Product Thinking: Recent Episodes
Melissa Perri
Successful product management isn’t just about training the product managers who work side by side with developers everyday to build better products. It’s about taking a step back, approaching the systems within organizations as a whole, and leveling up product leadership to improve these systems. This is the Product Thinking Podcast, where Melissa Perri will connect with industry leading experts in the product management space, AND answer your most pressing questions about everything product. Join us each week to level up your skillset and invest in yourself as a product leader.
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri welcomes Debbie Widjaja, Chief Product Officer of Zero Gravity, as a guest.
The pair discuss Debbie's career journey and how her perspective on product management has evolved over time. Debbie shares her focus on creating products that bring a positive impact to the world and the importance of clear product principles.
They also delve into the relationship between principles and strategy, the role of humility in product management, and the challenges of aligning investor expectations with a company's mission. Further to this, Debbie touches on the role of AI in product management and managing innovation in smaller companies. This exciting episode offers valuable insights into product management and the future of the field.
You’ll hear them talk about:
07:30* - The Transformative Power of Technology
Debbie’s upbringing in Indonesia has had a profound impact on how she has shaped and evolved her career over the 13 years she has been working in product management. Ultimately, as she explains these formative times of her life, growing up without the internet has meant that Debbie has a deep appreciation for the absolutely transformative effect of technology to people’s day-to-day lives. As Debbie describes, her perspective is particularly wide because, having experienced the reality of that positive transformation, she also went on to see the other extreme while at Facebook, dealing with hate speech and misinformation.
- 12:40 - The Difference Between Principles and Strategy
Wanting to work for companies that perform a social good has been central to many of the choices that Debbie has made in her career so far. And as a result, grasping a company’s principles is a particularly important task for her. How that intersects with strategy is a point that Debbie has some interesting thoughts on. Her view on the difference is that strategy tends to be more practical, with principles perhaps being longer-term and set in stone. As Debbie illustrates, strategy could change year on year, while principles need to be more consistent to be effective and worthwhile.
- 23:12 - Product Management While Pursuing Social Good
A company that could be categorized as performing social good, need not necessarily be a charity. In fact, Zero Gravity, Debbie’s company is a for-profit, and this makes the structure of the company's operations and finances quite interesting indeed. The clever aspect of Zero Gravity’s set-up is that the way they’ve monetized their work, is by partnering with other companies who are committed to hiring and nurturing socially mobile talents. This way, although the company can make money, every cent is to some extent working to achieve the larger mission.
Episode Resources:
* Debbie Widjaja
* Zero Gravity Website
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Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Ryan Johnson to enjoy a thorough exploration of product strategy, communication, and innovation within a company. The pair discuss the importance of transparency, collaboration, and the role of diverse backgrounds in product management. For Ryan, boardroom presentations are all about storytelling in these modern times, and to tell a comprehensive story of the progress your company is making, collaboration is absolutely vital. Ryan is all about involving his teams in creating the storyline and presentation to get the best result.
Ryan shares his experiences as the Chief Product Officer at CallRail and highlights the significance of connecting with other C-level executives and aligning goals. They also touch on the evolution of the product management role and the challenges of balancing innovation with growth goals and the implementation of AI technology. You’ll hear them talk about:
* 10:07 - Moving from being a VP to Chief Product Officer had a realigning effect on what Ryan thought made a good C-suite leader. Previously he had thought that the role of a Chief Product Officer was to be a dominant presence and a visionary sort of figure, wielding power and making things happen through immense talent and force of will. But this slightly overblown vision of the role changed, as he himself made the transition and realized that the principal desirable quality of someone in that position is to be a trusted business partner. Ryan now sees that a successful Chief Product Officer is someone with whom all the other members of C-suite feel absolutely comfortable approaching with their problems and goals. The more honest and trustworthy that relationship is, the more frank and productive the conversations had at that leadership level can be.
* 22:16 - Ryan previously discussed how he feels that the role of product managers has developed since he started his career, and that where before a couple of years ago there was no such thing as a product manager degree, nowadays there are lots of classes, boot-camps and other avenues to learn and get into the field in a more straightforward intentional manner. Nonetheless his takeaway advice for budding Chief Product Owners is to first look internally. Getting your head around the financial element will be vital to progress down the road, so speak to the financial and accounting departments at your work in advance of the change to your duties.
* 26:44 - One of the biggest and most interesting changes that Ryan has noticed in his time with CallRail is the way different departments present their reports in board meetings. He has been a part of the company for around six years and where in the past he has noticed the various departments presenting their updates in a fashion that was quite divorced from the rest of the company, now he points to an emphasis on storytelling and presenting a united cross-department front.
Episode Resources:
* Ryan Johnson
* CallRail Website
Follow/Subscribe Now:
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInIf you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com
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* Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Anthony Maggio, Head of Product and VP at Airtable. Join them as they discuss combating challenges within the digital supply chain, addressing strategy drift, and how Anthony is spearheading Airtable’s newest: Airtable AI.
Anthony has worked at Airtable for three and a half years. He’s been operating as the Head of Product Management since September 2023, previously holding the role of Senior Director. Airtable is the platform trusted by big businesses around the world to connect their people and data and achieve their most important goals. Its clients include more than 300,000 organizations and 80% of the Fortune 100, connected through the Airtable Connected Apps Platform™. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in San Francisco, Airtable ranks #6 on the Forbes Cloud 100 and has raised $1.36 billion to date. Previously, Anthony spent four years at InVision and was also the Co-Founder and VP of Product & Customer Success at Checkmate, which is now Trust You.You’ll hear them talk about:
* 05:39 - Airtable has gone from a product that is flexible and extendable to a wide variety of companies into a more vertical focused company that has successfully integrated AI into its products as well. Anthony shares Air Table’s approach to allow the people closest to work are also closest to the software, to allow them to optimize their workflows. It’s fast, easy to deploy, and fully customizable. The next stage is focusing on helping larger companies adapt and build custom software using the platform and becoming the fastest and the easiest way for companies to bring AI into business processes.
* 13:52 - Vertical companies can share a fear of becoming too narrow and limit themselves to which markets they can reach. Anthony speaks about how Airtable is able to move past this worry as it first began as a flexible platform. He shares how Airtable is built on a flexible foundation, which allows them to introduce new capabilities while still maintaining a horizontal approach to meet the needs of a larger market.
* 22:16 - AI is a significantly disruptive technology that is transforming across all industries. Anthony shares how AI will transform the role of product managers, and it will start by raising their expectations. AI is becoming much better at intelligent strategy and is already being used to proactively monitor and engage with market and customer insights. Anthony highlights the importance of product operations in identifying high-impact opportunities for AI transformation, and using AI to surface actionable information for product teams.
Episode Resources:
* Anthony Maggio
* Airtable Website
Follow/Subscribe Now:
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInIf you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com
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* Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Amy Edmonson, professor at Harvard Business school and author of the new book: “Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well.” Join them as they discuss the science of failing well, what is psychological safety and the distinction between leadership and leaders.
Amy has been at Harvard Business School for nearly twenty eight years now as their Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management. She is a prolific author; her most recent book, the Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, is the Winner of the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2023 and is the Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2023. Amy has appeared on multiple other podcasts, such as “The Psychology Podcast” and “Better,” to discuss Failing Well. Amy was also a guest recently on The Psychology Podcast, discussing Failing Well. She has also recently written for the Guardian: “The big idea: why we need to learn to fail better”. You’ll hear them talk about:
* 02:42 - Amy is an expert in failure. In product management, failure is a hot topic. It’s important for it to be okay to fail for an experiential and innovative environment to thrive. Innovation comes with failure. Amy distinguishes between intelligent and unintelligent failure by identifying four key characteristics needed. First is a pursuit of a goal, second is there isn’t an existing formula or process, third is you’ve done your background research and fourth is that the experiment should be no larger than it needs to be.
* 09:01 - To create a healthy failure culture you need to create an environment of psychological safety for everyone. It’s important for people to feel safe to fail to encourage them to share their ideas and not hold back when contributing to innovation. Amy suggests that leaders can promote psychological safety using a combination of behaviors and tools. For instance, leaders should always be willing to go first and acknowledge their own mistakes,therefore leading by example. Psychological safety in a work culture is incredibly important. Without it, people stop telling the truth.
* 27:28 - There is a distinction between leadership and leaders. A CEO is in a leadership role and there are many people that are influenced by them. This doesn’t mean only a CEO is a leader or display leadership qualities. In fact, individual contributors that display leadership behaviors are important to every team. They might not be in a leadership role, but Amy believes that leadership can start with anybody; it is a behavior and attitude, which is infectious when embodied.
Episode Resources:
* Amy Edmondson Linkedin
* Amy Edmondson Website
* Amy Edmondson’s "the Right Kind of Failure"
Follow/Subscribe Now:
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInIf you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com
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* Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Mark McNally, a venture innovator who founded Nobody Studios, a startup incubator on the path to creating 100 compelling companies in the next 5 years. Join them as they discuss the fundamentals of building successful companies, the importance of culture, and the role of venture studios in supporting founders.
Mark has a background in startups and has been involved in 14 startups since his IPO. Mark has recently launched a new role as Head of Venture Capital at Super Founder Global Network Venture. He’s also Chairman of the Board at Webdelics, Evalify, ThoughtForma, and Ovationz. Previously, Mark was SVP of Global Sales and Marketing at UneeQ Digital Humans. He’s also appeared on the Silicon Valley Podcast, discussing “The Venture Studio Model.”
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 08:40 - Mark has a rich background in leading companies through IPOs and launching visionary products across industries. The key principle he’s learned for building a successful company is to start with the basics: Identify the market, build products to solve problems, and then figure out how to sell it. It may sound obvious but without it, you’re not going to build a successful company. For Mark, what comes after that is the culture.
* 18:51 - Passion and experience fit is critical. At Nobody Studios, Mark aims to create an environment where founders feel comfortable to fail and pivot when necessary. Mark emphasizes the importance of curating an environment that helps founders feel like they can fail or let go of a product. But finding founders who have a passion for the problem they are solving and the experience to back it up is number one. The venture studio actively recruits founders who have deep knowledge and expertise in specific areas and are looking for partners to help bring their ideas to life. Without the right passion and experience, it’s tough to get anything off the ground.
* 31:48 - What’s super important at scale is maintaining clear strategic intent and a shared understanding of goals and roles within an organization. Mark references Brian Chesky's experience at Airbnb to decipher what’s needed to adapt to changing landscapes: core strategies, ability to reorganize the management structure, and intent. This intent must be communicated effectively, even militaristically, throughout the organization to ensure a shared understanding among all team members.
Episode Resources:
* Mark S. McNally
* Super Founder Global Network Venture
* Nobody Studios
Follow/Subscribe Now:
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInIf you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com
+ bCast impressions
+ Spotify impressions
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* Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action and former Director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre. Join them as they explore Stephen’s approach to strategy execution. They discuss the common struggles in strategy execution and how to overcome them in your product management team.
Stephen is an author, keynote speaker, teacher, and strategy consultant to some of the world’s leading companies. He is the former Director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, based in London, and was previously the Professor of Strategy at the Ashridge Executive Education Hult International Business School. Stephen spent 30 years working in consulting, in which he was the vice-president of the Boston Consulting Group for 18 years.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 03:49 - The three gaps in execution are the Knowledge Gap, the Alignment Gap, and the Effects Gap. Executing strategy involves planning and deciding what actions to take in order to achieve a particular set of outcomes- unfortunately the three gaps are always present. Organizations often react to them by adding more details and controls, which usually worsens the situation. Stephen answers each gap with military-like solutions, beginning with clarity, followed by briefing, and then intent.
* 8:45 - Alignment is a constant consideration for product managers. Struggles with alignment are often a leadership problem and due to a lack of clear intent. Stephen highlights the behavior patterns of senior leaders who create strategy documents and then assume their job is done, which leaves the middle managers confused about what actions to take. To combat this, Stephen’s approach is borrowed from the military’s principle of ‘Mission Command,’ which Stephen calls “leading through intent”. This is the process of aligning people around a common intent and clarifying their roles in achieving the company's goals.
* 27:46 - When leaders hear about the solutions to having a more efficient team and successful strategy execution, they sometimes underestimate the cultural change required to embrace this approach. Stephen understands business culture as the range of behavior patterns that should meet in an organization, which are themselves usually based on beliefs and values. He explains that to change, it depends on the current state of alignment and autonomy in the organization. In cases where there is high autonomy but low alignment, he recommends taking control back initially and then gradually giving it back once alignment is achieved.
Episode Resources:
* Stephen Bungay
* Stephen's Website
* Stephen’s Book: The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions and Results
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Margaret Jastrebski, the SVP of Product at Tegus. Join them as they explore what it means to be a leader today. They discuss Margaret’s role at Tegus, the power of alignment within an organization, understanding sales and marketing, and the importance of a vision for execution.
Margaret (MJ) Jastrebski joined Tegus, the Company Intelligence platform for key decision makers, in December 2023. Before this, MJ was the CPO at Stylitics. She has a strong background in multiple product roles at TXI, Caribou, Prodify, and ShopRunner, as well as roles in sales and marketing that deepened her 360 knowledge of product. She is also the co-founder of Walkshop, a multi-day hiking and design thinking conference for leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs.
MJ earned her MBA in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2012, and speaks at numerous events and educational institutions sharing her skills, insights, and practical solutions in the world of Product Design. You’ll hear them talk about:
* 00:51 - Investors need to know as much information about their investment before they actually invest. They need the information about the company that isn’t on Google. The old way was to call around and ask what others know about the company. This is where Tegus comes in. Tegus identified this friction between investors and their investment and put all these conversations and information into one place, smoothing out the process and making it easier for investors to say yes or no. Tegus is a successful product that has been expanding for 6 years.
* 08:17 - There’s no silver bullet to figure out what needs to be done when starting at an organization, but there is always work to be done. MJ shares her approach of spending time with the executive team and CEOs, to really learn where they see the business growing, and then working to shape the business to fit that future vision. In the case of Tegus, the biggest opportunity for growth is alignment between teams. There’s always misalignment somewhere but MJ’s approach fleshes out the frictions and smooths them out. When the product team, market team, customer service, sales, and success teams aren’t quite aligned, it’s important for you to make the other teams care.
* 38:17 - When coming into a new product leadership role, MJ encourages leaders to make decisions and communicate the reasoning behind them, externalizing the process to show leadership. It creates an open dialogue: The more you externalize the process, the clearer your teams will be on your decisions, and the more comfortable they will be to challenge or discuss your decisions.
Episode Resources:
* Margaret Jastrebski
* Tegus
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Jacob Morgan, author of “Leading with Vulnerability.” Join them as they explore what it means to be a leader today. They discuss Jacob’s personal journey to vulnerability, balancing vulnerability and competency, the importance of being self aware and many actionables to be a better overall leader.
Jacob is a five-time best selling author, keynote speaker, professionally trained futurist and all-round expert in leadership and the employee experience. Starting his career in marketing strategy and SEO, he has gone onto roles such as the CMO of HiRank and the Principal for of the Chess Media Group.
He’s previously co-hosted the podcast “Be Your Own Boss” with his partner and is the founder of the Future If Company & The Future of Work University. He is also a member of multiple advisory boards, such as Nasch, a platform that analyzes employee sentiments, identifies people challenges and encourages proactive solutions via smart nudges, and Pyn, an employee communications and experience platform.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 05:44 - Leading with vulnerability can be confusing for leaders and CEOs that are used to leading with a strong image of themselves. Especially as they also try to balance being vulnerable and approachable but also competent and high performing. Jacob shares that to effectively lead with vulnerability, you need to combine the two in what he calls the vulnerable leader equation: competence plus connection equals leading with vulnerability.
* 17:06 - Context matters when being vulnerable in a professional setting. Jacob uses his framework the “Vulnerability Wheel” which helps leaders be intentional with their vulnerability. Good leaders always have an intention to why they’re sharing their vulnerability such as theyI wanted to create more trust amongst the team or use it as a way to open up dialogue and drive innovation. Jacob notes that without an intention or missing the context of the situation, sharing can become a form of talk therapy that is not for the workplace.
* 26:48 - Jacob attempts to guide leaders through the many contemporary nuisances executive face every day with actionables and tips to best utilize vulnerability in a leadership role. The Vulnerability Wheel begins with intention, but then it’s also important to consider who you want to be vulnerable with and when? Plus, the tone of voice can change an interaction and there is a need for professionalism. A quality of self awareness helps in this role as having good judgment is key to effectively leading with vulnerability.
Episode Resources:
* Jacob Morgan
* The Future Organization
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Alex Wettrelos Chief Product Officer at Sunday. Join them as they explore the challenges of rapid scaling and then descaling during the 2022 tech-crisis. They discuss how Sunday, a fin-tech company innovating payment methods across the hospitality industry, went from an idea on a slide deck to 450 employees with $124 million of seed funding. They also touch on the differences between product management in Europe & the US.
Alex worked with Sunday for four years. He primarily built and led the product and product design team whilst also navigating the 2022 tech-crisis. He is now taking the experience of rapid scaling and subsequent downsizing to his new job as Chief Product Officer at Furious, the online system that integrates a business’s CRM, quotes, billing, and project management.
He is also a member of FrenchCPO, a non-for-profit community of French Chief Product Officers, bringing together top product leaders from French tech companies. Alex has worked in product for almost 10 years. Before this he was an Officer Cadet for the French Army between 2013-2014.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 01:45 - Alex shares the key challenges he faced as the Chief Product Officer in the early stages of Sunday. It is important to have a clear product vision from the beginning, but this can be a struggle amongst all the other variables, such as partners, customers and employees, who are all competing for your time and attention. The key is to focus on the value proposition we want to bring, how can we then test that and how fast can we get it to market. Deciding what you want to bring makes all the millions of decisions easier, as you have something to base them on.
* 12:15 - Central to Sunday’s early success was their minimum viable product (MVP). In Europe, paying the bill is often a terrible experience. When you’ve decided to pay after a lovely meal in a busy restaurant, you could spend the next 15 minutes not talking to your friend but trying to gain the attention of the waiter to then pay your bill. It can be a real mood killer. After identifying this pain point, it was clear what Sunday wanted to achieve: speeding up this process. Prioritizing user feedback over the vision was key to getting this to work and focusing on improving the MVP, bit by bit.
* 32:16 - Alex discusses the importance of focusing on market fit and profitability, especially in the post-tech crisis era. After a period of rapid growth, Sunday needed to descale the entire operation, reduce the number of potential product features and the number of countries to focus on. It was a major challenge, but it also made working for Sunday all the more interesting. In times like this, the company couldn’t afford not to refocus on where the product would have readily available users that could see the value and how it was going to make money and become profitable.
Episode Resources:
* Alex Wattrelos LinkedIn
* Sunday App Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Aaron Smith joins Melissa Perri. Together, they discuss Aaron’s best practices he learned from his time at Amazon, key leadership principles, creating a culture of accountability, and the destiny creator mindset.
Aaron is the Chief Product Officer of Pattern in Salt Lake City. He joined Pattern back in 2020, bringing his impressive ecommerce and product credentials with him from some of the world’s most successful customer-centric companies such as Amazon, Grubhub, and Nordstrom. Pattern is a leading global ecommerce accelerator, reaching $1 billion revenue in 2022. They are an AI-driven tech platform that accelerates ecommerce growth end-to-end for hundreds of partner brands, such as Google, Skechers and Converse.
Prior to Pattern, Aaron led the Scheduled Delivery, Dropship, and Ops Integration teams at Amazon, creating hundreds of millions in new revenue opportunities and introducing innovative products that improve customer experiences. At Grubhub, Aaron built the consumer product team and a product experience that helped triple gross food sales to $5B and revenues to $1B in 3 years. Aaron holds an MBA from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University.
You’ll hear them talk about:
1:23 - Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world, second only to Apple. Aaron shares his experience working at Amazon and what he’s taken with him to other leadership roles. They are customer obsession, use data to drive decision making and are expert planners. Amazon eliminates bureaucracy at the high level. They prioritize flexibility and provide autonomy to its planners. Aaron noticed that being overly committed to one plan can be destructive for companies. Amazon combated this with a result focused approach that’s backed with data: “if you’ve found a more advantageous way, and the data shows it too, then do it. Don’t ask, just do and get the results.”
* 14:50 - Coming from such a high-performing company such as Amazon comes with an adaptation period. There’s an element of culture shock shared by ex-Amazonians who have switched companies. Although their data-driven and direct leadership approach is effective, Aaron reveals it doesn't always seamlessly fit with other companies' cultures. Coming into another culture and simply trying to make it another version of Amazon quickly descends into plain arrogance. Aaron teaches humility in leadership to his team and instead takes the best of his current and previous work cultures to find the best of both worlds.
* 19:37 - Aaron’s leadership principle of “pain-point alchemy” prioritizes taking a step back after extracting the pain points and exposing the out-of-the-box opportunities present. It's important to truly understand the customer's pain points and what will make their lives better. This requires listening and understanding what the customer really needs, even when the customer doesn’t know themselves.
* 38:53 -* Curating a truly innovative culture is about consistency. To foster innovation, leaders need to be open to new ideas from their people and not critiquing them for their lack of focus on the current projects. Aaron shares an example of how Amazon successfully embeds innovation into their working cycle, and gives employees a chance to pitch their ideas to the higher ups, called operational planning. If you’re not giving people the opportunity to bring their best ideas to the table, then you’re using 10% of your company's brain.
Episode Resources:
* Aaron Smith
* Pattern's Website
* Pattern on Linkedin
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Darren Wilson, Chief Product Officer of Soul Machines. Join them as they explore Darren’s journey to CPO of Soul Machines, a company that produces digital humanoids. They discuss the challenges of building digital avatars, keeping up with AI technology, and leveraging user feedback to shape product strategies.
Darren Wilson has worked at Soul Machines for almost five years. He joined the company to build and scale an entirely new product team, introducing a design-first approach while realigning a Product Engineering team to deliver the company's core product, DDNA Studio, at scale. Darren secured $140m through 3 rounds of funding and quarter-on-quarter customer user growth, evolving the platform to meet the demands of a rapidly changing Generative AI Landscape.
Before his CPO role at Soul Machines, Darren was a Partner at Golden Arm in New York. He has a proven track record of building organizations that deliver innovative and impactful products and services, working with global brands such as Mercedes, Samsung, Intel, and the BBC.
You’ll hear them talk about:
07:53 - Darren shares insights into the journey of Soul Machines. Started by Mark Sagar, a special effects expert who developed motion capture technologies for blockbuster movies, the company focuses on creating digital avatars that can connect with users in more empathic ways. Initially, Soul Machines pitched avatars as digital assistants for sales and customer service. However, avatars work best when empathic and personal connections are needed, such as helping people make difficult choices or practicing challenging conversations.
* 12:29 - AI is rapidly advancing. Darren shares that Soul Machines is fortunately riding the wave of development and are able to pivot away from relying on external platforms such as Google, IBM, and Microsoft. They've also introduced ChatGPT into their platform, reducing time to market for customers. The challenge is continually adapting to LLMs coming on board and increasing the multimodality in the Soul Machines platform. Darren says that the challenge is consistent for the product team, with focus and prioritization being crucial inidentifying what the biggest opportunity is for the platform's growth. Understanding what truly adds value to customers are critical.
* 33:55 -* Darren's unusual journey to CPO has shaped his approach. Coming from a design background, he emphasizes the importance of user research and involving real people in the product development process. He also encourages making engineers into advocates and bringing cross-functional teams together. Darren shares that being more open to discussion and less focused on delivery is an advantage he’s gained from his non-traditional background. Plus, always listening to good ideas from technical people and those more knowledgeable than yourself helps in the transition from design to CPO.
Episode Resources:
* Darren Wilson on LinkedIn
* Soul Machines Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Matt DiBari joins Melissa Perri to discover the secrets of product management in high growth companies. Together, they discuss effective user research, the different mindsets in B2B & B2C, essential skills in high growth companies, and breaking into product management.
Matt DiBari is Chief Product Officer at SpotHero, over in Chicago. He joined SpotHero in 2019 as VP of Product, bringing more than 15 years of experience as a Product specialist in the world of automotives. At SpotHero, Matt is responsible for product vision and strategy, combining his love of product innovation and extensive automotive experience.
Before SpotHero, Matt was the Senior Director of Product Management at Cars.com, where he led product management teams working across Cars.com’s marketplace and technologies. Matt also honed his automotive expertise at CDK Global, where he was responsible for a global team developing automotive retail and accounting systems with product revenues of up to $100 million annually. Matt has a BA in Computer Science, Math, and Philosophy from Augustana College and an MS-MIS and MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
You’ll hear them talk about:
5:25 - Matt explains whether there is a clear distinction between product managers and user researchers. The process of user research at SpotHero is handled by the product designers. Product managers collaborate closely with the designers and take notes during research sessions. The insights are then shared with the engineering team to ensure everyone understands the customers' needs.
* 13:02 - SpotHero has 125 people in the product and design teams. Managing both B2B and B2C marketplaces has challenges as the needs and time horizons differ. Matt explains B2B and B2C teams share goals that benefit both sides, such as increasing ratings and reviews. SpotHero ensures both teams understand the importance of collaboration and how their work impacts each other.
* 19:29 - High growth companies have a unique perspective, decisions and rules are up for debate. Matt reveals this differs from big established companies in that rules are unchallenged. The key difference is an attitude shift, in a high growth company people are looking to make things faster and more efficient without too much reflection. To find people who thrive in high growth environments, Matt looks for candidates who are curious, self-starters, and have a track record of influencing others. He asks questions about their messiest projects, their ability to learn and teach themselves new things, and their experience in influencing higher-ups.
* 36:54 -* Matt encourages individuals trying to break into product management to start showing an early interest and start spending time with product managers. Candidates that shadow and proactively seek mentorship tend to perform better during recruitment processes. Demonstrating initiative is key, successful candidates have previously asked for recommendations of podcasts or books that’ll aid with their deep dive into product management.
Episode Resources:
* Matt DiBari
* SpotHero Website
* SpotHero on Linkedin
* SpotHero on Twitter
* SpotHero on Facebook
* SpotHero on Instagram
* SpotHero on Youtube
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Artico Search, joins Melissa Perri. Together, they discuss navigating the hiring landscape for Chief Product Officers, the importance of technical expertise and commercial acumen in today's market, and what the difference is between a Head of Product and a Chief Product Officer.
Mercedes is a serial investment professional as well as Co-Founder and CEO of Artico Search. She’s a Limited Partner at four investment firms, including B Capital and Next Coast, and is a go-to woman for building teams for the most successful global investors and portfolio companies in the world.
Mercedes is passionate about diversity and inclusion across investor and operating roles. She also sits on the Board of the The Posse Foundation. This organization identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may traditionally be overlooked through the college selection process.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [02:44] - The effects of COVID have impacted the macro environment for Chief Product Officers (CPOs). Silicon Valley has the tendency to be reactive, but Mercedes says if you want to stay in business, you don't fire your CPO, who’s doing a great job. Like many industries, there is less funding to go around after COVID. In this environment, there is a real focus on doing more with less. Combining roles is more common, for example, if you're coming from an engineering background and now tackling a product, there’s no shortage of opportunities.
* 10:17] - Hiring a CPTO isn’t as simple as giving a CTO a go at product or vice versa. The role of CPTO marries the technical with the commercial acumen and understanding of the customer. Firstly, to be a great CPTO, you often come from a great product company. Secondly, you’re going to need to know the product landscape. Technical individuals typically struggle with the landscape or macro environments.
* [19:42] - A Head of Product and Chief Product Officer have key differences. Mercedes clarifies that a CPO has an executive perspective, they think about the macro and the product's role in an ecosystem. Whereas the Head of Product starts with the product line within the company and therefore has a narrower perspective than a CPO. The CPO also requires a breadth of experience and understanding of marketing, sales revenue, and finance while working closely with CFOs. The Head of Product has a micro view compared to the CPO’s macro view.
* [26:38] - Mercedes shares her insights for applying to these chief product roles, but in some cases experience with well known and high performing product companies is key. Pattern matching could be the key to a successful job switch. Mercedes advises pattern matching what it is you want to do with what you've done, so to get the attention of the hiring manager is to tailor your resume specifically to your experience in a product that matches the role.
Episode Resources:
* Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor on LinkedIn
* Artico Search
* The Posse Foundation
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Tim Armandpour, Chief Technology Officer at PagerDuty, joins Melissa Perri to explore leadership qualities, product & technology roles, their challenges, and the importance of an overarching company vision. They discuss user-centricity, product-market fit, and aligning teams.
Tim is almost in his ninth year at PagerDuty and has been the CTO since 2022. He’s been working across Product Development his entire career, with particular skills in business operations as well as building and growing stellar teams.
Tim’s career in Product Development spans over 25 years, from being a Senior Director at Paypal to founding Yogurt Bar, he has established himself as an outstanding tech exec and entrepreneur.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [02:04] - Chris Sacca tweeted that he wished he’d invested in PagerDuty after they’d come on the scene with an IPO that made people sit up and pay attention. Tim says the founders' brilliance in attaching to a problem space with broad applicability had a lot to do with its success. He mentions PagerDuty’s significant product-market fit, as it plugs into anything that speaks over HTTPS. It grew through a natural network when teams started seeing other teams successfully using it. Further, the company was taking aim at user centricity and the notion that it should ‘just work.’
* [08:34] - Ensuring clear communication with your team optimizes the product's success. Communication is a balance, and you don’t want to tilt into micromanagement. So, Tim suggests building guardrails and aligning the team with a company’s overarching vision to answer all the important questions. If you have a vision, you’re able to work backwards from your goal and implement what everyone needs to do to make it happen.
* [27:05] - Tim’s decision to combine the roles of Chief Product and Chief Technology Officer provides him with the ability to lean into almost all parts of the business. Combining these roles isn't for everyone, but it does have its advantages: one less negotiation cycle and finding new synergies. PagerDuty combines and splits the role numerously; combining the role is about how the business is operating at the time and which role serves the present needs. Ultimately, putting the two critical functions together aids in compressing the decision, delivery, and development cycle time. Even when the role is split, at PagerDuty, they always share a common goal and vision.
* [43:28] Preparing to scale the team to support a transition from CPO & CTO to CPTO requires consideration of strategy and support. According to Tim, one thing to follow is the strategy; along with leaders' ability to adapt and while maintaining a clear structure. Additionally, Tim believes in embracing opportunities even when they’re outside of your comfort zones. It broadens perspectives, empathy, and understanding within teams, improving organizational success.
Episode Resources:
* Tim Armandpour on LinkedIn
* PagerDuty website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Craig Saldanha, Chief Product Officer at Yelp, joins Melissa Perri to explore user research, two-sided marketplaces, and the concept of the flywheel. They discuss future-proofing the business, building customer trust, and Yelp’s importance as a platform for reviews and recommendations.
Craig has over twelve years experience in product management, with a focus on technology and digital content. He is skilled in product development, strategic planning, market segment analysis, change management and go-to-market strategies.
Craig has been Chief Product Officer for Yelp since 2022. The new product launches he has helmed include a new numerical rating system, “Yelp Guaranteed”, search experiences that use AI, and immersive video. Before Yelp, he worked at Amazon for over nine years as a product manager, and director of Prime Video International.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [02:44] - Customer obsession is one of the key differentiating factors between Yelp and its competitors. Craig says that what separates Yelp from their peers is the quality of the reviews. It is the depth and breadth of these reviews that build customer trust, and mean Yelp is the go-to when someone is looking for a local business, restaurant, or nightlife spot. Craig emphasizes that every review is equal, and that this ethos drives the “road map” for Yelp’s evolution.
* [08:26] - Craig decided to codify the product ethos and product culture of Yelp into five tenets. Tenet one is delighting a two-sided marketplace. Tenet two is regarding decision making, and how to differentiate between ‘one-way doors’ (like a price change) and ‘two-way doors’ (like UI/UX changes). Tenet three is being consistent and scalable. Tenet four is being diverse and inclusive in product thinking. Tenet five is “think big and learn fast”.
* [13:40] - While driving revenue is, naturally, very important, Craig says that simply developing products that “delight the customers” is vital. Whether or not something moves a metric is almost by the by in the ideas stage, since the driving force behind product development should be the bigger picture, aka the customer experience. Craig says that if you build things people love, “you're definitely going to be OK in the long term”.
* [20:13] - Working across teams, especially in product management, can be very difficult. Craig says that although each team does their best to work out their own dependencies, they will most likely only get 60% of them. One solution is to have a small product operations team that “owns the overall level road map”, can reconcile differences between other teams, and “see where some of the gaps are”.
Episode Resources:
* Craig Saldanha on LinkedIn
* Yelp website
* Yelp Elite Squad
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Paolo Lombardi joins Melissa Perri to explore founding the TechPeaks startup accelerator—they discuss the unique aspects of the program, including its focus on attracting international entrepreneurs and promoting collaboration, and the importance of planning and preparation.
Paolo has over 24 years experience in digital innovation. He is the Director of Artificial Intelligence Innovation at Taylor & Francis, has co-founded two AI startups, and created the startup accelerator Techpeaks. At Techpeaks, he directly deployed over 4 million euros to early stage startups.
Paolo has authored 30 scientific papers on artificial intelligence, computer vision, and context-adaptive systems, organized and managed several dozen hackathons, idea challenges, competitions, and coached over 200 startups in digital, AI, foodtech, energy, and robotics. He is the co-author of Startup Program Design: A Practical Guide for Creating Accelerators and Incubators at Any Organization.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
12:17 - Melissa, who participated in the accelerator in 2013, describes it as a transformative experience and highlights the program's unique approach as a "People accelerator." By attracting international entrepreneurs, Techpeaks fostered collaboration among individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds. This approach aimed to import an international perspective while connecting with the local university and research community. Paolo said that Techpeaks were happy to accept people that didn’t have a business idea, but could work well collaboratively.
* 25:41 - Paolo emphasizes the cultural diversity within the Techpeaks program and the learning experiences that arose from working with people from different backgrounds. She shares an example of a cultural clash between an Italian woman and a Russian participant, highlighting the importance of understanding different communication styles.
* 48:54 - Paolo says that the issue with corporate accelerators is that they are often not comfortable with taking risks, or quick decisions that imply risk. Although they might contain talented managers or workers, often they can’t gauge risk quickly enough to be able to control it. He says that in corporate environments, this awareness of risk is not common, but for startups “in the wild” this is an intuition.
* 58:49 -* Techpeaks encouraged the use of lean startup techniques, which allowed participants to iterate and pivot their ideas quickly. This approach fostered a culture of experimentation and learning. Paolo recommends starting with a small programme that lasts for a weekend, or two or three weeks, with a very narrow niche value proposition—this will test your ability to deliver on that.
Episode Resources:
* Paolo Lombardi on LinkedIn
* Techpeaks on Twitter
* Techpeaks on LinkedIn
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Jon Sadow, Co-Founder & Chief Product & Technology Officer of Scoop Technologies. Join them as they discuss Scoop’s journey from a carpooling application to a software company supporting hybrid work and workplace management. They explore the dramatic impact of COVID, pivoting the business, and the benefits of embracing flexibility. They also touch on the importance of building relationships and forging connections in remote and flexible work environments, as well as the future of work and the possibilities for innovation and improvement in remote and hybrid work environments.
Jon Sadow leads the Product and Engineering teams at Scoop, the company he co-founded in early 2015. A self-proclaimed builder at heart, Jon is passionate about building exceptional teams and products to help solve some of the world's important problems.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Jon and Scoop focused on solving the employee commuting problem. They raised over $100m, partnering with Fortune 50 companies to create the largest and most successful carpooling network in the country.
Following the shift in focus to hybrid work and workplace management, Jon has continued to be driven by optimizing product development processes, user research, refining product design, and crafting positioning language.
Jon’s recent focus is sharing his insights gained from the ups and downs of Scoop with other early stage founders, with the ultimate aim to accelerate their own development curve, provide shortcuts, and increase their chances of success.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 05:15- 09:11 - COVID drastically changed the way we think about the office. For a company based on commuting to and from the office, the impact is huge. The volume of traffic dropped overnight. People stopped going to the office. You then had to navigate through layoffs. For Scoop, then came the challenges of building a new version of the product to adapt to the changing work landscape, noticing a gap in the market and finding a new opportunity.
* 14.58 - 24.21 - The shift to hybrid working means being flexible. You need to understand employee goals and ensure that they can be productive and fulfilled in both remote and office environments. Companies' positive attitude towards flexible work, such as having work location flexibility, can increase revenue growth. With FlexIndex, policy decisions are backed with data, helping companies make positive data driven changes, not to mention the benefits of embracing hybrid work policies and how companies that recognize employees' needs for flexibility are likely to attract better talent and foster innovation.
* 26:30 - 29:28 - Forging relationships is different in remote and hybrid workplaces than when you’re in the office, five days a week, and able to have regular chats by the watercooler. Different doesn't mean better or worse. Remote onboarding is successful with a more structured process. This can include specific goals, scheduled meetings, and clear expectations. It all comes down to reevaluating what’s important and questioning the utility of legacy activities, such as long unimportant meetings, and replacing them with purposeful and targeted alternatives.
Episode Resources:
* Jon Sadow on LinkedIn
* Jon Sadow on Twitter
* Scoop Technologies Website
* Scoop Technologies on Twitter
* Scoop Technologies on TikTok
* The Flex Index Website
* The Flex Index on Twitter
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Leah Tharin, Interim Chief Product and Growth Officer, GotPhoto. Join them as they explore the different types of growth strategies and when to use them, as well as the importance of aligning sales and product teams. Leah also talks about the power of data-driven strategies in bridging sales and product teams and how aligning with customer success fuels product-led growth.
Leah is a well-known figure in the B2B and product-led growth sectors, guiding organizations to align their growth, product, marketing, and sales efforts, whether scaling up or down. She focuses on practical, operational strategies rather than theoretical concepts with her clients. Also, Leah serves as an advisor to Notion Capital, NorthOne, and Paddle and hosts the "PRODUCTEA with Leah" podcast.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [03:47] - Deciding between product-led growth (PLG) and sales-led growth (SLG) is essential for companies at any stage. For startups, leveraging PLG by offering a freemium version can be key to gaining traction in a crowded market. However, the ease of launching new products today means more competition, making it harder to stand out. Mature companies must assess their market position — opting for PLG in commoditized markets to attract a broad customer base without the need for direct sales interaction. Contrarily, in a market where personalized value and differentiation are vital, a sales-led strategy might still be necessary. While adapting to PLG can be challenging for traditionally sales-driven organizations, it's often crucial to remain competitive.
* [22:54] - To foster a product-led growth strategy while motivating sales teams effectively, focus on aligning sales incentives with customer expansion and success. Rather than rewarding salespeople solely on initial deals, offer bonuses for growing accounts and contributing to customer success activities. This will benefit the sales team by focusing their efforts on warm leads and reducing time spent on cold outreach. Moreover, it will ensure that sales strategies are aligned with delivering real value to customers. By combining insights from both sales demographics and customer behavior analytics, organizations can identify and engage with genuinely interested prospects, leading to more meaningful conversations and, ultimately, more successful expansions.
* [32:28] - Embracing a PLG strategy involves more than just offering free trials or premium versions; it's about leveraging detailed product usage data to drive sales and improve product development. A successful approach involves bridging the gap between sales and product teams, ensuring they work collaboratively to use insights from customer engagement to refine product offerings and enhance the sales process. Sales teams can use this data to better qualify leads and personalize their strategies while product teams can use feedback to build better solutions. This symbiosis requires executive leadership, especially from Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) and Chief Product Officers (CPOs), to foster a culture of data-driven decision-making and collaboration.
* [45:13] - Facing the wild tech landscape of 2024, with challenges like massive layoffs and tighter financial conditions, companies seek ways to navigate these rough waters. Leah highlights a crucial survival strategy: adopting a vertical organization. This approach could be the life jacket businesses need during the storm. By focusing on specific customer segments, companies can improve their value proposition and charge more per customer, counteracting the pressures of commoditization and increased competition. Embracing verticalization allows for more efficient use of resources and opens up new roads for growth by targeting underserved or unique market niches.
Episode Resources:* Leah Tharin’s Website * Leah Tharin on LinkedIn * Leah Tharin on Twitter * Bedfables Website * Growth & Product Blog * ProducTea with Leah Substack * PRODUCTEA with Leah Podcast
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Mauricio Monico, Chief Product Officer at Wish. Join them as they discuss marketplace dynamics and turnaround strategies. They deep-dive into Mauricio’s extensive product management expertise and wisdom gained from his previous roles with Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, Google, and various startups. They also touch on Mauricio’s time with Indigo Ag, a company focused on agricultural sustainability, during a big turnaround.
Mauricio is the Chief Product officer at Wish and has over 20 years of experience in the tech industry. He has built and led successful products at some of the world’s most influential companies, including Google and Meta. He has used his extensive experience in turnaround strategies and understanding of marketplace dynamics to build world-class products.
Mauricio began his career as an engineer at a start-up, and only developed a passion for product management after taking a job at Microsoft and realizing the scope and impact of the role. Mauricio's career has spanned product management roles with tech giants Google, Meta, and eBay. He utilized his impressive experience in his role at Indigo Ag to successfully pivot the marketplace with his concept driven approach.
Mauricio is a seasoned professional whose expertise helps businesses achieve their goals and gain desired results through effective product strategy and execution with unrivaled understanding of marketplaces. He is also an active advisor, mentor, and angel investor in the tech community.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 11.37 - 13.28 - A turnaround can happen when there is a shift in the marketplace. In eBay’s case, they were thriving. They were the talk of Wall Street, until Amazon caused a significant shift and couldn’t be ignored anymore. The first instinct is to copy; you’ve seen a strategy come along and dominate the space, so you want to copy it. Instead, eBay had to find its unique value proposition through effective communication and steering the company into a clear direction and focus on the correct verticals. Clarity of communication is key in turnarounds.
* 15:32 - 23.09 - Anticipating difficulties and marketplace dynamics are key challenges during a turnaround. Shifting the business model, like at Indigo Ag, requires immersion, testing and quick decision making. The marketplace can throw an endless range of challenges, such as taxi unions opposing Uber. Indigo Ag needed a business model shift, to move from a first party grain buyer to a market place. They did this by applying e-commerce market dynamics for the benefit of the farmers and the grain buyers.
* 42.34 - 48.11 - A turnaround is not simply copying the other company’s strategy, which caused the market shift. Too many companies get sucked into copying what worked for others, rather than focusing on how they can differentiate and accentuate their unique strengths. What’s interesting is that a mixture of both is necessary. Learning from each other is a core practice, but you don’t want to always be two steps behind.
* 48.11 - 53.01 - The core question is “When is the right time to commit to a turnaround?” It often begins with the realization: we’re in trouble. That's a no-brainer. But actually admitting that is the hard part. Everyone wants to be winning. Even after admitting you’re in trouble it can be hard to tell people. The next step is prioritization, which problems need to be done? From his time with eBay, Mauricio learned there can be hundreds of problems that need solving. The trick is focusing on the problems that would ruin the company if they aren’t solved and learning to live with the other problems that can be sorted later. In a turnaround you need to make the clear decision of “not doing it now” and focusing on life and death decisions.
Episode Resources:
* Mauricio Monico on LinkedIn
* Wish Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Jean-Manuel Izaret, Global Leader of Marketing, Sales, and Pricing Practice at Boston Consulting Group. Join them as they discuss strategic pricing and its importance in the technology industry. They explore different pricing models and strategies, including segmenting users and offering different pricing options based on the value received. They also touch upon the challenges of pricing AI models and the concept of fairness in pricing.
Jean-Manuel leads BCG’s Marketing, Sales & Pricing practice globally. His role is to partner with leading companies across industries to transform their commercial functions by leveraging cutting-edge digital and analytics capabilities. He has been with BCG for over 25 years and is passionate about new ideas and creative solutions driven by human ingenuity that can solve all problems, including global warming and world hunger.
Jean-Manuel started his career in Europe, and after participating in various cost-cutting efforts, he decided to move to San Francisco in 1999 and focus exclusively on driving growth and helping companies create jobs. He is a subject matter expert in customer analytics, pricing, and revenue management.
He is also a Fellow of the Bruce Henderson Institute, where he worked on pricing model transformation first in Biotech and then in all industries with low marginal costs (Software, AI, Data services, Media and Entertainment, etc.).
Jean-Manuel’s recent research topics include pricing fairness, price discrimination, and pricing of CO2 emissions. In his TED Talk, he shared a new pricing model he created for licensing drugs. With this model, we can increase access to expensive medical treatments while simultaneously reducing healthcare costs and encourage the development of new treatments.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* 07:56 - 09:11 - Traditionally, pricing has followed a cost-plus model, where you calculate the actual production cost, and then you add overheads, distribution cost, and margins. This model works for restaurants, construction businesses, and so on. You need to know your costs before calculating your price. However, in the software space, you don't have any marginal cost for the distribution of software. Most of the cost is in the development of the software. Once it's done, you have recovered the development cost and there isn’t any additional cost for a new customer. Most software companies have traditionally thought about price as a factor of value, but the value is not fixed as different market segments might derive different values.
* 15:32 - 16:39 - If you have a piece of software that is priced per user and summarizes what this user did in the past two days or weeks, that's your standard model of pricing per user. You are enhancing the value of the human doing the work. You could also be in a situation where you're going to help automate tasks so much that you're going to drive directly to outcomes. If you can then price per task or price per outcome, this is when the model is in the niche and the segments of replacing humans. A quick view of the history of technology throws up many examples where we replaced what people do, and then that helps people focus on more valuable tasks.
* 25:19 - 26:56 - A fundamental question product managers should ask even before the salespeople tell you what the customer wants is, “Do you have a really well-managed list of things you think are really important for a large number of customers?” And then you prioritize based on things everybody will want. Well, that's a no-brainer for sure. You're going to do that. You need to compare the request with the long-term view of what you need to build in your product roadmap. Having a clear view of what you want to build before you get input from the market is really important.
* 29:29 - 30:30 - You should hire people who are really good analytically, but also quite strategic. Sometimes you have people that are introverted, people that are really good with numbers, but don't really like talking to customers. You need people that go out and understand what the entire product management team is going to need, while also seeking inputs from the sales team and the customers. You need someone who can aggregate a lot of the inputs and make the synthesis of it in a really strategic way and then get to what the numbers should be. People in charge of pricing need to have the combined skill of being able to understand the market and to do the numbers.
Episode Resources:* Jean-Manuel Izaret on LinkedIn * Boston Consulting Group Website * Jean-Manuel Izaret’s Book Game Changer
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product thinking, Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden join Melissa Perri to talk about their exciting new book on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). They tackle common mistakes made when implementing frameworks like Lean UX, and how OKRs can solve this. Plus they share all the insights they’ve learned over the last 10 years since their first book, Lean UX. Tune in to discover how OKRs improve your business, business unit, or team’s overall focus and alignment.
Jeff and Josh are the authors of the "OKR Book." Together, they founded the company Neo in 2012 and authored two more books: Lean UX and Sense and Respond. Today, Jeff is the Founder of Gothelf.co and Josh is the Principal at Seiden Consulting. Their diverse backgrounds make them excellent voices in the digital product and corporate world.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [09:52] - Organizations are continuously looking for ways to improve efficiently. Organizational agility should be at the forefront of businesses minds and OKRs is how to do it. Having your organization aligned around achieving specific goals changes the whole process of how companies work. It affects the management style, incentive structures, team motivations, and more. These make for a correctly customer centric operation and improve agility.
* [15.54] - Changing tact and implementing new frameworks of working is hard. This isn’t just an issue faced with OKRs. A lot of businesses find this out. A new framework might give us the language we need to change and to plan change, that's the first step, but it doesn’t make the change. This is where many businesses stall. It’s easy to lose track of why you’re making the changes. It’s important to clarify why you want to use the framework rather than simply adopting them without clear reason.
* [26:39] - OKRs are objective and key results. It’s important to be clear on these two elements. The first is qualitative, the reason to get out of bed and work for the business. For example, to make a product more efficient. It is the alignment statement and the overall objective. The key results have to be outcomes. Outcomes measured by the changes in human behavior. The aim is to see people change their behavior in a meaningful way for them, which also positively impacts the business.
* [29.13] In some cases OKRs have been used for individuals in a business. OKRs are meant to be used for focus and alignment of the team at the organizational level. Individual OKRs as incentives create conflicting priorities. OKRs are scalable down the organization; they apply to your sphere of influence. A key note is to use them in setting objectives and key results for these areas of influence, as well as focusing on alignment.
* [36:52] - Using OKRs isn’t limited to digital product management or software. In fact, it’s been used in healthcare, starting with the CEO’s sphere of influence: the organization. The goal is to be the best clinic to receive care. A change in human behavior, the KRs, is to reduce serious safety events or regrettable turnover. How this applies to other sectors is OKRs force people to rethink how they work and how to improve work as a team to ultimately influence the behavior of customers or users.
Episode Resources:
Jeff’s Website
* Jeff on Linkedin
* Jeff on Medium
* Jeff on Twitter
* Josh’s Website
* Josh on LinkedIn
* Josh on Medium
* Josh on Twitter
* LeanUX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve Use Experience
* Sense and Respond
* OKR Book*
Other Resources:
* Angel Squad
* Productinstitute.com
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Kate Leto, an Executive Coach for Product Leaders, joins Melissa Perri to unveil the value of coaching skills for product leaders and how to incorporate coaching into the workplace. They explore the difference between coaching and mentoring, how effective coaching nurtures successful product leaders, and how to master the art of coaching in product management.
Kate is the author of "Hiring Product Managers: Using Product EQ to go beyond culture and skills" and an established public speaker. From the trenches of Yahoo! to the strategic heights of The Ready and MOO.COM, her journey has shaped her into a sought-after consultant.
Kate’s diverse background, spanning disruptive startups to Fortune 500 giants, positions her as a controversial yet insightful expert in the corporate world, advocating for a more human-centric approach to building teams and products that resonate in today's business environment.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [03:03] - Coaching represents a tool for self-development rather than divertice guidance. Real coaching empowers individuals to find solutions within themselves, differing sharply from traditional mentoring or leadership approaches that often prescribe solutions. Effective coaching involves asking good questions and listening rather than instructing or solving problems for others, fostering personal growth and problem-solving skills, and relieving the burden on leaders.
* [10:50] - Effective product leadership goes beyond just instructing team members; it's about fostering a partnership built on trust and understanding. This means adopting a coaching style that is less about control and more about enabling team members to find their own solutions. Some key skills include being fully present in conversations, engaging in active listening that goes beyond simple nods and smiles, and understanding the subtleties of body language and pauses.
* [26:39] - Despite lacking authority, product managers can stimulate change and foster problem-oriented thinking among peers, especially developers, and designers, by embracing a coaching mindset. However, you must discard a know-it-all attitude and engage team members through open-ended, reflective questioning. This will help you clarify all the challenges and opportunities, guide colleagues to self-discover limitations and solutions, as well as foster a collaborative and thoughtful work environment.
* [32:26] - To manage tension and conflict through coaching techniques, Kate introduces the Karpman Drama Triangle, a concept where individuals oscillate between being a victim, a prosecutor, or a protector in different situations. Leaders often identify with the protector role, striving to be heroes. But the real growth lies in transcending these fixed roles. There's another coaching method called the Empowerment Dynamic, where individuals move from directive to coaching roles, encouraging empowerment and insight into others.
Episode Resources:* Kate Leto’s Website * Kate Leto on LinkedIn * Kate Leto on Twitter * Kate Leto on Instagram * Kate Leto on Medium * Hiring Product Managers Book
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Tommy Richardson, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Litmos, joins Melissa Perri to unveil what it’s like to move from an operating role as a C-Suite executive to a board role and how to position yourself to work with Private Equity and VC firms.
With a rich background spanning more than two decades in executive and general management roles, Tommy has developed a passion for fostering value creation in customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and investor returns. His professional history includes key experience in 3 Fortune 500 companies, 3 private equity-backed firms, and 2 startups.
A key highlight of Tommy's career has been his active involvement in the strategic aspects of corporate growth, especially in M&As. Moreover, he facilitated five successful companies and has played an important role in over 25 major deals. Some of Tommy's previous roles include Chief Technology Officer at FinThrive, President, CPO, and CTO at BARBRI Global, and Operating Partner at Francisco Partners.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [08:17] - While private equity businesses (PEs) are frequently portrayed negatively in the media, many, especially in the software and technology sector, are mainly focused on business growth and expansion. This approach contrasts with VC companies, which may focus on early-stage or high-growth ventures. Leaders navigating a transition to PE ownership have to embrace the opportunity with optimism, prepare innovative ideas, and communicate in terms that resonate with the investment-focused mindset of PE businesses.
* [17:59] - Regardless of the role you currently have, stepping out of your comfort zone to seek knowledge and mentorship from other leaders within your organization is essential for career advancement. Remember, most leaders, including CFOs and CEOs, were once in earlier stages of their careers and likely received guidance along their path. Moreover, leaders are generally supportive, especially when someone shows a readiness to take on more responsibilities. Another key ingredient is the need to be prepared and delivered when given an opportunity. Last but not least, use modern tools and techs to gain basic knowledge in sales, management, and forecasting before approaching leaders.
* [22:32] - Thriving as an executive requires three critical skills: communication, practice, and expertise. Effective communication bridges the gap between technical language and investor-savvy dialogue, allowing leaders to articulate strategies and mission-driven work in a way that resonates with diverse audiences. Alongside communication, having meaningful expertise is essential. This involves a deep understanding of the subject matter, ensuring credibility and the ability to engage in meaningful discussions about complex topics like AI or software development.
* [40:37] - For executives aspiring to join a board or work with a private equity business, you must achieve multiple successes in your career, as success is relatively rare in the business world and tends to attract attention. Be open about career ambitions with colleagues and networks, as this can lead to unexpected opportunities through connection. However, career advancements might not happen as quickly as you might hope. That's where patience comes into play.
Episode Resources:
* Tommy Richardson’s Website
* Tommy Richardson on LinkedIn
* Tommy Richardson on Twitter
* Litmos Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, joins Melissa Perri to dive into the world of product management, operations, and transformation. They explore key components such as decision-making, product leadership, innovation, and outcome-based funding.
Quincy is a world-renowned product innovation specialist and facilitator, revolutionizing product teams and designing products that resonate with both consumers and businesses. His expertise as an executive leader is marked by a proven track record in the development and execution of pioneering digital products across multinational platforms.
In his current professional landscape, Quincy holds multiple roles, including a Founding Member at Sidebar, Non-Executive Director at TDS - Tenancy Deposit Scheme, and Product Coach at Hunted Digital. His past experiences are equally impressive, having served as a Product Coach at Startup Discovery School, Global Head Of Product Management at IG, International Product Director at Cox Automotive, and Senior Global Product Manager at Experian.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [07:07] - Organizational speed is a key component in product decision-making. However, many companies face common issues that stop them from making these critical decisions. One is decision-making by consensus, which often leads to delays. Secondly, businesses fear making mistakes, paralyzing decision-making, as no one wants to be accountable for potential failures. To combat these challenges, Quincy suggests adopting the concept of "one-way and two-way door" decisions, which ranks decisions based on their impact and reversibility. Moreover, there is a need to identify a "single-threaded leader", as well as foster an organizational culture that tolerates mistakes and values experimentation.
* [17:21] - At Amazon, the process of developing new products, services, and features involves a unique and collaborative approach between different levels of the organization. It begins with an individual or team identifying a customer need and working backward to address it. Alongside this, tangible data from experiments bolster the proposal, demonstrating its viability. Once approved, the project details, including key metrics, resources, and financial requirements, are integrated into the organization's annual planning.
* [27:53] - Outcome-based funding, especially outcomes that directly benefit the customer rather than just meeting internal project KPIs, plays a crucial role in balancing funding for product teams and encouraging innovative ideas. This strategy aligns funding with delivering real value to customers, ensuring that innovations are both business-centric and customer-centric.
* [43:51] - The critical components for optimizing product operations include smaller, agile teams for rapid adaptation and decision-making, the need for clear leadership roles and principles in guiding organizational practices, as well as appropriate technology and infrastructure, ensuring businesses are well-equipped to respond rapidly and effectively to market demands and customer needs.
Episode Resources:
* Quincy Hunte on LinkedIn
* Amazon Web Services Website
* Sidebar Website
* TDS - Tenancy Deposit Scheme Website
* Hunted Digital LinkedIn Page
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking: Joshua Keievsky, Founder and CEO of Industrial Logic, joins Melissa Perri to discuss the evolution of Agility in business. Josh talks through his fantastic new book ‘The Joy of Agility’ and the six mantras he’s identified in the implementation of Agile working into business strategy, and the case studies he discovered and learned from along the way.
Josh describes himself as an early pioneer of the Agile movement, and has spent the past twenty seven years working with businesses to improve their workflows. He’s born witness to multiple technological advancements in the sector, and has worked first-hand on Agile implementations. In this episode, they talk through his book and discuss whether Agile working has a future.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.You’ll hear them talk about:
* 08:30 - Agile is an adjective, not a noun. It’s not separate from product management, organization or Dev Ops. To be agile is to be quick, resourceful, and adaptive.
* 10:30 - The art of slowing down to speed up. Josh talks us through the first few of his Six Mantras from his book, mainly focusing on the importance of understanding when to be slow and when to be fast. The workload that goes into product development can be time-consuming, and skipping steps such as market research and analytics can lead to mediocre products being released and failing. From a software perspective, Josh talks about the art of chartering and the benefits to bringing multiple teams onto the same page: taking the opportunity to slow down and get your ducks in a row, before speeding up once more.
* 23:20 - Start Minimal and Evolve. Josh tells us how this applies to product management through the example of a Car Rental website, and how it works to involve all the key teams and build in risk management to the process. The conversation then turns to the case study of Chrysler’s Payment System, and the benefits they saw to starting their system small and evolving from there.
* 30:30 - What does Agility have to do with cross-functional collaboration? Josh tells us how businesses are often built around needless delays: not the good slow, but the bad slow! And suggests tactics on how to make this initiative a success. The conversation continues to discuss workload and delegation, and how he helps executives visualize problems their teams are facing. Do you say ‘no’ enough?
Episode Resources:
* Joshua Kerievsky on LinkedIn
* Industrial Logic Website
* The Joy of Agility book
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this special episode of Product Thinking, host Melissa Perri takes a look back at what we have learned from some of our top guests across product management, operations, and leadership, featuring:
- Blake Samic speaks about setting up product operations during his time at Uber and Stripe.
- Hubert Palan shares the Standardization of Product Management and how the Product Operations Function creates consistency.
- Jason Fried of 37 Signals outlines how they ensure product teams remain fresh and relevant without getting stuck in the details.
- Glen Stoffel and Caryn Fried unveil how tough skills are important when creating great product managers.
- Stephanie Leue dives into the necessity of prioritizing people, purpose, process, and performance in Product Management.
- Tom Eisenmann, Professor at Harvard Business School, provides a deep dive into why startups fail.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
Blake Samic - Initially skeptical about the relevance of product operations at Stripe, based on his experience at Uber, Blake's perspective changed upon deeper engagement with the company. He recognized numerous parallels in the challenges both companies faced, especially in scaling tech operations. Both were rapidly expanding, not just geographically, but in their product offerings and market strategies. Also, both companies shared a deep ambition in product engineering, with a relentless focus on shipping high-quality products. Stripe, in particular, set an exceptionally high bar for quality.
* Hubert Palan - The evolution of product management is on the horizon, with a change towards greater standardization similar to practices seen in sales, customer success, and engineering. Historically, product teams have enjoyed a degree of autonomy, embracing individualized methods and tools, which fostered innovation but often led to inconsistencies and challenges in decision-making and portfolio management at a larger scale. The emergence of a product operations function signals a change in this landscape and the need for a more uniform approach to product management. Such standardization is crucial for enhancing predictability and effective leadership within the product organization, ensuring a balance between innovative autonomy and strategic alignment.
* Jason Fried - Jason's approach to project management prioritizes flexibility and efficiency, as shown by the six-week work cycle. By limiting any task or feature to a maximum of six weeks for completion, Jason and his team relieve the stress and rigidity that comes from long-term planning, such as two-year roadmaps. This timeframe is not only manageable but also adaptable, allowing us to respond to changes and prioritize different tasks without being overly committed to pre-set plans.
* Glen Stoffel and Caryn Fried - As product managers evolve towards CPO roles, a critical skill often overlooked for success is facilitation. While strong product professionals typically excel in vision and strategy, understanding the complex connections between different aspects of the customer and employee experience, they risk falling into the trap of control rather than collaboration.
* Stephanie Leue - Recognizing the need for a shift towards a product-led approach, Stephanie decided to avoid past mistakes by ensuring data-driven and customer-feedback-oriented product releases and deprecations. Her strategy focused on four pivotal areas: people, purpose, process, and performance. She highlights to her teams that performance is a result of excellence in the first three areas.
* Tom Eisenmann* - Tom's book identifies six common failure patterns that startups encounter, divided into early and late stages. Early-stage challenges, occurring before a startup achieves product-market fit, include False Starts, Bad Bedfellows, and False Positives. In the later stage, post-product market fit, startups face Speed Trap, Help Wanted, and Cascading Miracles.
Episode Resources:
+ Blake Samic on LinkedIn
+ Blake Samic on Twitter
+ Stripe Website
+ Hubert Palan on LinkedIn
+ Hubert Palan on Twitter
+ Productboard Website
+ Jason Fried on LinkedIn
+ Jason Fried on Twitter
+ Jason Fried’s Books
+ 37signals Website
+ Stephanie Leue’s Website
+ Stephanie Leue on LinkedIn
+ Doodle Website
+ Glen Stoffel on LinkedIn
+ Caryn Fried on LinkedIn
+ Tom Eisenmann on LinkedIn
+ Tom Eisenmann on Twitter
+ Harvard Business School Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Hiten Shah, Co-founder and CEO at Nira, joins Melissa Perri in the evolution of growth hacking and product management in the SaaS world. Hiten unveils the true purpose of growth hacking, modern marketing misconceptions around growth hacking and product-led growth, as well as the challenge of reconciling differing interpretations of the term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in agile and business startup contexts.
Hiten has been involved in various software development and startup movements during his career, and has witnessed significant progress at the intersection of product, marketing, and SaaS. Since 2003, Hiten has started multiple SaaS businesses, two of which were very early in the product analytics space - Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics. Moreover, he has recently started his own podcast, The Hiten Show, which offers advice for start-ups in a call-in style.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [11:57] - The original intent of growth hacking was about innovative and effective strategies to improve user conversion and business growth. However, over time, it evolved into a marketing add-on for quick, superficial tricks, often termed "growth hacks." Such tactics tend to become less effective as they saturate the market. There are no magic shortcuts to success; winning growth strategies require thoughtful, sustained effort and evolve as platforms and consumer behavior change.
* [16:10] - The product-led growth concept is rooted in fundamental product strategy rather than its distinction from growth hacking or product management. Often perceived as a new or different approach, product-led growth is essentially a rebranding of product strategies that have always been integral to successful products. Looking at platforms like PayPal and Slack, what we now label as product-led growth or growth hacks were simply effective, timely product strategies in the past. The core of product-led growth lies in creating features and functionalities that encourage users to draw others into the product experience.
* [22:50] - In time, the gap between the tactical, step-by-step approach to customer development and product-led growth and the less structured methodologies prevalent today has widened. In the past, frameworks were pressure-tested, resulting in actionable strategies that guided businesses effectively. However, today, while there's an abundance of information, it lacks the clarity and direction that once came from experts such as Sean Ellis and Eric Ries. Unfortunately, current approaches often miss this educational, hands-on aspect, leading to various misconceptions and a lack of clear guidance.
* [36:33] - Regarding the clash between the traditional agile perspective, which views the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as the first iteration, and the startup approach, which sees it as a tool for learning and experimentation, Hiten advises product managers struggling with strict interpretations of MVP within their organizations to apply sales techniques like objection handling and the "Challenger Sale" framework. A PM should engage in open discussion to understand the underlying reasons behind a leader's uncompromising stance on MVP.
Episode Resources:
* Hiten Shah on LinkedIn
* Crazy Egg Website
* Nira Website
* The Hiten Show
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Kelsey Ruger, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Hello Alice, joins Melissa Perri to discuss the importance of supporting small businesses. They dive into the triad of tech, UX, and business strategy; key insights for mastering product management in startups; and how to empower small businesses for entrepreneurial success.
Kelsey's remarkable career trajectory showcases his impact in the tech world, where he has empowered over a million small businesses with innovative tools, led groundbreaking user experience projects at companies such as Truss and P97 Networks, and pushed the limits of product ecosystem design.
Beyond his professional achievements, Kelsey's role as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston highlights his dedication to educating future innovators. Moreover, his recognition in the "40 under 40" list by the Houston Business Journal underscores his commitment and influence in shaping the landscape of technology and design.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [13:29] - Understanding the intersection of user experience, technology, and business strategy is key for career advancement, especially in leadership roles such as Chief Product or Technology Officer. Understanding a company's business model enhances a designer's ability to personalize user experience and contributes to the broader business goals. For example, identifying the distinct strategies of companies like Apple and Walmart, where Apple focuses on selling experience rather than commodities, can significantly improve a designer's effectiveness.
* [16:00] - Small businesses form the backbone of many economies, employing a significant portion of the workforce. Hello Alice is a multifaceted toolkit designed to support small businesses, offering a mix of financial support and educational resources to thrive in competitive markets. The platform assesses a business's health, guiding them in growth strategies and funding opportunities, including loans, grants, and credit.
* [22:10] - Startups should align the hiring of their first product manager and leader with their scaling phase. It's essential to bring in a product manager early, ideally alongside a UX professional, to focus on UX and execution and free up founders to concentrate on critical early-stage tasks like fundraising and sales. A product leader's success in a startup hinges on quickly identifying whether the founder is visionary or operational-driven. This helps shape the product roadmap and guides effective collaboration.
* [33:20] - Building a highly effective product management team starts by designing a well-thought-out job description that clearly outlines the role's specific needs. This becomes the foundation for a tailored interview process, which should begin with assessing basic product management skills, followed by scenario-based questions to evaluate a candidate's fit for the specific demands of the role. This approach ensures that the team has the right mix of skills and experiences directly aligned with the job's requirements.
Episode Resources:
* Kelsey Ruger on LinkedIn
* Hello Alice Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Indus Khaitan, CEO and Founder of Quolum, joins Melissa Perri to share his experiences as a serial SaaS entrepreneur. They delve into startup funding and team member-building strategies, as well as how to find a co-founder that will complement your skills.
Indus is a serial entrepreneur and thought leader, first founding a company called Bitzer and selling it to Oracle, and now working on his second venture, Quolum, a pioneering SaaS Procurement product that integrates Finance, IT, and Procurement functions.
Besides his entrepreneurial ventures, Indus served as an advisor at Sequoia Capital and the Chief of Growth at Chargebee. Continuing his streak of innovation, he recently launched a new project, Stealth Startup. Indus also frequently contributes insightful articles to his company's blog.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [18:19] - Indus' entrepreneurial journey highlights several key lessons. First, persistence is essential, as success often takes years to manifest. Second, continuous learning, especially in areas like marketing and sales, is essential for adapting to market and customer needs. Three, personal growth involves stepping out of your comfort zone and improving communication and collaboration skills. While you can't time the market, as an entrepreneur, you can persist and adapt until the market is ready for your product.
* [27:55] - Before taking investors' money, entrepreneurs should focus on validating their business ideas and gaining traction without external funding. This involves experimenting and securing interest from potential customers with the goal of reaching around a million dollars in revenue before seeking investment. This allows you to retain control over your business and minimize unnecessary spending.
* [31:09] - Indus started Quolum to tackle the challenges of managing multiple SaaS applications, recognizing the complexity and disorganization in tracking payments, security configurations, contracts, and invoices within organizations. Quolum aims to streamline the finance, IT, and security aspects of SaaS management.
* [44:41] - While reflecting on his experience of building Quolum, Indus shares the importance of having a co-founder and a balanced team. A co-founder with domain expertise in product development or marketing would complement a generalist perspective and delve deeper into customer personas, UX design, and marketing strategies. Entrepreneurs must understand their strengths and seek team members who fill in the gaps, ensuring a well-rounded approach to business development.
Episode Resources:
* Indus Khaitan on LinkedIn
* Quolum Website
* Stealth Startup on LinkedIn
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Raluca Apostol, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Nestor, joins Melissa Perri to unveil how a people intelligence platform like Nestor empowers workforce development and helps managers build better teams. They also explore Nestor's innovative approach to skills-based talent management, the advancement of HR practices, and the role of AI in big data for effective skill matching.
Nestor is a people intelligence platform that empowers organizations to harness the power of skills, nurturing workforce agility, high performance, and sustained growth. The platform adopts a skill-centric strategy, which enables HR and business leaders to get a holistic view of skills within their organization, ensuring talent strategies are aligned with evolving business needs.
Before Nestor, Raluca held several key positions as the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder at Emojer, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Marionette Studio, and Co-Founder and Managing Director at Girls Who Code - Iasi. Moreover, she served for over 5 years at Endava in various roles, including the Development Discipline Lead, Career Coach, and Professional Scrum Master.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [09:25] - Nestor is an innovative people intelligence platform designed to improve workforce agility, performance, and growth by leveraging a skills-based approach. The platform integrates performance management, employee engagement, and career development, offering total skills visibility and enabling HR and business leaders to make informed talent decisions. Born from the need to better manage and develop large teams, Nestor focuses on aligning individual skills with business needs, nurturing growth through personalized opportunities and development plans.
* [17:54] - Nestor's data-driven approach enables tailored employee development and optimal team assembly by analyzing each employee's skills profile, including their current role expectations, acquired skills, and career aspirations. It then matches employees with relevant internal jobs, learning experiences, and mentorships based on a "smart score" that evaluates compatibility. Further, Nestor suggests ideal team members for specific projects, ensuring both business objectives and individual growth opportunities are aligned.
* [20:32] - With the development of AI tools, platforms like Nestor got the chance to collect a substantial data set from various HR processes and user interactions, which enhances skill-matching accuracy and maintains data integrity, especially with diverse skill definitions. The key is to gather enough relevant data before integrating AI into your product to ensure personalized experiences for employees.
* [33:32] - Recent trends in HR software highlight the importance of prioritizing the employee experience to drive system adoption. There has been a significant shift toward continuous performance management, which begins with transparent leadership and involves setting clear strategic goals, often using OKRs. As a result, performance reviews transform into a more efficient process, allowing employees to clearly see and understand their contribution to broader organizational goals.
Episode Resources:
* Raluca Apostol on LinkedIn
* Nestor Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Mikita Mikado, Co-Founder and CEO of PandaDoc, joins Melissa Perri to share his entrepreneurial journey and the challenges he faced in building PandaDoc. Mikita also highlights the importance of working with talented people in the B2B SaaS world, embracing a growth mindset, and creating a strong organizational culture.
Mikita is an entrepreneur and executive with roots in engineering. His company, PandaDoc, offers a complete document automation platform revolutionizing the traditional approaches to business documentation, including contracts and proposals. Under Mikita's leadership, PandaDoc constantly earns high praise from customers and maintains top ratings on platforms such as G2, Gartner, TrustRadius, and Capterra. In addition to PandaDoc, Mikita offers his expertise as an Adviser and Angel Investor to Lokalise.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [09:57] - As a first-time CEO, Mikita admits that, as the company evolves, the skills required to manage its rapid growth and changing environment demand constant upskilling, especially in finding talent and building teams. Regardless of your company or experience, always surround yourself with experienced and highly competent people, leverage community wisdom, and use resources like podcasts and blogs to navigate the complexities of your role.
* [19:32] - Mikita's initial perception of building a successful company centered on the product-market fit evolved significantly over time. While also important, the key to long-term success lies in nurturing a collaborative team and mastering the skill to work with people. Just as Mikita did at PandaDoc, it's essential to establish a cultural code for your company, which involves setting clear behavioral aspirations and holding each other accountable.
* [28:53] - The significant growth of PandaDoc goes down to developing an intuitive and simple-to-use product in a typically complex market. This strategic simplicity enables the company to leverage product-driven growth and inbound marketing to reach a wider audience effectively. Moreover, despite exploring different directions and facing multiple failures, PandaDoc remained true to its core vision, allowing for consistent progress without losing sight of its foundational goals.
* [37:40] - Every tech business must put down its culture code, where it will illustrate its core values and integrate them into the company's daily operations. If you're looking for inspiration, here are PandaDoc's four core values: continuous learning and teaching, making a positive impact, having fun, and fostering empathy. Not only will a culture code align the team, providing a North Star to follow, but it will also nurture a strong, value-driven organization.
Episode Resources:
* Mikita Mikado on LinkedIn
* PandaDoc Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Tanya Johnson, Chief Product Officer at Auror, joins Melissa Perri to explore the importance of responsible and ethical use of tech and AI. They unveil the essence of ethical product development, embracing responsibility and diversity across product teams; explore strategies for building authentic diversity in tech teams; and share Auror’s framework for responsible tech and AI.
Tanya is a trailblazer in ethical product innovation, committed to drive technology's evolution along an intentional and accountable trajectory. With over two decades of experience in product teams, she has skilfully navigated the intersection of strategy, product management, design, and software engineering.
A passionate advocate for the representation and inclusion of women and LGBTQ+ individuals, Tanya is the founder of NZTech WomeNB (formerly Women in Tech), a platform dedicated to increasing the presence, perspectives, and positions of women and non-binary individuals within the tech sector.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [07:00] - Tanya highlights the importance of responsible technology and AI, especially in critical sectors like retail crime intelligence. While tech should solve problems, it must also strive to minimize harm, which involves product development and data management to maximize positive impacts without compromising user safety or privacy. As our understanding of responsible tech deepens, the industry must shift from indiscriminate tech applications to more thoughtful, inclusive, and deliberate development and deployment practices that aim to increase societal good at scale.
* [10:50] - When developing responsible tech products, you must consider both the target and involuntary users. Product managers should conduct thorough research beyond their core audience, considering the broader context and potential consequences. Besides restrictive policies, addressing these issues should involve proactive discovery, thoughtful design, and user training. Moreover, balancing access restrictions while ensuring responsible and broad consideration of user impact is critical for ethical product development.
* [17:21] - Regarding tech responsibility, every team member, not just CEOs, bears the responsibility for ethical technology development. While there's a misconception that only bad people cause harm, it's a lack of intentionality and accountability that leads to negative outcomes. Also, it's essential to build a diverse team when recognizing risks, such as how data use could threaten vulnerable groups. The responsibility lies with creators to ensure their technology respects and protects all users.
* [22:50] - Building diverse teams is vital for creating successful products that resonate with a broad user base. Cultivating diversity goes down to company founders and leaders must implement intentional hiring practices from the beginning. Objectively assess candidates by standardizing the hiring process and focusing on role-relevant criteria rather than subjective preferences. Also, ensure your hiring panels are diverse. First, however, you must understand that diversity goes beyond gender and ethnicity, including cultural, linguistic, and financial backgrounds.
* [29:20] - Auror developed a framework for responsible tech and AI that prioritizes fairness, equality, and community benefit. The company commits to designing non-discriminatory AI, sticking to international and local laws, and respecting human rights. Transparency and accountability in AI processes are key, while human oversight is compulsory to balance autonomous decision-making. Additionally, Auror ensures that its technology supports the safety and well-being of its customers and the wider community.
Episode Resources:
* Tanya Johnson on LinkedIn
* Auror Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Anish Bhimani, Managing Director and Chief Product Officer at JPMorgan Chase, Commercial Banking joins Melissa Perri to share his insights on how product managers can scale and lead digital transformation in commercial banking. They explore the importance of building a customer-centric culture, the challenges of shifting to an outcome-driven mindset, and JP Morgan's digital evolution by mixing innovation and tradition.
In his role, Anish holds global responsibility for digital strategy, transformation, and product innovation in commercial banking. In 2008, he was awarded the Information Security Executive of the Year by the Executive Alliance and gained a spot on Bank Technology News’ "Top 25 Innovators." Before joining JPMorgan Chase, Anish was a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [10:55] - Managing business operations at scale provides unique challenges and opportunities, especially with JP Morgan Chase, who are interacting with almost half of US households and overseeing about a third of the US economy daily. Successfully implementing product management strategies in large-scale companies differs from startups. However, for JPMorgan Chase, the mindset shift from simply executing tasks to solving core business problems has been critical. The journey is still ongoing, but the company noticed a change from traditional multi-month deliveries to agile sprints and from strict requirements to problem-solving, design thinking, and product discovery.
* [14:00] - In the finance industry, the concept of a product has gradually evolved beyond classic payments, loans, and credit cards. Today, there are four main types of products: financial products, experience products, business engines, and business platforms. However, the lines between experience and financial products are increasingly blending, especially in consumer banking. Customers care about their overall experience as they care about their money. As a result, the entire customer journey is essential to product consideration.
* [17:33] - Product managers have to focus on the outcomes they strive to achieve rather than deliverables. In essence, products vary and each has a dedicated PM. However, many often support other products instead of focusing on their own and compromising their needs. Therefore, the major challenge lies in transitioning from a deliverable-focused to an outcome-driven mindset. Also, your primary focus should be to align everyone toward the same organizational goals.
* [22:58] - In product management, balancing long-term outcomes and short-term outputs is essential. An uneven strategy might lead to friction among teams. Moreover, implementing OKRs can help in setting clear goals and measures. However, you must simplify and focus on a few metrics that drive business outcomes. But it all starts with customer experience, as operational efficiency often follows naturally.
* [34:07] - Successful product leaders have to balance business knowledge with technology and product knowledge, as well as understand coding basics. JPMorgan Chase mixes long-standing employees with external hires to nurture a diversity of thought. The company might face cultural challenges and compliance requirements, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. Also, as business and strategy merge, JPMorgan's strategy evolves to build a more holistic customer-centric digital experience.
Episode Resources:
* Anish Bhimani on LinkedIn
* JPMorgan Chase Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, product experts Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq, join Melissa Perri to discuss the importance of wireframing in product development. They explore the collaborative power of wireframes in product teams, using wireframes as conversation starters, and the benefits of designers having front-end coding knowledge for efficient product outcomes.
Ellen is an Angel Investor and Board Member in several companies, including Liveblocks, Stellate, and Skydio. Before joining boldstart, she was the Co-Founder and CEO of Dark, a backend programming language. Earlier in her career, Ellen was deeply involved in the Product domain, contributing her expertise to renowned firms like Lola and Kickstarter.
With over a decade of experience in UX design, Leon teaches user interface design basics and wireframing to Balsamiq's predominantly non-designer audience. He co-authored the insightful book, "Wireframing for Everyone." Before this, Leon mentored UX Design Courses at Springboard, contributed as a UX Designer at Toyota ITC, and was the Senior Interaction Designer at OptimisCorp.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [01:44] - Leon and his colleagues at Balsamiq authored "Wireframing for Everyone," with a foreword by Ellen Chisa. The motivation behind the book was to fill a gap in available resources, highlighting wireframing as a universal tool across all software disciplines. The book targets Product Managers and non-designers. Ellen states that even while working on the programming language Dark, wireframing was crucial. As an investor, she now advocates for early-stage founders to employ wireframes to improve clarity and collaboration in their teams.
* [05:20] - The roles and responsibilities in product teams aren't just restricted by titles or traditional terminologies. It's essential to focus on effective collaboration and communication to get work done. Sports analogies like a baseball or basketball team highlight teamwork, practice, and communication over individual superstars. Different team members, including PMs and UX designers, can use wireframes to share their ideas more clearly. While wireframes may differ based on the creator, their primary purpose remains to visually communicate an idea and resolve uncertainty.
* [09:47] - When creating wireframes, it's essential to maintain a high-level perspective and avoid getting lost in tiny details. Using tools like physical whiteboards or purposefully limited wireframing tools can help teams stay focused on the broader picture. You can also assign someone the role of ensuring the conversation remains top-level. Avoid overcomplicating with powerful UX tools that may distract attention from the user's primary goals. Remember, the objective is to prioritize the overall user experience over complex details.
* [15:07] - The shift towards a mobile-first approach in design has been increasing. However, one of the significant developments in web and app design has been the rise of design systems and pattern libraries, offering pre built components. To streamline the design process, integrate these systems into wireframes, providing placeholders that mirror real components. For designers presenting to executives, using wireframes should aim to spark dialogue rather than seek some form of approval. Making designs slightly ambiguous can encourage engagement and questions, turning wireframes into real conversation starters.
* [22:10] - Jumping straight to a high-fidelity prototype or coding might seem efficient, but it can lead to wasted effort if the final product doesn't meet real-world needs. While high-fidelity prototyping is valuable close to development, the initial ideation phase is crucial to ensure product-market fit and differentiation. It's like prototyping methods for choosing between a pencil and a paintbrush: each has its time and place in the creative process, and one doesn't necessarily replace the other.
* [29:33] - Designers can greatly benefit from knowing front-end coding, especially when using actual code that will be part of the end product. This knowledge helps in maintaining consistency and making better design choices. Just as product managers debate their need for technical knowledge, designers too should have coding awareness, which, in the end, leads to more efficient product outcomes.
Episode Resources:
* Ellen Chisa’s Website
* Ellen Chisa on LinkedIn
* Leon Barnard’s Website
* Leon Barnard on LinkedIn
* “Wireframing for Everyone” Book
* Balsamiq Website
* boldstart ventures Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Bethany Lyons, Chief Product Officer at KAWA Analytics, joins Melissa Perri to unveil the role of a data-driven product manager in early-stage startups. They explore the world of operational intelligence, the importance of identifying high-demand customers, and the balance between pioneering and optimization in startups. Bethany also touches on the crucial aspects of seamless onboarding during early-stage product development and highlights the significance of choosing the right customers when scaling.
Bethany has vast expertise in product and data analytics, having served in key roles across organizations of various scales. She formerly held the title of Director of Product Management of Analytics at Mews and was the Senior Product Manager of Data Modelling and Calculations at Salesforce. Her mastery was globally recognized in 2014 when Tableau Software honored her as the Worldwide Product Consultant of the Year.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [24:21] - When determining KAWA Analytics' target customers, Bethany prioritizes those who show a high willingness to pay and an urgent need for their product. For instance, hedge funds value KAWA due to its capacity to improve their critical daily operations, such as risk and position analysis. KAWA aims for users who employ data in operational capacities rather than just for occasional insights, leading the team to coin the term "operational intelligence" to define its niche.
* [27:38] - In startups, being data-driven might not always be viable due to the lack of data. Instead of focusing on quantitative metrics, lean into qualitative insights. Rely on vision, understanding the problem, feedback from user interviews, and product market interactions. While data can optimize, it can't tell you what to do. Therefore, startups should focus on pioneering over-optimization.
* [31:18] - Seamless onboarding for their product is key to KAWA. The team prioritizes understanding user behaviors through screen shares during these early stages, ensuring users learn the product without requiring assistance. In the future, they aim to introduce event-based data collection to understand the user's journey and any deviation from the ideal onboarding course. Their primary metric for product success is user activation, indicating when a user derives value from the product. However, defining the point of value realization remains a crucial topic KAWA is still addressing, whether it's grouping a view, sharing, or building a dashboard.
* [42:08] - Bethany believes that the most important product decision is choosing the first set of customers. Onboarding customers with a highly overlapping shared problem ensures easier scaling, as catering to diverse needs makes the process way harder. Moreover, recognizing that different company stages may require different leadership styles, Bethany mentions the possibility of her role evolving or even hiring her replacement in the future, something every business leader must consider at a certain scaling stage.
Episode Resources:
* Bethany Lyons on LinkedIn
* KAWA Analytics Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Jag Duggal, Chief Product Officer at Nubank, joins Melissa Perri to unravel the process of building a strong global product management team in a fast-growing business. They also dive into the importance of customer obsession, challenges in talent acquisition, and the power of documented principles in scaling businesses.
Jag is an experienced executive in product management and strategy, with a rich history of leading successful Internet businesses across diverse sectors. Today, he is a key figure at Nubank, a front-runner in the digital and mobile banking arena, which revolutionized the fintech domain with its innovative banking and credit solutions, catering to over 75 million clients in Brazil and Mexico. Before this, Jag held prominent product leadership roles at Facebook and Google.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [11:32] - When Jag joined Nubank, the company was at a key point as it had successfully established itself as a leading credit card company in Brazil and had recently launched a rapidly adopted bank account product. However, the challenge was to transition users from adoption to consistent engagement. Upon joining, Jag and the new executive team faced three key objectives: transform the new bank account product into the primary account for users; broaden the product range by introducing lending, insurance, investing, small business accounts, and cryptocurrency products; and reach two-thirds of the Latin American population. From 15 product managers, Nubank expanded to almost 300. This rapid growth determined the company to adopt a consistent and unified approach to product development across all areas and regions.
* [15:50] - When it comes to team development, maintaining high-quality hires is essential. Nubank aims to be a global leader in product development education, so team composition is critical, combining expertise from traditional banking, Latin tech, and global hubs like Silicon Valley. On the product side, ensuring genuine success is a concern. As the company releases more products, initial positive metrics can be misleading. Nubank's goal is to move users from trying a product to becoming its advocates. The company's ethos is cultivating a passionate customer base, given that over 80% come from referrals.
* [20:06] - Nubank is dedicated to turning everyday users into product champions by adopting a strong customer satisfaction strategy. The company's guiding metric has always been the Net Promoter Score (NPS), with Nubank consistently scoring high global ratings. Additionally, Nubank closely monitors the Sean Ellis survey score to understand its product's need to users. Beyond feedback and scores, the focus on maintaining a low churn rate is critical. Any unexpected rise in churn drives Nubank to act and correct it. By employing a mix of data-driven insights and innate curiosity, the company ensures it continually refines its offerings for maximum user satisfaction.
* [26:47] - Ensuring a unique approach is key to aligning team actions with a broader strategy. Nubank's culture focuses on empowering cross-functional teams' autonomy for teams with clear targets, expecting them to adhere to quality and cultural standards. This level of autonomy requires strong leadership, allowing senior leaders to focus on the broader strategy.
* [41:53] - With his extensive growth experience from roles at Google and Facebook, Jag highlights the importance of documenting decision-making processes for product leaders bracing for rapid expansion. Reflecting on his time at Facebook, he recalls how senior leaders frequently referred to guiding principles during debates to ensure aligned decision-making. People make decisions based on their unique perspectives, so having clear, documented principles maintains consistency across larger teams and ensures decisions are aligned with the company's core values.
Episode Resources:
* Jag Duggal on LinkedIn
* Nubank Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Bryan House, Chief Experience Officer at Elastic Path, joins Melissa Perri to explore the close collaboration between product and customer success in building a customer-centric organization.
Bryan is an accomplished product and GTM executive with a proven track record of scaling companies from inception to over $170M in annual recurring revenue. His expertise lies primarily in the realm of venture-backed startups. Bryan has adeptly built and executed inaugural products and market-entry strategies and led expansive growth initiatives for businesses with recurring revenue models.
Before his tenure at Elastic Path, Bryan held the position of Chief Commercial Officer at Neural Magic, served as Entrepreneur In Residence at Underscore VC, and held multiple pivotal roles at Acquia over nine years.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [01:27] - As the Chief Experience Officer at Elastic Path, Bryan has a unique role that extends beyond product and UX design. He now oversees sales components, account management, and the entirety of customer success, which includes renewals, expansion, global services, and onboarding. Before his arrival, the company's product and engineering teams rarely engaged with customers. So Bryan introduced a more customer-centric approach to meetings and product strategies, and realigned the R&D department.
* [06:09] - Under his leadership as Chief Experience Officer at Elastic Path, Bryan introduced key strategic transformations by unifying the product and sales teams, ensuring engineers were focused on building valuable, real-world features. This union gave engineers a clearer sense of their end users, allowing them to see customers as distinct individuals within specific companies. To further embed the customer's perspective, the annual R&D offsite incorporated insights from the customer success leadership, ensuring product development was truly customer-centric. Moreover, Bryan facilitated direct interactions between customers and product managers, building trust and nurturing a proactive rather than reactive relationship. Finally, by adopting Amazon's six-page process, Bryan ensured the company's strategic narratives were clear and grounded in real business outcomes.
* [17:54] - For a Chief Product Officer unfamiliar with overseeing customer success, here's a streamlined approach: First, secure a proven Customer Success Leader, someone experienced in relationship-building and project management. Next, it's essential to prioritize metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score) and expansion, understanding that CS uniquely combines relationship-building with the art of selling. Highlighting natural sales intuition within your team is key as it promotes organic growth by addressing customer needs. If current roles seem misaligned with your objectives, don't hesitate to recalibrate to meet company goals. Lastly, work to reframe the perception of sales. It's less about pushing products and more about influence and service, offering personalized solutions to customers.
* [22:15] - Bryan believes that product managers should enhance their storytelling skills. Embrace your role as the subject matter expert for the product you're building. While the customer might know their business well, you possess expertise in your domain. Don't hesitate to showcase that expertise. A common misconception among product managers is that selling the problem a product solves is solely the responsibility of product marketing. But in reality, a product manager should be intimately familiar with the problem and its solution, often knowing more than anyone else in the organization.
Episode Resources:
* Bryan House on LinkedIn
* Elastic Path Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, joins Melissa Perri to dive into "Why Startups Fail," his transformative book. Specifically, they dive into the inspiration of the book, six unique types of startup failures and how to avoid them, as well as strategies for hiring your first product manager.
Tom has gathered over twenty-six years of experience as a dedicated professor at Harvard Business School, where he pioneered the Product Management class. His influential book, Why Startups Fail (also known as The Fail-Safe Startup in the Commonwealth), showcases his extensive knowledge of entrepreneurship.
Serving as the unit head of Entrepreneurial Management, faculty chair of the Harvard Innovation Labs, and faculty co-chair of the Harvard MS/MBA program and the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, his leadership spreads through multiple aspects of academic and entrepreneurial life at Harvard.
Tom' rich blend of academic insight and practical entrepreneurship expertise positions him as a valuable resource for anyone navigating the intricate landscape of product management in startups. His work seamlessly bridges the crucial domains of scholarly research and real-world entrepreneurship.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [00:05] - Tom has spent over twenty-six years teaching at Harvard, nurturing growing entrepreneurs and witnessing countless startups bloom and fade. His extensive experience inspired his book, "Why Startups Fail," rooted in feedback from a compulsory first-year entrepreneurship course. The true motivation of the book was the failure of Quincy Apparel, a startup launched by Tom's former students, which collapsed within a year despite sound strategies and his own investment. This failure drove Tom to a decade-long journey of understanding startup failures, interviewing around 100 unsuccessful founders and numerous backing investors.
* [04:49] - Tom’s book delves into six unique types of startup failures, categorizing them into early and late-stage patterns. He emphasizes the critical misstep of bypassing initial customer discovery and research, a phase vital for understanding a problem’s significance and identifying the correct solution. This oversight, termed a “false start,” mirrors athletes penalized for prematurely beginning a race. Tom highlights the entrepreneur's willingness to launch their product, often leading to this costly error. Despite the anticipation of saving time, skipping this foundational step extends the product development cycle, increasing the odds of failure. He notes that both technical and non-technical founders can fall into this trap, underlining the need for extensive groundwork before product development to avoid a flawed launch and ensure entrepreneurial success.
* [11:37] - According to Tom, the lack of a great PM creates a “bad bedfellows” situation, increasing the likelihood of a "false start." A skilled PM, particularly a founding one, is vital in lowering this risk by effectively tuning into customer needs. In Harvard Business School's entrepreneurship courses, emphasis is placed on four crucial resource providers: founders, teams, external investors, and strategic partners. In a "bad bedfellow" scenario, even with a valid idea and solution, execution fails due to dysfunctional resource dynamics, as seen with Quincy Apparel.
* [26:42] - The third early-stage pattern is false positive. A false negative for an entrepreneur means mistakenly discarding a good idea, only to see others later succeed with it. A false positive, meanwhile, can mean misjudging early adopters' needs as those of the mainstream market. Take Dropbox, for example, its early users were software engineers with complex needs, while the founder envisioned a user-friendly product for everyday people. The challenge is maintaining the product's essence while shifting focus from early adopters to a broader audience. Effective navigation through this terrain requires a solid product strategy. The key is thorough customer discovery to understand diverse user needs, underscoring the importance of substantial upfront work.
* [35:24] - Many PMs may face one of three critical patterns Tom talks about in his book. The first, "speed trap," is the primary killer of late-stage startups. If a failure is defined as a lack of investor return, one-third of late-stage startups fit this description, often due to inflated equity values and resulting in investor loss. Similar to the “false start” pattern, the second, “help wanted,” points to the turmoil from improperly filled senior roles or a plummeting capital market affecting various sectors. The third, “cascading miracles,” involves ambitious projects like Tesla and SpaceX. These efforts demand perfect alignment of multiple elements, with any misstep potentially leading to failure.
* [47:07] - When it comes to scaling, the timing of hiring the first product manager is crucial. Tom' research conducted with numerous product leaders highlights the importance of aligning this decision with the company’s growth stage and the founder’s needs. In essence, optimal PM hiring should align with the founder's requirements and the company’s development stage, ensuring neither premature nor delayed recruitment and fostering long-term organizational growth and success.
Episode Resources:
* Tom Eisenmann on LinkedIn
* Tom Eisenmann on Twitter
* Harvard Business School Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Chris Andrews, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Product at Rendered.AI, joins Melissa Perri to unveil the challenges and strategies involved in building products in new markets, as well as the unique aspects of product management in these markets. They discuss how product managers can introduce new market opportunities, the role of product management in new markets versus saturated ones, securing success in early-stage ventures, and navigating innovation in larger organizations.
Before joining Rendered.ai, Chris held the position of Group Product Manager at Esri, overseeing the Geo Enabled Systems Team, responsible for an impressive portfolio of over twenty-five products that contributed to $45M+ in direct sales and an additional $100M+ through indirect channels.
Throughout his career, Chris has been at the forefront of strategic innovation. At Autodesk, he was instrumental in the product definition and validation of the first fully integrated desktop-cloud-mobile Hero product - Infrastructure Modeler (now rebranded as InfraWorks). Moreover, under his leadership, Esri's ArcGIS Earth was developed from its initial concept to production in just eight months, securing over a million downloads.
Beyond his roles in product management, Chris is a published author on Rendered.AI's Medium platform, discussing subjects like synthetic data. He's also scheduled to be a keynote speaker at an upcoming webinar titled "Using Synthetic Data to Enhance the Precision of Scalable Machine Vision in Manufacturing."
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [04:55] - Introducing new market opportunities in product management differs from traditional lean startup methods or enhancing existing products in large firms. Many users struggle to see the value in entirely new tools or technologies. It's more than just picking between familiar products; it's about helping them envision revolutionary changes in their workflow. This mirrors the innovator stage of the technology adoption curve. The key is to find and collaborate with forward-thinking individuals, using their success stories to appeal to a broader audience.
* [08:38] - Pieces of product management differ when introducing a concept to a new market compared to a saturated one with great competition. The perception of risk varies, both within the organization creating the product and in the eyes of potential customers. For companies developing products in an established market, the dynamics and challenges differ. As someone who serves as the Chief Operating Officer and has had experience across various company levels, Chris has a broader perspective. It's not just about product management in isolation. Over time, especially with the shift to subscription models, product managers play a more pivotal role in influencing every phase of the customer journey surrounding a product.
* [10:00] - For early-stage ventures, securing executive buy-in, especially from the CEO, is crucial. Whether launching new products in established markets or exploring unexplored territories, top-level endorsement is often the difference between success and failure. On the customer front, it's vital to cultivate early adopter evangelists. These are more than just users; they're champions of your product. As the venture progresses, these advocates become foundational in nurturing a dedicated community around your product. While mature markets allow for data-driven strategies, early stages demand genuine supporters who grant you time to prove success and viability.
* [23:51] - In larger organizations, navigating innovation can be challenging. If a company isn't proactive about disruption, it'll be disrupted from outside. The key to maintaining focus on new markets lies in sustaining positive relationships with stakeholders. Beyond innovation, relationships are pivotal. The approach should be evidence-based, inclusive, and consistent. Think of it as a plane taking off; maintain momentum to achieve success.
Episode Resources:
* Chris Andrews on LinkedIn
* Chris Andrews on Medium
* Rendered.AI Website
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here, and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
Q&A:
Q: Dear Melissa, we are re-platforming a product at the enterprise level. My product will need to build the specifics we need once the enterprise infrastructure is in place. It's a platform that today is tech-heavy to manage and maintain. I want to shift the approach to give ownership to internal users to maintain their own pieces and make their own updates. However, putting dollars in value to something conceptual is challenging. What's a good way to sell a different way of doing something that will drive long-term improvements in a manner that can bring data and dollars to the table in an analytical environment?
* A: So, doing a re-platforming or changing something like this does actually translate to dollars. Sometimes it's hard to think about it, but it does. So if you think about what you are trying to do, which is putting the things in the hands of the internal end users and allowing them to make changes instead of the developers to do it, you're actually streamlining operations, and you're freeing up your developers to work on other things, which is opportunity cost at the end of the day. So when you're thinking about doing a platform change like this, from what I understand, what this means is that you want to make it possible for people to go into the system and change things themselves to enable the end users to do that. And there's a cost associated with doing that if you are doing it for them.
* Q: Dear Melissa, we recently grew our engineering team and are now able to reform into three squads. One of the squads is more platform-based, and I was moved to that squad because I am the most technical of all the product managers. While it makes sense on paper, I am no longer doing end-user product management, which is what I love doing. Thankfully, the engineers that are on my team are incredible, experienced, and, best of all, great peers to work with, so I'm at least excited to learn and lean into the infrastructure and DevOps experience. However, I'm at a bit of a loss for understanding what the day-to-day should and could look like as a technical product manager to make sure I'm doing the best I can in this role. I know what it looks like for end-user product management, but this feels foreign, and no one on the team is able to give proper guidance. Do you have any advice on this type of transition and role?
* A: Platform product management is weird because now you have to start to think about who your end user is, and your end user is the people internally. So this is an opportunity for you not to just prove that you can do great technical product management and learn from your peers, which is fantastic, but it's also an opportunity for you to get some goodwill because you're helping the people who sit around you all day long, and they're gonna be very excited about that, so you should get excited about that too. So when you think about going into a more technical backend team what you're doing is worrying about the user experience, but the user experience from a workflow perspective of the people around you.
* Q: Dear Melissa, I'm soon starting a new position as a product manager for a platform team, and I could use some advice on how to approach it. Having internal teams as end users and not having a designer on the team is new to me. How do we run product discovery in a platform team? Does a product trio become a product duo? Any tips to get started?*
* A: Hopefully, the tips I just gave will help you as well. But let's dive into that one key part of product discovery because I think that's important. I've heard a lot of people say, oh, you don't need discovery on platform teams or backend teams, and that is just straight out wrong. Product discovery is still extremely important on a platform team, you're just not gonna have a designer working with you. Instead, you're gonna work with your tech lead, so you and your tech lead are going to be joined at the hip, your trios going down to a duo. And that's totally fine. And what you really want to do as well is partner with the other product managers around the company and other tech leads and other developers.
Resources:Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | TwitterMelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this episode of Product Thinking, Luke Skurman, CEO of Niche, joins Melissa Perri to explore the incredible story of Niche's journey from helping students choose the right college to become a successful company in the education industry. They dive into Niche's first years, how the company adapted to the changing landscape, raised funds, and achieved rapid growth when it switched from a survival mindset to a growth mindset.
Luke founded what was initially called College Prowler, which has now evolved into Niche, one of the foremost content startups in the United States. He also co-founded and serves as the Chairman of Thrill Mill, an innovative non-profit accelerator formed of a business plan competition, an incubator, and a music festival.
As a testament to his leadership, Luke is the inaugural curator of the Global Shapers Pittsburgh Hub, an initiative affiliated with the World Economic Forum. Recognizing his entrepreneurial spirit, Ernst & Young honored him as the Entrepreneur of the Year for Western Pennsylvania & West Virginia in 2016.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [10:26] - Luke revealed that College Prowler's evolution involved retreating to its root idea: a free website monetized through connecting students to colleges, partnerships with financial institutions, and collaborations with military sectors. However, in 2013, the company rebranded into Niche and diversified into covering over 130,000 K-12 schools, inspired by the partial coverage from greatschools.org. 2014 marked Niche's entry into the Places to Live segment, covering U.S. cities, towns, and neighborhoods as the brand identified a link between school quality and housing decisions.
* [19:45] - Niche faced a funding challenge, leading Luke and his team to take an unconventional route. They crafted a 100-page Private Placement Memorandum and pitched it to individual, accredited investors, bypassing traditional venture capitalists. Over eighteen months, from late 2015 to early 2017, they met with 161 investors, securing $4.6 million from 60 affirmative responses. By March 2017, Niche had built its sales force, ended ties with its channel partner, and modernized the platform for better accessibility and adaptability, which placed it in a solid position for growth.
* [22:00] - During Niche's growth phase, they streamlined their sales process, hiring dedicated account executives to target colleges and K-12 schools. With a platform reminiscent of Glassdoor or Yelp, schools could upgrade to a premium profile, attracting more high-intent traffic. By the end of 2017, the revenue from these new partnerships nearly eclipsed the old channel partner earnings, far surpassing expectations. With increased funds and a forward-looking approach, Niche transitioned from staying afloat to strategic growth and investment.
*
* [27:55] - As a CEO, Luke focuses on reaching $100 million within five to seven years. While Niche's ARR grew, its growth rate decay dipped below 80%. Two challenges arose: a plateau in acquiring new logo ARR annually and stagnation in Niche's expansion revenue despite a strong net retention. The company aimed to move further down the enrollment funnel to address the attribution challenge. Moreover, a pilot with two universities was launched, offering real-time admissions and scholarships through Niche's platform. In 2023, the company has been concentrating on perfecting the "direct admissions" program and onboarding 100 colleges by year's end.
If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:* Productinstitue.com + bCast impressions + Spotify impressions + Apple impressions * Angel Squad
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about structuring product management teams for complicated portfolios such as medical devices and having software digital products, moving from sales-led to product-led, and capacity planning for teams.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here, and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
Q&A:
Q: So this one is about MedTech. How do you set up the teams for product management?
* A: When you're working in a complex portfolio, like something that has hardware and software, we do have different life cycles in those products, and the way they get built as well is going to be very different. For example, with a hardware product, we're not going to be using the same type of experimentation techniques we might be using in a software product. But when we think about integrating these things, I think there are a couple of different factors you want to think about when structuring your product management team. Do you have stand-alone applications versus devices?
* Q: What approach would you take if a company is prioritizing business problems over customer problems?
* A: This is a really common scenario. Lots of companies out there are sales-led. When you start to introduce software components as we have in the last twenty years in these modern companies, that starts to change because our avenues for growth are not just about, hey, let me go sell this or sell the hell out of this, right, or let me go do the best marketing campaign in the world. It's also about things like product-led growth, people discovering the products, getting in there, unlocking new features, and being able to upsell them in those ways as well. So let's think about how we get people to move from sales led to a product-led one.
* Q: Dear Melissa, we have quite a large application that is a mixture of EAM, ERP, and CMMS even more. This used to be a service company that evolved into a product company. Or so they say it did. Anyway, there are now six people managing the application, and I was asked to lead that team. I have a question about the product structure at this time. The structure is based on how we sell it, but the workload is wrong. Some of the products are new and have less work, and others are old and very big with about 1400 workflows, and they have one PM. So, how do you structure your team around this to make for a successful story?*
* A: Here is the thing. We do not structure teams around how we sell things. Instead, we structure them around strategy and around our products. It's a little combination of both. We want to make sure that we have enough coverage over different things, But we also want to make sure that we are prioritizing the stuff that needs the most work to reach our goals.
Resources:Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | TwitterMelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, joins Melissa Perri to navigate the challenges and opportunities of transitioning from a free to a subscription-based model, the importance of a strong organizational support system, and the role of data in decision-making. They also shed light on Stephanie's leadership and focus on people, purpose, process, and performance that have helped Doodle navigate complex product challenges and achieve growth.
Stephanie has an extensive career as a product leader, navigating the worlds of startups to Fortune 500 enterprises with niche expertise in B2B SaaS. Beyond her product leadership, she offers her skills as a freelance Leadership Coach, guiding senior female leaders. Stephanies has over fifteen years of experience designing and leading products and teams.
In her earlier ventures, Stephanie held key roles such as the Head of Product Operations at Europace AG, Director of Product & Design at Contentful, and Senior Product Manager at PayPal. Additionally, her entrepreneurial spirit is showcased as the Co-Founder of 3Weine, a premium shopping platform dedicated to German wines.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [02:18] - Originally a Swiss-founded tool by students for organizing barbecues, Doodle faced a strategic shift in 2017. Moving from an ad-based model, they adopted a subscription approach. They initially operated two platforms: one for free users and another for subscribers, complicating user upgrades. Recognizing the challenge, Doodle decided to merge the platforms. Despite careful preparations, the launch of the unified platform faced a two-day downtime and the removal of certain features, prioritizing user feedback over existing functionalities.
* [07:36] - Doodle experienced customer churn when transitioning to the new platform as the company retired a favorite product and removed some features in March. To deal with this challenge, they started collaborating across teams, analyzing data and focusing on customer support insights. Doodle's mission was to restore key features while refining the new platform and restoring user satisfaction. It was challenging, but in hindsight, it solidified the team and set it on a positive trajectory.
* [11:01] - In October, Stephanie was elevated to CPO, taking charge of the entire product team, where she felt an immediate need to shift Doodle towards being product-led, emphasizing data-driven decisions and customer feedback. Stephanie centered her approach on four pillars: People, Purpose, Process, and Performance. What truly set Doodle apart was its dedicated team: a brilliant growth sector, a proactive data department, and a genuine passion for Doodle's products and customers.
* [16:56] - When shaping Doodle's strategy, the team faced the challenge of serving both B2B and B2C markets simultaneously. With her B2B background from PayPal, Stephanie believed in separate strategies for each market. However, at Doodle, she noticed the needs of small-to-medium businesses closely mirrored those of individual customers. Both groups strived for mutual availability, valuable conversations, and brand or personal recognition.
* [25:15] - When joining Doodle, Stephanie noticed employees' dissatisfaction with ever-changing directions. For a business to thrive, she believes in creating an environment where everyone feels their role is crucial. Two pillars have driven the company's progress: the team's unwavering commitment and a powerful data structure that facilitates quick and informed decisions. Product leaders often face challenging decisions, even pausing initiatives on the brink of completion that didn't resonate with the strategy. Learn to channel your energy more effectively, selecting projects that offer real value to your business and team.
Episode Resources:
* Stephanie Leue’s Website
* Stephanie Leue on LinkedIn
* Doodle Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Michelle Parsons, Product Executive in Residence at Product School, joins Melissa Perri to share what makes a stellar consumer product, the challenges of implementing user personalization, and Michelle's experiences at big consumer names like Spotify and Netflix. They also delve into the role of personalization in the dating app Hinge and its mission to create meaningful connections.
Michelle is a product leader with expertise in search, discovery, and personalization within top-tier consumer tech companies. She is also a Mentor at First Round Capital and a Member Board of Directors at Sky's the Limit. Before her current role, Michelle held the title of Chief Product Officer at Hinge. Her dynamic career includes roles as the Product Innovation Leader for Global Kids & Family at Netflix and a pivotal stint at Spotify, where she focused on Product, Personalization, and the Recommendations Platform.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [00:50] - According to Michelle, the essential components of a stellar consumer product go down to three main elements. First is user-centricity, as the foremost priority should be recognizing and addressing the genuine needs of the user. The second one is brand-product harmony, where a brand's offline marketing matches the actual product. Ideally, what's portrayed offline should seamlessly resonate with the online experience, ensuring a consistent and consumer-driven focus. And third, personalization or tailoring the product experience to individual preferences.
* [06:59] - When diving into product personalization, it's essential to center on the user. Understand the challenges they're trying to overcome and where personalization can tailor their experience, reduce barriers, and enhance satisfaction. Every company's approach differs, but people have shared traits within our demographics. Using these similarities helps to create insightful user models.
* [09:54] - Every successful product is built on a foundation of strong partnerships. Think, are you optimizing for quantity, like many likes, or quality, such as genuine matches? Take Netflix: is it about discovering new shows or revisiting familiar ones? Spotify showcases the complexity of this choice. While the homepage promotes familiar tunes, features like Discover Weekly introduce new music based on listening habits. Meanwhile, Year in Review offers an overview of your year's favorites, and Songs You Missed reveals overlooked tracks popular among similar listeners. So clear outcomes and hypotheses guide product development and data insights.
* [25:37] - Dating apps like Hinge aim to cultivate genuine relationships. Users seek meaningful connections, hoping to find lasting companionship. If the app successfully guides them to this goal, they'll naturally promote it, adding the platform to their love story. Another example is Spotify and its Discover Weekly playlist, which can spark widespread interest. While platforms like Spotify encourage ongoing engagement, dating apps have a clear endpoint – finding love. However, negative or unsafe experiences lead to user burnout and deter potential users due to shared negative feedback within social circles. In contrast, Hinge stands out by seamlessly merging its branding with its product, ensuring a trustworthy and exciting user journey.
* [32:38] - Reducing friction always delivers better outcomes, right? Most of the time. However, the desired outcome shapes the approach. For instance, on dating apps, a single photo prioritizes physical appearance over personality, which doesn’t foster meaningful connections. Therefore, apps like Hinge must constantly ask: What is the user's desired outcome, and how can the product deliver?
Episode Resources:
+ Michelle Parsons on LinkedIn
+ Product School Website
+ Sky's the Limit Website
+ First Round Capital Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, joins Melissa Perri to explore the importance of simplicity in product design, saying no to customer requests, designing for profitability, and running a successful business while maintaining work-life balance.
37signals is a well-known software development firm acclaimed for its creation of Basecamp, a complete product management platform boasting over 20 million users since its debut, and HEY, an innovative email optimization tool. Jason is a distinguished member of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship that has also lent his expertise as a columnist for Inc. Magazine.
In the literary world, he co-authored "Rework," a guide illustrating a more efficient approach to business success. His bibliography further includes titles like "Remote: Office Not Required" and "Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application."
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [01:25] - In product development, Jason's principle is clear: build for yourself first. Instead of guessing the market's desires, his team crafts products they believe in and refines based on consumer feedback. This method ensures authenticity and resonates with a broader audience since most teams, regardless of industry or size, face similar challenges. Instead of chasing niche needs, they focus on foundational solutions with the most universal appeal.
* [06:50] - In building products, Jason follows the rule of "simplicity by design." Instead of asking what to include, he begins by defining what to exclude, ensuring only the essential remains. This approach isn't about minimalism but about understanding the core essence of the product. Unlike physical objects with natural constraints, a software product can become unwieldy without limits. So, Jason treats software as if it were tangible. Imagining how a feature might feel if it were a physical object helps him keep software focused and user-friendly.
* [10:05] - Jason underscores the art of selective decision-making in product development. While there's no shortage of ideas from customers, market trends, or internally, the real challenge is determining which aligns with the company's broader mission. Rather than creating niche features for specific industries, he believes in crafting universal functionalities. So the company often says "no", both to external suggestions and internal proposals. Their decision-making leans more on intuition than strict metrics, influenced by the team's current projects and inclinations.
* [26:02] - Jason firmly believes in operative prototypes over ones without backend functionalities. Spending weeks on a prototype only to discard it is wasteful. Instead, it's more efficient to develop something functional from the start. Jason also believes a successful business should move quickly, ensure genuine progress, and operate leanly.
* [29:12] - The essence of smart business growth and design for profitability goes down to several principles. Start modestly - profit-focused design begins with small steps. Bring on staff only when truly needed to avoid unnecessary expenses, focus on efficient small teams, and avoid non-essential costs. Next, handle core functions firsthand, as Jason did with Basecamp's customer service, to better understand challenges. Using personal funds produces caution, and profitability offers the freedom to innovate without external constraints. Ultimately, like any neighborhood store, understand the fundamental importance of spending less than you earn.
Episode Resources:
+ Jason Fried on LinkedIn
+ Jason Fried on Twitter
+ Jason Fried’s Books
+ 37signals Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about product ROI techniques, how we relate our product metrics to our financial metrics, buying versus building a product, and how you can get realistic market size estimates for your team.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here, and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
Q&A:
Q: Dear Melissa, what are some decision points in a buy or integrate vs. build situation? I'm working on a product that wants to incorporate asset management features. There are many good solutions out there already ready to go. So what are the steps to assess this?
* A: Building versus buying is a critical decision for product managers, so I'm thrilled you asked this. Now, when you're thinking about building versus buying, the first and most important question that you want to think about is, will this new feature set or the thing that you're buying be delivering on the core value proposition for your product?
* Dear Melissa, I want to help my organization make product tradeoff decisions on financial analysis rather than what the founder feels is the right thing to invest in. What are typical ROI analysis frameworks that are appropriate for a SaaS product?
* A: So, as we're deciding how to make product tradeoffs, you may have seen some of the different frameworks for prioritization that come back to the effort, including time and cost, all these different things. I don't love those. I think you should look at cost because you want to know how much it will cost to build things. You should also look at timing, but you need to do it through a lens that combines it back to the financial metrics, just like this person is talking about.
* Q: Dear Melissa, how do we get market size estimates to convince executive leadership about the market worth in the modern product management world? Research reports from various sources seem unauthentic and unrealistic because of inflated growth projections.*
* A: Well, that's true. Some market research reports are definitely like pie in the sky. We recommend using these reports as general guidelines, not decision-making criteria. When we do market research estimates, especially market sizing estimates, I start to calculate things out a little bit more in detail, and when I had analysts on my team, this is what they would do as well.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO AcceleratorProduct Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, joins Melissa Perri to dive into the ever-changing role of product management and how it is influencing the technology industry. They also touch upon current events in the tech world, including AI, and how they may be shaping product management practices.
Hubert is a versatile entrepreneur, product maker, mentor, and angel investor. He founded Productboard, the top customer-centric management platform that accelerates product delivery. Trusted by 6,000+ customer-driven companies like Zoom, UiPath, JCDecaux, and Microsoft, Productboard helps teams understand user needs, prioritize development, and unite everyone behind the roadmap. Previously, Hubert served as VP of Product Management at GoodData.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
You’ll hear them talk about:
* [05:18] - The tech industry has recently moved from an era of abundance and experimentation to a more focused approach. Companies now prioritize efficiency and concentrate on profitable segments with proven market needs. This shift often leads to a narrowed portfolio and potentially fewer employees. Such trends are natural during economic downturns, but companies tend to rebound when conditions improve, as seen in the experiences of giants like Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Intuit during the 2008 recession.
* [08:40] - Every business lies on three key factors that drive success: revenue, cost, and risk. Limited resources demand a sharper focus on the core business, enabling better product management. Identifying crucial pain points, target markets, and superior product offerings becomes paramount. To thrive, you must excel at understanding customer segments, their willingness to pay, and the value your product brings compared to alternatives. Therefore, adaptability and expertise in these areas are now more critical than ever.
* [17:50] - As a product manager, it's vital to have a solid education and trust in your instincts, but it's equally important to back those instincts up with customer interactions and market research. Finding a balance between precision and efficiency is key, and you can leverage the experience of your team members to avoid redundant efforts. Open communication among leadership is crucial to sharing essential context. Conducting workshops can help facilitate understanding, and team members should actively seek guidance from seasoned mentors. By working collaboratively, you can ensure optimal outcomes for your company and its products.
* [37:50] - The economy's ups and downs are influenced by various factors, industries, and perspectives. To thrive, mastering product management and strategy is crucial. Despite exciting technological advancements, the key is applying them effectively to different segments and prioritizing resources. Long-term success demands differentiation and foresight, focusing on elements that remain relevant over five to ten years. In the competitive AI landscape, a strong product strategy is essential for survival and standing out from the crowd.
* [40:50] - AI's emergence is reshaping product management, and PMs must ask the right questions to use AI as a reliable tool to guide decisions. However, critical thinking remains essential to uncover unique insights and find valuable opportunities. While AI can improve existing products, it may not discover entirely new market needs. Project managers should view AI as an asset, not a replacement, and leverage it for incremental improvements while relying on human creativity for true innovation.
Episode Resources:
+ Hubert Palan on LinkedIn
+ Hubert Palan on Twitter
+ Productboard Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how to get your dream PM job, resources for young product managers, and how to determine if a project is a standalone product or a set of features.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here, and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
Q&A:
Q: Dear Melissa, I've gotten an interview with a recruiter at a dream product-led company. It's an experimentation platform, a PM position. I don't have direct experience in this area. So what should I highlight about my experience that proves I can excel at this position? Is it seeing the developer as the customer, seeing the importance of larger operational needs, not just the technical experience? Please help me get a second interview.
* A: So it sounds like you are going for a platform product management position. So in a platform, in a product management position, which is different from a user-facing product management position, your developers are the customers, so you definitely have to remember that. It also requires you to be a little bit more technical. That means that you should get up to speed about things like APIs and how they work and how they should be designed, and understand data structures and algorithms and different stuff like that. But no matter what, if you are working on a platform, whether or not a developer is the customer, you still need great product management chops for that. So remember you are still thinking about what the customer is.
* Q: Dear Melissa, I have a young and inexperienced product team, but they are all learners and aren't afraid to take courses or read books to advance their skills. Do you have any recommendations for courses or certifications I should get my team to take? I would especially love some recommendations as it relates to Q&A and testing.
* A: One thing to look at when you're trying to bring new product managers up to speed is what kind of knowledge they need to know and I think you first want to start with a good basis of what product management is, and that's where everybody should start. Then, what you're gonna do is go deeper into the different aspects of product manager and get them up to speed on those areas more. So you really want a nice broad course that teaches you about product management and to end, what that looks like, then you want to start to dive deep into things that are more specific for you.
* Q: Dear Melissa. How do you know if the thing you're working on is actually a standalone product versus a set of features behind a packaging and pricing tier? What signals do you look for when determining this?*
* A: This is always such a hot topic. Everybody gets into these huge debates about whether I am working on a feature or is it really a product? And I think from the standpoint of you doing product management, it doesn't matter that much. Like if you're a product manager on a team, rarely are you actually working on a full product. You usually have a feature set that's going to improve the product that you're in charge of. And those feature sets could be huge in really large companies.
Resources:Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | TwitterMelissaPerri.com | CPO AcceleratorProduct Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe, joins Melissa Perri to discuss the evolution and importance of product operations, the role of product ops in supporting product management teams, and the strategies employed to build successful teams and improve the product experience.
Blake played a significant role in establishing and expanding Stripe's Product Operations, leading a global team of over fifty professionals. Under his guidance, the team successfully orchestrated and assisted in over 200 beta tests and product launches annually. Before his tenure at Stripe, Blake held influential positions at Uber for three years as the Global Head of Product Operations and Global Program Manager for Driver Devices.
His accomplishments extend beyond Uber, as he previously served as the Director of Product Management at Shoutlet. Blake is channeling his wealth of experience and expertise toward establishing Product Operations at OpenA.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
Episode Resources:
* Blake Samic on LinkedIn
* Blake Samic on Twitter
* Stripe Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about digital transformation, including how to set up a successful digital strategy for a Fortune 500 company, how to keep your digital transformation under control without pushing it too far, and how to transition product owners into product managers. Q&A:
Q: Hey, Melissa, I've worked for a new team that has managed to resist adopting the heavier parts of Scrum and Agile as we mature and grow. We've been pushing the boundaries and simplifying our approach based on modern product design and development practices. That said though, I'd love to move away from having dedicated product owners because I firmly believe, and I think you do too, that the PO is more of a role that should be shared versus an assigned title. My goal is to shift our POs into PM roles, assuming it's a good match to their interests and skill sets. So, looking ahead, what are a few things that we should be thinking about as POs start transitioning to PMs? What risks should I anticipate? I don't know that this won't be an overnight transition. So what are some good ways to evaluate the performance of our POs until the transition can finally happen? Thanks for everything you do!
* A: So this is a great question and one that I think is relevant as we're talking about what a product manager is out there in the world today. So if you haven't heard, it's been all over Twitter and LinkedIn, and if you are a product manager, this could be concerning. But Airbnb did a big conference a couple of weeks ago, and Brian Chesky said, "Hey, we're getting rid of product managers," to which everybody said, "Oh my God, we don't need product managers anymore." And all the designers, of course, were like, "Yay!" But product managers started to panic. What he actually said was, "We are trying to go more towards a product marketing role with the product managers," and I think this ties into what we're talking about here with product owners versus product managers.
* Q: Hello! First off, I just want to say your podcast has been really helpful in honing my product management skills. I've gone from a product manager to a lead product manager role. And now, I am a digital product strategist. My question is about building a digital strategy for a Fortune 50 company. And what I mean by that is we seem to lack a digital product strategy right underneath the corporate strategy, the enterprise-level strategy that can tell our business units and leaders how to build and engage members digitally. You have marketing folks creating their own digital experiences. You have other organizations going off and partnering with different vendors to create digital experiences for our members but never working with their internal digital teams and product teams to see if we should build it within our existing digital platforms or even innovate something new and keep it within our brand. Thank you so much! Looking forward to hearing your answer.
* A: Now, this is a common thing for companies that are going through digital transformations. A lot of times, we leave strategy to the last thing. I see this happen a lot. I've been involved in a lot of them, especially with Fortune 500 companies. I worked with a tonne of Fortune 500 companies. So do not be discouraged. This is the next learning step on your journey. Typically, what happens is we go out, and we train all the product managers. And then we realize that we don't know which way the product manager is actually running. So there's nothing to tie that corporate strategy back into what the teams are doing. And then we get into arguments with leadership about whether are we building the right thing? So you are at this point. This is what I would do in those companies.
* Q: A year ago, I joined an older enterprise business undergoing digital transformation. While many product leaders have elements of the right vision, the whole product, org read, inspired just before I got here. They're trying. There's still a lot of need to change the way we work. I get plenty of positive feedback and excitement about the changes I'm bringing from my prior roles at digital native companies. But I'm also experiencing some tense pushback from certain groups. I know transformation will ruffle some feathers. But how do I know if I'm pushing too hard? Should I give up and go back somewhere where I fit in?*
* A: I can really empathize with this question because, before I started consulting, I was a ruffer, and I ran into a lot of problems. But then, as a consultant, I ruffle all the time. I ruffle feathers. That's what I'm hired to do. But you gotta do it carefully. And I have learned my lesson because I have ruffled too many feathers before, and I've made people angry. So from multiple years of doing this since I've been consulting since 2014, these are my tips when you get in, and you start to evaluate a new company going through a transformation, and you see people not doing things they're supposed to do.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO AcceleratorProduct Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Steve Wilson, Chief Product Officer at Contrast Security, joins Melissa Perri to explore the dynamic world of product management. They dive into the intersection of customer demands and technological shifts, how to harness the power of AI in product management, the integration of AI and Machine Learning for enhanced cybersecurity, and how product managers can meet both user needs and security requirements.
Steve is a dynamic software executive with a keen focus on business growth. With a remarkable track record in constructing powerful platforms and fostering exceptional teams, Steve brings valuable expertise in general management, product development, and marketing. Beyond his corporate achievements, he is also a distinguished author, captivating public speaker, and ingenious inventor.
Throughout his illustrious career, Steve has held prominent leadership roles at industry-leading companies such as Citrix, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Cassatt Corporation. His extensive background encompasses diverse domains, including product management, software development, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Notably, Steve played a pivotal role in shaping early concepts in cloud computing, solidifying his position as a true trailblazer.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts; instructions on how to do this are here.
Episode Resources:
* Steve Wilson on LinkedIn
* Steve Wilson on Twitter
* Contrast Security Website
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how to stay on top of what is going on in a scaling team when you are the product leader, how R&D differs from product management, as well as how you can transition from a consultancy into a product company.
Q&A:
Q: Dear Melissa, I took on my first head of product role two years ago at a company that was going through steady growth. Last year, the company restructured and my department grew to 150 people across engineering and product, which also saw more products being added to my remit. Some of these products are very different from others. So we set separate annual goals. However, I find it hard to keep up to speed on a day-to-day basis for things like achievements and new functionality we're planning to add. Do you have any advice on how I can keep up?
* A: This is definitely a problem for many leaders in a scaling situation. At first, you’ve got a couple product managers under you, you can drop by their desks and see what's going on. You probably know what's on the roadmap. But then, bam, we got 150 people. So my first question to you is, do you have those product managers all reporting to you? Or do you have a mid-layer like a Director of Product level or VP of Product? I think, if you're overseeing both product and engineering, you're going to want to think about hiring people to oversee those product managers because you can't have all of them reporting to you. So now your job, though, in that case, is transitioning more into what we think of with the CPO role or a VP of Product/Head of Product role, which means that you're overseeing the entire portfolio, you're not responsible for the day-to-day. So naturally, in any situation like this, a product leader is not going to know everything that's going on constantly.
* Q: Dear Melissa, product management is always advocated as a trifecta of engineering design and business. However, what if the company also has an R&D department or a research department? How would you set them up for success in this model, if at all? The R&D department works more with academia. They write academic papers, and present at science conferences, but they barely contribute anything to the app itself besides some algorithms here and there. Unfortunately, the leaders of the company think that this is where innovation is coming from for the product. And it's a must-have department. In my humble opinion, there is no dedicated R&D department needed if you empower your engineering team the way it's meant to be in a modern product company.
* A: I've seen R&D in many different organizations, but there are different ways that they show up. One side of R&D is that they're content experts. So, in this case, they're like experts on the content that's going into the system, but also the market perspective. So they're out there being forward-facing people in academic circles or in places where they're providing the science, let's say, behind what your application does. So, I'll give you a good example. In healthcare, if you're building a product that has high pharmaceutical components or something like that, you might hire some pharmacists who are really prominent in the industry. And they might advise on how you do your work and innovate around it and the trends that are coming out. They're not usually building the software, they're more like advisory roles. So I've definitely seen R&D in those situations. I've seen them in education, for instance, when they're brought in more as educators who have taught those subject matters before, and maybe they're doing content development. So they're creating the way that you teach courses. And the product management team is teaching us to figure out how those surface up through software. So the R&D team here is more content experts. They also might be a little market-facing. So they might be going out and studying, as well, where the opportunities are in the market. In all those cases, I think R&D is a really bad name for them. They're not necessarily just R&D. They're more like content experts, subject matter experts. And I think it's better to put some labels around them. That's more about product marketing, market experts, or content experts. They're highly technical people that are more like data scientists and experts from a technical perspective on building the algorithms on doing the data science behind it on building the tech, let's say. And in those situations, they're kind of a little bit more like a platform team. They're not just R&D over here, doing some sciencey stuff. And when I do see R&D being siloed in these organizations, what happens is that they're not connected back to the customer value piece.
* Q: Dear Melissa, my employer hired me as a product manager in a team of project managers who have been focused on delivering the software, which is AI computer vision modules to big companies on strict deadlines, meeting high standards of quality as needed rapidly. How do I convince them to incorporate customer interviews and think like product managers when they don't even get to control or decide how these big companies will use their models within their own apps or systems? They also want to build their own B2C apps, but are worried that these big companies would cancel their license with them for doing something similar and selling to customers directly.*
* A: So my question here is, are you a consultancy, or are you a product company? Because it sounds like you're a consultancy. I don't know if you mean to be a consultancy, but from the last part of here, where you're considering building your own apps, it sounds like you're a consultancy. So let's start there. It sounds like you're a development consultancy that puts product management inside a company. That's your client, and they're just dictating to you what to build. So, if you're going to switch that dynamic, you have to reset expectations with your customers. If that dynamic is not set in a consultancy, that's incredibly hard to change. And it also depends on what did your clients hire you for? So I think you need to suss that out first because if you come in there and just be like, hey, we need to change the way that we work. There's actually a lot that goes into that when you run a consultancy. The second part is whether you can actually build B2C stuff. And maybe that's why you were hired as a product manager to help think through those apps. If so, that's where I think you should spend a lot of your time trying to figure out what you could sell from it. As long as you're not directly competing with what these companies sell, you're okay.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Glen Stoffel and Caryn Fried, the Co-Founders of Camp4. They talk all about tough skills for product managers such as emotional intelligence; how to deal with stakeholders; how to communicate with the rest of your team; as well as some great facilitation techniques so that you can get the work done!
Both Glen and Caryn are the Co-Founders of Camp4, an organization bringing together the world’s leading sales practitioners to advise and accelerate the growth of the next generation of Salesforce innovators. Glen is also the Co-Founder of Think it Done, and previously held leadership roles at Bluewolf, an IBM company. Caryn is both the Co-Founder and CEO at Camp4, and Co-Founded Think it Done with Glen before leaving in 2020.
The two have worked together closely for years and we can’t wait for you to hear their stories and gain some super actionable insights into product management and team facilitation.
You’ll hear Glen and Caryn talk about:
Tough skills are absolutely essential for the success of sales and running products. Glen says that what really differentiated people during the training process for running products was how they operated once they got in the room. How were they interacting with stakeholders? What skills were they putting forward? How easily and effectively could they influence people to get things done?
* Some people really struggle with soft skills, however Glen and Caryn prefer to call them ‘tough skills’. With so many technological platforms available to make us quicker and more efficient, there is* a massive gap in the process: the human side. As soon as you involve actual people in whatever sales or product management process you have, that’s when tough skills need to show up. You need to figure out how to help those on your team align, agree, collaborate, be critical thinkers and be empathetic, amongst various other skills.
* The one thing that a lot of businesses aren’t investing enough time in is facilitation. Oftentimes, strong product people have great visions and immovable opinions; they can see where the dots connect and have a great vision for how their customer and employees’ experience is going to work, but they can get caught in the trap of control, rather than collaboration. If you’re an executive in an organization, it’s your collaborative skills that are the most important part of getting your ideas across.
* Your team doesn’t have to agree on the end solution, but if you can get them to agree and align on how they’re going to get there, then that’s how you make sure it’s done in their language. Try taking a brainstorming approach to things with them, get a bunch of ideas together and figure out a way to get them all to mesh in a strategic way.
* When dealing with someone who’s a little more hostile to the end goal and is more focused on their own goals, you have to take some extra time to try and build a bridge with that person; don’t just jump to an impulsive anger, it’s all about navigating a personality.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.
Resources:
Glenn on LinkedIn
Caryn on LinkedIn
Camp4
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
This time on Dear Melissa, Melissa Perri holds an interactive session with Teresa Torres, Product Discovery Coach at Product Talk.
In this episode, they answer questions on navigating conflicting methodologies, the importance of hiring a skilled product manager, and achieving strategic alignment and execution in large enterprise companies with multiple product lines and strategies. They delve further into the importance of standardizing processes, such as product strategy cadence, road maps, and discovery tool kits, to facilitate coordination and collaboration.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.Episode Highlights: 02:00 - 05:27 — Secret to Navigating Conflicting Methodologies - According to Melissa, navigating conflicting methodologies within a team is essential when dealing with individuals who strongly believe in their approach. She suggests understanding the person's perspective and motivations is crucial before engaging in discussions. It is advisable to follow the person's methodology if it is proves to be effective for the situation instead of creating unnecessary conflict. However, if there is a better alternative, it is essential to communicate and discuss it openly, highlighting its advantages and suitability for the specific context. Melissa acknowledges that people can become stuck in their preferred methodologies across various fields and emphasizes the need for open-mindedness and active listening to find common ground and explore new possibilities. 07:39 - 10:46 — Be Focused on Solving a Problem - Melissa mentions that one should focus on solving a problem rather than concentrating on problem-solving techniques. She suggests stripping away tools and techniques to have open discussions about solving the problem efficiently. It encourages stepping back, asking questions, and understanding different perspectives without confrontation. By adopting a diplomatic approach and working together, teams can find better solutions and avoid unnecessary conflicts over preferred processes. 11:50 - 13:20 — The Importance of a Chief Product Officer (CPO) - The CPO is a central figure responsible for aligning the company's product vision and strategy across different business lines and teams. The CPO is critical in coordinating product efforts and promoting collaboration across departments. Furthermore, the CPO enables the establishment of product operations, which involves setting up efficient processes, frameworks, and structures for product management within the organization. They drive the adoption of best practices, implement effective communication channels, and streamline product-related workflows. 14:01 - 15:48 — Enhancing Product Management Efficiency through Cadence and Framework Setup -Melissa states the importance of setting the cadence and framework for how an organization works regarding product management. It suggests standardizing discovery toolkits and utilizing various resources available to communicate and coordinate product activities within and outside the organization. The organization creates a structured approach to discovering, developing, and delivering products by developing a product management framework. This framework helps establish guidelines, processes, and best practices that ensure consistent and efficient product management practices across the organization. Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO AcceleratorIf you enjoyed this episode, please (with a cherry on top):
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Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Wes Bush, CEO of ProductLed. They explore the art of product-led growth and share effective strategies for building a product that sells itself.
Wes Bush is the renowned author of "Product-Led Growth: How To Build a Product That Sells Itself." He asserts that, over the past several years, the way we buy software has undergone a transformative shift. Businesses must lead with their product and allow potential customers to experience its value firsthand.
Product-Led Growth provides the framework for businesses to adapt to this new era of customer-driven decision-making. It's not just a trend or buzzword but an actionable business strategy that enables companies to succeed in this new business landscape. With Wes Bush's guidance and expertise, businesses can learn to build products that sell themselves and position themselves for long-term success.
You’ll hear Melissa and Wes talk about:
* Product-led growth as a strategy where the product serves as the primary means of acquiring, engaging, retaining, and monetizing users. In this approach, every part of the business leverages the product to achieve its objectives.
* When it comes to monetization, the key precursor is building a product that can sell itself. This can be achieved by providing users with a super valuable experience that enables them to derive value on their own. In many cases, this leads to users wanting more of the product and being willing to upgrade.
* In fact, in self-serve apps, this product-led monetization is quite common. To facilitate this process, it's important to minimize any friction in the user's experience, ensuring a smooth and seamless transition toward the monetization stage.
* There is a common misconception that a product-led approach requires a fully self-serve experience from the very beginning. However, this belief is not entirely accurate. The key idea behind a product-led strategy is to make it easy for potential customers to recognize the value of your product with minimal hurdles.
* There is a common misunderstanding about the complexity involved in product-led growth. Some people assume that it's simply a matter of offering free trials and giving newcomers access to everything on your platform. However, this oversimplification overlooks the nuances of the approach.
* Rather than focusing solely on these tactics, the key is to emphasize the rapid demonstration of your product's value to users. By encouraging users to engage with your product as quickly and effectively as possible, you can facilitate its adoption and promote sustainable growth.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.
Resources:
Wes Bush on LinkedIn | Twitter
ProductLed | Product-Led Growth Book
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about dealing with technology teams and leaders and how to balance the team's effort between the things that are the focus of your current product strategy, bug fixing, and minor improvements.
Q&A:
* Q: I recently joined a startup company as the first and only product manager. The CTO and tech leads believe I'm responsible for feeding the developers with work items. They're often telling me things like looking at the backlog. I'm afraid that some of the developers won't have anything to do next sprint or the sprints ahead. I'm tasked with plenty of discovery work to do, which takes a lot of time. At the same time, given the early stage of the company, there is no large backlog of tech items to be used as fillers for sprints. Therefore, developers remain with no valuable items to take. And I am pointed to as the guy who doesn't do discovery fast enough, which results in not enough items in the backlog.
Therefore, I have two questions. What is the best way to communicate that my job is not to feed the developers but to work on the product strategy by defining the right problems to solve and their solutions so that we can achieve customer and business value? Have you seen such a situation in the companies you worked in? Have you seen such situations in the companies you worked at or consulted? How do they tackle the issues so that product managers can focus on thorough discovery rather than becoming user story factories for the sake of keeping developers busy?
* A: This is a pretty common misconception in some companies, but there's a back-and-forth here. You have to supply the developers with work, but that doesn't mean that it all comes down to you. The developers need to be thinking through things as well. So I guess my first question for you is, since you are a startup and you do need to work on that product strategy, which I totally get, do you have a vision for the product yet? How far along are you? If it's super early days, I understand that there's not really going to be a concrete vision. But if you've got some momentum, some customers, usually you're getting enough feedback requests. You're doing that discovery work you talked about. You can start to put together a good product vision and product strategy that should keep the developers busy for quite some time.
So I would work with the head of technology in this case and start to talk to them about what you're doing and what you could prioritize for the developers and how you're working on that vision or that strategy so that you can start to break it down and have a lot more work for them to do in early days.
It could be that you have too many developers for the stage you're at because you're not ready to build something big yet. After all, you haven't done the product strategy work or figured out what needs to go on two. You may have just not done that product strategy or vision work. But you're big enough where it needs to be done, and it needs to be done quickly. So I would encourage you to do the discovery, do it well, but make sure that you're doing it promptly and scoping out and communicating with the developers as much as possible so that they know what's coming like involving your developers in the strategy work so that they can see what's coming up and they can start to make decisions about it.
- Q: I'm a new product manager at a small company, and my main concern is the effectiveness of our head of technology and the development team. I work closely with them as a product manager and also product owner, and occasionally a Q&A tester. Our primary challenge is a significant amount of technical debt that needs to be addressed. This complexity requires the attention of more experienced developers, particularly when working on larger projects. The current development team was quickly brought in to handle bugs and urgent issues but I believe they are no longer capable of meeting project deadlines. We have been experiencing a high turnover rate, which disrupts the continuity of our work.
Developers start in stories or projects but are let go or resigned shortly after forcing them to pick up where they left off. We have been experiencing a high turnover rate, which disrupts the continuity of our work. Developers start in stories or projects that are let go or resign shortly after forcing others to pick up where they left off. Unfortunately, the expectations and deadlines remain unchanged. The team makes little effort to learn the systems and relies heavily on discussions with me before starting any user story. As a result, our last large projects exceeded deadlines by two to five months, and I had to postpone three projects to the next quarter. I find myself being blamed for these delays as if it's my sole responsibility to provide clear acceptance criteria and requirements in the user story.
The head of technology often compliments my user stories. But when something goes off track, the blame shifts to me to clarify. I put a lot of effort into creating detailed documentation, including links, screenshots, mockups, acceptance criteria, and even videos when necessary. Despite these efforts, I continue to be blamed and overruled by the head of technology. This toxic dynamic makes it challenging for me to navigate the situation effectively. What can I do?
* A: So what I'd say is, how do you make the problems that you're experiencing more transparent using data. Can you start to show things like velocity from the development team flow? I would try to track flow and show where the pitfalls are. I had to do this at one company. Once we mapped it out, we could not figure out why things were not being shipped right. And we mapped out how long it took from an idea to get to release, and we broke it down into each step.
And we tracked the time on one of those projects to show people where the bottlenecks were. And we found that it went into a big black hole of design, and it came back six months later. And then we would continue working on it, and then the design would come and disrupt it and keep changing it.
When we showed the leaders got involved and they were like, Oh, well, we have to change this process. Let's figure out what's going on with design and dive in deeper. So maybe say, I know we've had some bad delays. I'm proposing that we try something new. Let's try maybe mapping and tracking our flow of work right from the time that I have the acceptance criteria mocked up to the time that it takes the developers to start working on it all the way through release and then try to figure out and identify where the bottlenecks are.
If you have that transparency that helps give you some ammo back to the head of technology, but also to the leaders that will help you manage up and start to point out that this is not really all your fault. This is the development team's fault now. Also, you don't want to approach this, though, as it's a me versus them thing, which is totally what the head of technology is doing to you, and that's not fair. But that's not gonna win you any battles to say no, it's not me and like start all these fights, so you have to go to them and figure out how to get them to agree. So you have to go and say, Hey, I think we can work way better as a team member, and I want to make sure that the things that happened with our projects in the past don't happen again.
- Q: My question is how to balance the team's effort between the things that are the focus of your current product strategy, bug fixing, and small improvements that are either feedback from our customers or small things that teams want to improve. Ideally, I feel like if we are more focused on the first, we would make the most progress toward our product and business outcome. But doing small improvements might never get picked. Should we save those small improvements as things that teams can do after they just finished a bug initiative?
- A: I think here we need to look at the definition of a small improvement because sometimes something fast can have a huge impact. So I think you're gonna need to quantify all these things back to the metrics that matter and the overarching goals. And that's why these things are important. And it's important to know what you're trying to do to move the needle. So look at the goal for your product launches. Look at what you want to measure from a metric and then go back and say, How much will these new product things versus these small improvements versus the bug fixes actually contribute back to those goals. You might have a couple, you might have a customer satisfaction type thing. You might have a retention-type thing.
And at the end of the day, all of what I just said retention adoption. All of these things relate back to business metrics. They relate back to business value like retention is a quantifiable thing. How much money can we save? Can you start to break these down into what's going to move the needle for your area of the product and the business? And then you're gonna look at those small improvements and go, Hey, you know what? That was fast. So I thought it was small just because of a time thing, but actually, it's gonna help.
So don't think about little as a time thing. Think about it as a margin for value improvement, and that's how you prioritize it. So I always advocate dedicating some time to bug fixes. You definitely need to do that instability of your platform. But again, that's like a retention metric. So you're gonna have to remember that now you want to figure out what that should be in your organization.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
You’ll hear Melissa and Deba talk about:
* Leading a successful product transformation within your business requires product leaders to consider and work on three critical elements. The first one is bringing the right talent, grooming it the right way, and creating the appropriate structure and processes for a talent acquisition or attention and development perspective.
* The second one is stakeholder relationship management, which breaks down to ensuring that the broader ecosystem has trust and credibility with them, takes ownership of what people used to do before, and adopts a proactive way of thinking about the customer and business needs. And the third one is building agile processes and routines.
* Successful transformation requires trust and credibility as the foundation. Therefore, it's crucial to build strong relationships with stakeholders and leaders who hold the authority and influence to drive the change. Take the time to deliver wins that demonstrate your capabilities and build confidence and trust.
* In large organizations, it's important to recognize that individuals have a limited sphere of influence. Focus on the teams where you have direct influence and deliver impactful results that may positively affect other areas led by different leaders.
* Remember, transformation is a gradual process that requires patience and persistence. Avoid the temptation to rush and instead prioritize building momentum and gaining support from others. By showcasing the benefits of specific actions, you can win over skeptics and rally allies to support your transformation journey.
* During times of significant change in a company, having the right product managers with the appropriate expertise and knowledge is critical. Exceptional PM leaders possess certain common traits, whether you find them within or outside your organization.
* First and foremost, top-tier PM leaders thrive in ambiguous situations where multiple inputs and variables must be considered to solve complex problems. They are comfortable with uncertainty and able to navigate through it with ease.
* Secondly, they possess a deep understanding of how to execute and deliver on critical initiatives. These leaders have a bias towards action, a sense of urgency, and the ability to deliver results.
* Thirdly, exceptional PM leaders are adept at communication and stakeholder management. They can articulate a clear vision, establish trust, and effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams, customers, and other stakeholders to achieve their objectives.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.
Resources:
Deba Sahoo on LinkedIn
Fidelity Investments | Forbes Technology Council
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how to stay on top of what is going on in a scaling team when you are the product leader, how R&D differs from product management, as well as how you can transition from a consultancy into a product company.
Q&A:
Q: Dear Melissa, I took on my first head of product role two years ago at a company that was going through steady growth. Last year, the company restructured and my department grew to 150 people across engineering and product, which also saw more products being added to my remit. Some of these products are very different from others. So we set separate annual goals. However, I find it hard to keep up to speed on a day-to-day basis for things like achievements and new functionality we're planning to add. Do you have any advice on how I can keep up?
* A: This is definitely a problem for many leaders in a scaling situation. At first, you’ve got a couple product managers under you, you can drop by their desks and see what's going on. You probably know what's on the roadmap. But then, bam, we got 150 people. So my first question to you is, do you have those product managers all reporting to you? Or do you have a mid-layer like a Director of Product level or VP of Product? I think, if you're overseeing both product and engineering, you're going to want to think about hiring people to oversee those product managers because you can't have all of them reporting to you. So now your job, though, in that case, is transitioning more into what we think of with the CPO role or a VP of Product/Head of Product role, which means that you're overseeing the entire portfolio, you're not responsible for the day-to-day. So naturally, in any situation like this, a product leader is not going to know everything that's going on constantly.
* Q: Dear Melissa, product management is always advocated as a trifecta of engineering design and business. However, what if the company also has an R&D department or a research department? How would you set them up for success in this model, if at all? The R&D department works more with academia. They write academic papers, and present at science conferences, but they barely contribute anything to the app itself besides some algorithms here and there. Unfortunately, the leaders of the company think that this is where innovation is coming from for the product. And it's a must-have department. In my humble opinion, there is no dedicated R&D department needed if you empower your engineering team the way it's meant to be in a modern product company.
* A: I've seen R&D in many different organizations, but there are different ways that they show up. One side of R&D is that they're content experts. So, in this case, they're like experts on the content that's going into the system, but also the market perspective. So they're out there being forward-facing people in academic circles or in places where they're providing the science, let's say, behind what your application does. So, I'll give you a good example. In healthcare, if you're building a product that has high pharmaceutical components or something like that, you might hire some pharmacists who are really prominent in the industry. And they might advise on how you do your work and innovate around it and the trends that are coming out. They're not usually building the software, they're more like advisory roles. So I've definitely seen R&D in those situations. I've seen them in education, for instance, when they're brought in more as educators who have taught those subject matters before, and maybe they're doing content development. So they're creating the way that you teach courses. And the product management team is teaching us to figure out how those surface up through software. So the R&D team here is more content experts. They also might be a little market-facing. So they might be going out and studying, as well, where the opportunities are in the market. In all those cases, I think R&D is a really bad name for them. They're not necessarily just R&D. They're more like content experts, subject matter experts. And I think it's better to put some labels around them. That's more about product marketing, market experts, or content experts. They're highly technical people that are more like data scientists and experts from a technical perspective on building the algorithms on doing the data science behind it on building the tech, let's say. And in those situations, they're kind of a little bit more like a platform team. They're not just R&D over here, doing some sciencey stuff. And when I do see R&D being siloed in these organizations, what happens is that they're not connected back to the customer value piece.
* Q: Dear Melissa, my employer hired me as a product manager in a team of project managers who have been focused on delivering the software, which is AI computer vision modules to big companies on strict deadlines, meeting high standards of quality as needed rapidly. How do I convince them to incorporate customer interviews and think like product managers when they don't even get to control or decide how these big companies will use their models within their own apps or systems? They also want to build their own B2C apps, but are worried that these big companies would cancel their license with them for doing something similar and selling to customers directly.*
* A: So my question here is, are you a consultancy, or are you a product company? Because it sounds like you're a consultancy. I don't know if you mean to be a consultancy, but from the last part of here, where you're considering building your own apps, it sounds like you're a consultancy. So let's start there. It sounds like you're a development consultancy that puts product management inside a company. That's your client, and they're just dictating to you what to build. So, if you're going to switch that dynamic, you have to reset expectations with your customers. If that dynamic is not set in a consultancy, that's incredibly hard to change. And it also depends on what did your clients hire you for? So I think you need to suss that out first because if you come in there and just be like, hey, we need to change the way that we work. There's actually a lot that goes into that when you run a consultancy. The second part is whether you can actually build B2C stuff. And maybe that's why you were hired as a product manager to help think through those apps. If so, that's where I think you should spend a lot of your time trying to figure out what you could sell from it. As long as you're not directly competing with what these companies sell, you're okay.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator
Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Brian Nichols, Angel Squad Co-Founder of Hustle Fund. They dive into the world of angel investing, discussing the most effective strategies to invest and what to look for in assessing an early-stage startup.
Brian has an impressive track record of entrepreneurship and corporate leadership. Upon earning his master's degree from USC, he launched two successful ventures, Date Simply and RewardTag.com. He then joined Lyft in 2014, where he spearheaded the growth of the California Markets, which accounted for a staggering fifty percent of all Lyft rides at the time.
During his tenure at Lyft, he played a key role in scaling the company's local teams nationwide, contributing to the expansion of Lyft's employee count from 250 to 2,500. Brian continued his professional journey by founding the Lyft Alumni Angel Syndicate, a network that comprises numerous early Lyft employees. Before joining Hustle Fund, Brian held positions at esteemed companies such as On Deck, BlackBird, and Zoox, where he undoubtedly contributed his expertise and skills to further their success.
You’ll hear Melissa and Brian talk about:
* After more than a decade of working at startups, Brian discovered his passion for helping aspiring founders who are paving the way for the next big thing. He finds it fulfilling to support those taking a considerable risk with their lives and careers, making sacrifices along the way. Brian is dedicated to finding ways to accelerate their journey toward becoming successful founders.
* Angel investors typically invest between $1,000 to $3,000 in startups rather than writing larger checks of $25,000 or more. This investment activity is accessible to most individuals, as they can put small amounts of money into early-stage startup companies. Although this approach carries a high risk, there is also the potential for significant returns.
* Diversification is key in investing in early-stage startups. By investing in a range of companies and spreading out the risk, the likelihood of finding a successful venture increases. Being part of a network that provides access to high-quality companies further enhances the chances of success. Therefore, investing in early-stage startups requires careful consideration and research but can potentially lead to significant financial rewards.
* Assessing an early-stage startup requires considering various factors. Firstly, it's important to evaluate the market's state, including its size, potential for growth, and any relevant regulatory changes. Next, it's crucial to assess the experience and capabilities of the team behind the startup, as they will be instrumental in driving its success.
* In addition to these fundamental factors, there are other critical aspects to consider. For instance, it's crucial to determine whether the business is high-margin, as this can significantly impact its profitability and long-term viability.
* When investing, don't rely too heavily on signals that aren't the right ones to consider. For instance, the fact that other investors are putting money into a company isn't necessarily a good signal for you to base your investment decision on. As a new angel investor, you might hear that a fund is investing in a particular round and assume that this is a positive signal. However, without knowing how much the fund is investing and the reasons behind their decision, you could end up following the wrong signal.
* Instead, focus on the business itself. How is the company performing? Is it a legitimate business with a customer base? How many customers does it have, and how fast is it growing? What is the current valuation of the company? These are the key factors to consider when making an investment decision. It's also important to diversify your investments against high-risk assets, particularly if you're investing in earlier-stage companies.
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Resources:
Brian Nichols on LinkedIn | Twitter
Hustle Fund
To access the free course on Angel Investing for Product Leaders, go here: Hustlefund.vc/melissa
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In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how to choose the best product career path, escape your career trap, and why a product manager can become a senior faster in a startup.
Q&A:
Q: As a product manager at a company that prioritizes product discovery, experimentation, and collaboration, I’m faced with a dilemma. Which product career path will have the greatest long-term impact? I come from a previous company that was more of a feature factory, where, despite having a higher role and greater control over processes, I could not change the mindset of valuing customers over outputs. However, my ex-employer has asked if I want to come back and drive a big product management change. While the opportunity to drive change and take on a leadership role is tempting, I worry about returning to the same problems. Although I have learned and grown in my current role, the potential for personal growth and business impact in the long term is uncertain, as there are many people in the company over 500, and the previous employer was relatively small, 20+ in a business unit, but had limited mentors. Can you help me weigh the pros and cons of each option?
* A: I give individual contributors this advice, and it’s a little bit different for leaders. But I feel like it’s worth saying if you’re an individual contributor and you’re stuck at a place where it’s not really doing great product management, and you’re like, should I stick around and try to change the culture, or should I go somewhere that’s doing it well, my advice for them is, do you want to be a change agent and do you have the authority to actually enact change? Or do you want to be a great product manager? As leaders, we do have to enact a lot of change. So you need to be a change agent, but sometimes those paths are rockier in certain companies than others. So that’s really where this comes down to.
* Q: Despite years of writing and speaking by product management thinkers like yourself and Marty, there are still many feature factories in my city. I would say that the majority of companies are feature factories. There are many product managers who follow PM thought leaders and understand what good product management looks like. But I haven’t been lucky enough to work in that environment. What would your advice be to one of those product managers who is trying to escape the feature factory hell and ascend to empowered team nirvana? How do you think an applicant can overcome that disadvantage when applying for jobs at good product management companies? How do you escape the career trap?
* A: I’m just going to say that I would love it if all companies were not feature factories anymore. But the majority of them still are. What I think you could do is concentrate on what you can control in your current job and make it a good story. So look at what you have control over and if you’re applying as an individual contributor, it’s like working with your teams. How do you prioritize your work? How do you set goals? How do you do those things? Talk about what you can execute and how you do them well. Talk about how you did experiments in challenging environments, right? Talk about how you worked with your developers well. Talk about how you worked with the leadership team to pull OKRs out of them even if they didn’t want to do it right. Turn that into a story.
* Q: One of my product managers is asking me what he needs to do to become a senior product manager and get this new title as a result of his next performance review. Our structure is small. Only three product teams. So there really won’t be a change of responsibilities from moving from Product Manager to Senior Product Manager unless we grow. It would just be a change of title. I tend to think that no matter how well this person is doing, to be considered a senior PM, you need at least four to five years of experience. It is weird to call someone senior with less than three years of experience on the job. Is it the same for a startup as for a bigger company? Can a PM become a senior faster in a startup? Any tips on measuring the seniority of a Product Manager?*
* A: In startup environments, people can get to the senior title faster than in a big company. Why? Because you ship faster, you do things faster, and you actually produce. So I would not go on complete time here. I wouldn’t look at that. If the person is performing at the level of a Senior Product Manager, they deserve that title. And you do see people level up in startups way faster than big companies because they can produce ten times as much as a big company does because you can ship faster. Besides that, why does this person want to be a Senior Product Manager? Do they feel like they’re actually doing the role of a Senior Product Manager? When I look at Senior Product Managers, they’re doing the same things as a product manager, but they need really little oversight. They need a little coaching on individual contributor product manager roles. So they know how to do these things cold and they can oversee a really large, complicated scope of product feature set.
Resources:
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
MelissaPerri.com | CPO AcceleratorProduct Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Yasi Baiani, Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing at Cleo. They explore product management in some non-traditional senses, as well as how to set up a winning structure for your product teams and what good product leadership looks like.
Yasi Baiani is a highly accomplished executive in product and strategy, startup advising, and investing, boasting a proven track record of delivering state-of-the-art products that are widely adopted by millions of people and defining new categories and markets. Under her expert leadership and strategic guidance, Cleo successfully launched two new product lines, Teens and Eldercare, which unlocked a market opportunity worth over $270 billion.
In addition to her role at Cleo, Yasi is a Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Raya Capital, where she advises founders and CEOs on business and product strategy and invests in technology and health tech companies. Furthermore, Yasi is an investor through FlyBridge HBS Alumni Fund and a Global Leadership Advisor at How Women Lead. Her impressive achievements have earned her recognition as one of The 27 Most Impressive Harvard MBAs by Business Insider, and she has been acknowledged three times as a LinkedIn Top Voice in technology and digital health.
You’ll hear Melissa and Yasi talk about:
* To successfully launch a digital product, the product team and leader must collaborate closely with all other teams. The focus should be on effectively bringing the product and its user experience to the market. Achieving a remarkable digital solution requires establishing excellent touchpoints with all stakeholders.
* It's important to ensure that the internal structure of the organization doesn't affect the external experience, which should be seamless for the end user. The functions must operate so seamlessly that the end experience is solid and effortless for the ultimate user.
* The COPA model is an excellent framework that emphasizes the importance of complementary skills among team members. The acronym COPA stands for Complementary Skills, Ownership of OKRs, Process, and Alignment of the product and engineering team structure.
* If the product team consistently falls behind and struggles with delivering on the roadmap, it could indicate issues with the engineering team's performance, weaknesses in the R&D processes, or a lack of clarity regarding your objectives and how to achieve them.
* This can be identified through three key indicators: product quality is not there, there is a lot of confusion within the team about who does what, and falling behind in delivery. If you notice any of these signs, you should investigate the root causes and take steps to address them in order to improve the overall performance of the product team.
* The essence of product management lies in the art of effective influence and collaboration throughout the company. It's a challenging role that demands a deep understanding of the business and the ability to shape its direction. To be successful, you must back up your vision with relevant data and information and be willing to partner with other teams to understand their constraints and leverage their strengths.
* There are four components to make a product strategy successful. First of all, you have to involve multiple functions. Secondly, be super customer obsessed. The third piece is the competitive advantage of the company itself. The last piece is stakeholder interviews to understand how everyone sees the growth of the company and their vision and align them.
* Teamwork is essential to developing exceptional products, and every team member must perform their job effectively to create a winning product that resonates with the end-users.
* An excellent product leader prioritizes the customer above all else. They immerse themselves and their team in the customer's voice through frequent touchpoints to build a customer-obsessed team. Understanding the customer's needs is key to effective problem-solving and creativity. Additionally, a strong product leader is process-oriented, values data and analytics, and possesses the power of influence.
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Resources:
Yasi Baiani on LinkedIn | Twitter
Cleo | Raya Capital | How Women LeadProduct Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about advocating for resources in a non-leadership role, whether or not a bottoms-up transformation can really work if leadership isn’t immediately on board, and how to effectively communicate with teams outside of product in order to set realistic expectations and get them on your side.
Q: As a product manager that is not in a leadership role, how do you recommend advocating for additional resources on your development?
Q: Have you ever seen a product transformation work from bottoms-up, work at the team level first, and then improve at the executive level? If so, what do you think were the deciding factors?
Q: How do I work with non-product teams who have no regard for prioritization or respect for the actual product team’s process?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Ken Norton is Melissa Perri’s guest on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Ken is an executive coach who is passionate about “whole person” coaching– he works with product leaders not just on their careers but on their growth and development in all facets of their lives. Ken joins Melissa to discuss the evolution of product management, the stark difference between empowered and unempowered product teams, his biggest piece of advice to early career PMs, what great leadership looks like, his 14 years of experience working at Google and on products like Google Maps and Google Calendar, and why ultimately, product is all about people.
Here are some key points Ken and Melissa talk about:
Ken reflects on how the product management field has changed and matured over the years. Product management is no longer a “nascent, upstart concept”- it’s an established role that people understand the need for.
Ken laments the number of product leaders with no experience in the field being hired into companies. He discusses “this trend of people putting leaders in the position of product leadership, who have never been in the product field before.”
Senior product leaders should develop and execute an apprenticeship-type program for people who want to work in the product field.
Melissa comments that several product leaders are becoming general managers; she worries about the future of people who are purely product people. Ken says that he sees the general manager position as “a maturity of the product leadership role, a recognition of how important and critical that job really is.”
Successful product leaders learn to lead in a way that inspires others, while confronting challenges in a proactive way.
Ken talks about his experience at Google, and shares stories and examples about the leadership team and their approach to product.
Ensuring your team’s success means laying your plan out in steps and showing real evidence: it means showing a path forward that people can rally behind.
Resources Ken Norton on LinkedIn | Twitter | Bring the Donuts, LLC
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa addresses a recent Twitter topic worth further discussing: how important it is for PMs to carve out the time for creative thinking and processing outside of scheduled meetings and tasks. Then she dives into subscribers’ questions about measuring the value of a platform change, how to create prototypes when the product requires personalization and balancing outcome-focused and functional-focused work.
Q: How do you measurably prove the value of a platform change?
Q: How do you rapidly prototype features that rely on personalization as a value driver without creating the actual product? Do we just build personalized prototypes per test user?
Q: How do we balance outcome-focused work with functional work?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Giff Constable to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Giff is a product leader and former CPO of both Meet Up and Neo. Giff is passionate about helping product people sharpen their financial skills, which is a big topic of conversation in this episode. He talks to Melissa about why it’s key that product executives understand the nuances of financials, the most important relationships for a product executive to cultivate and how, why Giff never regrets investing time in the exercise of creating FP&A models, the ins and outs of understanding valuation, and so much more.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Giff explore:
Giff talks about his career path and how he ended up in CPO and CEO roles.
When communicating in a corporate space, adjust your language depending on who you're speaking to, with the goal of finding common ground.
Giff explains the FP&A model.
Nothing changes user behavior more than your pricing model. Adjust your pricing model so that the majority of your customers are satisfied. "When both the customer and the company are being successful together, everyone's reinvesting, everyone's happy," Giff tells Melissa.
Product leaders should build a relationship with their teams. An easy way to do this is to involve them in decision-making. Trust is built. You don't have to do everything by yourself or work in silos.
Valuation has to do with what someone is willing to pay for what you have. Companies are valued with a multiple of their top or bottom line. Lower growth companies are valued in the multiple of the bottom line. Higher growth companies tend to be valued as a multiple of revenue.
How fast or slow a company grows has to do with its product. If a company has poor prioritization or if there are market shifts, its product will become obsolete and contribute to slow growth for the company. For larger companies, there's also the risk of being so far ahead that you don't see who's catching up with you, and by the time you do, it's too late. Prioritization and paying attention to market trends and shifts are key.
Resources Giff Constable | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about whether or not having clearly defined terms and a common language within an organization matters, how to convince founders to hand over the product reins and hire an interim CPO, and how to convince your team and leadership that you belong in your new role as Director of Product.
Q: Do you have any advice on how to establish a common language?
Q: As a product consultant, what's the secret to convincing founders to give up control of a product that was a labor of love? How do you best convince a founder that having an interim CPO is worth the investment?
Q: How can I build the trust of my team of four product managers and show leadership that they made the right choice with me?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes John Athayde to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. John is a design team leader, strategist, and individual contributor, as well as VP of Design at PowerFleet. John and Melissa discuss how he shifted focus to the importance of internal tools at Living Social, how he got buy-in from leadership to prioritize internal tools, the process of creating a design system for a scaling organization, the benefits of design systems, design systems vs. style guides, and the tools and org structure he recommends to get set up for success.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and John talk about:
What led John to PowerFleet.
John shares how he started pushing for improved internal controls. “As I was working on the front-end screens, [I realized] we could make this a little better.” He convinced some product people and engineers, and they collaborated to do a bunch of mockups. They presented them to the CTO, who gave them his blessing.
Designers should know how to code, or at least know how code happens, according to John. “You can’t design a building without knowing how a building is built.”
You can use product thinking to design your internal tools. It’s less of just a design issue and more of an issue of creating a product, which is a complex internal operating system. This is necessary to actually scale.
A UX engineer is a front-end developer who is primarily focused on the look and feel as opposed to functionality. They are the bridge between functionality and design. It's a person with the design sensibility who can speak code and help implement, but they're not doing the implementation.
Now that almost everyone has some kind of experience with software, UX and UI have become more essential. Consumers are going to subconsciously compare their experience with your user interface with others.
Every company needs a source of truth for their operations, that is, documentation for all the relevant information needed to continue operations. In the event of key people leaving, the work they did would still be there for the next person to take over.
We often take for granted how important the role of a UX designer is in a high-growth organization.
Resources John Athayde on LinkedIn | Twitter | Website
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about relationships between program and product managers, the right questions to ask during the interview process so you end up in a company with strong product values, and how to experiment when iterating on complex hardware.
Q: What does a great partnership between a product manager and a technical program manager look like? If my long-term career goal is to pivot back into product, how might I build up my product chops in this role in the short term without stepping on the toes of my product partner in crime?
Q: Do you have any suggestions for questions I can ask when interviewing for a new role to make sure that I don't fall into the same situation in the future?
Q: Do you have any advice for how to do product discovery when you are working with high-end systems and prototyping and iterating are really expensive?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Donna Lichaw to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Donna is a product leader turned leadership coach and the author of The User's Journey. She joins Melissa to talk about how she helps leaders and executives answer questions like, “how do I get my team excited to show up to work every day?” by becoming the heroes of their own stories. They discuss the importance of being clear on what untrue stories you might tell yourself and the importance of self-awareness, common challenges Donna faces when working with leaders, the helpful side of imposter syndrome, and how to identify your own superpower and use it for good.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Donna explore:
Donna talks about what led her down the path of leadership coaching.
A big sign that someone isn't ready to be a leader is when they resort to the blame game. It also indicates a lack of self-awareness.
"What I found is that the stories you tell other people are only as powerful as the stories you do or don't tell yourself.”
The main challenges that Donna has seen leaders encounter are a lack of trust for their teams and executives, a lack of mentorship, and letting go of control.
Imposter syndrome can actually be helpful in a certain way. Donna talks about ways leaders can use it or combat it to perform better at their jobs.
The behaviors that aren't serving you are actually your superpowers. "They're your superpowers because you're really good at defaulting to that behavior. And that behavior is really strong. It's so strong that it guides you all the time, even when you don't want it to."
Telling stories as a leader is not enough. "The trick is really to involve other people and bring them along on your journey; and with everyone you work with, you always want to think, ‘How are they going to be a hero, and how do I make them feel really excited to work with me?’”
To tactically make someone the hero and help bring them on your side, you must first connect with them one-on-one. Understand what makes them tick, their goals, and their challenges. [37:11]
Resources Donna Lichaw | LinkedIn | Twitter The User's Journey
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to handle the unfortunate reality that oftentimes product managers are blamed for things out of their control, how to communicate to engineers when it’s time to pivot off of a project they’ve devoted a lot of time and effort towards, and how to build a shiny new product without completely disregarding all of the learnings from the original one.
Q: What should your course of action be if you perceive yourself a scapegoat position in product management?
Q: Have you ever had to pause a tool or product? Do you have any frameworks when making such decisions? To what degree is it my responsibility to communicate this as opposed to senior management?
Q: How can we use our current product to help us build a better replacement?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Josh Seiden is Melissa Perri’s guest on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Josh is a consultant and bestselling author of Lean UX, Sense and Respond, and his latest book, Outcomes Over Output: Why Customer Behavior Is the Key Metric for Business Success. In this week’s show, he and Melissa explore why saying “outcomes over outputs” is a lot easier than actually committing to it in practice, measurable outcomes, correlation versus causation, the problem with getting fixated on process, and how to keep your team focused on outcomes as a leader.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Josh talk about:
One of the challenges companies face that prevents them from becoming outcome-centric is the legacy of how they manage their work, Josh says.
“Change in human behavior creates value, which helps us to take a huge step forward.”
Josh advises that you build a logic model with impact and outcome. Identify the leading and lagging indicators that help you determine if your business model could be successful.
Teams get so fixated on processes or methods that they don’t look at the big picture in what they’re trying to achieve and the whole ecosystem of their market. What data is out there already so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel?
The surprising power of the words, “just tell me a story…” to help shift focus to data and figuring out what outcomes to go after.
Josh talks about the success of the book and what he might add to a second edition.
Josh says that most companies need to develop a risk-tolerant, psychologically safe environment, where employees are allowed to experiment freely to find what works best for the company.
Resources: Josh Seiden on LinkedIn
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about ways to research and stay on top of the market in order to conduct a thorough competitive analysis, when adopting a Stage Gate process makes sense and how to design it, and how to organize teams around the product strategy framework.
Q: What tips do you have for competitor analysis?
Q: What is your experience with Stage Gate? Am I just being stubborn and intractable by thinking that adopting Stage Gate is the opposite of creating a product-led organization? Or, for example, a risk-led organization?
Q: In your experience, would it make sense for each squad to have its own challenge, or should there be one or two challenges for the entire product area?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri interviews Tara Scott at the Agile 2022 Conference on this week’s episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Tara is an experienced product coach and organizational behavior design coach who specializes in psychological safety, which is the ability to speak up in the workplace without fear of negative consequences. Tara tells Melissa how experiences in her own family led her to this important line of work, how she realized psychological safety could actually help increase organizational agility, what happens when a company isn’t psychologically safe, why having a “work” version of you is actually harmful, the inevitable uncomfortable moments that come with creating a safer work environment, particularly for leadership, and more.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Tara talk about:
Tara talks about her own background and what led her to teach psychological safety.
Tara assesses the psychological safety of an organization by conducting individual conversations with the team.
If you feel like you have to micromanage your employees, it probably means that you don't feel safe giving them the freedom to do their jobs. This can be damaging to your team's morale and productivity.
Tara advises that leaders should “lead with curiosity as opposed to leading with questions” as this would create positive interactions with employees and allow them to feel psychologically safe.
Open communication, diversity and inclusion, willingness to help and willingness to ask for help, and attitudes towards risk and failure are the four metrics used to measure if a work environment is psychologically safe.
Tara explains that when employees are more relaxed and laugh, it is a sign that the work environment is becoming more psychologically safe. Another indicator is when team leaders work actively to create a psychologically safe environment.
Tara suggests that every morning, remote teams should sit around before work and just talk to each other – get to know each other and become comfortable hearing your own voice. This promotes psychological safety within the team.
As an executive, if you're noticing your organization becoming psychologically unsafe you can introduce an optional virtual coffee, where your employees can join for 15 minutes to relax and have conversations with co-workers.
Resources Tara Scott on LinkedIn
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about the importance of hiring a more experienced product leader to help more junior product managers steer clear of bad product habits, how to organize and manage an influx of ideas from different stakeholders, why product shouldn’t be part of the IT organization, and where project managers fit in a product led team.
Q: What are the chances of a junior PM unintentionally developing unhealthy habits without the ongoing regular guidance of an experienced PM? What are key signals that might indicate it's time for me to ask my leadership team to bring in a product leader?
Q: Any tips for setting up a structure for managing ideas?
Q: Why shouldn’t product be part of the IT organization? What are the key talking points you would hit when trying to convince the company that products should be its own organization?
Q: Does project management or the business analyst role belong in a product lead or empowered product team? If a large company is undergoing a transformation, where would you see people who have traditionally played the role of project manager or BA succeed?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Becky Flint to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Becky is the Founder and CEO of Dragonboat, the responsive portfolio platform for product and technology leaders, and is an expert in outcome-focused product practice and operations. Becky joins Melissa to discuss how she recognized the need for a portfolio management tool like Dragonboat, why portfolio management should be adopted by any size team, common pitfalls in early portfolio management, why it’s the next iteration of agile, and how to implement a portfolio management practice into an organization.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Becky talk about:
Becky’s journey into product and how Dragonboat came about.
Portfolio management is not just for large companies or about how you create a hierarchy. It’s about how you make a decision across the product organization to support various needs and lenses of the business.
Product operations ensures that people work at a consistent output - this consistency needs to be to an extent where effective decision making can happen.
Melissa asks Becky about some mistakes people make with portfolio management. “When people think about portfolio management, they usually think about hierarchy,” Becky shares. “The challenge with hierarchy is that it’s static - once your business changes, you’re stuck. People forget the problem they’re trying to solve with the business when they spend so much time trying to figure out a hierarchy.”
When companies started out trying to do agile and Scrum purely by the book, they encountered many difficulties because there was so much learning, evolving and adapting involved in those processes.
You don’t need to roll out portfolios in every facet of your company - that would be way too time-consuming and tedious if you have multiple products. Rather, you can start in a few product areas. “Take one or two teams who are ready for change and start to apply portfolio management to areas that are somewhat independent,” Becky advises.
No one can build a product alone, and no one can take it to market alone.
Becky and Melissa discuss why the role of Chief Product Officer is necessary. Becky says, “Having a leader driving the vision and strategy and enabling the team actually innovates and creates ideas, and makes them able to deliver.”
Resources Becky Flint on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about what to expect when transitioning from a small to a large product team, how to work with subject matter experts that have strong opinions on product design, and making the case for creating an internal product team to support a growing organization.
Q: I've heard about the dangers of transitioning to a smaller team after being in a large organization, but I'm curious about movement in the other direction.
Q: How can I help the team to make the most of everyone's expertise and work better together?
Q: Do you have any suggestions for ways to frame a request to start an internal product team?
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Gopal Erinjippurath to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Gopal is the co-founder, CTO and Head of Product at Sust Global, a company whose mission is to “develop data-driven products that enable every business decision to be climate-informed so that humanity can thrive in a changing planet.” Gopal joins Melissa to discuss climate sustainability and why climate data is proving to be valuable to all kinds of organizations, how he tested and iterated to build this complex data product, how he’s de-risking bets in a rapidly evolving market, the balance of being mission-driven and commercially minded, and the importance of making product thinking part of an organization’s DNA.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Gopal talk about:
Gopal talks about his professional background, how he got into climate sustainability, and what led him to found his company, Sust Global. [1:29]
Melissa asks Gopal what type of companies purchase climate data products and services and how they use them in a professional capacity.
Your long-term strategy should include holding financial instruments that directly correlate to tangible assets. There are several physical climate risks related to these assets, so ask targeted questions about the climate to protect your assets. [5:26]
Gopal shares how he was inspired to go into the business of climate-related data and insights. [8:29]
Melissa asks how Sust Global tested their climate-based data product. Gopal explains that the first step was “to start with the outcome rather than the outputs and work backward from there.” Creating mockups of the data-based outcome and testing them with the early set of gated customers can provide valuable feedback. [10:42]
Melissa asks Gopal how Sust Global ensures that their climate data product is of the highest quality. Gopal suggests that the best approach is to “sandbox the data capability into an area that one customer cares about and wants to decide on, and then provide them with that data in the simplest form so they can try it and use it for the first time.” [14:22]
Your data should fit three criteria:
temporal - how fresh your database and data product is
geographic - dimensionality of your dataset, how it's partitioned before it is handed to customers, and what interfaces there are
the business problem [16:26]
Gopal highlights the challenges Sust Global faced when creating their product. [19:06]
“You must enable your team to stay on top of things and…to fundamentally have product thinking be part of the DNA of your team,” Gopal says. [20:19]
Gopal looks at capacity building, strategy and execution when he is building a data-based product team. [22:07]
Climate change is a space where it is possible to stay mission-aligned and also be highly commercially minded, due to the rising importance of ESG and climate change initiatives. [24:54]
Resources Gopal Erinjippurath on LinkedIn Sust Global | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about scaling up a whole junior product team at once, how a listener can align her team’s KPIs to user value, and why product managers are more susceptible to experience burnout.
Q: What’s a successful approach to scaling up a team of junior PMs without leaving stragglers behind? [3:47]
Q: How can a team responsible for security set measurable goals that show whether we're delivering real value to users when we're so far removed from the user value? [9:08]
Q: What makes product people seemingly have a higher potential to experience workplace burnout? What can we do to proactively prevent or combat this? [13:19]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
In this special episode of the Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri invites three graduates from her CPO Accelerator program to share their stories, insights, and advice about moving into the C-suite. Amy Carmichael of Crowdcube, John Martin of Housecall Pro, and Simone Dive of Clir Renewables all recently took on the Chief Product Officer role in their companies. They tell Melissa what it was like to make the jump, how the job differs from other product leadership roles, how to start practicing for the job now as an IC, and the skills they recommend strengthening if you hope to land a CPO job in the future.
Here are some key points they will be discussing:
Amy, John, and Simone talk about their journey from entering the product field to becoming CPO. [2:16]
Melissa asks the guests to reflect on the most surprising aspect of the CPO role. Simone highlights the human element of the product; for Amy it’s taking the time to plan product strategy, and John talks about going to market. [5:21]
When transitioning into a CPO, you may need to finetune some skills to succeed in your new role. [8:29]
Being a CPO is not only about managing teams and setting strategy – it's about understanding how your product and company fit into the larger market. [10:00]
Although financial skills are important as a CPO, John believes that learning to invest in people was the biggest skill he needed to hone. He explains that product managers and product leaders are sought after, so it was important for him to develop his people skills and relationships with his team so they’re likely to stay with the company. [12:32]
Melissa asks her guests how they managed to build relationships and foster collaboration with their new team. [14:20]
Melissa asks her guests how IC roles can prepare a person to become CPO, and what they can do to put them on that path. [18:52]
Simone advises aspiring CPOs to get comfortable not taking credit and to build relationships with the people who make executive decisions. [20:53]
Amy, Simone, and John talk about how to evolve into a great CPO [25:11]
Resources Amy Carmichael on LinkedIn John Martin on LinkedIn Simone Dive on LinkedIn
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about organizations that are at a crossroads. She talks about how to help reorganize a product hierarchy that’s lacking strategic product development, how to shake up an org that seems content to operate as a feature factory, and where to focus your company’s resources and energy during an economic downturn.
Q: What would be a good way to separate the long-term work of gathering ideas and looking at market trends versus the shorter-term discovery and delivery work? [2:07]
Q: Do you have any tips for how I can interact differently with a team who seems satisfied to operate like a feature factory? [9:07]
Q: With a downturn in the economy, should I turn the attention of my product team more towards optimization rather than exploration? [16:11]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Steve Maclaughlin to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Steve is the Vice President of Product Management at Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider that serves clients within the social goods community. Steve shares his insights on what good product management looks like in nonprofit organizations, product managers as decision makers, the importance of benchmarking, and what it means to operate as a data-driven nonprofit.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Steve talk about:
Steve talks about his induction into the world of product management and why he started to help nonprofit organizations with product strategy. [2:04]
Melissa asks Steve how to set product strategy and OKRs for nonprofits since they're not working towards increasing revenue but towards the greater good. He responds that the main objective as a product manager of a nonprofit is to "get revenue, keep revenue, grow revenue, and reduce cost". [4:42]
To have a successful product that achieves your goals, you need the trifecta of time, talent, and treasure. [10:01]
In today’s digital world, the product is the whole experience – it must be a holistic experience for the consumers. [13:43]
Despite opposing opinions and ideas on strategy, product team members must ultimately make a decision that takes all perspectives into account. [18:50]
Steve explains how he was led to the field of data-driven nonprofits and his journey to becoming a best-selling author with his book, "Data-Driven Nonprofits". [20:34]
Data health, data quality, underlying technology, and data science are all important, but the most important thing is the culture surrounding the data. [22:18]
Benchmarking is crucial in the nonprofit space: your organization can compare their progress to their competitors’ and determine how to replicate success. [24:42]
It may be difficult to stay true to your original mission and vision while ensuring you’re progressing towards your goal, when running a nonprofit. Steve advises using data and benchmarking to measure your progress; more importantly, choose a goal that people would be interested in and build on it over time. [28:11]
Melissa asks Steve how to balance keeping the long-term mission in play while ensuring that you're not just over-optimizing for revenue. Steve responds that best practice is to be "very firm on vision and very flexible on details". Once you achieve your vision and mission, it does not matter how many times the fine details of your plan change over time. [31:32]
Resources Steve MacLaughlin on LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa wraps up our four-part series on pivots by answering some of our listener’s questions on the topic. She talks about pivots as “strategy theater,” how to know when to stay on track versus when to pivot, having back-up pivot strategies in case the first idea doesn’t pan out, and communicating strategies amongst other product teams.
Q: How often is a product strategy pivot one of the main players in a strategy theater performance? [4:22]
Q: What are the best indicators that perseverance will not solve your lack of product-market fit problem? [8:07]
Q: Do you line up your next pivots in case this one takes, hoping to find strategies that work? [11:22]
Q: How do you go about effectively communicating your strategy to a wider organization for product teams? [14:25]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes John Shapiro to the third episode of this four-part miniseries about companies that successfully made major pivots during the pandemic. John is the Head of Product of Global Supplier at Wayfair. He manages a team of 60+ product managers, represents the company’s global suppliers, and ensures that products meet the standards of global consumers. Alex shares how Wayfair handled shifting from a heavily in-person culture to operating entirely online, how they rode an unexpected and sudden spike in business, how their long-term vision and strategy kept them on course, how to keep a roadmap flexible even in an enterprise, managing employee burnout during the pandemic, and why they always come back to their customers’ problems above everything else.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and John talk about:
John talks about his professional background, his current role in Wayfair, and his accomplishments at the company. [1:46]
John highlights the initial conversations and concerns Wayfair’s product leaders were having at the start of the pandemic and how they had to shift from having in-person meetings to building products. [3:50]
Like most companies during that time, Wayfair’s main concern was whether their revenue would plummet due to lockdown and restrictions. However, there was increased demand for home entertainment products along with a rise in e-commerce, so Wayfair found a way to survive. [6:19]
Wayfair had to be willing to alter its roadmap, even though it caused major revenue loss. John explains, “Our roadmaps are generally built out with problem statements and customer hypotheses… we try to focus on who the user is, what is the problem that they are encountering and how to solve it for them”. [13:00]
At Wayfair, product teams have biannual tactical meetings to discuss their strategies. They break down their long-term ideas into short-term hypotheses so they have an objective they can strive to accomplish. If it succeeds the teams get the okay to proceed with their related ventures. [15:21]
To have a successful product team, the team must be comfortable communicating with the leader. John suggests that you should deliver what your roadmap promised. Reiterating your ideas creates an environment that’s focused on solving a problem for the customer. [17:42]
Wayfair already had systems in place that helped suppliers get their products to market during the pandemic. They were able to continue to supply real-time data to help suppliers develop their businesses and determine what their consumers needed. [24:23]
Wayfair ensures that its product teams are as close to the consumer as possible; they ensure that the people designing their products understand their consumers’ needs. [25:23]
Product leaders must form relationships with potential suppliers, but that may be difficult to do remotely. John suggests turning on your camera while video calling your client because that allows them to connect with you and helps build trust [30:23]
Resources John Shapiro on LinkedIn | Twitter
Melissa Perri welcomes Alex Haefner to the second episode of this four-part miniseries about companies that successfully made major pivots during the pandemic. Alex is the Head of Product at Envoy and strives to create products for a safe and healthy workplace. Alex tells Melissa how Envoy, originally a company that made products for physical workspaces, had to shift its entire product strategy during the pandemic by staying closely connected to their customers’ changing needs. They talk about why a multi-product company is the goal, how to avoid the “innovator’s dilemma,” how to talk about your roadmap with your customers, and when to keep testing versus when to forge ahead with the data you have.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Alex talk about:
Alex talks about his start in product, his professional background, and his current role at Envoy. [1:40].
At the very beginning of the pandemic, Envoy had to adjust its product strategy because their primary customers were physical workplaces. [3:58]
As the Head of Product, Alex and his team put together a cross-functional team from product, marketing, and engineering to combat the global changes. The CSM was in constant contact with their customers to understand their current needs. [4:50]
To survive in the global marketplace, product teams and companies must be willing to reevaluate their roadmaps if they do not align with the current needs of their customers, and develop a product that is in demand. [9:04]
Constant customer research and communication allow your product team to be prepared for what your clients currently need and need in the future. [12:10]
Strive to become a multi-product company and try to make your products work together harmoniously. This benefits both the company and the customer. [14:42]
To avoid an innovator’s dilemma, you have to understand what your customers want out of your core product and what your product lacks. Then balance those two to ensure that you keep innovating and iterating on your product so it doesn’t become stagnant. [16:56]
As a product team, ask your customers every possible question so you can get down to what the customers and end-users need and what would benefit them. [19:03]
To build a successful product, the product team should consult with their customers when building their roadmap for the year and ensure that they are on board with the direction your company is taking. [20:53]
Overcome analysis paralysis as a leader by ranking the probability of what you and your team believe the future would look like. [23:41]
Resources Alex Haefner on LinkedIn | Twitter Envoy
Melissa Perri welcomes Colleen Johnson to the first episode of this four-part miniseries about companies that successfully made major pivots during the pandemic. Colleen is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of ScatterSpoke, a company that leverages AI to make the most out of retrospective feedback. Colleen tells Melissa how their company needed to pivot quickly to win against competitors, how she had to shift from being a subject matter expert to embracing uncertainty and curiosity, her version of a valuable MVP, and which retro data she finds to be the most valuable.
Here are some key points you'll hear Melissa and Colleen discuss:
Colleen talks about her professional background, what led her to found ScatterSpoke, and what services they provide. [4:31]
During the pandemic, when Scatterspoke lost clients to major competitors, they had to determine what made them stand out from other companies who provided the same retrospective services – the answer was a large quantity of retro data. [6:11]
Colleen advises listeners to approach change with an open mindset and to be a little bit more cautious. [8:56]
A friendly invite via their in-person professional network or even a cold outreach on LinkedIn can help a product manager launch a new product, connect with engineer leaders to provide them with data, test products, and offer feedback. [12:01]
In coaching teams and helping organizations adopt agile practices, most people tend to focus on delivery rather than breaking down the work. If you do not break down the work in a way that allows you to iterate and get feedback quickly, the whole pivot process has no benefit. [14:38]
The most valuable part of presenting small chunks to engineer leaders and customers is what you learn from their responses, positive or negative. [16:12]
To have a successful retro tool, the teams using it - rather than scrum masters and engineer managers - must see its value to their process. [19:46]
Engineering managers and product leaders need to understand that retrospectives are important because they help pinpoint issues in the organization. [20:11]
As a person working in product and product management, Colleen says that you have to “remove yourself from the subject matter expert seat”. You have to be curious and willing to learn and understand that you are venturing into waters beyond your scope of knowledge with this new transition. [26:45]
Resources Colleen Johnson | LinkedIn | Twitter ScatterSpoke | Twitter | Instagram
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about wishing startup founders were able to see the value of being more product-oriented and how to influence them in that direction, organizing executives across multiple business units to align on product strategy, and how to gather evidence that a startup is the right place to work (and whether or not it’ll stay in business if you do decide to take the job).
Q: How do I help my leadership be more product-oriented? [2:06]
Q: How would you go about getting alignment or endorsement from your executive group with multiple business units on product strategy? [9:45]
Q: What would be your strategy to evaluate if a product management role in a startup is a good fit? What questions should I ask in the interview? [15:44]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Today on the Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri is joined by Lenny Rachitsky, author of the popular product advice column Lenny’s Newsletter. Melissa and Lenny compare notes on what it’s like to move from working directly in product to creating product content and courses, and Lenny explains how his newsletter was born and its growth trajectory since, what he’s learned about how to create valuable content, what success means to him, and how to keep your energy focused on the things that light you up. Here are some of the key points you’ll hear Lenny and Melissa talk about:
How Lenny got into product management originally. He started his career in computer science and initially worked in coding before deciding to try and build his own company, which he did in Montreal, before joining AirBNB where he moved into product management. [02:20]
Melissa talks about how, not that long ago, there wasn’t really a career path for product management and her realization that you can be involved in management without building it yourself. [05:15]
By writing Medium post called What Seven Years at AirBNB Taught me about building that did incredibly well, Lenny realize there was an audience out there hungry for content about product management and development. Eventually, this led to his newsletter, job board, and course. [09:55]
Lenny shares how much of his work is research-based – determining the information he wants to share, and reaching out to the experts who have the best answers, then consolidating them into actionable, valuable materials for people. [14:55]
Where do we get energy from things we do? Not every type of work or every type of content is a home run for the person creating it. Melissa and Lenny talk about how a Product mindset can be helpful with this. [18:25]
Melissa talks about how even when you’re running your own company, it’s still work, and you can still burn out. There is nothing wrong with building a lifestyle business–not everything has to be a major, venture-funded enterprise. [21:15]
Many people want to start lifestyle-type businesses. Lenny shares his advice for building something that brings you a lot of joy. One of the keys is having people to support you, and building in time for experimentation. [25:20]
Melissa shares her own philosophy on building a business that fits your lifestyle instead of changing your life to fit your business, and how to tell when it’s not working. [29:45]
There are two phases to growth–how it starts and how it grows. Lenny talks about how growth has worked in his ventures. Quality of content is paramount.[34:40]
Lenny talks about what is currently interesting and inspiring to him in Product management. [40:55]
Resources: Lenny on the web | Twitter | LinkedIn Lenny’s Newsletter 28 Ways to Grow Supply in a Marketplace
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about separating product strategy from overall company strategy, rules of thumb for discovery and delivery phases, and what a small company starting to scale up really needs in order to carve out a thoughtful product strategy and vision. Q: Do you have any advice on how to align between product strategy and business strategy, especially when a product doesn't have a strong executive presence? [1:13] Q: How do you manage discovery and delivery simultaneously during a 12-week quarter? Should there be two different roles? [6:59] Q: What should the next step be for a company entering a scale-up model with no long-term strategy? [11:13]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Scott White to this week’s episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Scott leads the product vertical at AirTable, so he shares how his own organization puts into place the tools and processes AirTable supports. Melissa and Scott discuss the many benefits of product operations and how it evolves as a company grows, “global alignment with local autonomy,” Melissa’s dream product ops set up, automated roadmap review, and product management in platform companies.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Scott and Melissa talk about:
Scott talks about his introduction to the product management field, his professional background, and what led him to AirTable. [2:02]
Scott shares why he entered the product management sphere, how his product works, and the versatility of AirTable. [4:25]
AirTable’s product development process and how product operations are conducted.
Product development should be a company-wide concern and not solely the product team’s. “Great ideas can come from anywhere within an organization as long as people have the visibility and the context into why the organization is prioritizing what that they are,” Scott says. [14:44]
The evolution of product operations and when it is most essential to organizations of varying sizes. Scott says that there are two major points where your product operations should metamorphose: “One is when you need to improve your product desperately ….. Number two is when you're drastically increasing the complexity of your business.” [17:39]
Scott shares how his product operations team sets goals, monitors strategy, and tracks the goals and metrics, to ensure that they're tackling the task at hand so that they can achieve their goals. [21:07]
Scott reveals what he believes to be the most crucial practice that a product leader can implement when conducting product operations. “I think ultimately [as a product leader] it’s critical to understand the voice of your customers when you're building products.” [37:00]
Melissa asks Scott about his transition from CEO to product leader and what aspects of his former role he carries into his new one. [38:58]
Resources Scott White | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about product management in software vs hardware, SaaS vs e-commerce, and within the governmental sector. She covers the differences in product strategy, things all of these product jobs will have in common, how to figure out which tools apply to your industry and product type, and how to measure impact over time for products where results could take years to come by.
Q: Do you see a difference in the strategic and tactical delivery of customer value between a digital product and a physical product created through discrete manufacturing processes? Are there any major pitfalls that I should be aware of as I work with the product roadmap and product lifecycle management of a non-SaaS product? [2:01]
Q: What are some key differences in SaaS product management teams versus product management teams inside of retailers? What advice would you give for someone in the new role who is also becoming a VP or an executive for the first time? [9:02]
Q: How do you find good metrics when the effects of an improved road maintenance program might not show or pay off until years or decades later? How do we handle these kinds of outcomes when trying to measure the impact of our products? [12:12]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer at Intercom, to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. At Intercom since the days when they only had only 13 employees, Paul has helped shape the Product department from the ground up. Paul joins Melissa to talk through his approach to product leadership, what his day to day is like as CPO and why he hasn’t been in a product review in years, how to build trust within your organization, and embracing the “messy middle” when it comes to product strategy.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Paul talk about:
Paul talks about his introduction to the field of product management, and how he became the Chief Product Officer at Intercom. [1:55]
To have a successful product organization, three teams – product management, product design and research and data science – must work together harmoniously. [4:55]
Paul believes that the best way to oversee all the different groups within a product organization is by appointing a trustworthy leader to each group and allowing them to have autonomy over their decisions. [6:51]
Paul cautions that the downfall of most organizations is the lack of trust from team leaders. Paul suggests that the teams have open conversations about “Why are they here? What do they not trust?” in order to build trust in the team. [15:03]
When choosing a new team leader or product manager, you have to build a relationship with them so they can trust you and vice versa. [16:12]
For your organization to work in unison, the strategy must be clearly, concisely and accurately translated to the execution level, acknowledging the ever-changing trends. [ 20:25]
When the company is reviewing the strategy in Google Docs, they urge employees to label their comments “major, minor or curious” in order of urgency. This creates a smooth-running system that maintains discipline. [25:46]
The lines between sales, support, marketing, product, and project management need to be blurred. These teams should deeply collaborate in order to achieve collective success for the company. [27:50]
For a company like Intercom to work harmoniously, a feedback loop for each team should be set up, where the problems to be solved for each group are shared so that the service can run as smoothly as possible. This only works if there is a strong relationship in the company. [34:05]
Paul believes that surveys would be most beneficial to project managers as they collect and track first-party data, which allows them to send targeted ads/messages. [38:31]
Resources Paul Adams on LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about when research is stale and needs to be revalidated, when and why to schedule frequent customer interviews, and understanding product success when conducting product trials.
Q: Do you have any tips for identifying when previous validation of knowledge could be stale and might need to be revalidated before continuing work? [2:22]
Q: What’s your advice for booking customer interviews? [9:17]
Q: Do you have any tips beyond the usual customer surveys and interviews for understanding product success? [16:32]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Jeff Gothelf to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. An experienced consultant in the Agile and Lean UX space, Jeff just released the third edition of his popular book, Lean UX. Jeff talks with Melissa about how he’s shifted focus to teaching about OKRs, and why he encourages the companies he consults with to adopt this goal-setting framework to measure success. He breaks down what OKRs are, why they can’t be the only product-led change a company adopts, how many OKRs there should be within an organization, what a good OKR looks like at the executive level, and why OKRs make a “great gateway drug” to organizational agility.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Jeff talk about:
HR leadership, especially the performance, retention, and promotion factions, is taking an interest in new ways to measure success, Jeff shares. They want to learn how to deploy this new metric across their organizations so they can improve their overall internal and external performances. [5:03]
Jeff shares how he educates clients about integrating their corporate strategy with their OKRs. “These things don’t exist in a vacuum and can’t be manufactured out of thin air,” he says. “They have to be derived from some kind of corporate strategy, product strategy, business unit strategy.” [9:19]
Objectives are the qualitative goals that we would like to achieve; they are aspirational and inspirational, and the value of doing them should be clear. [11:02]
When your teams are too independent, you run the risk of hyperlocal optimization, Jeff advises. “One of the better tactics that I've seen over the years is to take a set of teams and give them the same OKR set to hit,” he adds. “With those teams, we’ve defined what success is.” [19:09]
Jeff describes an exercise he runs with most of his executive clients. They visualize the relationship between impact metrics and leading and lagging indicators in order to identify the outcomes they’re going to work toward. What this exercise ends up becoming is a top-to-bottom customer journey map. [25:44]
Typically, teams get told what to build; they make a roadmap and get it approved. In Jeff’s OKR conversations with clients, he removes the output part of the process. They now have to discover what to build by practicing Lean UX, product discovery, and design thinking. Many organizations either don’t know how to do that, or they do and they make it difficult or impossible to execute the work. [33:09]
Quarterly check-ins allow you to reflect on whether it makes sense to go towards the goals you’ve set for yourself. [38:06]
Being a good storyteller is a key component of being a good product manager. A vast majority of product managers have to rely on bringing people together on a vision they’ve either built themselves or along with a team through storytelling, as they lead without authority. If you can tell a concise and compelling story that ties in the necessary information, that will be a valuable asset. [41:45]
Resources Jeff Gothelf on LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about working with engineering leadership as a director of product, the idea of moving from a leadership position back to an individual contributor to gain a wider skillset, and whether or not SAFe is the answer for a small product org.
Q: What should my one-on-one’s with my engineering team look like as director of product? How do I find a partner and not an order-taker? [2:30]
Q: Should we adopt SAFe? Any tips on what I should study up on and propose as a right solution to process and procedure? [6:56]
Q: What advice would you have for someone who is considering stepping out of leadership and back into an IC role to grow their product skillset? [11:01]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Adrian Howard to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Adrian is an Agile Consultant and product coach with more than 25 years of experience, and specializes in coaching leaders around “those messy spaces where product delivery and user research overlap.” Adrian joins Melissa to talk about involving engineers in strategy building, the importance of meaningful strategy, aligning teams across large organizations with varying initiatives and goals, and why team vs team competition can lead to an organization’s downfall.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Adrian talk about:
Adrian talks about his introduction to the agile and technical world. [1:58]
When incorporating other disciplines such as engineering into product strategy, you need to involve user research and customer support to gain better insight on how a product is developing. [3:30]
Before asking questions to your engineers as a product leader, make sure that they are on board and understand the company's strategy. "Your job as a leader is to help either provide that direction, or talk to the people in your organization to discover what directions they think is useful and find a way of prioritizing and aligning about that," Adrian says. [5:14]
Too many teams do not feel aligned with the goals of the company, or don’t feel like they have a piece of value that they can deliver on. [9:57]
Have conversations about value at the lower levels. Oftentimes these conversations happen at the top, and by the time those conversations reach the bottom level, they're more about effort and work rather than the outcomes. [14:23]
Orgs should stop pitting teams against each other, and instead treat their teams as groups collectively trying to deliver on a larger set of values. [20:30]
Adrian talks about the competition mindset being ingrained in some company cultures and how he's helped them move away from that. [23:26]
"Just asking for the rest of your team to solve a problem that you have pulled out of thin air isn't leadership of the C-suite…that is hoping to steal the credit from the people who are actually coming up with ideas and hoping they'll manage to solve your problem for you," Adrian remarks. [27:48]
Usability testing has to be done in tandem with user research to fix organizational gaps, and it also has to be actionable. [31:05]
Resources Adrian Howard | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about what it looks like when teams are successfully running delivery and discovery in parallel, and the two reasons teams typically struggle with delivery, throwing yourself back in the ring after a disheartening work experience has left you feeling discouraged and frustrated (and asking yourself some hard questions), and where to focus your efforts when starting a new CPO role.
Q: How do we do discovery and delivery together for dual-track agile? [1:59]
Q: What do you do when a job experience as a product manager has left you so burned out that it makes you afraid to take on that responsibility? [9:29]
Q: As a new CPO, where should I start and how should I sequence with regards to building out the team hires, culture, systems, and processes? [17:34]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Nir Eyal to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. He is an author, lecturer, and investor best known for his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Nir joins Melissa to talk about the Hook model, product ethics, serving “chocolate-covered broccoli'' to your users, Wordle, internal vs. external triggers, and what inspired his newest book, Indistractable.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Nir talk about:
Nir talks about his introduction to the world of product management, and what led him to write his book. [2:12]
A product has to be used with frequency. If it's not used often enough, it's almost impossible to change customer habits. If a product is intended to be used with sufficient frequency, ideally within a week's time or less, it's a good candidate for the Hook model. "It's not that every product has to be habit-forming…It's that every product that is habit-forming needs to have a hook," Nir tells Melissa. [6:00]
Look at what competitors are doing in order to improve your products, but also look at who is doing the best out of everyone in the market. To build a product that sticks, model the companies that are the masters of changing habits. Make a product that people will love, and will want to use. [8:10]
As long as a product is used with sufficient frequency, and provides utility, it doesn't matter if its consumers are online or offline. [11:25]
The Hook model is useful as a diagnostic tool to help product leaders understand when their products aren't satisfying their customers. It helps them create a guide on how to build new products and refine the problems that are in their existing ones. [13:08]
Internal triggers are states of discomfort that cause people to use products. It's the job of the product designer to understand what that trigger is, and how their product satisfies it better than the alternatives. [15:28]
To create engagement with products, a lot of companies tend to do gamification. The problem with gamification, however, is that it falls flat. Nir says that product leaders end up making “chocolate-covered broccoli”. "Before we understand the problem, we really have to understand the psychological need, [and the] core level human stressors that our product is going to address," he tells Melissa. [16:29]
"Anytime you can find a customer need with a question mark at the end, that's a variable reward," Nir remarks. [17:43]
If companies want long-term engagement, they have to look for instances that are not game-like, unless those games involve other people. Nir stresses that it's the connections with people that keep individuals engaged. [20:04]
There are two categories of triggers: internal and external. External triggers are the 'pings and dings' that occur outside of ourselves that make us use products. The ultimate goal of product development is for customers to use the product on their own without the use of external triggers. If this hasn't happened, then the external trigger hasn't been properly timed. When sending external triggers, they have to be contextually relevant for internal triggers. [22:34]
Melissa asks about the possibility of products becoming addictive, and customers developing bad habits when it comes to using them. "For the vast majority of people listening, the problem is not that people are overusing the product...the problem is people won't use the product," he remarks. However, he agrees that some form of legislation needs to be put in place by companies in their use and abuse policies. [27:11]
Nir talks about the principles product leaders can implement into their company culture to limit distraction. He also talks about the importance of schedule sinking and time boxing. [35:13]
Resources Nir Eyal | LinkedIn | Twitter Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products Indistractible
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about differentiating between types of product management depending on the growth stage of a company, how to successfully craft strategy documents that communicate your vision, and how P&L responsibilities should be distributed across teams.
Q: Are there three types of product management? [2:11]
Q: Any tips for writing a strategy document? [9:13]
Q: How does product owning the P&L impact relationships with more traditional revenue-driving teams like sales and success? Has this worked out well for the companies you've worked with? [15:04]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Sam McAfee to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Sam is the founder of Startup Patterns, where he coaches teams and leadership how to attain the human skills necessary in successful product transformations. Melissa and Sam discuss how to strengthen emotional intelligence, how to hone your leadership skills as an IC, and what a truly courageous leader looks like.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Sam talk about:
Sam talks about his induction into the field of product management and his professional background. [2:00]
Mindful leadership is being able to grow and collaborate with your teams while also paying attention to what you're thinking and feeling as a product leader, and using that information to enhance and enrich your interactions with others. [8:46]
The biggest red flag in terms of leadership skills, Sam cautions, is overworked employees. "The reason why that would be a red flag is that it is an indication that there isn't a clear prioritization, or there isn't a clear vision.” This can lead to burnout. [10:43]
The first step in building mindful leadership skills is taking time out of each day to reflect. Reflection builds emotional intelligence, which helps build empathy. Leaders who reflect often slow down and observe their own thoughts and behaviors, making them proactive rather than reactive. [15:00]
To practice mindfulness as a leader, start observing people's behavior and words. During your interactions with others, try to see things from their perspective, and imagine what they might be thinking or feeling in those moments. Having the courage and compassion to ask others how they're feeling is also an important part of mindful leadership. [21:00]
One of the key things in helping product management hone leadership skills is making sure that the product team is aligned in their purpose and objectives. Building relationships is another important aspect. "A product manager needs to have a really good relationship with everyone on the team; they need to understand what people skills are, what their motivations are," Sam tells Melissa. Having curiosity about your people and being intentional with gathering information about everyone's strengths in order to leverage them properly will do wonders for you as a product leader. [27:20]
Leaders have to know when to relinquish control. This requires courage and vulnerability but it is important in order to properly transform the work culture within organizations. [32:44]
One vital part of courageousness in leadership is saying no to what isn't essential. It is the job of senior management to figure out the vision, decide strategy and then convey that to the rest of the organization, and also to prioritize what is important and what isn't. [35:57]
Sam shares what leaders should be looking for when trying to grasp strategy and product initiative. He shares the importance of observing the markets you're in when deciding on strategy. [38:16]
Resources Sam McAfee | LinkedIn | Twitter Startup Patterns
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to successfully lead the discovery process at a new company with a strong product culture, how to align product strategies across large corporations, and what questions to ask when your organization doesn’t have a clear vision statement to work from.
Q: Do you have any strategies or steps that can help me with feeling more empowered? [0:45]
Q: What do you recommend large product organizations do so that strategies are aligned? [7:25]
Q: What should I do if my company is missing a vision statement? [12:42]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Jocelyn Miller on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Jocelyn, Founder and CEO of JM Coaching & Training, is a product leader turned career coach whose passion is helping product managers get “into the right roles, so their zone of genius can be unlocked and unleashed.” She shares her insights on common career roadblocks, what it looks like to define and step into your ideal product role, how to tackle burnout and imposter syndrome, and why asking existential questions about your own career is key.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Jocelyn talk about:
- How Jocelyn started in the field of product management and career coaching. [2:00]
- A big issue for product managers when managing their careers is the feeling of being stagnant. Jocelyn's company has created a program to deal with this exact problem. "One of the things that I love about it is that your current place of employment…just becomes one of the options," she adds. The process allows individuals who feel stuck or unhappy in their current positions to get positions that didn't exist before, and which brings them fulfillment. [4:36]
- Jocelyn walks through her framework for helping clients yield their desired outcome and position. [10:36]
- When advocating for yourself, you have to figure out what you actually want in your career. Knowing what you don't want is also important information that will guide your path. [12:32]
- "Assume you can do anything and then decide how you want to make that happen," Jocelyn says. [17:00]
- Jocelyn talks about the various paths she's seen people take, aside from people management and what allows them to progress. [18:59]
- Progress looks different for different people. A main reason is compensation, but a larger part is for the recognition and appreciation of growing at a rapid pace. In evaluating progress, think about whether the mission speaks to you, and whether you have the level of impact on the world you want to have. Think about how you want to use the skills you've acquired during your growth. [22:23]
- Jocelyn tells Melissa that burnout makes you feel like you're putting out more than you're getting back. If you are experiencing a burnout cycle, you need to change your approach to work. [25:40]
- If you’re burnt out, it is important to step back; however, stepping back can be scary so it is good to get guidance. Jocelyn also encourages taking a break, but doing so in a way that you're supporting and building yourself up. [30:06]
- Jocelyn advised listeners how to deal with imposter syndrome. Think about how you're advocating for yourself, she remarks. "If you can't advocate for yourself, your influence over your team will be quite limited," she says. [35:00]
- Budding leaders often fall back on using the same methods that they had success with before. They also commonly have a need for approval. "If you then transition into leadership and are looking for the external guidance and validation of worthiness, or trying to chase after things in that way, you cannot be an effective leader," Jocelyn stresses. [38:47]
- Relationships are critical in leadership. Doing too much will burn you out fast, so establish relationships to help you finish projects faster. [41:32]
- Being a leader is about bringing out the best in others, and creating a culture where everyone’s contribution matters. [42:49]
- Leaders should be able to create other leaders who can take over. This will free up time for you to be creative and it will make things easier for you overall. [45:12]
Resources
Jocelyn Miller | LinkedIn | Twitter
JM Coaching & Training
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about data, AI, and platform products, transitioning from project management to product operations, and how to navigate a lead engineering role that is intertwined with both product and people management responsibilities.
Q: How do you do discovery and write requirements for data, AI, and platform products? [1:09]
Q: What are some tips and tricks you would recommend for a first-time product operations manager coming from a project management role? What do you think are the most important things to do during the first 30 days on the job? [8:17]
Q: Can people and product management really mix? Do you have any tips for making sure both domains can run smoothly without interference? [13:15]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Douglas Ferguson on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Douglas is the President and Founder of Voltage Control, a change agency focused on helping teams implement new approaches to old systems. He joins Melissa to talk about the realities and challenges of influencing corporate culture, and shares his wisdom on how and where to start your own process of change at your organization.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Douglas talk about:
Before getting started with any change initiative, companies should sit down and assess where they are in their change journey. Douglas always starts with the people - those who are on board with change, and the ones who are opposed to it. When you can identify who the key players are, you can tailor your approach to the specific climate of the company. [3:30]
Leaders need to ask themselves what kind of change they want to see in their organizations. Identify the most important change that you want to see, and focus there. Oftentimes leaders get distracted by changes that are alluring, instead of focusing on the smaller changes that are right in front of them. Focusing on the key outcomes the change is going to drive for the organization is far more important. [5:55]
"It's healthy to step back and even just look at why am I trying to do this culture change," Douglas tells Melissa. He adds that exploring the purpose of change can lead to some epiphanies about what can be done during a particular timeline, and what could not be done. [9:34]
When it comes to the detractors in the organization, it's better to understand that they operate on a spectrum. There will be individuals who oppose your suggestions simply because it's personal, but there are also the passive detractors. The passive detractors are neutral and are more skeptical. However, it is possible to bring them around to the changes you want to implement. They simply need a bit more detail and convincing but once they get it, they will become advocates for you. [14:45]
It is a lot harder to tell if an executive is committed to change, if you're an individual inside the organization. Consultants that are brought in are usually able to tell from the start. Douglas gives some practical tips on how employees can gauge how committed their employers and leaders are to change. He also shares some questions employees can ask. [17:35]
Team level product managers are capable of making change impacts in their organizations. Anyone, no matter where they are in the company, can make a change. Douglas illustrates this using points from the book "Start Within," that he co-authored with Karen Host. If you feel passionate enough about making a change in your company, just do it. [21:31]
Breaking through the mentality of 'We can't do this; it's not allowed' at organizations starts with inquiry. Start asking provocative questions about why certain processes aren't performed in the organization. [25:45]
Douglas gives tips on what product managers and designers can do to challenge regulations that hinder them from productivity and innovation. One such tip is to befriend the legal department. [29:11]
Figure out strategy before you decide to implement change. Douglas and Melissa touch on OKRs and its role as a strategy deployment tool. "OKRs is a strategy deployment technique but if there's no strategy how are you going to deploy it," Melissa says. [35:58]
Douglas cautions against putting together a perfect vision of how you think the world should be when giving presentations. "You're not changing, you're not adapting, you're not verifying assumptions that you have about the organization or about how things could work," he says. Be willing to change, be willing to listen and tweak your vision as you go along, and you and the business will be a lot happier for it. [38:33]
Resources Douglas Ferguson | LinkedIn | Twitter Voltage Control
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about learning how to do market research to move up in your career as a product manager, creating products in highly commoditized B2B enterprise markets, and what you should look for in a company when moving from an early-stage startup to an established organization.
Q: Do you have any advice on how to improve market research skills? [2:05]
Q: How do you escape the trap of a reactive product mindset in a highly commoditized enterprise market? [5:17]
Q: What should I look for in a larger company to find a place where my early stage experience is an asset and not a liability? Any other advice on making the transition from early to growth stage companies? [10:18] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes back Eric Willeke for part two of this SAFe conversation on the Product Thinking Podcast. Eric and Melissa pick up where they left off and dive into the product management and portfolio management parts of SAFe, discussing how product management fits into the SAFe architecture and how it works at scale.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Eric talk about:
Product management needs to create an organization that is capable of making strategy real. [4:04]
"If you are impacting the market through your work, that's changing your strategy and you need that feedback loop," Eric tells Melissa. [6:36]
Eric advises thinking of design strategies and guidelines like visual tables of contents. "What we're looking for when we look at the picture is an entry point, a place I can click; and if I know nothing about the product discipline, I can start to dig in and look at design thinking and understand," he remarks. [8:25]
In Fortune 50 companies, for every agile technical domain there is usually only one expert. At the core, Eric stresses, it's about learning and teaching. "If we want to crack the product problem Fortune 50 scale...it starts with education and getting people to think differently, and creating an environment that can select for a different set of behaviors." [15:30]
To change a company culture, leaders have to first ask themselves what must be true for the company to be a healthy environment. Think about the problem you're trying to solve then act as if it's the future when that problem is already solved. This mindset creates belief. [17:51]
Companies that started with continuous deployment and architecting for flow, manage to avoid more problems than companies who didn't begin that way. [24:28].
Good portfolio implementation for SAFe is based on maintaining relationships and determining the money flow. Portfolio management is conveying strategy into a structure that can implement it. [28:28]
Strategy is a continuous behavior leaders must immerse themselves in. Strategy cannot be mechanical, Melissa adds. "You can't get an inspired creative process nor can you get an evolving flow-based architecture out of a mechanical strategy and environment," Eric comments. [36:52]
When asked what he would change about SAFe, Eric lists a few things: anchoring on the competency world view as opposed to the table of contents view, more emphasis on the customer as the center of the big picture, and making core values and mindset a priority. [45:32]
Eric gives advice for companies just getting started with SAFe, and what they should look for before deciding to adopt the framework. [48:22]
Resources Eric Willeke | LinkedIn | Twitter Elevate
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how roadmaps fit into an early stage company, the difference between gaining buy-in as a leader and reaching team consensus, delineating ownership as a leadership team, and how to restructure teams when your organization starts operating at scale.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for creating the product roadmap per quarter in a startup company? [1:10]
Q: As a product leader, how do you decide where to draw the line between activities you need to lead versus activities you would be more successful with if you had buy-in from your team? How do you draw lines of responsibility and ownership between VP, product director, product managers, and other supporting team members, when as a product director, your responsibility is to lead the product team, the product managers report to you, and there's overlap with what you and the VP are both currently doing in directing team activities? [6:02]
Q: How do we best evaluate which parts of the product we build our teams around? What are some common pitfalls when restructuring a product delivery organization to operate at scale? [16:11]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Lisa Schneider is the Chief Product Officer at Framework Homeownership. Previously, she was the Chief Digital Officer at Merriam-Webster, where she led digital strategy and execution and redefined the dictionary for the digital age. Lisa joins Melissa Perri on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast to share her expertise on crafting great vision and mission statements, the role of the product leader, bridging the gap between sales and product, and why being an integrator is powerful.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Lisa talk about:
How Lisa got started in product management. [1:55]
Asking yourself ‘Why?’ is part of the product mindset when developing a new vision and mission. Figure out why you want a new vision and mission, then develop a strategy to bridge them together. Lisa advises that you should not mix the strategy into the mission because it makes the mission become too specific instead of universal. She also cautions against aligning product teams and squads to strategy too much because strategy changes. [7:57]
The product vision is a reminder of the ultimate product goal so that teams remember what they're working towards. Product leaders need to create an environment of stability and empathy where their teams don't feel constant uncertainty when strategy changes. [11:36]
Product leaders need to propose solutions but also give their teams room to be creative. [13:35]
Lisa talks about how she became a Chief Product Officer. [15:44]
"The role of the product leader - the real opportunity for the product leader - is to be somebody that understands that entire ecosystem and understands how to integrate it," Lisa stresses. The product leader has to be the one to bridge the gap in organizations where sales and product operate in silos. They have to be the one to have conversations with both departments and gain insight on what they know about the product, and what they need. Asking those questions becomes part of your product research, and it also allows the teams in these departments to take ownership of the product and in turn, they become more invested in the product's outcome. [20:00]
Being an integrator within your organization is powerful and important. Asking questions about what people need and how you can help them get there will make you influential within the organization. [23:48]
The key to facilitating a problem-solving mindset is less talking about what needs to be done and actually doing it. "Get everyone in a room and start modeling," Lisa suggests. "Lead the conversation and show people how this works." [24:34]
Lisa shares her advice for future product leaders. [29:36]
To foster a product mindset in organizations that never had it, focus on the outcomes. See yourself as the “product” and think about how you can create an excellent user experience. Be the bridge between leadership and the teams that work with you. [33:46]
Resources Lisa Schneider | LinkedIn | Twitter Framework Homeownership
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about building product operations teams, staying in a position you love vs. diversifying your experiences, and how much a CPO actually needs to know about the inner workings of their product.
Q: How can an organization make the pivot from being reactionary in their product initiatives to being driven by market research and data? What kind of talent should a product leader be on the lookout for when building this type of team from the ground up? [2:04]
Q: How should I balance my love for my current company and role with the pressure to explore new opportunities? [8:39]
Q: As a CPO, do I invest the same amount of time in understanding everything about the product, particularly with a complex and feature-rich B2B product? Or should I focus on creating the necessary conditions to transform the product culture of the company? How advanced does my product knowledge need to be? [14:36]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Maura Kelly is VP of Engineering at Mailchimp. With over 17 years of experience in the tech industry, Maura is an expert in software development and programming. She joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast to provide engineering’s point of view, and to share helpful tips that will improve the way you as a product manager are collaborating with developers.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Maura talk about in this episode:
Maura’s traditional path to engineering, and her experience at Mailchimp, where the culture is about empowering the underdog. [1:45]
Mailchimp’s first product managers came from other internal disciplines and were workers who already knew Mailchimp and their customers very well. Over time, they continued nurturing people into product managers and started hiring people with product management experience externally. They also mixed up the teams, so that people new to Mailchimp could learn from veterans of the company. [5:44]
There is a misconception that engineers don’t care about customers and should keep their heads down doing code, Melissa says. “Engineers want to work on stuff that matters,” Maura claims. They want to be part of a larger mission that makes a difference; it motivates them and enhances their performance. If your head stays down, it’s hard to know the context and information that can help you build a better product. “First solve the problem, then write the code,” she adds. [11:03]
Why engineers should be involved in the discovery process, and how this can be done. [12:12]
Combining something that someone wants to do with something the company needs, is a great way to both solve a problem and motivate an employee. Maura shares how Mailchimp conducts this ‘management magic.’ [15:05]
Melissa and Maura explore how product managers and engineers can work with leadership to ensure their teams focus on the right things. If there are people that aren't a good fit or aren't doing the best work that they could be doing for whatever reason, that should be discussed at the leadership level. [17:16]
One thing people don’t realize about engineering is that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Not only do they write code for solving customer problems, but they also have to write that code to certain coding standards; they’re also getting code reviews, giving them to other people, thinking about the security of the feature they’re writing, among other things. [20:35]
Product managers often struggle with understanding the technical side of building a feature. Melissa asks Maura how they should be checking in with the engineering team about the timeline of things that need to be done. [25:28]
Resources Maura Kelly on LinkedIn | Twitter MauraChache.com
On this episode of The Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri is looking back on 2021. She is reflecting on the learnings and conversations she had about product strategy and product management. Melissa shares her tips for product leaders, and what they need to be focusing on within their organizations as they enter the new year.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa talk about:
The conversation is shifting towards product thinking - not just in the sense of adopting and implementing processes, but asking what it really means to think like a product manager. Product leaders are now critically thinking about what the systems they use and how they interact with each other, as well as how they can influence people they don't have direct authority over. Product leaders are also starting to utilize their skills across different platforms. It's not only about process anymore, but also product strategy and product operations. [2:12]
Product leaders need to have systems in place that help them scale. They also need to have product operations processes that can gather data and pass it along to product managers so that they can implement product strategy. [5:19]
Product led growth is not a replacement for sales. Product led growth is simply your product being so good that it sells itself. Companies need to work on their onboarding if they decide they want to go in the direction of product led growth. [9:16]
Product managers need to think about the way they deliver value to customers, and whether or not doing so takes away from the ecosystems their customers live in. "If we have a responsibility as product managers to build great products for our customers, we also have to make sure that we're not inadvertently hurting other people," Melissa advises. [10:40]
It's important as a product manager to pay attention to the new technologies on the market. Pay attention to what investors are investing in, and think about what value you can harness to your customers from these new technologies. [14:38]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
As the year comes to a close, leaders are looking to the future and figuring out how to build out their roadmaps for 2022. On this week’s Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri shares clips of some of the best insights on roadmap creation and strategic planning at different levels of an organization so that leaders can start off the new year right.
Here are some of the key points that were talked about:
When building a roadmap, don't assume you can predict the future. Focus on the products that are being built now, so you can have near-term certainty with planning. Executive teams have to do discovery work if they want better estimates. [1:30]
Product management needs to be tied to strategic decisions within the business. They have to be involved in the conversation around revenue growth, product growth and expansion because they need to understand the vision of the business. [6:50]
Companies need Vision Led Product Management. This means being definitive about what the value of your product is, who it's being provided for and where the differentiation is going to lie. It's essentially having all the components of a product vision. [10:52]
Before building a product strategy at a small scale, first figure out if one already exists at your organization. If there is, and it's being executed poorly, figure out what the essential goals are. If there’s no product strategy, do whatever you can to find out and understand the goals of the executives. Once you understand those goals, you can start to build your own product strategy. [13:46]
To set strategy, leaders have to be the ones to make the choices about what to invest in for the growth of the business. They have to think about what skillsets they wish to grow in the company, what technologies they want to implement and what they can do to differentiate themselves from their competitors in 2-3 years' time. [20:30]
If your sales team is going outside your company's product definition by a great deal, then you most likely don't truly understand the market your product is for. Product leaders need to communicate product-market fit to their sales teams and understand that they as product leaders don't make all the decisions. There has to be an alignment between strategy and communication in the organization. [27:09]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Eric Willeke, SAFe Principal Contributor, trainer, and Fellow, is a co-founder of Elevate Consulting where he teaches executives how to lead agile transformations. Eric joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast to talk all about the pros and cons of SAFe, and to share their personal experiences with this often polarizing agile framework.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Eric talk about in this episode:
How Eric first started in the field of SAFe. [2:49]
There is a huge divide within companies who adopt SAFe between what the product managers do versus what product owners do. It's hard getting those two disciplines to work together for various reasons. This divide hurts the product field because it makes it hard to level up people and careers. [8:51]
The role and function of product owners and product managers are essentially the same. Product owners make product-centric decisions for a team of people who want to create amazing technology products. Product managers do the same thing but on a larger scale, and think further ahead. Product managers have more of a roadmap, and more of an abstract view; they see in terms of quarters as opposed to product managers’ monthly timeline. [11:41]
Melissa asks what a product management career path looks like in the world of SAFe. "Is a stack of bigger titles equivalent to career progression?" Eric responds. The important thing is whether collaboration is happening along each point in the 'stack'. Are the people in the smaller teams working with the people in the larger teams and are they doing so effectively? [14:28]
Melissa and Eric talk about why individuals may deviate from the given product management career path. [16:47]
To bridge the gap between the frameworks that are made specifically for digital transformation in companies and software, product people need to consider a few things. These include the products you're selling, the top-level customer-facing service you're offering, and how software helps you do that. The software product people are there to improve the digital transformation and digital enablement experience across the organization. [21:47]
Eric talks about the role of the lean portfolio. [27:30]
Software product people have a breadth of responsibility within enterprises and very little opportunities for innovation. A lot of product management within this realm is learning enough about one side, and what is actually possible on the other side, then bridging those two together to make innovative leaps. [31:50]
Organizations need to provide deep and narrow product visions. You don't want to have ten thousand ideas and visions running around within a company because it's chaotic. Start from strategy, go to prioritization, then look at your teams and who is going to be affected. [33:25]
Eric gives tips on how to decide how many product managers to have in your organization. [36:47]
Resources Eric Willeke | LinkedIn | Twitter Elevate Consulting
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about topics across the board- she covers the responsibilities of a Director and VP of Product Management, how to get in your product reps outside of work, her thoughts on sharing your roadmaps with your customer, and product managers vs project managers.
Q: Do Directors of Product Management pull out of the day-to-day and just manage the departments? [1:34]
Q: How might a non-technical PM find or develop products outside of work? [4:39]
Q: Should we make our roadmap public? What are the complications that may arise if we do? [7:21]
Q: How do the roles of project and product managers differ? Where do you see the practical and pragmatic product management's response to value delivery when there are time and money constraints? [9:51]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
David Bland is the founder of Precoil, a company that helps organizations find product market fit through assessing risk and experimentation, and the co-author of Testing Business Ideas. David joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast to talk about how to identify your assumptions, experimenting within slower feedback cycles, the importance of aligned confidence, and how product leaders have to continuously walk the walk when it comes to experimentation and de-risk.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and David talk about in this episode:
David talks about his professional background and how he first got started in the field of business testing. [1:49]
David’s framework that uses themes from design thinking to define risk and identify assumptions. Experiment in the areas where there is the least amount of evidence. [3:32]
Many product teams put too much emphasis on feasibility but they also need to focus on desirability. Talk to customers to figure out if they want the product itself; if they are, figure out cost and revenue. [4:46]
David advises product managers to start with the business model and understand it; that will inform the plan for how the business is going to make money and how the product is going to impact their business. [6:44]
"What are the leading indicators that would predict that someone's going to renew? You should be able to start thinking through what are these touchpoints that would lead to somebody renewing, and how do we remove the friction from that?” David tells Melissa. [8:28]
The biggest hurdle to experimentation is time. If you don't have time, you are going to take the easy route. The goal is not to run experiments. The goal is to de-risk what you're working on to make better investment decisions. [13:11]
If a company is in a check-the-box mentality, it's not in the right condition to learn experimentation. You need to think about how you're de-risking, and changing your mindset and approach to processes within your organizations. David talks about the way he's designed his training programs to help companies with this problem. [16:55]
Repetition is key as product leader. Don't stop talking about the way you want your teams to run because you think they no longer need to hear it. "It's part of your job as leaders to keep repeating this, and showing it, and enabling it and creating a culture and environment where people can work this way," David says. [19:38]
David talks about experimenting around product strategy from a higher level, what types of experiments he's seen at that level and what experiments he advises product leaders to run. [20:38]
One of the main problems with experimentation is that companies often fall into the realm of testing on their customers as opposed to testing with their customers. It should be about co-creation instead. [32:36]
If you focus on customer value, you don't always have to have a finished product. It can be a service. Once you're fulfilling a need for that customer, or solving a problem that's valuable to a customer, or performing a service, you can start charge for that service. [35:30]
David talks about companies that have been doing experimentation well. [38:00]
Resources David Bland | LinkedIn | Twitter Precoil
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about what responsibilities and roles a product manager should take on in various scenarios. She talks through working alongside a UX researcher, responsibilities around maintaining strategy when the bigger picture is unclear, and the do’s and don’ts of working under a new superior.
Q: When do you think a UX researcher should be involved to support discovery, and what activities should they take on within discovery? [3:21]
Q: How should product managers maintain strategic fit in large corporations, especially in the midst of CEO changes, COVID-19, and new technology trends? How do you balance user-centricity versus internal business value and strategic fit? How am I responsible as a product manager to completely manage all of these vision changes versus what our senior management does, making sure our strategy is adapting? [8:09]
Q: Do you have any advice for navigating the new normal [of having a new superior]? [15:32]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Denise Tilles is an experienced product leader, consultant, and coach who has spent her career helping organizations transform opportunity into product vision. She specializes in product strategy, organizational design, and product operations. Denise joins Melissa Perri on this week’s episode to argue strongly in favor of the need for Product Operations as organizations start to scale.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Denise talk about in this episode:
How Denise got started in the field of product operations. [1:57]
Denise and Melissa explain why they strongly disagree with Marty Cagan’s recent post characterizing Product Ops as simply “process people.” Product ops helps organizations actually scale, and helps teams inform, deploy, and monitor their product strategy. [3:20]
There are three tenets of product operations: business and data insights, customer and market research, and processes and practices. Processes and practices concerning areas of product management are especially important as they allow teams to get the work done. Clear roadmaps prevent individuals within organizations from working in silos and contribute to a healthy product culture. [4:54]
Many organizations have lots of differing styles of roadmaps that make it difficult to reconcile critical decisions. What they should be doing instead, Melissa says, is have processes in place that standardize strategic decision-making with clarity and transparency. Denise remarks that these aspects of product management are being left to the wayside, putting unreasonable expectations on product managers and that that needs to change. [6:04]
Product operations teams are very powerful in that they help product leaders think about how they are measuring, what they are doing consistently, and how they can be truly transformative. Product ops is about enabling product leaders and managers to make decisions. [9:44]
When looking for a product analyst, you need to hire someone who’s great at crunching the numbers and more importantly, good at extracting actionable insights. You need a diplomatic person who can help product managers understand how and why the data is being used by the product team. [11:45]
Denise and Melissa talk about democratizing customer research. It puts time back into the product manager’s hands so they can focus on more important matters.[15:00]
Product managers often don't focus on the market research, but to understand different trends, or how the market is moving, they need to. [18:46]
The skillsets of product ops people have to be diverse because product ops has three disparate functions. “You're not going to hire the same type of person as a product ops person across this entire area. It's more about really figuring out what you need in each one of those cases and then going from there,” Melissa says. [24:18]
Resources Denise Tilles | LinkedIn | Twitter Produx Labs
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about what domain experts can do to learn more about product, how high of a level product people can achieve in organizations outside of SaaS or software companies, and what the right process is for rebuilding a product. Her answers have a core theme in common: as a product person, thinking outside the box and looking for opportunities for disruption is always a good idea.
Q: Do you have any advice on how I can overcome some of the common pitfalls that arise as a result of being a domain expert and product manager? Where should I focus my career development to become an amazing product manager that can tackle any problem? [1:54]
Q: What's the highest product role you typically see outside of SaaS or software companies? Do you see a trend of more CPO roles in more traditional companies like banks or insurance? Do you think they should have that role or does a VP or SVP of products suffice when the core product is in software? [7:38]
Q: What’s the best way to approach rebuilding a product? [11:56]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
John Cutler is the Head of Product Education at Amplitude. He is a product evangelist & coach, who has spent his career wrangling complex problems and answering the ‘why’ with quantitative data. He joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast to talk about the importance of product education and getting in your product “reps”, and the types of product patterns he’s discovered after working across industries.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and John talk about in this episode:
A product evangelist acts as the public face of a company and connects with the people who use its products in unique ways. Product evangelists bridge the gap of need for education advocacy, helping teams see the future direction that they're going in, and product therapy. [2:04]
Product people tend to follow common patterns and principles when it comes to transformation approaches, but how they apply these principles can be different depending on the culture. [6:08]
How to pivot to transform an organization must be tailored to the position the company is in. [9:23]
Sometimes product people just need to empower their teams. However, there are often systems in place that prevent this. "If you go into an organization that isn't really aligned in a way to allow agency, where there is low confidence among the teams, a lot of dependencies between the teams, and maybe they don't have the way to see if what they're doing is working... no amount of empowerment will help," John tells Melissa. [11:40]
A lot of organizations have people at the head who have had experience in the digital and processing development department, but they have not worked on a team in modern ways of working. They can intellectualize it, John says, but they can't feel it in their bones. [15:11]
Melissa talks about product people not being able to recognize product patterns and see how technology can completely change your product. They can't comprehend rethinking the way they approach product, or they don't consider platform approaches. "You can take the strategy of a different SAAS company from the product architecture and how they deliver value, and use the things that work in your company but just refine it and it's those types of things that I feel like are missing," Melissa says. [17:43]
People who have been doing product for a while may underappreciate how many signals and tacit knowledge that have been acquired over the decades. Because of this, communicating with someone who hasn't had those signals can be frustrating. It's important to step back and think about how you learned what you learned when trying to teach other people. [21:25]
John talks about some of the core strategies of product leadership. [26:18]
Before teams decide to move on to strategy, they should do a simple linear regression and analyze the who, what, where, when, and why of their product. Then start layering complexities and uncertainties. John describes a system he's created called Mandate Levels. [30:31]
Not everyone in the product world is fortunate to have job mobility, so organizations need to create an environment that gets outcomes going. [33:51]
Sometimes product people believe they're empowering their teams but they're not being sensitive and empathetic to the lives of their employees. How a product manager shapes the mission is important because it can leave enough room for people to take risks. [40:15]
Product managers must be clear and honest with themselves before they begin to implement change. They need to connect with their organizations and find the kernel of opportunity. [43:53]
Resources John Cutler | LinkedIn | Twitter | Articles
Amplitude John Cutler’s Product Org Expertise
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers questions about approaching your product management career thoughtfully and strategically. She covers what PMs are particularly good at and how to reframe the idea of PMs being “generalists,” what she thinks about product management certification courses and FAANG companies, and what taking an alternate route via product operations would look like.
Q: What tips would you give to someone who is concerned about being a generalist? [2:06]
Q: Should a product manager aim for a start-up or one of the FAANG companies in the beginning of their career? [8:13]
Q: What is the career track for product operations, and how do you support a person to grow in this role? [16:06]
Q: Are product management certificate courses worth the effort, and which do you recommend? [20:34]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
This episode of Product Thinking Melissa interviews Extreme Programming Founder and Agile Manifesto signatory Kent Beck. Kent has had a prolific career in software development, including a role as Technical Coach at Facebook from 2011-2018, and is now a Fellow at Gusto. Melissa and Kent share their thoughts on where and when user research should fit into the product development process, the “3X” development model Kent originated while at Facebook, incentivizing employees, and what Extreme Programming looks like 20 years later.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Kent talk about in this episode:
The greatest value is created when you have somebody with the capability to talk to somebody with the need. [4:55]
How the role of software development and product management changes depending on the phase of customer experience. [8:32]
There are pros and cons to customer research. On one hand, it’s useful to determine what features people like and dislike. On the other, there have been times where customer research indicated something wasn’t advisable, yet when it was launched, it was successful. Snapchat and the iPhone are prime examples. [11:02]
Kent tells Melissa, “If the incentives are there to not [do something], they're not going to [do it]... Incentives are about storytelling, meaning, purpose, fellowship, personal growth, and the sense of mastery.” [17:49]
It’s important that companies have causal, low-stakes interactions with people whose lives are affected by the decisions they make. [24:56]
People often forget that finding and emphasizing purpose is hugely energizing. Something as simple as identifying your goal and throwing a party when you accomplish it can motivate your employees. [33:32]
To be a good coach, you need to be able to apply the knowledge you have in different ways and be a good storyteller. You also need empathy and credibility. [37:54]
“If XP wants to come back and be a force [to be reckoned with], we need to have ways of addressing its inequities. We can't reject half the people in the world because they have two X chromosomes, we can't reject two-thirds of the people in the world because their skin happens to be brown. We have to both become aware of and navigate the power differentials that we all bring into software development,” Kent shares.
Resources Kent Beck on LinkedIn KentBeck.com
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about learning how to compromise and collaborate with fellow product managers and new team members.
Q: How do I work with other PMs in a productive manner and avoid an unhealthy competitive atmosphere? [1:41]
Q: How can I improve a relationship with a new PM and our ability to collaborate? [6:31]
Q: How do you determine how much you need to reduce the scope of a feature when defining an MVP? Do you have any ideas for how my PM and I can come to an agreement? [13:36]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Adam Thomas is a product management expert, speaker, writer, and the Lead Product Manager at SmartRecruiters. Adam has spent his professional life helping teams reduce friction and craft product strategies that lead to better outcomes for their organizations. He joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast to discuss a concept he developed called survival metrics, which enables product teams to change direction safely and quickly.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Adam talk about in this episode:
Adam's professional background and how he got into product management. [2:13]
Survival metrics as a concept were created by observing the process that goes into building a product. It's born out of the psychology of thinking about what the customer needs. [7:37]
The mark of a good survival metric is action. The metric should be something that helps people in the organization understand what steps need to be taken and why those steps are important. Conversely, a bad survival metric has no direction - it’s more 'go with the flow', vague, and subjective. [9:25]
Your company's metrics strategy is tied to the anchor of your vision and mission. This is important because it is what's going to drive your organization forward. [11:39]
Survival metrics are tied to a company's culture and are developed through employee feedback. When building a product, find out what employees care about and what their incentives are. The more that product managers do this, the better understanding they would have of the company culture. [16:36]
Every project product managers work on should have at least one aspect of the 'stop, pivot, and invest' concept. This will get product managers in the mindset of not just thinking about the bad, but also the good. [19:58]
When Adam trains new product managers on survival metrics, he first gives them small projects to observe how they assess them. He gradually introduces the concept of survival metrics after a few weeks. [21:09]
Adam shares advice he gives to budding product managers who aren't confident in their decision-making. [24:04]
Succeeding in product management requires soft skills. It requires being humble enough to come up with multiple decisions and not knowing the answer immediately. Product managers run into trouble when they act on things they have little or no information on. [26:36]
Adam lists the types of things that have worked to break down barriers and make product teams more collaborative. [28:58]
Resources Adam Thomas | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa dives into the world of experimentation, answering subscribers’ questions about metrics and signals for internal applications, measuring the success of company transformations, and the best way to track experiments.
Q: Do you have any recommendations for metrics signals for internal applications, particularly where we are trying to change behaviors over the long term? How can an organization measure the success of a product-led company transformation? [2:05]
Q: How do you track experiments and the results in a central way? [8:44]
Q: How do I set a timeframe for measuring success and performance of a product before I pivot or iterate? How do I know when to kill a product, if after a couple more tries the initial idea didn't work? [11:36]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Petra Wille is the author of the new book, “Strong Product People: The Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers.” A successful product management and leadership coach based in Germany, Petra joins Melissa to talk through how product teams can meet their full potential, and how leaders can achieve effective whole-person management and mentorship.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Petra talk about in this episode:
How Petra became a product leadership coach. [2:10]
A common complaint from product managers about their professional training is that there is a lack of guidance. There are no career conversations; one-on-one conversations are usually focused on progress updates, revenue updates, and how the product is doing. Managers aren’t focusing on the people development part, and they need to be. [4:45]
Petra lists the five steps to forming strong product people. [6:24]
Petra talks about the PM wheel she created which is a framework of skills every product manager should have. Petra says this framework embodies her principles and values, and it is customized for each company she works with. [12:29]
Petra goes into how she coaches product leaders who don't have backgrounds in product management. [16:40]
Petra explains that if you want to transform your organization, you have to bring in people that know how it’s done. You have to invest in a community of practice. “Do some basic training in the beginning, then create a community of practice. Make sure they learn on the job while they're actually doing it,” Petra tells Melissa. [20:25]
If people who know how to do products aren’t given the support, they aren't going to stay with your company. Give them the infrastructure to be successful, Melissa says. [26:05]
Product managers need to understand and accept that the impact they have now is through others. [27:02]
Giving people several ways to structure their feedback can help them have an open dialogue and not be worried about hurting other people’s feelings. Basing your feedback on the impact of whatever situation or action occurred within the organization, positive or negative, makes all the difference. [29:27]
Petra gives advice for product managers who don’t have leaders that are mentoring them. [35:32]
Resources Petra Wille | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about transforming IT departments and legacy businesses into agile frameworks, reframing leaderships’ “May I take your order” approach towards their product teams, and making your case for strong product management practices within an IT-minded organization.
Q: Our President and VP of IT want to switch the entire company from project management to product management. What advice do you have for a prospective lead product manager with no prior PM experience? [2:04]
Q: How can line workers and IC’s help our management see the value of iterative product development? [10:17]
Q: How do you approach arguing to an IT-minded legacy media company to introduce product discovery when they actually have only one product team to work with and multiple media assets or websites? How do we start building trust so that they are willing to hire more teams? [18:21]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Dave Dame is Director of Accessibility at Microsoft. He has extensive experience in design thinking, product management, and agile delivery. Dave joins Melissa Perri on this week’s Product Thinking podcast show to discuss how making the workplace accessible and inclusive to employees with disabilities is a crucial first step in making truly accessible products.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Dave talk about in this episode:
Dave's role at Microsoft, and how he got involved in product. [2:25]
Dave helps product managers understand the diversity of their users, to ensure that they're creating products that are accessible. Product managers and designers should not be designing for people with disabilities, but with people with disabilities. "There's a difference between meeting the standard and having incredible experiences. We don't want to just meet their needs, we want to give them phenomenal experiences where they become champions of our product," Dave tells Melissa. [6:16]
Designing with persons with disabilities demands that product managers educate themselves on multiple uses of disabilities, and the multiple types of disabilities. It also means learning what tools are being used by persons with disabilities to manipulate your product, and understanding what your competitors are doing. [7:50]
The first step to making sure you're being inclusive to everybody is to hire people with disabilities. [12:50]
Everyone is going to experience some form of disability at some point in their life, so product managers need to build products that can be used by many different inputs, and in many different ways, or else they're going to limit who can use their product. [15:47]
Focus on the usability life cycle instead of the product life cycle. If product managers don't start thinking about that now, they're going to lose long term loyalty and won't be able to support the modern places that use their product. Product managers have to think about it as the inevitable use case for everybody instead of a single unique use case. [18:00]
Any company that is using its accessibility capability as a marketing edge, is a company that's doing it right. [22:21]
No two people with the same disability are the same. [28:17]
Product leaders and managers need to be mindful of individuals with invisible disabilities, and need to be better at being proactive. They need to make sure that no one is being left behind. Different thinking is needed to push towards the future. The only way this can happen is through equitable platforms that allow for diverse thought to exist. [29:32]
When you speak up for your particular needs it becomes relevant for other people in different situations. Disabled people should not have to suffer in silence. [33:07]
Resources Dave Dame | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about which part of an organization really owns user research, the scope of a product team’s vision and strategy, and how to tell when your product has too many features.
Q: How do you delineate the goals of product manager and product marketing research? [2:03]
Q: Should every product manager have a 2 to 10-year vision and strategy, or should each respective PM rather craft division and strategy only covering the current strategic intent? [7:27]
Q: How do you know when you have too many features in your product? Any suggestions on how to change the mindset that more is better? [13:26]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Teresa Torres is a Product Discovery Coach, author, and keynote speaker. She is also the founder of The Product Talk Academy where she helps product teams adopt continuous product discovery practices. Teresa joins Melissa to discuss how product managers can implement strong continuous discovery habits into their product practices and how to communicate that work via roadmaps.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Teresa talk about in this episode:
How Teresa first got involved in product management. [1:12]
The heart of continuous discovery is not about shoving products on our team, but about creating products with them. It’s also about bringing the customer into the building process and figuring out how we make our products work for them. [6:28]
We need to be always careful of who we are including when we define the customer and who we are leaving out. We can’t design a product for everybody but we can be more thoughtful and deliberate about boundaries. [7:26]
Teresa says product leaders need to be deliberate about their ideas, as this will help them make more strategic decisions. [9:41]
Teresa explains the framework of continuous discovery. [11:26]
There are three components of discovering opportunities: understanding what success looks like to us in our organizations, defining the opportunity space, and making sure our solutions align with the other two components. [12:40]
It doesn’t matter what method we use to discover opportunities. What matters is that we need to be outcome-focused, we need to find the right problems to solve, and then we need to find solutions that fit both the problem and the outcome. [14:15]
A big issue with many companies is that they aren’t being deliberate about their target market. They miss out on opportunities because of this. [17:50]
We have to be customer-centric in how we set and frame our outcomes. [22:20]
We need trust that our employees work at our companies because they care about the customer. We need to trust that they’re going to do the right thing and do their best at work every day with what they’re given. When we do that, their compensation does not need to be tied to their outcome. [25:59]
Teresa talks through how to communicate discovery work on roadmaps without getting tied to a fixed timeline. [28:35]
We don’t have to be constantly looking for the next task because if we are following continuous discovery practices, we will always have the next opportunity there. [37:15]
We need to focus on both business value and customer value. We have to serve our customers in ways that will create value for the business. [39:04]
Teresa talks about the target audience for her book. [41:45]
Resources Teresa Torres | LinkedIn | Twitter Product Talk Continuous Discovery Habits
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about compliance, dealing with physical and digital goods simultaneously, and what good UX looks like in really complicated problems.
Q: I started working in product compliance at a company that offers an alternative credit product. It's been challenging for me because product teams do not see the value in my role and do not want to engage in the build-out or with issues that come up as it takes away from them shipping new features. We're a heavily regulated space, but they don't seem to care. And it's making me want to search for a new job. My previous company valued product compliance and saw me as an asset to the team, not a hindrance. How can I help the product managers see the value of my role help? [00:55]
Q: I worked for a retailer that has offline and online shops, and we're trying to move towards being more product-driven. I've read a lot and listened to your answers about organizing product teams to be focused on specific value, streams and jobs to be done, and to keep them as autonomous as possible. But how should this work for companies that are not entirely digital? Our product team needs to work very closely with teams like retail, marketing, and creative when it comes to new features. So, we struggle with setting up teams that can ideate and execute entirely on their own. [05:40]
Q: I think it’s the trend that many people equate good UX to simplicity. Cause simple whizzer like workflow might be okay for a phone app or web page in the B to C world, but I work on a product that is helping users to tackle complex 3D engineering tasks, construction of huge infrastructures, simulations of physical phenomenon, building of airplanes etc. These tasks can't be simple by definition and require a lot of flexibility and functionality. In my experience, blind simplification of the workflow often leads to a UX quality decrease. It's a challenge to get UX designers onboard with this very niche user workflow. What is the best way to approach this challenge, and what UX principles would work best in a complex product environment? [09:15]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com How to Succeed as a Senior Product Leader with Georgie Smallwood
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Justin Anovick. Justin is the Chief Product Officer at Optimizely, a company providing digital platform software services. He is a creative thinker and provides great leadership for his team. Justin joins Melissa to discuss how to navigate through mergers and acquisitions with your organization and how to get all members to play on the same team.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Justin talk about in this episode:
Why Justin became a product officer. [1:01]
Understanding the customer sales cycle allows the product team to know what their customers and prospects are looking for. [3:55]
Designing a product takes specific processes; if you change something at the last minute that change will have a major impact. [7:23]
The questions, challenges, and differences that Justin has to confront now with his new merger and acquisition. [9:09]
It’s very important that everyone is on the same page and understands the vision for the company. “We have to build demos, we have to build the messaging, we have to agree and communicate with the other side to make sure that we're spot on,” he tells Melissa. The vision can’t be conceptualized in a tagline, slogan, or image. The vision has to be about what the product is going to be in the future. [12:15]
The more legitimate you can make a product, the better off you will be. The product team also plays a critical role in this. [15:35]
In ensuring that a merger can be successful, you have to do things to scale. This sometimes means being okay with processes not being as high quality or going as expected. It also means integrating teams and being people first. [18:52]
Invest more in the processes that you're doing well, and come up to average in your weaker areas. [20:52]
Justin uses StrengthFinders quizzes with his team to understand the skills that they have, and how those skills complement him and one another. Managers need to understand that it’s not about adapting our teams to think like we do, but letting their skills complement the skills that we have. [22:36]
Justin’s key focus is making sure everybody in the company understands their role, the direction the company is headed, the mission, and staying in tune with collecting key feedback from key individuals across the organization. [28:47]
Justin talks about the ways he sets goals for Optimizely. [29:36]
Test for understanding by using the passive check. This is simply checking with multiple people and using direct communication. We get more value from this because we can ask follow-up questions, and we don’t have to consult surveys. [34:09]
Resources Justin Anovick | LinkedIn | Twitter Optimizely
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about product operations, how to structure teams in an organization cross-functionally, and knowing when it’s time to scale your product.
Q: What is the problem product operations solves? What does success look like for these teams? How should these teams be structured? Who should these teams report to? [1:08]
Q: How do you know in advance when your product is ready to scale and how do you prepare from a roadmap funding perspective? [11:41]
Q: Can you provide some sample product and design team organization structures that you’ve seen work well? Where do product and business analysts sit in the organization? Do designers, assuming they're part of the product management team umbrella, have assigned PMs to partner with? Do you see product directors who manage product managers as stronger in the company domain, or great PM craft practitioners? [16:38]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Ray McKenzie. Ray is the CEO and founder of StartingPoint Technologies, an organization that develops solutions for service-based companies. He has expertise across a variety of fields, most notably strategy development, workforce analytics, and behavioral analysis. Ray joins Melissa to discuss the ideal marketing strategy that product leaders should be adopting.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Ray talk about in this episode:
How Ray got into product management. [1:16]
Product leaders need to consult with customers and rely on other uses and experiences to outline how to build products. [5:01]
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to a company startup is opening yourself up to criticism and feedback. However, allowing yourself to get feedback, both positive and negative, can benefit your business. [7:41]
Melissa expresses that when building a product, leaders’ main focus should be on how they can make products easy for customers to use. [12:00]
Product management should be tied into strategic decisions in the organization. Product leaders need to be present in decision-making so that they can understand the vision for the business and build products to align with that. [13:50]
Product is a revenue driver and not a cost center. [16:58]
Being product-led is a go-to-market strategy. Building a product-led company means that product building becomes ingrained in the day-to-day work. [18:07]
The different go-to-market strategies that companies need to be thinking about, and how they should decide on which strategy is right for them. [26:53]
The main way to experiment with your go-to-market strategy, or test it, is to talk to people. Talk to your ideal customer, your colleagues, and do market research. “If you just talk to people they will lead you in the direction of where it is easiest to go. And if you're taught to understand who your ideal customer is, talk to as many people of that kind as possible, and they'll tell you where you should invest your go-to-market dollars or go-to-market strategy,” Ray tells Melissa. [30:13]
Companies that aren't software-based need to think about their ideal customers, what their competition is doing, and what differentiates their product from everyone else. [32:52]
Resources Ray McKenzie | LinkedIn | Twitter StartingPoint
Q: I have been offered a senior leadership role, but part of me feels I still haven’t proven myself with any actual company outcomes as an individual contributor. Should I take the role, where I’d be fairly hands-off, or spend more time honing my craft? [0:46]
Q: Is there a way to evaluate an organization before applying? [7:04]
Q: Do you have any tips for finding a good VP of product for a growth-stage startup? [12:18]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Marty Cagan. Marty is a product executive, the Founder and Product Partner of the Silicon Valley Product Group and the author of “Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love”. He has over two decades experience in the field of product management. Marty joins Melissa to discuss product management and how to become the best product manager you can possibly be.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Marty talk about in this episode:
The essence of product is how well the team works together to solve problems in ways customers love, but that which also works for the business. [1:31]
The focus of Marty’s book, Empowered, is helping leadership up their game. If a product team is not performing well, the fault lies with the leaders. [2:58]
The product leader’s first and main job is to make sure that their product team thrives, and that they do their jobs well. Product managers should be encouraging and coaching their teams, and inspiring them so that they can set up their teams for success. [4:23]
“Product teams are only as good as their product managers...if those product managers are not good, it all falls apart and then it doesn't matter how much singing and dancing that product leader can do with the other executives if he or she can't deliver results,” Marty tells Melissa. [8:00]
What causes organizations to use tactics that only focus on cost reduction. [13:28]
The advice Marty gives to clients on what they can do to change their organizations. [17:38]
Becoming a great product manager is about learning from, and being coached by someone who’s dedicated to developing and coaching you. [22:17]
How to know which organizations will be willing to train you and how to find a product leader who is going to put in the time and effort to show you the ropes. [24:30]
Product leaders hire based on a person’s potential. It’s not about an academic qualification but more of a belief in the person’s ability to reach where product leaders think it can be. [27:22]
What organizations should be doing to help bring their less tech savvy employees up to speed, for the benefit of their product teams. [30:28]
One of the biggest issues surrounding product management. [34:59]
The ten keys to successful transformation. [40:38]
Resources Marty Cagan | LinkedIn | Twitter Silicon Valley Product Group
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Amy Radin. Amy is a growth advisor and problem solver for FinTech and MarTech businesses. She has spent over two decades in the marketing, digital, and innovation sector and is currently a member of the Fast Company executive board. Amy joins Melissa to discuss implementing digital transformation in our organizations through relationships.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Amy talk about in this episode:
Amy’s professional background and how she got into digital transformation. [1:29]
You can’t solve new problems with old tools. Helping your organization feel comfortable and embrace a new way of doing processes is key. [6:16]
It is important to build relationships with the influencers and decision-makers within an organization when you are seeking to implement digital transformation. Get a clear understanding of what success means to them. Once they believe that your first priority is to make them successful, you will win their trust and support. [9:01]
When building organizational teams, there is no one-size-fits-all. You have to build on what exists within the organization at the moment as well as acknowledge that there are elements of culture that affect the organizational structure. [14:53]
If employees are unable to adapt to new realities of change in their organizations, leaders have to ask themselves if they’ve given them enough opportunity to build new skills. [17:57]
“You need to build a very diverse team when you're building change...it’s internal and external people who are bringing different life experiences, different backgrounds. You need diversity to solve hard problems,” Amy stresses. [19:49]
We must focus on developing real empathy and deep understanding of our customers’ needs and bring this insight to the organization in a way they will find compelling. [24:32]
How Amy gets her teams to take initiative. [24:45]
Even on the worst days we have to maintain a sense of optimism and believe that we will get there. [30:22]
“You have to look for the actions and behaviors that the organization and the leadership have done either at the organization, or in their prior roles that indicate they understand that you have a common expectation of what transformation and change means and what it takes,” Amy remarks. [35:34]
The behavioral evidence Amy looks for that tells her that the company is ready for transformation. [38:14]
Resources Amy Radin | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers a subscriber’s question about ‘soft skills’ and why they are equally as important as hard skills.
Q: What would you say to someone who's concerned about their assertiveness? [00:51]
Q: What resources or experiences would you recommend for people who recognize the need for hard skills as part of product, but who would intentionally like to cultivate these soft skills (empathy, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence) as well? [9:06]
Q: What would you recommend a team of product managers to do if they’re headed by a CTO who does not have time for the team, or product management know-how? Can a product team ever be successful if they are led by someone who doesn’t seem to have organizational power? [14:03]
Going to the C-suite yourselves may not be the option, but how do you surface up the problem? If it's a good C-suite they should start to see that this is an issue because the team might not be performing the way that they actually expected to be. I think you can go to the C-suite to have conversations about your individual products, not necessarily the same product leader but helps surface up what good looks like. [15:48]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Kathy Pham. Kathy is a computer scientist, a product management executive, and co-leads the Ethics and Responsible Tech at Mozilla. She also co-founded the Mozilla Fix the Internet Incubator, as well as the Product and Society at Mozilla, which focuses on product management, ethics, and the public interest. Kathy joins Melissa to discuss product ethics.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Kathy talk about in this episode:
Interesting details about the product management class Kathy teaches at Harvard. [00:47]
Kathy’s experiences working at The White House, Harvard, and in product management. [5:52]
Ethics and its implications for product management. [12:58]
Accessibility and security are important and need to be integrated into a product from the very beginning. [15:48]
When designing products for an inclusive audience, you have to take into consideration the team culture that is in place and build out those personas to be as inclusive as possible. “I think it's important to build into the culture knowing that the moment something is built it's really hard to reverse,” Kathy tells Melissa.[19:35]
How to respond to changes or challenges with your product platform when it happens in another country where no member of your team is from. [23:34]
As product managers, we need to be listening to our users, and that includes listening to those users who are telling us what we don’t want to hear. It means not condemning or shutting down their feedback by telling them they’re wrong. [28:34]
Having diverse perspectives within our product teams is very important for the decision-making process. It ensures that the concerns of the target audience are heard and are taken into account. [30:32]
When the people building our program algorithms make terrible assumptions or have blind spots, they bake into them issues that already exist in the world and just propagate them through code. [38:50]
Resources Kathy Pham | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers a subscriber’s question about choice architecture and competing priorities between the business and the customer.
Q: How do you balance the ethics of choice architecture as a product manager who is responsible for satisfying possible divergent priorities between the business and the customer? What is our duty when priorities may conflict?
Hear Melissa talk about:
Choice architecture and dark patterns
What to do with your priorities conflict with each other
How ethics in product is vital to how you view your products
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Matt Wallaert. Matt is a behavioral scientist and a product strategist. He has spent over twenty years applying behavioral sciences to practical problems. He currently holds the position of Executive Director of Behavioral Science at Frog, a Capgemini Company, where he helps organizations build their own behavioral science capabilities.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Matt talk about in this episode:
Behavior change can be applied across many disciplines but its natural home is product. The point of product is to change behavior. [1:09]
How Matt got interested in the world of behavioral science. [3:07]
What it means to have actual outcomes for customers and how behavioral science can be used to point out what those outcomes should look like. [8:41]
When doing behavioral research, segment on behaviors rather than demographics. [9:43]
Behavioral statements come at the very beginning, and they describe the end. It's calling into being what hasn't yet occurred. [13:08]
Activating someone means to get them engaged. "If people feel like they're creating business value, they'll be super engaged." [17:53]
Product leaders need a deep understanding of the human side of product management. [26:08]
The best product managers are curious people. They want to know how the system fits together and how all the processes within the system work. [30:00]
How product leaders can determine if a person has cognition, and the relevant questions to ask to find out. [30:38]
"If you can figure out how to change behavior naturally in the world, I can teach you the science part. I can teach you the process part. I can teach you four stages and competing pressures and all of the tricks and tips and tools that we use to make this work in the modern environment. But you have to want to be that person," Matt says. [35:19]
"Product people are not status quo people. It's inherently about difference. It's inherently about change." [36:21]
Resources Matt Wallaert | LinkedIn | Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to use their time wisely, whether they’re trying to support their sales team with a complex product, getting the most out of a customer advisory board, or finding time for discovery work on a Scrum-focused team.
Q: I'm constantly helping our sales team run demo calls and our account managers onboard and set up new customers. What can I do to empower my team so I can focus on improving our product instead? Have you ever used a dedicated team member to fill this space as a product specialist role? [1:38]
Q: What am I signing up for when setting up a customer advisory board? What should I do to launch it smoothly and get the most out of it? What risks am I facing? Is this a stupid idea? [9:31]
Q: Is there a way to make product discovery a process and make time for it, like what scrum does for delivery? [16:28]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
This week’s guest is C. Todd Lombardo, the VP of Product and Experience at Openly. C. Todd and Melissa discuss product research–a key combination of user research, market research, and analytics–and how product managers can better implement research practices into their organizations.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Todd talk about in this episode:
The kind of product leadership Todd does, and how he got invested in product management. [1:24]
The biggest change in product management in the last decade is the legitimacy of position, and product leaders finally having important roles in organizations. [5:40]
Product research is about gathering information and trying to synthesize it in a meaningful way. [10:48]
Product managers need to have the ability to go out and speak with customers and do qualitative research. [13:16]
The mindset of discovery, and how it can contribute to designers and engineers making better decisions which lead to better products and eventually, better outcomes. [18:23]
Our job as product leaders is to figure out what our customers want. [21:55]
One of the main rules of product research is to prepare to be wrong and go into [product research] with the intent to prove yourself wrong. “If you can't prove yourself wrong you might be onto something right.” [27:09]
Always take into account the audience you’re presenting to. Remember that you’re talking to busy executives, so share your conclusions up front so that they don’t miss the main points. [30:30]
Resources C Todd Lombardo | LinkedIn | Twitter Openly
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about:
Q: As a CPO, what should I think about when managing disciplines I’m not an expert in? [1:08]
Q: Do you have any tips on how to set up good 30-60-90 day smart goals as a product manager for a mature startup? [7:00]
Q: What advice do you have in evaluating next steps in moving on to a career after product management? [14:51]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
The theme of this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is agile development, and Melissa Perri’s guest this week is Jeff Patton of Jeff Patton & Associates. Jeff is one of the first agile product managers, and his company helps other companies use product and customer- centric thinking to improve their market and the way they work. Jeff and Melissa to discuss agile development in this week’s show, including what’s currently going wrong with it.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Jeff talk about in this episode:
How both Jeff and Melissa got into agile development. [01:10]
The issues agile development was created to mitigate. [7:01]
How agile development was understood when it was first created. [14:15]
The difference between agile development now and agile development in the past is understanding what an outcome is. “[Product] outcome is measured by whether the customers and users see you try and use it, and keep using it,” Jeff tells Melissa. [14:51]
Product development is about prototyping, experimenting, and spending time with customers. [19:12]
Three things you should never not do in agile development. [21:54]
Companies are now conducting more business via technology which requires them to become more agile. However, they’re not adopting the agile manifesto in the right way. [30:55]
Jeff hopes that agile development will morph and become what it needs to be in the future. [39:09]
Resources Jeff Patton | LinkedIn | Twitter Jeff Patton & Associates
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about applying product practices to nonprofit companies and customer engagement and debunks myths about MVPs.
Q: How applicable are product best practices and principles outside of for-profit SAAS companies? [1:08]
Q: Do you have any suggestions on how we can encourage our users to experiment with the new payment method our company introduced? [6:32]
Q: How do I advocate for a more iterative and incremental approach to new product releases and product updates, as opposed to big bang releases? [10:34]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
The theme of this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is culture, and Melissa Perri’s guest is Gibson Biddle, author of the “Ask Gib” product newsletter. Gibson is dedicated to teaching product strategy and culture both in and outside of the classroom. He joins Melissa to discuss the importance of having a good organizational culture, and how that affects strategy.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Gibson talk about in this episode:
The product leader’s job is to delight customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways (DHM). [3:18]
How Netflix developed their high-level strategy for personalization. [8:47]
Gibson’s experience with managing the product team as VP of Product Management at Netflix. Every product leader who worked for him was expected to have clear, defined strategies for their teams. [12:39]
The failure of Project Griffin. [20:37]
Building a culture where everyone is on the same page about making the best choices for the business is difficult, but not impossible. One key practice is context over control; ensure that everyone understands the context that the business is operating in. [25:54]
“At the end of the day, people are not there forever but the culture is; the culture describes the [company’s] values and the values describe the skills and behaviors of everyone in the building,” Gibson tells Melissa. “At our quarterly meetings, we would discuss strategy, but we would also learn to form good judgment. This is what the culture is about; helping individuals make great decisions about products.” [29:41]
"Culture is all about who you hire… who you promote- every time someone was promoted to director or VP there was a celebration because it was about them being a culture carrier, them living the Netflix culture. And [when you would] let people go, they might demonstrate amazing results, but they were living outside of Netflix's values,” Gibson shares. [38:46]
Strategy is important when starting a product organization, but it’s ok if half of it fails. It’s a process and a bunch of hypotheses that you need to learn from. [43:46]
Resources Gibson Biddle on LinkedIn | Twitter GibsonBiddle.com
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about the design and strategy in building the best product teams.
Q: Is dividing teams to generate results in different strategies a wise decision? If so, how should they communicate with each other? If not, what is the right way to organize teams? [00:47]
Q: Are there any best practices in organizing digital products, future teams, and squads? How do you coordinate a backlog of all the products that are connected in an ecosystem of digital products? [4:53]
Q: How do you rightsize your product teams and value streams when the typical software system can be huge with small components? [9:41]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
The theme of this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is transformation, and Melissa Perri’s guest this week is Brian Bhuta, Chief Product Officer at Signify Health. Brian is an experienced product leader and is passionate about establishing and scaling product management organizations in an agile environment. He joins Melissa to discuss transformations and product management from an inside perspective.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Brian talk about in this episode:
How Brian and Melissa both got into product transformation. [1:50]
The raw material of transformation is people who are passionate about wanting to do better on a regular basis. [07:09]
Employees and customers want a bold vision, and not a boring one. [10:26]
Consider and acknowledge that there are people who have invested more into the company than you have. A leader who has the goal of product transformation, but who has a mindset that they’re going to “save” or “fix” the company, is doomed to alienate the people who have helped build the company to where it is. [14:19]
We have to build a relationship with our team and the people we are now in charge of. “You’re never gonna be able to work with someone if you don’t understand them,” Brain tells Melissa. [22:24]
An executive who sees themself as part of the team will make great steps towards transformation and help the company move towards a great workplace culture. [30:54]
When selling a product we need to consider if the product and the market are right. We also need to make sure that we are not promising too many things to our customers. [46:11]
Melissa and Brian talk about building relationships as both sales and product leaders, and building trust internally. [47:37]
Once you build a foundation of trust you can deal with any subsequent backlash or friction that may arise as systems begin to change. [52:07]
Resources Brian Bhuta | LinkedIn, Twitter
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about product teams with unequipped product leaders, ineffective usage of data, and killing products. Q: Have you come across situations in your career as a product manager where you were under the authority of people with no background in product management? How would you recommend I bring my concern about this to my leadership without coming across as arrogant? [1:08]
Q: My organization struggles to use data effectively. What are some ways to convey the importance of data to leadership? And what are some achievable milestones that can be acquired to prove the value of investing in data? [9:14]
Q: How can I reframe the decision to kill products so that everyone can understand them? [13:32]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Melissa Perri welcomes Ben Foster - Chief Product Officer at Whoop and author of Building What Matters: Delivering Key Outcomes with Vision-Led Product Management - to this week’s Product Thinking Podcast. Ben is an experienced product leader who teaches the value of vision to help us craft the right strategy and achieve our desired outcomes. He joins Melissa to discuss the framework he details in his book and what makes a great vision.
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Ben talk about in this episode:
Ben and Melissa swap stories of how they “accidentally” got into product management. [2:31]
Ben’s book describes what causes some companies to struggle with product management, as well as what makes other companies excel. It also features recommendations for product leaders. [9:10]
Vision-led product management, Ben tells Melissa, is “being definitive about what the value of your product is going to be, for whom you're going to provide that value, where the differentiation is going to lie, ...all these major components of the product vision.” [10:12]
Successful companies see their profits as a byproduct of the value they provide for their customers. Defining what success looks like to customers involves deep research into who your customers are, what motivates them, who else can solve their problem, and what would make them choose you and stay with you. “As you map that out,” Ben remarks, “then you can make sure that everybody on the product team is rowing in the same direction towards actually realizing that vision.” [11:35]
Melissa asks Ben to talk about how he implemented his vision-led product management framework at Go Canvas. [20:02]
Melissa and Ben talk about the steps in the customer journey. [22:17]
“The reason that people actually buy is because of the performance things; the reason they continue to buy is because of the delight,” Ben emphasizes. [27:55]
Melissa asks Ben, “What else do you see [as] the differentiators between companies that do product management well and companies that don't?” Ben responds, “One of the key elements for me is they understand the connectedness between value for their customers and value for their business.” [32:33]
Ben and Melissa discuss how to convince the CEO that not every opportunity should be pursued. [42:26]
Resources Ben Foster on LinkedIn Building What Matters: Delivering Key Outcomes with Vision-Led Product Management
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about pragmatic versus ideal product management, internal product management, and determining how to build products for a two-sided marketplace.
Q: Do you think there should be a difference between ideal product management and pragmatic product management? [0:59]
Q: What kind of metrics are you looking at when customer-based internal users are forced to use the software? There's no LTV, CAC, revenue models, or any of the normal user metrics in B2C or B2B. [7:38]
Q: We're building a product for renters, our end users, and landlords, our customers. I'm struggling with prioritizing whose problems to solve first. Is it better to build for our paying customer first, or do we build as fast as possible for renters but risk more turnover with the landlords? [14:03]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Oji Udezue is the Chief Product Officer at Parsible and was formerly the VP of Product at Calendly. Melissa Perri describes him as “one of the best product leaders I have ever met.” His extensive experience in both B2B and B2C companies, including Microsoft and Atlassian, has given him insight into how to set strategy, even in companies where there is none. He joins Melissa to talk about what it takes to implement a product-led strategy, and how to influence a culture shift in your organization.
Here are some key points from their discussion:
Oji defines being product-led as “increasing customer focus… It means infusing the entire company with this idea that it's more efficient for everyone… to really execute on a really great product that pulls itself forward. And if you can do that then your ability to make profit actually increases…” [2:40]
The role of the CPO is to understand the company goals, vision, and mission and track an efficient product course to achieve that. The CPO’s biggest leverage is deciding what to invest in and what not to, Oji says. [6:13]
A draft strategy is a lightning rod: it gets the discussion started. Oji uses the VMSO (vision, mission, strategies, objectives) framework to draft strategy. Melissa asks him to advise product leaders who want to start drafting a strategy. He urges them to write it down and then socialize it. He also emphasizes that your draft strategy should be good: people should see wisdom and truth in it. [13:10]
Oji predicts that all enterprise companies will become B2C in 10 years. [22:05]
Melissa asks what is product-led growth. Oji defines the term and explains what it takes: a good product with great market fit, a good brand, good word of mouth and virality. [27:02]
You have to expand your addressable market constantly to stay in the game. [30:38]
Oji and Melissa discuss how product leaders can help change their company culture. [33:00]
Resources Oji Udezue on LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium
In this Dear Melissa episode, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about product transformation.
Q1: As the leader of a new product function initiative, what steps can I take to earn the CEO’s trust and create a company culture that embraces an outcome-driven and product-lead mindset? [2:07]
Q2: How can I ensure my company is approaching product transformation in the right way? [7:31]
Q3: How long does it take a strong product manager (junior to intermediate level) to make some positive impact in a company that lacks a good product culture? Should they stick around if there are no big positive changes after a year, or should they move on to try and learn elsewhere? [15:18]
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Kate Leto is an organisational design consultant, coach and product advisor with a 25 year track record helping to build product teams that thrive. She joins Melissa Perri today to talk about some of the challenges in filling product management roles that companies run into all the time – and how to overcome them. Ultimately, Kate believes that growth mindset – both of leadership teams and product managers themselves is what makes the difference between success and failure. is a career coach who specializes in hiring product managers and organizational design. Here are some key points from Melissa and Kate’s conversation:
There are two high level motivations for hiring a product manager. This first is because it ticks a box, the second because you need to make meaningful change. [Listen at 04:45]
How Kate has learned to hire great product managers, and strategies for doing so that she helps her clients implement. [Listen at 07:30]
The role of emotional intelligence in product management and organizational design, and the key trait that indicates someone will be successful. (Listen from 12:00]
The Story of Pete – the team member we’ve all worked with who is technically excellent – but not so strong on the human skills. [Listen at 14:45]
How to identify and call out the specific issues when you get the feeling that something is off during the interview process. [Listen from 22:30]
What is the mindset you need for success, and what happens when someone doesn’t have it. [Listen from 28:00]
The diversity problem plaguing many organizations in tech and other industries; Kate and Melissa talk about how to get out of the trap of hiring the same person over and over again. [Listen from 29:40]
Hiring for senior and director level positions, and making sure you’re attracting a diverse array of applicants. [Listen from 43:45]
Resources Kate Leto KateLeto.com | Twitter | LinkedIn
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about transitioning into product management.
Q: What can I do to prove to potential employers that I have what it takes to be successful as a product manager, even though I don’t have experience? How do I write my resume?
A: Right now, companies are looking for senior product managers to balance out their teams, since they have mostly trained juniors. You should look for a company on LinkedIn that will invest time and resources into training you. Investigate their product leader: if they are very experienced, they will likely know how to train people and be more willing to find people to work with. For resumes, I recommend highlighting your achievements in previous jobs that are affiliated with product management, such as doing customer interviews and creating personas. Pull out what’s relevant and tell the story the way you want to tell it.
Q: Do you need an MBA to become a product manager?
A: MBA’s typically help product managers in leadership positions, but it’s not a requirement for transitioning into the field.
Q: What steps should a senior product manager take to move into a director role if he or she has not had the opportunity to manage people?
A: What I’ve seen that helps people move into that role is showing that you can be strategic and think outside the box. Additionally, you have to be more business-focused; while we want to ruthlessly prioritize the user and their needs, you also have to figure out how to prioritize that within the frame of your company strategy. Think about what the company strategy is and then take every chance you get to explain to the leaders how your product can help achieve those goals.
Q: How do I evaluate a company's maturity and practice in modern product management? What should I look for before and during the interview process?
A: Here are some questions I ask product management leaders to gauge the company’s maturity, and what the responses indicate. What are your most important business goals? What are your most important product goals? What are you working on now and why? If they can't tell me the story behind that, it means that there's no strategy in the organization or that there's misalignment. If you get to meet the head of sales or the head of engineering, ask them about product management to see if they have a good understanding of it. If the rest of the organization doesn't know what you do, you're probably gonna have a hard time executing and doing your job there.
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Creating great products is about the systems, processes, and culture in place that help companies deliver value to their customers. On the Product Thinking Podcast, host Melissa Perri interviews the thought leaders in product development and answers your pressing questions to help you think like a great product leader.
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about strategy.
Q: How do you convince the CTO of the value of working towards understanding problems rather than defining pre-made solutions? [1:54]
A: Sometimes you just have to demonstrate to them what the customer discovery process is, how it works and why it's valuable, which means you'll have to go out and do it. Figure out how you can define that value, package that up into something that will work for your CTO, and then present it. Start small and demonstrate success.
Q: Do you have any tips for a product leader to make sure that their team gets the big picture and has visibility and ownership end-to-end, including the business success? [9:00]
A: There is often a misalignment of business goals across multiple levels of organizations, which indicates that something is wrong with the product strategy. [I suggest] you over-communicate and ensure that the product strategy is well deployed. Everyone needs to understand what problems they are facing and what goals they are trying to achieve.
Q: What’s your recommendation on building a product strategy at small scale within the product team and leveraging that strategy up to get broader visibility, and buying from leadership and other stakeholders? Does that work? [13:55]
A: Yes, it does work. I would start by finding out if there’s a product strategy that’s been poorly deployed. Figure out the goals that the executives want to achieve, use that opportunity to define said goals, and build your product strategy.
Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com
Creating great products is about the systems, processes and culture in place that help companies deliver value to their customers. On the Product Thinking Podcast, host Melissa Perri interviews the thought leaders in product development and answers your pressing questions to help you think like a great product leader.
Melissa continues the conversation about strategy, this time from the perspective of the senior product leader. What does it take to be a good CPO? What role does a product manager play in setting strategy for the company? What’s the difference between company strategy and product strategy? Melissa poses these questions to this week’s guest, Georgie Smallwood. Georgie is the Chief Product Officer at Tier Mobility, and the former CPO of N26. She has deep insights into what it takes to create and successfully implement product strategy, and why that is important for autonomy.
Here are some key points from Melissa and Georgie’s discussion:
Your strategy is the connector between your mission and achieving that mission. It narrows your frame of work and space you can operate in, Georgie says. [6:04]
“Creating the strategy is just one part of it. You have to over-communicate all the time. Everything has to come back to it,” Georgie points out. [9:45]
Melissa and Georgie discuss the differing ideas around the concept of autonomy. Should there be autonomy without constraints? What is privileged autonomy? [11:42]
No product strategy framework is better than any other one. What matters, Georgie says, is how effectively you use them and what you do with them. [20:00]
“If you want to change the way that people are doing things in the future, no amount of data is really gonna help you; because there are some leap of faith assumptions that you need to take.” [22:53]
If you want to be a senior leader you need to be an expert in something. You need both hard skills and soft skills to be effective. [35:25]
Georgie answers a Dear Melissa submission. [35:53]
Resources Georgie Smallwood on LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium
Creating great products is about the systems, processes and culture in place that help companies deliver value to their customers. On the Product Thinking Podcast, host Melissa Perri interviews the thought leaders in product development and answers your pressing questions to help you think like a great product leader.
This episode is all about strategy: what it is vs what it isn’t, and how to create a good one. The expert Melissa turns to for strategy advice is Barry O’Reilly, entrepreneur and business strategist who has “pioneered the intersection of business model innovation, product development, organizational design and culture transformation.” Barry is also the author of two seminal books on product strategy and development - Unlearned: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results, and The Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale.
These are some highlights from Melissa and Barry’s conversation:
Learn about the pitfalls that growing companies often experience when they lack clear strategy. [5:15]
Strategy is making choices. Barry and Melissa talk about defining your expectations for the outcome, and how to measure the effectiveness of your decisions. [14:40]
Bad strategy sounds like fluff, so Barry shares what makes a strategy great. [23:15]
Strategy evolves over time - you make choices, execute, evaluate and iterate based on what you learn. [33:10]
Barry explains why cross-functional teams are the best way to approach creating strategy. [38:50]
Product management is a creative skill. Melissa and Barry discuss why making space for thinking is important for product leaders. [45:20]
Resources BarryOReilly.com Barry O’Reilly on LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results The Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale
Product management has been adopted all over the world in the last decade. But despite its popularity, great product management is still hard to come by. The Product Thinking podcast is setting out to change that. This show will cover:
How product leadership influences organizational systems so that product management can thrive.
What the role of a product manager looks like at every level.
How to invest in yourself as a product manager at every stage of your career.
Product Thinking will have two different kinds of episodes - Dear Melissa, a direct line to Melissa to pose your biggest product management questions, and deep-dive conversations with industry leading experts who are pushing the boundaries of what it looks like to excel in this industry. Melissa Perri is a product management leader turned educator and author who has trained hundreds of people around the world to think like great product leaders. Learn more at Produxlabs.com.