Petra Wille
Petra Wille is an independent product leadership coach who’s been helping product teams expand their skill sets since 2013. She’s also the author of Strong Product People, which she published in 2021. Alongside her freelance work, Petra curates and co-organizes Mind The Product Engage Hamburg. She started her career as a software developer and in 2008 went to work at Xing, a German social media site, where she learned from two incredible product leaders: Marty Cagan and Jason Goldberg.
Career Skills
Storytelling and public speaking are critical competencies for advancing to leadership roles and rallying teams.
"Getting promoted is way harder if you're not good in telling stories and rallying the team behind the shared goal and all these kind of things, and you usually achieve this through good storytelling t..."
Communication Skills
Build public speaking confidence by starting with small, low-stakes audiences and gradually increasing scale.
"The easiest way is to get in front of really small and super friendly audiences. So that is, I think, the first starting point. And I don't know where that is. That could be your team, that's a super..."
Physical 'power poses' or sensory anchors can help manage pre-presentation anxiety.
"I think the two things that work well, it's either the Superman pose, so that is one thing. If you're standing like this looking straightly up, that is one thing that helps many people. It's not my pr..."
Leadership Skills
Using a prepared list of coaching questions ensures 1:1s remain valuable even when the manager is busy.
"Get yourself a list of great questions that you could ask in one on ones if you don't have the time to prepare. That will be one of my tips as well. There's several great coaching books out there. Som..."
The guest outlines a specific 5-step framework for developing PMs (Definition of Good, Current Assessment, Shared Vision, Development Plan, and Follow-up) which is distinct from general leadership or
"Step number one is really having a solid definition of what a good product person looks like in your context."
Marketing Skills
Effective storytelling requires significant time investment and iterative refinement rather than natural talent alone.
"First of all, people that's starting, often they are getting a better storytelling journey. Often totally underestimate how many time actually great storytellers are investing in creating the stories..."
Utilizing proven structures like the Hero's Journey helps make product visions more compelling and relatable.
"I use this hero's journey a lot where I think about, should I put the team in the heart of the story? Because if it's a story that should help me to motivate the team or to inspire the team to actions..."
Internal communities of practice are cost-effective tools for continuous learning, peer coaching, and employee retention.
"A product community of practice could be a big part of that. So that is one impact. Then the other impact, there's less people development on the desk of the product lead if there is a good product co..."