systems and processes
• Performance management
• Planning, Organizing, and
coordinating
• Problem solving
• Customer Feedback
• Customer focus
• Presenting Rakuten
• Teamwork
• Building team spirit
• Communicating skills
• Hiring and staffing
• Interpersonal skills
• Negotiation and conflict
management
• Open communications
• Organizational agility
• Long-term approach
• Developing people
• Strategic leadership
• Strategic thinking
• Innovation management
• Passion for Products and Technology
• Technical passion and drive
• Functional/Technical
knowledge/Skills scale
PM Competencies

11. Creativity (One Example)
• Definition
• Develop original ideas, approaches, and solutions to typical, unusual, or difficult situations or
problems.
• Hints
• Regularly contributes high quality thinking to the development of ideas.
Continually pushes the status quo to test its limits, and challenges others to do so.
• Turns problems upside down and inside out to find fresh new approaches.
• Questions
• What do you do to enhance your own creative thinking?
Tell me about one of the most exciting "breakthroughs" you recently achieved on a project or
assignment.
What do you do to keep your ideas fresh?

12. Three Pillars of Talents
Generalize
Communic
ation Skill
Decision
Making

13. Generalize

14. PM is not required
if s/he solves each issue one by one

15. Random
Goal
Issue
Issue
Issue
Goal
Require
ment
Require
ment
Require
ment
Simplify data and protocol

16. Goal Require
ment
Simplify data and protocol
Goal
Require
ment
Require
ment
Require
ment

17. Culture Personality Services
Data type Action/Method Categorization
Generalize

18. Communication
Skill

19. 95% of PM Work is Disgusting

20. YouManager
Stakeholders
Customer
Team Mates
Developers
Communication Path

21. The more users on your product
The more you feel you are alone

22. You
Co-
worker
Partners
Users
Mass
Communi
cation
Friends
Family
Criticism on you

23. Tendency of Reaction
Block Ears
Stop thinking
about your
feature
Care only
Closest Guys
Care only
Short Site
Escape from
the situation

24. Feedback is always great!
People use your products!

25. Decision
Making

26. Its your product!
Make a decision by yourself!

27. YouManager
Stakeholders
Customer
Team Mates
Research
You get tons of feedback

28. Knowledge
Explanation
FlexibilityConfidence
Authority
Be Responsible for Your Product

29. One Thought I have Always
Moving Toward World!

30. Compromise
• Piss developers off!
• Bugger Customers off!CURRENT
You tend to target here
IDEAL
Here is the place you point at

31. What’s bug?
Bug
Triage
Spec
Definition
User
Scenario
Bug fix
cause
bugs
The behavior that is different from Spec

32. Think World from Scratch
Globalization
Localization
World
Readiness
Begin with
English + Japanese

39. PM in Rakuten.Inc
Early Stage
Industry
Clever
Leadership
Strong
Marketing and
Sales
Innovating
Products