Coach LLC
Product 360
If you are a Product Management professional in the Enterprise SaaS space looking to elevate your PM craft with the support of a coach and mentor, you have come to the right place.
My name is Victor Chan, and I founded Product 360 Coach LLC as a way to give back to my profession after a rewarding 33-year product career in Silicon Valley (at ServiceNow, Oracle, and Siemens).
Having spent most of my career in my favorite role of PM player-coach, where I continued to personally lead product innovations while managing a PM staff, I developed deep empathy for the immense challenges PMs face in our demanding roles, as well as valuable insights into the kind of coaching and mentoring support PMs need not only to survive, but to thrive.
Upon early retirement, in addition to starting my PM Friday blog where I share PM best practices in long form articles, I decided to build on my extensive on-the-job coaching/mentoring experience by training with the Center for Executive Coaching to become a Certified Executive Coach, and boy am I glad I did it. It was exactly what I needed to complete my vision of offering a professional-grade coaching experience to my clients.
If you are intrigued by the transformative power of executive coaching but prefer a coach with PM domain experience, or if you are wondering what it takes to become a world-class PM and would love to have a mentor show you, I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute exploratory meeting with me to see if we might be a good fit for each other.
Cheers!
My Qualifications
Silicon Valley Pedigree plus International Experience
BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, MS in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University. Director and Senior Director level PM executive for Enterprise Software at ServiceNow, Oracle, and Siemens. Also held technical executive roles as Engineering Director and Chief Architect.
2-year foreign assignment in Munich, Germany to lead a global product introduction into 30+ countries.
Led pre-M&A technical due diligence and post-M&A team integrations.
Classically Trained Leader
MS in Engineering Management for managing people, business, projects, and product innovation. Siemens Leadership Training Program for High Potentials. Certified Agile Scrum Master and Product Owner. As Agile Coach I supported 30 teams migrating to Agile Development.
Blog article: Rewiring Your Brain for Leadership using the MOI Model: Motivation, Organization, Innovation
Blog article: An Unforgettable Lesson on Teamwork from Lego Blocks
Blog article: Can Your Leadership Pass the Prima Donna Test?
Professionally Trained Coach
Completed professional Executive Coaching Certificate program with the Center for Executive Coaching.
Even before becoming a professional coach, I logged thousands of hours of 1-on-1 and team coaching over my career as a manager/mentor/coach. (See testimonials section below)
Blog article: Why Enterprise SaaS Product Management is so Hard, and How Mentor Coaching Can Help
Blog article: If Product Development is a Team Sport, Where the Heck are our Team Coaches?
User Experience (UX) Advocate
Led the design of the revolutionary Customizable Agent Workspace at ServiceNow. Led UX research teams on international customer visits. Trusted advisor to highest value customers, helping them craft their agent and customer user experiences. Customer Journey Mapping coach.
Blog article: Why We Never Seem to Have Enough UX Designers in Enterprise Software
Blog article: Could QE/QA be the Missing Piece of Our Software UX Puzzle?
Podcast: “Experience Design at ServiceNow” - on Apple Podcast, on Spotify
PM Best Practices Nerd
Lifelong student of PM best practices in strategy, leadership, innovation, and design. Author of PM Friday blog where I share the gems of my PM craft in long-form articles. As part of my writing process, I continue to learn emerging best practices as I conduct research to supplement my own knowledge.
Blog article: How Practicing Product Management as a Craft Enriched My 30-Year Career
Blog article: An Essential 15-Minute Work Life Balance Check-up for Product Managers
Blog article: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” — the Foundation of my PM Craft
Innovation and Strategy
10 issued U.S. patents in enterprise applications, contact centers, and telecommunications.
Chief Architect of the first Unified Communication (UC) application to lead the Gartner Magic Quadrant. Pioneered the first Oracle Skills Based Routing engine. Pioneered the first Oracle Integration Self-Service Application for citizen developers with revolutionary ease-of-use. Led mission-critical Agent Workspace product design and development at ServiceNow involving dozens of designers and hundreds of engineers.
Blog article: Tell-tale Signs Your Product Org Needs a (dedicated) Strategist
Testimonials 360
Testimonials from PM, Dev, UX, QA, Platform, Pre-sales, Customer Success, Product Coach, ....
Testimonials from PM, Dev, UX, QA, Platform, Pre-sales, Customer Success, Product Coach, ....
Coaching Topics
In our coaching sessions you will always be in the driver’s seat, and we will prioritize whatever is top-of-mind for you, whether it is a burning challenge, an important decision, or a development goal.
In addition, for clients looking to elevate their PM craft with the help of a mentor, here is a short list of topics I have found to be especially relevant to Enterprise SaaS PMs. We can incorporate some of these topics (as well as others) into our coaching sessions depending on your specific needs.
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Target Audience: PMs new to the role who want to bootstrap their PM careers by learning and applying PM best practices. Experienced PMs new to Enterprise SaaS.
In our coaching sessions, we will explore PM best practices most applicable to your current assignments, and I will support you as you put them to work. -
Target Audience: PMs in a strategy role, or senior PMs and PM executives who want to “be more strategic”.
In our coaching sessions, we will review your product strategy and go-to-market strategy and discuss priorities, so you can focus on what is most important to get done. We will explore product strategy best practices to help you on this journey and hold you accountable as you work on turning strategic focus into a habit. -
Target Audience: PMs moving into a (bigger) leadership role.
In our coaching sessions, we will set development goals and review progress, as you practice applying new leadership skills in your new role. I will also encourage you to fully embrace your new role as a leader, which often requires empowering and enabling your team, delegating many of your previous responsibilities, expanding your power base, and developing your executive presence. -
Target audience: PMs leading an innovation project delivering new user experiences, or PMs aspiring to “be more innovative”.
In our coaching sessions, we will explore opportunities to incorporate innovation and design best practices into your current projects. You will be challenged to deepen your understanding of your problem space and apply creativity and design thinking techniques to come up with innovative solutions. We will also explore ways to fire up all the creative genius in your team. -
Target audience: senior PMs and PM executives responsible for large projects and/or complex systems.
In our coaching sessions, we will explore ways to tame your most complex projects by breaking them down into simpler, more modular, and thus more manageable piece parts, as well as explore different architectures and org structures for building complex systems. -
Target audience: all PMs.
In our coaching sessions, we will identify the key situations in your work where effective communication is critical to success, such as: pitching a project for approval, presenting/demo-ing to a VIP customer, facilitating meetings, meeting 1-on-1 with staff, etc., and I will support you in your preparation. -
Target audience: PMs new to working in a platform-centric software organization (e.g. Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, etc.).
In our coaching sessions, we will identify challenges you are facing working in a platform-centric product organization and explore ways to overcome them. (e.g. how to influence platform team to prioritize your requirements.) We will also discuss the distinct advantages of a platform-centric approach and find ways to unlock those advantages for your product. -
Target audience: for PMs new to Agile Scrum or PMs looking to enhance their team’s performance.
In our coaching sessions, we will work through any challenges you are facing, such as: team members resistant to change, quality of user stories, managing scope creep, etc. We will also explore ways to facilitate seamless team work across PM, UX, Development, and QA to create a high performing Scrum team, as well as explore advanced concepts, such as continuous discovery and planning, risk management, etc. -
Target audience: unfortunately, almost all PMs are at risk for burn-out.
In our coaching sessions, we will assess your work life balance and discuss priorities, boundaries, and self-care strategies to avoid burn-out.
Pricing
I am keeping things simple with pay-as-you-go pricing to maximize flexibility for busy PMs. Although there are no contract periods or a fixed number of use-it-or-lose-it meetings, it is worth highlighting that coaching relationships deliver maximum benefits over time (typically over 3 - 6 months). Therefore, it is recommended that recurring appointments (typically weekly or bi-weekly) be booked in advance to ensure availability. Individual (self-pay) and corporate-sponsored coaching engagements are both welcome. There is a $50 fee for meetings cancelled less than 24 hours in advance.
Exploratory Session
Free - 30 minutes
Take advantage of this free 30-minute session to explore whether coaching is a good idea for you and whether we are a good fit.
Coaching+Mentoring
$200 - 50 minutes
For individual contributor PMs to first line managers in an Enterprise SaaS PM role looking to elevate their PM craft.
Making professional coaching accessible to our future product leaders
Executive Coaching
$400 - 50 minutes
For product executives (Director level and above) who want a “thinking partner” who understands their challenges in the Enterprise SaaS space and can be a trusted advisor on strategy, key decisions, and leadership topics.
Note: Speaking engagements and other consulting services available upon request.
Contact Us
If you have any questions regarding Product 360 Coach, please feel free to contact us. We will typically respond within 24 hours.
(To book an appointment please see “Pricing” section above.)