My name is Teagan, and I’m a Managing Consultant at ISL Talent. I specialise in product and have worked hard to build a solid product network over the years. I’ve created this blog series to gather insights from high level product people and help others in the community with advice to take their career to the next level.

In this interview, I chat to Director of Product Fiona Cliffe, about everything from the aftermath of over-hiring during the pandemic and concerns about AI's impact on product roles to future trend predictions and the pivotal role of cross-collaboration in a product team’s success.

Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself?

“I’m Fiona and I’ve been in product for about 10 years. All within direct to consumer, e-commerce type products. I’ve worked for VoucherCloud which is now owned by Groupon, I did a big stint at Just Eat and most recently I was Product Director for Avast Secure Browser, which is part of Norton Cyber Security group, leading a cross-functional team of 12 people.”

What has your career journey looked like?

“My route into product was accidental. I graduated with a French and Business degree and had big ideas of becoming a translator. However, that didn’t work out, so I started working for a health insurance company. They started a big internal project to revamp their claims handling system, so the opportunity arose to join that team and I ended up working on lots of different things, which is where I discovered product management.”

I then moved to VoucherCloud and then onto Just Eat which was such an exciting place to work, because when I joined, they were skyrocketing in popularity - there was a lot of opportunity there to experience different facets within product management, which was great. My latest role at Avast was within a completely different industry, and they wanted me to come in to help them transform from an old-school, very tech heavy business to a product growth lead company. The results of our work speak for themselves and led to the business getting acquired.”

What are the current challenges you’re experiencing in product or the industry as a whole?

“Obviously during covid, we had this huge spike in online services, and I think a lot of companies over hired, and now we’re seeing the fallout of that. I’m seeing a lot of redundancies, especially in the bigger companies, so you’ve got a lot of people out of work, and not a lot of jobs coming up. Within the product industry, I’m also seeing some panic about the rise of AI and how it might take product jobs away. Personally, I believe there’s space for AI to enhance product, and I can’t see it taking away what a human can bring to a product role.”

Do you have any predictions of future trends within product?

“The thing I’ve heard about most recently is how product and customer research can work a lot better together. I’m always thinking about how we can improve our customer research, for example not being biased or asking leading questions – we can get better at that. I read an interesting post recently about how we can enhance customer research. How will we leverage it, learn from it and be different or stand out? I think all product leaders should be thinking about these questions and consider how they can implement it as part of their strategy.”

Why do you think it’s important for the success of a product team to work cross-functionally within a business?

“A mistake I’ve seen in the past is that the product team often sits separately to other teams. I think it’s so important to keep open lines of communication between product and all the other teams. Just because you’re a product manager, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got all the ideas and answers to everything – you’ve got people in marketing, finance and other functions that understand the customers well, so it’s about keeping those lines of communication open and being knowledge collectors.

Within product, we’re meant to be good communicators, so building those relationships across the whole team will make sure they’re on board with you rather than working against you.”

How do you ensure that there is effective communication and alignment across the different teams?

“I think it’s hard, because everyone has their own priorities, and it’s not something I think can be solved with a process. I always talk to my teams about building relationships with key people in other teams, so that they know who you are, you can build trust and they care about what you have to say. There can never be too much communication. You never want to be in a position where you’re being chased for an update, so just take 5 minutes to write an email, and get in touch with others across the teams. A way to hammer home some of the things we’re trying to achieve in product is to use data to show here’s what we’re looking at, here’s why etc. Put the effort into talking to people with solid data of where ideas have worked in the past or why we believe it will work here.”

How do you handle conflicting goals and priorities across teams?

“In an ideal world, if you’ve planned properly with everyone involved, you shouldn’t have many conflicts. But you must be prepared for priority discussions and conflicts. And you also have to be prepared for a change in direction. When you’ve been working hard on something and you really believe in it, you can lose sight of the cold facts about whether it is the right thing to do, or whether it’s going to be a priority. I encourage my team to not get too emotionally attached to their ideas (whilst remaining passionate of course), so that it’s easier to pivot if needs be. It’s about enabling teams to step back and assess what the goal is that everyone should be focusing on for the year, quarter, or whatever it may be.”

How do you ensure insights and feedback from the other teams are integrated into the process?

“A lot of businesses I’ve worked for have always asked for personal feedback, so going out there and asking for feedback on your performance and what you could improve. But what we don’t do a great deal of is reflect on how we are going to work better next time or have a better approach. Take the time after a piece of work to chat across teams and ask what could be improved; it shows your respect for the other teams and your willingness to improve the process for everyone.”

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start a career in product?

“The main thing I think has helped me in my career is reaching out to people and building mentoring relationships. I reach out to people on LinkedIn both inside and outside of product who have had impressive careers and learn from them. Particularly as a woman in a very male-dominated space, speaking to other women who’ve got into leadership positions really helped me. Try and build out your network and learn from people in different disciplines and industries; they have a lot to teach you.”

These blogs are all about connecting people, so if you like what Fiona had to say, connect with her here. Alternatively, if you’d like to feature in a blog or would like to chat to me about product roles, drop me a message on LinkedIn here.