Anna, Product Manager
Anna has been a product manager at the CHECK24 location in Augsburg since 2020. In this interview, you can read about her experiences as a career changer and how her team deals with conflicts of interest.
Hello Anna, please introduce yourself briefly.
Anna:
Hi, I'm Anna, and I'm 28 years old. I studied education in Augsburg for my Bachelor's degree and interdisciplinary teaching-learning research for my Master's degree, so I am a career changer in product management. I also came to CHECK24 and product management instead by chance. In 2018, I worked in the call center over the summer and was taken on as a working student in product management after the semester break. After my studies, I started as a junior product manager at the end of 2020.
How can you imagine everyday life in product management?
Anna:
Of course, I can only speak for myself here, as the daily routine of product management can vary greatly depending on the product. I am responsible for our chatbot Pia, so my job is generally to make sure that our customers find the information they are looking for quickly in the chat and receive optimal support. Therefore, I find out where we can improve based on customer feedback and key figures and then think about what these improvements could look like in concrete terms. Of course, thorough testing is necessary for all adjustments.
How does your team prepare product releases?
Anna:
We currently release three times a week and have defined a fixed process for this. The evening before the release, we test our most essential functions again to ensure the new features or bug fixes don't break anything. Of course, we often have dependencies between the different applications and have to coordinate the timing so that, for example, one application releases before the other.
The best thing about CHECK24?
My tasks often vary; sometimes, I work on intuitive and understandable processes and, sometimes, on concepts for technical features that I like.
Anna, Product Manager
What qualities should an ideal teammate have for you?
Anna:
Curiosity and a willingness to learn are essential in product management. Flexibility is also necessary to be able to react quickly to new requirements. Of course, you must also be motivated to get everything out of the product to create the best possible customer experience.
How do you manage to reconcile different opinions on projects?
Anna:
Of course, we don't always agree on everything in the team, and there are conflicts of interest. But we communicate very openly in the group, taking every opinion seriously. It is constructive in such situations to write down all the arguments and compare them, e.g., in the form of a pro and con list. That way, we can find a well-founded solution that everyone can support.
And finally, how would your colleagues describe you in three words?
Anna:
According to my colleague Jana: calm, helpful, and disciplined.