This video, titled "Product Strategy: The Missing Link," features Marty Cagan discussing the importance of product strategy and the difference between empowered product teams and feature teams. Cagan explains that empowered teams solve hard problems that customers love and work for the business, while feature teams simply follow roadmaps. He emphasizes that good product strategy requires focus, generating insights, coordinating actions, and active management, contrasting this with common pitfalls found in most companies.
Key Takeaways
1
Marty Cagan's book "Inspired" focuses on how good product teams solve difficult problems in ways that customers love and work for the business.
2
Many companies operate as 'feature teams,' which are given a roadmap and simply crank out features, unlike 'empowered product teams' that are designed to solve problems.
3
A product manager on a feature team often acts more like a project manager, primarily focused on moving designs through engineering to shipment, without deep involvement in value or viability.
4
Product strategy is the critical bridge between a company's vision and the actual work product teams undertake.
5
A common mistake in many companies is the absence of a real product strategy, leading to large lists of features without clear objectives, much like the 'Underpants Gnomes' analogy.
6
Real product strategy is difficult and requires a talented leader to identify critical issues, find leverage, and focus attention on what truly matters.
7
Four essential elements for a good product strategy include focus on critical problems, generating insights, coordinating actions, and actively managing (not micromanaging) the teams.
8
Focus is not prioritization; it means identifying the few initiatives that will genuinely move the needle for the business, rather than trying to do many things at once.
9
Insights can come from various sources including qualitative customer conversations, quantitative data analysis (like A/B tests), advancements in technology, and understanding industry and market trends.
10
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are only effective and meaningful in companies that already operate with an empowered product team model, not in traditional feature team structures.
No matching segments found
0:03
hi I'm Dan Olson and we had another
0:05
great speaker at lean product meet up
0:07
tonight Marty Kagan he's right back
0:08
there product expert and author of
0:11
inspired this is the second edition of
0:13
his book you may have read the first
0:14
edition or maybe read this one tonight
0:16
he gave a new talk on product strategy
0:19
and so we were very excited to hear
0:22
about that he shared a lot of great
0:23
insights and advice we also had a lot of
0:26
great Q&A with the audience so I hope
0:28
you enjoy it if you do please like the
0:29
video subscribe to our Channel and also
0:32
sign up for notifications so you get
0:34
notified when we publish other videos
0:36
thanks and enjoy it's good to see
0:37
everybody and I am curious how many of
0:41
you might have been it's like an annual
0:43
tradition of Dan and I come here each
0:45
year but I was about this time last year
0:48
and I gave a talk that I wanted to see
0:51
how many of you might have been here for
0:53
that just quick show of hands some of
0:56
you the reason I ask is because I talked
0:59
about it was actually a talk that was
1:02
describing what I wanted to work on for
1:04
the next several years just quickly in
1:07
summary that you know my book inspired
1:11
is really about how good product teams
1:14
solve hard problems in ways customers
1:16
love but work for the business and
1:18
admittedly that's my favorite thing to
1:20
do I love working with teams to do that
1:22
that's when most people get into product
1:24
to do but I shared last year that I've
1:28
met many teams I realized that was in a
1:31
bubble here in Silicon Valley and I met
1:34
many teams not only outside of Silicon
1:37
Valley in fairness but also any right in
1:39
San Francisco that they're not allowed
1:45
to work that way they're literally not
1:47
allowed to work the way a good team
1:49
works and this of course is just insane
1:52
to me and I wanted to understand why and
1:55
I sort of went on a crusade I started a
1:58
multi-year effort I gave a talk last
2:02
year which was about empowered it was
2:04
about the difference is an empowered
2:07
product team versus a
2:09
command-and-control
2:10
also known as a feature team and I
2:13
talked a lot of
2:14
you know feature teams are given a road
2:16
map and they just crank out features
2:17
versus a real product team which is
2:19
there to solve problems and I also said
2:22
that I was planning for the next several
2:26
years to write about what's necessary to
2:30
actually change into one of these
2:32
companies to move from the most kind of
2:35
company to the best kind of company and
2:37
I have for those that haven't been
2:40
following you know my blog I have been
2:44
writing many articles my initial focus
2:46
was on the biggest area I felt was
2:48
missing which was coaching that the
2:51
managers were not doing their jobs to
2:53
develop their people and it in for an
2:56
empowered product team you really need
2:58
that it's a hard job in fact I have been
3:02
increasingly honest and frank with
3:04
people about the difference between
3:06
being a product manager on a feature
3:08
team and a product manager on a true
3:10
empowered product team on a feature team
3:14
which is what most people sadly are it's
3:18
really a project manager with a pretty
3:20
name pretty title it's really a project
3:23
manager
3:24
they are Shep if you think about it
3:26
what's really going on is there's a
3:27
little bit of design and maybe if you're
3:30
lucky a little usability testing and
3:32
then code QA ship that's what goes on so
3:36
the quote product manager is really
3:38
there to herd the cats get everything
3:40
getting from design into engineering and
3:43
out and of course that is not what good
3:48
companies do and that is not how they
3:50
solve problems and I had talked before
3:53
about why and you know how good
3:55
companies work but I didn't really shine
3:57
a light on the difference and so I have
4:01
been doing that my series on coaching
4:05
has been going for months and I finished
4:08
most of the topics I wanted to write
4:10
about I've got a few more I should
4:13
mention din and I do share a publisher
4:14
and I agreed to another book so all of
4:17
these articles are one day want to be
4:21
chapters in a book depending on and how
4:23
well they do out with the community so I
4:26
share each one and I get feedback and I
4:28
decide if I can improve it or if I
4:30
should just scrap the idea or we think
4:32
the idea whatever but the nice part
4:35
about that is when I do actually get to
4:37
the point of a book I have a lot of data
4:38
that says this is actually answering
4:40
real questions and so I like the process
4:43
so it's some work now though I told Dan
4:50
I have a few other talks and I wanted to
4:54
use this group which honestly I consider
4:56
my home group this is my you know this
4:59
is where I'm spent 40 years so I love
5:03
this area and I and of course a lot of
5:06
you I've met before and know many of the
5:08
companies and I said I wanted to try out
5:10
a new topic I'm gonna admit I actually
5:13
picked the hardest topic to talk about
5:15
because this is one actually product
5:18
strategy is what I usually reserve for
5:21
when I advise a company because and
5:24
that's pretty much what advisors do is
5:26
strategy there's a little bit on
5:29
technique and process and stuff but
5:31
mostly it's about strategy that's a lot
5:33
easier to do one-on-one with a company
5:35
than it is to talk in general terms so
5:39
alright but I had to talk tackle that
5:41
with the purpose of the book so I am
5:45
trying out a big topic on you
5:47
and I'll also warn you that this really
5:51
is a big topic I'm not exaggerating we
5:54
could talk all day on this and so I kind
5:57
of I'm gonna plan a lot of seeds with
6:00
you I'm not trying to just tease you or
6:03
anything it's just I want to get you to
6:05
rethink some of the things that are
6:07
going on and in probably your company in
6:09
many companies for those that haven't
6:13
heard me talk I'm kind of all about the
6:15
difference between the best companies
6:16
and the rest I will admit to especially
6:20
in this book there's four companies that
6:22
have very heavily influenced me I went
6:24
back to these companies I was really
6:26
looking at what's different those are
6:28
Amazon Google Netflix Apple now of
6:32
course there's other really good
6:33
companies Airbnb slack Etsy we can keep
6:37
going other really good
6:38
companies but those four I'm just sort
6:41
of confessing that they had a
6:43
disproportionate impact on me and partly
6:46
because they have consistently innovated
6:49
they really have and sort of they've
6:51
earned their place for me and the other
6:55
reason was is because those four
6:57
companies if you've been inside those
6:59
four companies they have very different
7:01
cultures and this is something that kind
7:04
of makes this whole discussion tough
7:07
because I I'll admit I used to say good
7:11
companies had a strong product culture
7:13
bad company's IT culture you've probably
7:15
heard that and the truth is it's more
7:18
nuanced than that yeah for example all
7:21
you have to do is go visit an Amazon go
7:22
visit Google and there are two
7:24
completely different planets they have
7:27
very different cultures yet you'll see
7:31
they have very common philosophy when it
7:34
comes to the topic of empowered product
7:37
teams in fact they share that with them
7:39
with Google and with Netflix and so I've
7:43
been spending time untangling what I
7:46
think is really essential about those
7:49
four companies from what's just honestly
7:52
a reflection of their founders so what I
7:56
think is really important from what's
7:58
just sort of incidental and admittedly
8:01
that's driven a lot by my own judgment
8:03
of this but but that's what I'm sharing
8:05
with you it's like those companies do
8:08
strategy much different and much better
8:12
than most companies as an example they
8:15
also do coaching much better and so
8:17
these are the things I'm talking about
8:18
so Dan did a good job giving you my
8:21
background so I don't need to repeat
8:23
that what I do is let's start by talking
8:26
about what I even mean by product
8:29
strategy so empowered product teams are
8:34
all about giving teams hard problems to
8:37
solve and also giving them the space to
8:41
solve them the Netflix phrases that is
8:44
give them freedom and give them space to
8:47
do their thing and that's really what
8:49
we're talking about now the real
8:51
question though
8:52
here how does a company decide which
8:55
problems they should actually work on
9:00
that's what we mean by strategy product
9:04
strategy
9:05
let's also admit there's market strategy
9:08
business strategy sales strategy every
9:11
kind of strategy we are talking product
9:14
strategy which is really another way of
9:16
phrasing it is how do you make the
9:17
product vision a reality
9:19
but this is this topic of product
9:22
strategy is really a critical topic
9:24
because it's the bridge between your
9:27
vision and what product teams actually
9:30
work on that's what's key now this is
9:35
one of the most remarkable things to me
9:38
but when we talk about most companies
9:40
rather than the best companies many of
9:43
you probably seen this it'll just be a
9:45
fun one I can watch this a hundred times
9:47
this is the underpants gnomes if you
9:49
don't know the underpants gnomes you're
9:51
in for a treat this is the shorter
9:54
version if you watch this at work turn
9:58
down the volume but anyway let's show it
10:03
and then I'll tell you why I relate to
10:05
it so well I cut off some of the more
10:43
egregious issues things they talked
10:45
about in there but honestly I know
10:49
that's I mean it's funny but it's so
10:51
true this is so true I cannot tell you
10:55
how many companies I meet they have some
10:57
big objective you know they're pretty
10:59
much all the same to like double revenue
11:01
and reduce our churn rate all this so
11:03
they have all these big you know
11:05
objectives but but then all of a sudden
11:09
you got a road map of a hundred features
11:12
it's like what yeah you know what is
11:15
missing from this picture strategy is
11:18
missing from this picture now it's more
11:21
insidious than that I really do believe
11:23
I understand the reasons that's missing
11:25
now fundamentally at one level the
11:29
reason it's missing is because it's hard
11:31
and companies hate hard things I mean
11:34
I've learned that over the years for
11:36
sure they hate hard things and you know
11:39
there are if you go online in Google
11:42
like products strategy or make the
11:44
mistake of saying product strategy
11:46
framework you will get all kinds of
11:50
garbage that comes back that tries to
11:53
give you like a fill-in-the-blank thing
11:56
and that you know and that's course
11:59
they're useless now one of the reasons
12:01
well you'll see why but these things are
12:04
useless and also a lot of people
12:07
most companies honestly don't do
12:09
anything I'm serious they're they don't
12:10
do anything they go right to roadmaps
12:12
but some companies like we should have a
12:15
strategy I mean they talk about that in
12:17
business school we should have a
12:18
strategy so what do they do they hire
12:21
our McKinsey or they hire Bain or
12:23
somebody like that which they don't
12:25
realize it but they're actually giving
12:26
them a business strategy not a product
12:28
strategy so it's not even really useful
12:30
to us but still they feel like they have
12:32
a nice PowerPoint presentation now that
12:34
they can show oh my gosh it's really
12:37
it's really depressing but if you look
12:41
at what a real good strategy is there is
12:44
some talented leader and honestly this
12:47
is a theme I come back to all the time
12:49
in the good companies they have good
12:51
leaders it's really the key difference
12:54
but they have a talented leader that
12:57
identifies the few critical issues and
13:00
they actually figure out how to get
13:03
leverage out of what they work on and
13:06
then they focus the attention the action
13:10
on things that actually matters that is
13:14
so different than what most companies do
13:17
now
13:19
what I wanted to drill into is Wow
13:22
well why don't companies really do this
13:25
the fundamental reason is because it's
13:27
hard but the more specifically there are
13:32
four things that have to be done well to
13:35
do have a good product strategy and each
13:37
of those four things as you'll see that
13:40
you probably know are difficult things
13:42
for companies to do if it was easy we
13:45
wouldn't have this issue so what I
13:47
wanted to do is sort of work through
13:49
these four things both pointing out what
13:53
I find in most companies and then trying
13:55
to show you what I see in good companies
13:58
of course where we really need more time
14:00
would be and what a good companies do
14:02
and that is why I'm working on a book so
14:04
all right let's talk about the the four
14:09
big things first of all they have to be
14:12
able to focus that word most companies
14:15
are allergic to that word they really
14:18
don't understand what focus is most of
14:22
them think it's prioritization is not
14:24
prioritization but we'll talk about what
14:26
it really is but they have to focus on
14:28
the critical problems it's one of the
14:31
true things about businesses that not
14:33
all problems are equal alright second
14:37
they have to generate insights on how to
14:40
attack those problems that's a hard one
14:44
for most companies it's the heart
14:48
it's the heart of good companies but
14:51
it's very hard for most companies third
14:53
they actually have to coordinate the
14:56
actions for each product team this is
14:58
this is literally where a strategy turns
15:01
into work turns into actions and then
15:05
finally they have to actively manage I'm
15:08
still looking for the right verb there
15:10
but it's because I do not mean
15:13
micromanage here of course I do not mean
15:16
that but I also don't mean passive
15:18
management so many people think that
15:21
agile teams and say and honestly even
15:24
they think empowered teams mean back off
15:27
managers and it is so not true it's
15:30
exactly the opposite
15:32
so we need to talk about I say this a
15:34
lot now is just we don't need less
15:37
management we need better management so
15:40
these are the four things and I want to
15:42
drill into each of them let's start with
15:44
focus so you guys know most companies
15:52
this is not really a secret how many
15:54
companies struggle with focus and being
15:58
able to really choose and I want to be
16:00
clear what I mean by focus I was
16:03
actually at a company just recently and
16:05
and I I've seen this on many companies I
16:07
wouldn't be surprised if you've seen it
16:09
at yours so all along some wall
16:11
somewhere or at least on some
16:13
spreadsheet floating around is a list of
16:16
the top priority initiatives or whatever
16:19
you want to call them the big things not
16:22
the little thing I'm not even talking
16:23
about little roadmap I'm talking about
16:24
the big things and this one company had
16:27
over 60 of them literally and those were
16:31
like we must do 60 things we must do and
16:36
you know what's funny is I had this
16:37
conversation with their leaders I mean
16:39
like did you can we talk about focus and
16:42
they're like oh yeah that's the prune
16:43
down list right we wanted to do much
16:47
more we know what it means to sacrifice
16:50
no but honestly I'm gonna be real with
16:55
you at this level if you've got more
16:56
than a few it's too many so we have to
17:00
talk about how people do that I feel a
17:04
little guilty about what I'm about to
17:06
share with you here because I don't know
17:08
these people personally but I have been
17:11
how many I don't know how many of you
17:13
seen a few years ago an otherwise
17:16
excellent resource for product people
17:18
the first-round review some of you may
17:20
know that one of my favorite bc's first
17:22
round capital in Philadelphia they pop
17:26
they have a really good blog but anyway
17:28
they published this article talking
17:30
about the Pandora product prior to
17:33
prioritization process some of you may
17:36
have seen it for years I have been
17:38
forwarding a link to this to people to
17:40
say this is exactly what you don't
17:43
do seriously it is exactly it is the
17:48
poster child for bad strategy well
17:53
honestly it's not even fair to call it a
17:55
bad strategy it's no strategy because
17:58
and for those that don't know and I and
18:00
it is true there's this kind of extreme
18:02
but it's really very similar in
18:04
principle to what so many companies do
18:07
so what they do is they basically
18:09
imagine sort of the absence of product
18:12
management or product strategy or
18:14
product leadership all they do is they
18:17
have a certain amount of engineering
18:18
capacity which in fairness to them in
18:22
their case was not very much what's sort
18:23
of the root of the issue but anyway we
18:25
all have not as much as we want so they
18:27
had some engineering capacity and of
18:29
course they wanted to try to satisfy as
18:32
many stakeholders as they could so the
18:35
way they do it is they give fake money
18:37
to each stakeholder proportionate you
18:41
know to what the CEO says you get twenty
18:43
dollars you get thirty dollars and they
18:45
could buy whatever features they want
18:48
that's their process and of course they
18:52
were bragging about it because it's like
18:57
the stakeholders you know get to get
19:00
what they want this is exactly what I
19:02
mean by difference between a product
19:04
team is there to serve the customers and
19:05
ways that work for the business versus a
19:08
feature team is there to serve the
19:10
business that's exactly what's going on
19:13
I didn't know them I still don't know
19:15
them but when I read it read the article
19:17
I was thinking okay well this is what
19:19
happens when you have zero product and I
19:22
was certain certain that first of all I
19:26
knew they were gonna get a ton of
19:27
features because that is a mission that
19:29
is a recipe for a ton of features but I
19:32
also knew there's almost no chance
19:34
there's going to be innovation almost no
19:37
chance and that in in a in our tech
19:40
powered company to me that's just it's
19:43
only a matter of time so I didn't know
19:46
when it would happen but it's
19:47
interesting right after this article was
19:49
published if you had watched they went
19:52
public I think it's sixteen dollars a
19:54
share just
19:57
like this gradual wasn't overnight over
20:00
years gradual at $8 a share they got
20:04
sold to welter basically for Salvage
20:07
price to Sirius XM which is their dead
20:11
so that's exactly what you would predict
20:16
would happen if this is you know at the
20:19
absence of product strategy at the
20:21
accents of product management so many
20:24
companies then where these roadmaps are
20:26
actually coming from is a negotiation
20:29
with the different lines of business so
20:32
it's not really much different they're
20:33
just sort of being very overt about it
20:36
now I want to be a little fair I'll get
20:39
and I don't know them but I I want to be
20:40
fair every time I've seen a system like
20:43
that it's not the product people are
20:46
saying we should do this they're forced
20:48
to usually it's the CEO or the other
20:51
leaders are forcing them and when I also
20:54
learned in that article that they went
20:57
public
20:58
remember Pandora went public with 40
21:02
engineers think about that 40 engineers
21:06
now of course as investors first round
21:09
is this is such an awesome company only
21:12
40 engineers look what they've done I'm
21:15
thinking they had no business going
21:17
public with 40 engineers and I think in
21:22
hindsight it was clear they were because
21:24
they were obviously these are people
21:26
competing with Spotify with Apple with
21:29
the serious players and 40 you know
21:32
you're not so in fairness to them with
21:35
only 40 engineers I don't know what they
21:38
could have done and the truth is if I
21:41
was the head of product I would have
21:43
known that the stakeholders no matter
21:45
well how much funny money we give them
21:47
they are not going to be happy and so
21:50
this was maybe a way to make as many of
21:53
them you know at least include them in
21:57
demise together
22:01
yeah but that is that is a good example
22:07
of a company with no strategy now what
22:10
they really were doing and I don't know
22:12
if they realize this or not but they
22:15
were they were confusing what they were
22:21
confusing was focus and prioritization
22:25
because what they were really doing was
22:27
a prioritization process not a focused
22:29
process so I want to talk about focus a
22:32
little bit because we need to talk about
22:35
what that really means and why it's so
22:37
essential it's just one of those words
22:39
that's thrown around every single
22:40
company but it's largely meaningless
22:43
it's really means two things the first
22:47
is that only a few things on that and 55
22:52
or 60 item list will actually have the
22:54
chance of moving the needle
22:55
realistically everybody learns this I
22:59
think in their in a different way when
23:02
they learn it I remember still the time
23:05
I learned it and it was because it made
23:07
such an impression on me I learned this
23:11
lesson about real impact and focus
23:13
because well like Dan said I started
23:16
started as an engineer actually very
23:18
close to here in Palo Alto at HP Labs
23:21
and you know I was right out of
23:24
university and I had known you know
23:26
which basically means I knew the theory
23:27
of you know programming but not really
23:29
much of the practice of it so one of the
23:32
nice things that at HP Labs was they had
23:35
what we would today call pair
23:36
programming it's where we were paired
23:38
with somebody and I was paired with a
23:40
great guy actually who was fortunately
23:43
for me answered all my questions and
23:45
very tolerant but so we were I was
23:50
honestly not programming I was watching
23:52
him that's he was very good and but it
23:55
was amazing education for me amazing
23:58
education and one of we were working on
24:01
system software development tools
24:04
development environments and one of our
24:06
objectives that we had was performance
24:10
and it's that kind of software it's
24:12
still like if you adapt
24:14
performance is still one of those things
24:15
but anyway so I'm every time we started
24:19
working on something you know when I saw
24:22
code that was obviously not that
24:26
efficient I was his name was Brian and I
24:30
said what about let's work on that we
24:32
could definitely improve that and he
24:35
would say well we could but we're not
24:37
gonna and the next day the next area we
24:42
could we're not gonna he just kept
24:43
saying that and honestly I alright
24:46
alright anyway about a month later or so
24:50
he says now we're gonna work on
24:52
performance finally and so first thing
24:55
he does is these brings up the
24:56
performance analysis tool which is on
24:58
basically every operating system and and
25:01
we run it through some paces the
25:03
software through some paces and sure
25:05
enough there's a online report that
25:07
comes out and there were three things
25:10
where all the time was going and he
25:13
really wanted me to see this and he said
25:16
here's why I kept saying no before we
25:19
could have fixed every one of those
25:21
issues that I pointed out and he said
25:24
the truth was even if we did every one
25:26
of them the user would not have
25:28
perceived any difference would have made
25:31
no perceptible difference however if we
25:35
focus on these three areas we're gonna
25:37
make all the difference and he said
25:40
that's what goes on across the
25:42
organizations all the time
25:43
everybody's told to work on tech debt
25:45
which means nobody really does the hard
25:48
stuff with tech debt that really has to
25:50
happen or everybody's supposed to work
25:52
on growth and nobody really moves the
25:55
needle on growth same with retention all
25:59
these things they don't everybody does
26:02
just a little bit nobody really puts the
26:04
effort in to make it happen and it
26:07
really made an impact on me that was
26:09
obviously a software engineering
26:11
application of this theory but it's I
26:13
think it's really true there's only a
26:15
few things that really make an impact
26:18
the reason that product Pandora process
26:21
was so flawed is because it ignored that
26:24
and it was trying to be politically
26:26
correct
26:27
and please as many stakeholders as they
26:30
could not impact now there's another
26:35
dimension to this is just also going on
26:38
here that makes focus so essential
26:41
because you could you could say well
26:44
just prioritize the things and work on
26:47
you know the top priority but the truth
26:50
is especially in organizations if you
26:56
try to work on too many things at once
26:57
everything slows down now of course if
27:01
your team is running Kanban or something
27:04
this is one of the fundamental concepts
27:06
this idea of whip limits work in process
27:08
the bottom print the bottom line is if
27:10
you try to work on a few things at once
27:12
you know you will bottleneck and things
27:15
slow down you actually get more
27:16
throughput if you limit the things and I
27:19
absolutely see that play out every day
27:21
with teams but the truth is it's even
27:23
more true and much more dramatic at an
27:26
organizational level because now you're
27:29
talking about senior leadership's
27:30
attention and decision-making and
27:33
removing obstacles and that it now if
27:37
you get an organization try to do even
27:39
ten of these big things at once they are
27:42
just it's just like the freeways here
27:44
you know too much on there nobody goes
27:47
anywhere
27:48
it's the same principle so focus is so
27:53
critical because you really have to make
27:57
sure you've only got a few things at a
27:59
time going through your own organization
28:01
and they need to be the things that
28:02
really can move the needle now I haven't
28:07
told you how you pick those things that
28:09
can move the needle but the honest
28:11
answer for that is that's where the
28:12
smart leader comes in where they really
28:15
are studying the data studying the
28:18
business the the model of the company
28:21
and understand those dynamics all right
28:25
but the big takeaway here is
28:27
prioritization is not focus you really
28:31
need your organization to pay and this
28:33
is a primary responsibility of product
28:36
leadership you know working with the CTO
28:40
see
28:41
is usually not the problem here this is
28:43
more on the head of product but to
28:46
really understand that we are not
28:48
talking about prioritization we're
28:50
talking the top few things the things
28:52
that really can move the needle in fact
28:55
I find most organizations they spend way
28:59
too much time worried about
29:00
prioritization and honestly this is
29:03
another talk but it's not only as a
29:05
waste of time it's predicated on things
29:09
that they don't know they are guessing
29:12
about how much money would be made
29:14
they're guessing about how hard it would
29:16
be they have no clue though so it's all
29:19
guesses anyway so I try to get
29:22
organizations to stop focusing on this
29:24
prioritization concept and instead learn
29:28
to focus all right and you know part of
29:31
that is getting very good and fast at
29:34
trying out ideas we'll talk about that
29:37
all right second point I brought up was
29:40
insights insights are actually where you
29:46
know as an advisor that's where I spend
29:48
a lot of time with the teams now we'll
29:52
talk about those but it's in most
29:54
companies actually this is sort of what
29:57
I see I'm staying with my gnome friends
29:59
there but the they are literally not
30:03
interested in the insights they are not
30:06
interested in the insights because they
30:07
are too busy basically trying to satisfy
30:10
the stakeholders they're not looking at
30:13
the insights they're not they're just
30:15
not even even when they're right in
30:16
front of their face if you go in most
30:19
companies again most companies are
30:21
feature teams and they do a little let's
30:23
say usability testing on some design and
30:25
sometimes they actually learn something
30:28
pretty interesting and you go try to
30:30
tell they had a you know director a VP
30:33
product about this insight that you just
30:35
got about your customers okay what are
30:40
we gonna do with that it's not really
30:42
something they're interested they
30:43
already have a roadmap for the quarter
30:45
not interested it's like where do
30:47
insights fit in their model they don't
30:50
but this is what's essential we need to
30:54
talk about it
30:54
strong companies insights are everything
30:57
so we get insights then I want to be
31:00
clear the truth is insights can come
31:01
from anywhere anywhere I was actually
31:04
what's one of the eye I'm a big advocate
31:06
of Ben Thompson's blog strattera
31:09
is it which is really a business
31:11
strategy little product strategy with
31:13
mostly business strategy blog but I
31:15
loved his thinking and it's one of the
31:18
companies I was with thanks to they got
31:21
a really good insight from another
31:23
company in their industry but in a
31:25
really good insight that led to some
31:27
really good product work that really
31:30
looks like it's moving the needle so
31:33
insights can come from anywhere I'm not
31:35
trailer but there are some major sources
31:38
of insight qualitative insights I mean I
31:41
put them first because in truth this is
31:43
my favorite source qualitative insights
31:46
is usually coming from chat
31:48
conversations with our customers and our
31:51
users and they can be prospective
31:53
customers they can by the way be former
31:55
customers they can even be competitors
31:58
customers it is amazing what you can
32:01
learn and it is I don't think there's a
32:04
substitute for the face-to-face
32:06
interactions we do its users and
32:08
customers you just have to realize when
32:10
you're doing that you're not trying to
32:11
prove anything you're just trying to
32:12
learn but it is amazing what you can
32:15
learn and just off the wall great
32:20
insights you know they're very
32:21
unpredictable when you do qualitative
32:24
but I encourage product teams to do to
32:27
gather qualitative insights every single
32:29
week normally we do that by trying out
32:33
our prototypes with customers to see how
32:35
they respond
32:36
but that's really a teeing up of a very
32:39
high quality conversation about why they
32:41
wouldn't use this and what it would take
32:43
to get them to use it so I adore
32:47
qualitative insights and if I had to
32:49
sort of credit any one source for the
32:52
best progress in product from my
32:54
experience it's that but there is no
32:58
question there is a close second today
33:00
and probably in five years I'll reorder
33:02
these two because the quantitative
33:05
insights are phenomenal
33:07
we are talking about insights based on
33:10
data with this might be data that we
33:13
aggregate over time in our data
33:15
warehouse trying to better understand
33:17
our customers very often it's an a/b
33:21
test that surprises us and that inspires
33:23
us to go figure out what is going on
33:26
which is often back to the qualitative
33:28
testing but they are these quantitative
33:31
insights are phenomena and phenomenal
33:33
and so many companies today the thing
33:36
about the quantitative side is you
33:40
really need some pretty significant
33:41
volume of data but then it just gets
33:44
better and better and better so it's you
33:46
know it's not something that's
33:47
especially useful to most startups and
33:50
most certainly most b2b but pretty soon
33:53
you start to get serious traffic you
33:56
start to get some real history here and
33:58
you start to get some real insights on
34:00
the data and I should also emphasize a
34:03
lot of the biggest insights are really
34:05
blends it's looking at both because
34:08
quantitative might tell us what's
34:10
actually happening but icky it generally
34:12
can't tell us why so the qualitative can
34:14
help explain what's going on and then
34:16
you have that big aha moment and then
34:19
you direct the product organization to
34:21
really fix that problem and now we've
34:23
made a real difference so that's another
34:25
great source of insights and you know in
34:30
our industry this is what I think is
34:33
great about our industry is the
34:35
technology foundation is always changing
34:38
which means you know from a product
34:41
perspective the way we think about that
34:42
is there are things we can do today that
34:44
we could not do tomorrow yesterday
34:46
tomorrow we couldn't do yesterday and so
34:51
that's what we are looking for right
34:54
things that are just now possible and
34:57
you know this is by definition a moving
35:00
target
35:01
we are always evaluating new
35:03
technologies now of course products
35:05
people and our technology counterparts
35:07
have to use their judgment you know some
35:09
things are fads some things are real
35:11
trends you have to decide you have to
35:13
separate the marketing hype from the
35:15
reality so it was actually
35:21
I've been charmed in my career so lucky
35:23
but when I went and studied computer
35:25
science I actually studied artificial
35:27
intelligence which if well if you knew
35:30
the year I graduated that would be like
35:32
do they even know what that was
35:33
it was so is like but back then that was
35:38
like the next big thing and of course it
35:41
was not even close to the next big thing
35:44
but the funny thing is there there was
35:46
like three more times where it became
35:48
the next big thing and it just sort of
35:50
fizzled out it wasn't until the last
35:53
couple years that it's like you know
35:54
what this is not a fad this is a real
35:56
thing because now there are real
35:58
solutions that are based on this it's
36:00
not just theory the theory honestly
36:03
hasn't changed all that much but now
36:04
it's practical and you can use it for
36:07
real and of course there's a big reason
36:09
for that which is the volume of data
36:10
that it's predicated on but anyway I
36:13
love that's what I if I had to pick one
36:17
thing that makes me love this industry
36:19
so much it's the enabling technology and
36:22
that it is always getting better I
36:25
I go to China every year and don't worry
36:29
I was not just in China
36:33
I did have a trip I had to cancel but I
36:36
I was there well before anything was
36:40
going on but they're amazing what
36:45
they've been doing China is just I um I
36:48
used to feel like Silicon Valley was
36:50
pretty much ahead of the world not so
36:53
much especially in China is just what
36:57
they've done you know they have three
36:58
times the market we do in the u.s. three
37:01
times and they also have some of the
37:05
best teams in the world now and of
37:08
course this they're a good example of
37:11
the nonlinear value provided by data
37:14
when you get more and more data you
37:16
start being able to do things that you
37:18
could never do before
37:19
it just becomes much more practical
37:22
instead of a week for a test day for a
37:24
test that kind of thing
37:26
so anyway technology's fabulous and the
37:29
last is there are insights in our
37:31
industry our market our competitors and
37:35
that that would be an example from
37:37
things like strattera
37:39
but they're so always always interesting
37:43
things to learn in our in your industry
37:45
and from other industries I love how the
37:48
enterprise market is learning from the
37:50
consumer market today and adopting a lot
37:52
of the practices but at strong companies
37:56
they live for this this is that dynamic
37:59
in strong companies it's not just a once
38:03
in awhile thing that a designer comes to
38:05
a you know our product manager says hey
38:07
this week we learned something
38:09
interesting this is like what they live
38:11
for in fact a big responsibility of the
38:15
managers and leaders is to collect this
38:17
and disseminate these learnings they are
38:21
literally there to connect the dots they
38:24
are there to connect the dots so it's
38:27
not you know a lot of people wonder well
38:28
what do I do with this learning you know
38:30
just putting it out on slack it's not
38:32
it's not going to go anywhere useful
38:33
they first of all it needs to be really
38:36
curated people have to think about how
38:39
it fits in with a bigger picture and
38:41
then it has to be intentionally
38:43
disseminated like
38:44
like if you're a leader and you know
38:47
this other team over here really should
38:49
hear about this learning you're gonna go
38:51
and share that learning or connect them
38:54
with that team and if it's a general
38:57
enough learning you're gonna have like
38:59
it the weekly or the monthly one-on-one
39:00
you're gonna say hey we had some big
39:02
learnings this week that you need to
39:04
know about those learnings could be any
39:06
of these things right it could be any
39:08
kind of learning but they are they're
39:10
sort of like a learning distribution
39:12
machine these leaders and I find it so
39:16
different than the not good companies
39:20
it's like they're the not good companies
39:22
are not even in this game they're not
39:24
even trying alright so yeah the core of
39:32
strategy work is really always the same
39:34
discovering the critical factors these
39:37
are the insights here and designing a
39:39
way of coordinating and focusing the
39:41
action to deal with those problems those
39:44
factors so that leads us to the next big
39:47
topic which I would argue is where it
39:49
really this is where the rubber meets
39:50
the road hood if you will action we need
39:53
to turn our insights into action now I
39:59
have to admit because in truth I'm now
40:02
all about the empowered product teams
40:03
I'm not spending any time helping
40:06
anybody to become a better feature team
40:08
believe it or not I have been asked I'm
40:11
like not interested first of all there's
40:13
like a thousand other people that that's
40:15
all they seem to want to do so go to
40:17
them I want to focus on empowered
40:19
product teams but I will also admit that
40:22
there are two ways of turning insights
40:25
into action the command-and-control way
40:28
which generally turns into a road map
40:30
and the empowered team way now this is
40:34
going to yield this is going to be a
40:36
little bit of a complicated discussion
40:37
here let me start by pointing out that
40:41
it is not hard to generate activity we
40:46
have no trouble doing that in fact that
40:49
kind of is what makes it a big problem
40:52
and you know I have to say agile only
40:54
made this worse
40:56
it really did and for the record I
40:58
always advocate the team should be
41:00
delivering with some agile process like
41:02
scrum or Kanban but this is it made it
41:05
worse because it made it even easier to
41:09
crank out features faster than ever it
41:12
did it did so that was not the point of
41:15
course but that is a consequence and the
41:18
hard part is getting the right things
41:20
done the things that matter you know the
41:23
things that have an impact and can
41:25
really move the needle I don't know if
41:27
you've seen this little video Dan Monty
41:30
Python I love this one have you seen
41:33
this one but oh thank you that's right
41:37
we're gonna break everybody's eardrums
41:39
again this is this is literally what I
41:41
see in my mind when I see companies
41:45
doing the normal road from out process
41:47
we good
41:57
Oh
42:01
I swear that's what's going on with your
42:08
roadmaps to me it's exactly what's going
42:18
on it really is exactly what's going on
42:21
they are just going in every different
42:23
direction
42:24
and you don't each one of those runners
42:26
if you're going to call it that are are
42:28
like serving some stakeholder on some
42:31
part of the business they're all I doing
42:33
something but if you look holistically
42:35
they're making no real impact that is
42:39
what's going on so what we need to do is
42:43
we need to focus the minds we need to
42:47
focus the minds of the team right there
42:48
energy into action and this is really
42:53
what makes a difference and this is this
42:56
is where it's so clear the difference
43:01
what I really want to talk about but
43:03
I'll be honest I'm a little hesitant to
43:05
talk about it is is okay ours so I'm
43:15
gonna just jump in anyway we'll see what
43:17
happens so well let me start by
43:22
professing this I do not recommend okay
43:25
ours anymore I used to recommend them
43:28
all the time I was a very vocal advocate
43:30
I do not recommend okay ours
43:33
I'll unless they're already in the
43:36
Empowered product team model which most
43:38
companies are the fundamental issue well
43:42
most people know and and it's been
43:43
plenty of years just give it a try most
43:45
people know that okay ours and most
43:47
company is our big waste of time just a
43:50
big waste most of them have pushed it
43:51
off to the side and it's just okay our
43:53
theatres there you know it's easy to
43:56
tell because they're given objectives
43:57
and they're given roadmaps it's like so
43:59
what do you think they're gonna do
44:00
they're gonna do the roadmaps and so the
44:02
object that they'll key ours are really
44:04
not now what's going on here is okay
44:07
ours came from the empowered product
44:11
team company model that's the company
44:14
that it came from this was in tell this
44:17
was Google this day arrow around the
44:19
model if you take a company with feature
44:21
teams and try to just overlay ok ours
44:26
you get the mess you see in companies it
44:29
makes no sense I try to explain that you
44:36
know people think and it's not hard to
44:39
see why they all flock to ok ours
44:41
they're like oh cool uses it Amazon
44:43
they're all making tons of money it must
44:46
be because they use ok ours that's
44:49
really what they're thinking so they're
44:50
thinking hey ok ours are actually pretty
44:52
simple come on there are pretty simple
44:54
right here's an objective here's some
44:56
results go for it
44:57
but what's going on is that it's a true
45:03
cultural mismatch they are not
45:06
successful these good companies because
45:08
they use ok ours they use ok ours
45:11
because they go with the empowered team
45:13
model that they've embraced so the real
45:16
issue is moving to the empowered team
45:19
model now if you've done that that's
45:26
what it's for and I do advocate it for
45:28
that situation but I've really learned
45:30
my lesson you know because I can talk
45:33
about all these things you can do and
45:35
then they gravitate to ok ours because
45:37
they're so easy conceptually super easy
45:40
conceptually much harder than the kinds
45:42
of changes I'm talking about like
45:43
managers doing their jobs
45:46
coaching investing in staffing I mean we
45:50
could talk about all the things that
45:52
good leaders are really supposed to be
45:54
doing it's a lot easier just to do ok
45:56
ours alright so let's talk about this
46:00
for ok ours to be helpful and meaningful
46:04
there's three things that are really
46:07
essential the first is you've got to
46:10
have empowered product teams not feature
46:13
teams and if you're not ready yet to
46:15
make that transformation you know save
46:16
yourself a bunch of time but that and
46:20
you know that is a big change hopefully
46:23
people know what I mean by that if you
46:25
haven't if you don't
46:28
I would plead with you actually to read
46:30
an article if you just google s vpg
46:33
empowered team feature team something
46:35
like that it'll take you to this article
46:37
it is happily it was pretty popular
46:40
I've actually been writing about this
46:42
stuff for years but for whatever reason
46:44
I think I hit a chord with that one and
46:46
people like ok now I understand and
46:48
unfortunately yes we're a feature team
46:50
they understood that now so you really
46:55
need to look at that it's a difficult
46:57
transformation I mean this all the
47:00
companies that are trying to do a
47:01
digital transformation they don't
47:03
realize this but what they really need
47:05
to do and what they are if they want to
47:07
succeed is convert from feature team to
47:10
empowered product teams but that is not
47:13
a minor change but for you the good news
47:16
is it actually requires these people
47:18
called product managers but of course
47:21
I'm not talking about the project
47:23
manager product manager I mean a real
47:25
product manager in fact I I used to help
47:31
you you know I I have not been shy about
47:33
using the term a good product manager is
47:36
the CEO of the product but I would get a
47:39
lot of frustration and confusion with
47:42
that and it took me a while to figure
47:44
out what was going on and then I
47:47
realized it they're talking about
47:49
feature team product managers a feature
47:52
team product manager could not be
47:54
further away from the concept of a CEO
47:56
of a product that's that's so silly it's
48:00
like literally pointing to the project
48:02
manager and saying you're the CEO no
48:04
it's not even close the CEO the product
48:07
concept comes from the empowered team
48:10
model that's where it comes from because
48:12
like a CEO if you think about a start-up
48:15
CEO the designer is responsible for a
48:18
usable solution and the engineers are
48:20
responsible for a feasible solution but
48:22
that founder is responsible for making
48:24
sure it's valuable people will buy it
48:26
and viable it works for a business you
48:29
can market it you can sell it you can
48:31
make money from it you can fund it
48:34
that's exactly we lost one screen but
48:40
that's exactly what a
48:42
real product manager is responsible for
48:44
so you know that's a big difference
48:47
right now because if you think about it
48:49
on a feature team
48:51
nobody is explicitly responsible for
48:53
value or viability it's dispersed among
48:56
the stakeholders it's basically if some
48:59
executive asks for something on the
49:00
roadmap they're taking responsibility
49:02
for that they don't necessarily realize
49:04
that but they are if they say add this
49:06
feature there somehow believe that
49:09
feature is valuable and that it's okay
49:11
to do in an empowered product team they
49:14
don't do that they give them problems to
49:16
solve and the product manager is
49:18
responsible to make sure that solution
49:20
is valuable and viable so it's this is
49:25
the real product manager job well I
49:27
should say this in the industry I grew
49:30
up with and I'm comfortable saying this
49:32
the same true as Ben Horowitz and that
49:35
we grew up in the same companies this is
49:38
what we mean by product manager we do
49:41
not mean project manager we do not mean
49:43
feature teams most of us would never
49:46
have gone into this industry if that's
49:48
what we thought our job was going to be
49:50
so good news is I think as companies
49:54
move to this they realize you know they
49:56
have designers and they have engineers
49:58
but they really need to invest in true
50:01
product managers okay
50:05
second thing they need is another thing
50:11
that Mac messes up
50:13
okay ours in companies is that each
50:16
manager does their own set of ok ours so
50:20
like the director of engineering does a
50:23
set director design director of product
50:26
and they what do you think happens they
50:28
pass them down to their employees right
50:31
and then on a product team the product
50:34
person probably thinks we're working on
50:36
some company thing but no the designer
50:38
says no I'm supposed to work on this
50:40
because this is what my boss told me to
50:42
work on and the engineers are like no we
50:44
have to work on this so of course the
50:46
whole OKR thing collapses under its own
50:48
weight right there
50:50
and so I tell look the other thing you
50:53
need to do is if you're going to embrace
50:55
empowered product teams in okay ours to
50:58
be meaningful stop doing that
51:01
it's just product teams that get
51:03
objectives just the product teams so and
51:07
the other thing I say is until you get
51:09
good at this stop doing individual okay
51:12
ours those are just confusing the issue
51:15
and they're not important focus on the
51:19
team it's all about the product team
51:22
just be clear that doesn't product team
51:23
is not that the organization of product
51:26
managers right this is a squad a
51:28
cross-functional durable hopefully close
51:31
co-located that's another topic I need
51:36
to spend more time on yeah you know the
51:41
colocation it is I've been very vocal
51:44
about the benefits of colocation but
51:48
anybody who's followed anything knows it
51:50
is not very politically correct to say
51:52
that anymore and I genuinely believe it
51:55
it's motivated by selfish Silicon Valley
51:57
mostly venture capitalists that want to
52:00
they know they can't afford people here
52:02
so they want to keep they want to stay
52:04
here and anyway I have I think its BS
52:09
and I totally subscribe and I'm gonna
52:12
share more of Amazon's philosophy on
52:15
this Netflix's philosophy on this
52:17
because they've taken a very hard stand
52:19
for colocation so you want to do that
52:22
remote stuff fine but we're actually
52:24
here to innovate and I'm not kidding it
52:28
is a big difference I'm not saying it's
52:29
impossible what's remote people but boy
52:31
your odds go way down and you know
52:35
everything I talk about is not it's not
52:36
a guarantee of success but it's about
52:38
increasing your likelihood of true
52:40
innovation and success and that is not
52:43
helping you and I scored a lot of points
52:47
in the room with that I know alright so
52:49
I don't care it's it's true it's just
52:54
true so somebody I think needs to say it
52:57
alright and the last one is active
53:01
leaders not passive leaders
53:05
so many people think you know that
53:08
little Monty Python video that's what I
53:11
see people do with okay ours they
53:14
literally say they go to the teams and
53:16
say pick your objectives
53:18
tell us your objectives go out do your
53:21
thing we'll look at what's going on at
53:23
the end of the quarter and every team is
53:25
going off on its own direction I'm like
53:27
what are you doing that is not what okay
53:30
ours are about the objectives actually
53:34
need to come from the leaders now not
53:37
the key results those come from the
53:39
teams but the objectives come from the
53:40
leaders that's how the strategy is
53:42
turned into action if the strategy is
53:46
look we need these your three teams we
53:49
need your teams to focus on this
53:51
onboarding problem we have got to fix
53:53
that it is not scalable you guys need to
53:56
focus on the onboarding problem and
53:57
between the three teams there's enough
54:00
brainpower there we think that's gonna
54:02
we're gonna make a difference
54:03
that's where objectives come from now
54:06
those teams they use what empower
54:09
autonomy really means is they're able to
54:11
figure out the best way to solve those
54:13
problems so we're not giving them a road
54:15
map of features we're giving them
54:17
problems to solve but they are not
54:19
random problems they are not problems
54:21
left two teams to choose now don't get
54:24
me wrong one of the things we love is
54:26
when the leaders share the strategy they
54:30
literally say the strategy like we know
54:32
onboarding is a problem we know 80% of
54:34
it is manual whatever they these are the
54:37
insights we would like the teams to
54:39
think about how they could help on this
54:41
we love it when teams go hey we would
54:44
love to work on that problem because we
54:45
think we have some really good ideas to
54:48
pursue that we love it but even if
54:50
everybody came back and said they want
54:52
to work on the same problem we'd have to
54:54
go to several of them say I'm sorry we
54:56
have other problems we have to solve too
54:58
so it's a responsibility of the leaders
55:02
and so again I referring to this as
55:04
active leaders I don't want it to be
55:07
confused with command and control
55:09
leaders these are not there to
55:11
micromanage in fact I'll talk about this
55:15
next I think it's really more like
55:16
servant leadership that we're talking
55:18
about so but these are the three things
55:21
that have to be in place for a product
55:25
company to really get value out of okay
55:27
ours and if you don't have these three
55:31
things save yourself a bunch of time at
55:34
the end of the quarter all right so the
55:38
fourth part if you remember first was
55:41
focus then insights then actions and the
55:46
fourth one is management now the truth
55:50
is no strategy survives first contact
55:53
with the actual reality so there will be
55:56
a lot of learning and the question is
55:59
what do you do now in most companies
56:02
that's kind of the world right roadmaps
56:05
because this is how teams and
56:08
organizations manage their work this is
56:11
nothing new it's just it could be one of
56:15
a million roadmaps out there so there's
56:18
nothing special about that other than
56:21
it's terrible look at it it's all output
56:27
it's all output oh the first one I
56:29
grabbed but they're all the same their
56:32
output a bunch of dates its commit this
56:37
is not empowered product teams just to
56:40
be clear this is what feature teams do
56:44
all right so let's talk about strong
56:46
product companies the leaders have this
56:49
servant leadership mindset they are
56:52
really there what that really means is
56:55
okay they've given the team's servant
56:57
leader does not mean passive or anything
56:59
that means they are they've given the
57:02
team the objectives but they know that
57:04
things will come up a team comes back
57:07
and says hey we didn't realize we had a
57:08
dependency on a platform team and we
57:10
really need some help to get their help
57:12
this management is not just there to
57:14
watch they need to engage go talk to the
57:17
platform team they might find out that
57:20
oh there's a piece of technology we
57:22
didn't realize we need we need help with
57:23
that we need to get that technology in
57:25
place we need to expedite this we need
57:27
to make something happen we have a
57:29
stakeholder that's good that's that
57:31
needs
57:32
some real attention let's just say and
57:34
then there they need some help to kind
57:36
of get with the program so you need to
57:38
help there on these good companies the
57:40
manager it is a very hands-on active
57:43
role the difference is they're not
57:45
micromanaging they're removing obstacles
57:48
for the team they're letting the teams
57:50
come up with the right solution they're
57:52
just there to help facilitate all right
57:57
yes this is that same point please it's
58:00
not about less management it's about
58:02
better management all right okay so that
58:11
went fast for me didn't have a lot of
58:13
time so in terms of product strategy
58:15
summarize this critical to focus on the
58:19
key critical business problems just
58:21
realistically two three the things that
58:26
will really have a chance to move the
58:28
needle you know this isn't really that
58:30
hard most of the time I get I mean it's
58:33
it's hard politically it's not hard to
58:37
know what the right things are honestly
58:39
it's usually what's being talked about
58:41
at the board of directors lever level
58:43
they they they know what the real levers
58:47
are for the business it might be unhappy
58:49
customers it might be growth that might
58:51
be you know a very common one in SAS is
58:55
retention retention is if that number is
58:59
not good everything falls apart they
59:01
know so it's not that hard to know the
59:04
things that really matter
59:05
the problem is in you know in most
59:08
companies you've got a lot of different
59:09
stakeholders and executives and they all
59:12
have needs or at least yeah they do have
59:15
real needs I mean they perceive right
59:17
you know their perception of solutions
59:19
and stuff but they all have needs and so
59:21
it becomes more a process of trying to
59:24
do a little bit for everybody back to
59:27
the performance analysis problem all
59:30
right second generating insights on how
59:33
to attack that problem those problems
59:36
now this is where that culture comes in
59:38
where you really need a culture that is
59:40
constantly learning from your customers
59:43
constantly learning from the data
59:45
constantly looking at new enabling
59:47
technologies constantly following the
59:49
industry so that you can prepare to
59:52
identify the insights and then leverage
59:55
them there is one other point I should
59:57
make about that in every case I know
1:00:00
that the leaders really are good and
1:00:03
they are seeing these insights it
1:00:05
doesn't happen it doesn't happen on its
1:00:08
own
1:00:09
they are always preparing so they study
1:00:12
the business they study the dashboard
1:00:15
they understand the economics of the
1:00:18
company they understand the dynamics of
1:00:21
the company like in a marketplace they
1:00:23
understand what we call marketplace
1:00:24
health they're looking at all dimensions
1:00:26
of the marketplace you know at Amazon
1:00:29
it's not unusual for a typical leader to
1:00:31
be tracking several hundred kpi's every
1:00:35
day they are they we're not talking
1:00:38
about just they have a deep big-picture
1:00:41
view of the business which means when
1:00:44
something really is spotted they can see
1:00:47
how that might be a great opportunity
1:00:49
they can see those they're doing their I
1:00:52
the way I phrase it is they're doing
1:00:54
their homework so that they're prepared
1:00:56
to not miss that opportunity that comes
1:01:00
in front of us they come the
1:01:01
opportunities are always there all right
1:01:04
you need to coordinate actions for each
1:01:07
team I didn't say this explicitly some
1:01:10
people this is another one of those
1:01:11
weirdos I don't know where the route is
1:01:13
but some people get really upset if the
1:01:16
same if two different product teams are
1:01:18
working on the same objective they think
1:01:20
that's somehow like in I don't know
1:01:21
inefficient or whatever it's like oh no
1:01:23
that is really common in fact it's often
1:01:26
really really valuable now there's
1:01:29
different kinds of ways of working
1:01:30
together sometimes like you're the
1:01:32
platform team I'm the common experience
1:01:34
team and we're working you're gonna do
1:01:36
some new service for me that's kind of
1:01:37
obvious cooperation but another kind
1:01:40
might be it's a really hard problem
1:01:43
so we've each been asked to use our own
1:01:46
technologies to solve that problem and
1:01:48
the truth is and management is not
1:01:49
hiding this none of us may succeed
1:01:52
they're hoping at least one of us make
1:01:54
moves the needle that's really called a
1:01:56
risk management risk mitigation
1:01:58
technique
1:01:59
another one and this is actually one of
1:02:01
my favorites is if it's a really hard
1:02:03
problem it may totally be justified to
1:02:07
take two or even three product teams and
1:02:09
ask them to work together to solve it
1:02:13
that's sometimes called a swarm if
1:02:15
you've ever heard where they actually
1:02:17
get together they put the brains
1:02:19
together and they're you know the
1:02:20
hopefully of the combination of our
1:02:22
experience and our skills it's like yeah
1:02:25
we can see now we all sometimes swarm on
1:02:27
discovery sometimes on delivery
1:02:29
sometimes on both but that is yeah
1:02:32
that's actually can be a lot of fun you
1:02:35
have to realize a lot of the problems
1:02:37
we're asked to work on are really hard
1:02:39
problems they are not trivial problems
1:02:41
you're not being asked to add an edit
1:02:43
button I say that I literally there was
1:02:46
another article that came out on okay
1:02:48
ours the other day and his first example
1:02:51
of a supposedly good okay our objective
1:02:54
at an edit button literally that was the
1:02:57
first one I'm like what is going on
1:03:00
there is so much nonsense out there
1:03:04
totally somebody totally missed the
1:03:06
point of this stuff yeah all right and
1:03:12
then finally it takes active engaged
1:03:17
capable managers to manage this work and
1:03:21
facilitate the interactions that need to
1:03:23
happen especially this is this is more
1:03:27
and more true the larger the
1:03:29
organization management needs to connect
1:03:32
the dots the head of design hopefully
1:03:35
that's obvious they need to connect the
1:03:37
dots it needs to be one experience the
1:03:39
head of engineering needs to connect the
1:03:41
dots you need an architecture that makes
1:03:43
sense holistically a tech that strategy
1:03:46
tech that by the way is a classic
1:03:49
example of what we've been talking about
1:03:51
you can't tackle tech debt effectively
1:03:54
with every team doing a little bit it
1:03:56
doesn't work
1:03:57
that's the little refactor frequently
1:03:59
that they will never do the magnitude
1:04:02
changes that are needed to really
1:04:04
address the issues all right so those
1:04:08
are the four big things let me try to
1:04:10
put all this into perspective
1:04:13
just so that you hopefully have a frame
1:04:15
of reference here the product vision is
1:04:18
really describing the destination I
1:04:21
didn't talk much about vision I've
1:04:23
talked about that a lot I love product
1:04:25
vision it's very inspiring it helps us
1:04:27
recruit great people but that's not this
1:04:29
that's sort of a given we it's sort of
1:04:32
the input to strategy that's where we're
1:04:34
trying to go product strategy helps us
1:04:37
decide which problems we need to solve
1:04:39
to make that happen
1:04:41
that's absolutely I would argue that's
1:04:44
the most important part product
1:04:47
discovery is actually where we figure
1:04:49
out the tactics and just to be clear
1:04:52
roadmaps are tactics but that's what I
1:04:56
said it just skips strategy they're
1:04:58
going straight from double revenue to a
1:05:00
bunch of tactics there is no strategy
1:05:04
strategy leads to a bunch of problems to
1:05:08
solve each of those are solved by the
1:05:10
team in Discovery Discovery's just
1:05:12
trying to find a solution that works at
1:05:14
the end of the day they will probably
1:05:16
build out some features but they're
1:05:17
building the ones that they actually
1:05:18
have verified solve the problem for
1:05:21
those that don't know that means the
1:05:22
solution is valuable it's usable it's
1:05:25
feasible and it's viable all right and
1:05:28
finally delivery builds that solution
1:05:31
that's the one most people understand
1:05:33
but those are the full that's sort of
1:05:35
how the four main concepts in product
1:05:38
really relate okay I referenced a couple
1:05:43
but I've I've tried to you know I've
1:05:46
been a student actually a product
1:05:48
strategy my whole career I admit I like
1:05:52
discovery best because to me that's just
1:05:54
fun
1:05:55
literally solving our problems
1:05:58
prototyping test that's just fun however
1:06:02
I would say that the strategy skills are
1:06:07
more valuable at least for me
1:06:10
career-wise has been even more valuable
1:06:12
because the strategy if the strategy's
1:06:16
not good it's kind of the rest don't
1:06:19
matter doesn't matter so even though I
1:06:22
love discovery so much I would argue
1:06:24
that this the investments in strategy
1:06:27
really helped so anyway I've been a
1:06:29
student in reading books forever there I
1:06:31
found two that I think are good and
1:06:33
useful most of them fit into that
1:06:36
category of the paint-by-numbers thing
1:06:38
you know do this and you'll come up with
1:06:40
something I love the good strategy bad
1:06:43
strategy and art of action to be honest
1:06:47
this guy writes military history books
1:06:49
but it turned you know the truth is
1:06:52
military strategy is a lot of
1:06:54
similarities with product strategy and
1:06:57
he seemed to figure that out and he
1:06:59
decided to write a book on that and it's
1:07:01
a it's one of the best ones out there if
1:07:03
you haven't heard of it he doesn't
1:07:06
actually even reference ok ours but he's
1:07:09
really talking about ok ours yeah I
1:07:13
don't even know though that he knows
1:07:15
they exist to be honest and I checked
1:07:17
the date it's not like it was he wrote
1:07:20
it when ok hours were big and I was sort
1:07:23
of surprised about that bond length he's
1:07:24
describing the way ok ours are supposed
1:07:26
to be used and I literally did a got the
1:07:29
Kindle version search nothing okay so
1:07:35
there's for those that don't know the
1:07:39
second edition of the book is a hundred
1:07:41
percent rewrite from the first edition
1:07:43
so if even if you did read the first one
1:07:45
I hope you do read the second one and if
1:07:47
you like that topic discovery I
1:07:48
definitely hope you read it like said I
1:07:51
am in the middle of writing a new book
1:07:54
which is called empowered ordinary
1:07:57
people extraordinary products that's one
1:08:01
point I didn't really get across but I
1:08:03
probably should share with you I told
1:08:05
you the four companies that really
1:08:07
impact you know and motivated me on this
1:08:09
and impacted my thinking one of the
1:08:12
things that one of the things I think
1:08:14
most people when I the biggest argument
1:08:17
I get against empowering teams from CEOs
1:08:19
is they think they can't hire the
1:08:21
caliber people that Google hires and I
1:08:24
try to set them straight that that
1:08:27
Google's people are much more like their
1:08:31
people than they think and I tell them
1:08:33
one way I know that for a fact is for
1:08:36
the so many people that I have
1:08:38
introduced
1:08:40
into these companies and they tell me
1:08:42
after six months that they have done
1:08:44
more in those six months and they had
1:08:46
done in their previous several years
1:08:48
then these are the same brains same
1:08:51
bodies same people the difference is
1:08:54
they finally left landed in an
1:08:56
environment that would let them do work
1:08:58
so I am absolutely you know convinced
1:09:02
that what's special about the four
1:09:04
companies I talked about is how they let
1:09:07
their teams do their jobs not that it's
1:09:11
some sort of DNA you know filtering or
1:09:16
something going on all right okay so do
1:09:22
we have time for questions down
1:09:30
we want to capture it so it gets some
1:09:33
the video so you have to have a mic down
1:09:35
some questions raise your hand we have
1:09:36
mic runners then we'll get a mic to you
1:09:38
and just wait your turn - awesome
1:09:43
you mentioned the military command
1:09:50
intent it's command intent I use that
1:09:53
yeah not everybody well you don't have
1:09:56
to repeat the question with the
1:09:57
microphone so uh command intent I use
1:09:59
the term strategic cocked context for
1:10:02
that and it's a really important point
1:10:04
it's not in this particular talk but it
1:10:07
is a important point on the Empowered
1:10:09
team concept you know why if look
1:10:12
imagine your eyes you know they call
1:10:14
them squads in the military memory
1:10:17
imagine you're a seal squad if you were
1:10:20
if it was command and control and you
1:10:23
are trying to do something like capture
1:10:26
something and you literally had to
1:10:27
follow some recipe you're you're dead
1:10:30
literally the way they are true examples
1:10:33
of empowered team they are given an
1:10:35
objective and they're given skills and
1:10:38
by the way these squads are by design
1:10:39
cross-functional they have different
1:10:41
skill sets in their medical long
1:10:43
distance shooting demolitions all these
1:10:46
different skills and they have to be
1:10:50
able to make decisions themselves and
1:10:52
figure out the best way to do it now
1:10:54
that works if you do two things you give
1:10:57
them a mission the objective by the way
1:11:00
in the okay are you give them an
1:11:02
objective and two you've got to give
1:11:05
them the big picture they need to know
1:11:08
how their work relates to all the other
1:11:10
squads that are out there and what the
1:11:12
overall objective is that's called
1:11:14
command intent I use the term strategic
1:11:16
context the product strategy is part of
1:11:20
the strategic context as is the product
1:11:22
vision as is the business objectives and
1:11:26
also the other big one is the product
1:11:29
principles so yeah it's a really
1:11:31
important concept that applies in our
1:11:34
world - I considered using some of the
1:11:37
military terminology but it's got some
1:11:41
baggage
1:11:43
yeah sure thank you so much for this
1:11:46
presentation I had a question about her
1:11:48
of a product team and I think something
1:11:50
I really struggle with us we have we own
1:11:52
a really large product and it's really
1:11:54
hard to help people focus when you're
1:11:56
getting inundated by so many questions
1:11:58
about really large historical old
1:12:01
products I was wondering tactics or
1:12:03
advice you have for how do you filter
1:12:05
out some of that noise from the team but
1:12:07
also we have to adequately own the
1:12:09
product I mean only today so I don't
1:12:11
know just ideas on how we could better
1:12:12
manage that what you're saying though is
1:12:14
you've got a product a big product and
1:12:17
you're getting a lot of questions about
1:12:19
that product and you're the product
1:12:21
manager I'm a manager oh okay so okay
1:12:28
well of course everybody else in the
1:12:30
room is probably thinking that's normal
1:12:31
right they we all get tons of questions
1:12:34
and tons of feedback we have customer
1:12:38
service we have sales we have customers
1:12:40
we've got questions coming from finance
1:12:43
we've got a lot of that and of course if
1:12:46
if it's bugs and you know your start to
1:12:51
the point where you the team's are
1:12:54
telling you that just the cost - it's
1:12:56
often referred to as keep the lights on
1:12:58
is over is basically consuming their
1:13:02
team's you might be saying that that
1:13:04
that definitely happens in companies and
1:13:07
they're like we can't make any forward
1:13:09
progress we are just treading water
1:13:11
barely and it's not very motivating if
1:13:14
that's what's going on then you know the
1:13:16
company has so you're in a serious and
1:13:18
it may even be tech debt on to even be
1:13:20
causing that or a big big part of that
1:13:22
so this is not something that's easy to
1:13:24
change but the company is gonna have to
1:13:26
make some hard choices I would argue the
1:13:29
focus probably hasn't been happening and
1:13:31
now it's non-negotiable it has to happen
1:13:34
and boy it's high stakes to do that so I
1:13:39
don't want to be - you know there's a
1:13:42
lot of potential things that could be
1:13:43
causing these symptoms so it's without
1:13:46
sort of going into a whole
1:13:48
back-and-forth of how many engineers do
1:13:49
you have and how many designers and
1:13:51
where are all the inputs coming from and
1:13:53
stuff like that but as a principle
1:13:55
though I don't
1:13:57
to say with just one other thing which
1:13:58
is you do want the product managers that
1:14:01
work for you to be getting the feedback
1:14:02
directly we do not like filters so one
1:14:07
reaction to that would might be shut
1:14:09
things down you know so that they don't
1:14:11
have so much noise coming in but it's
1:14:13
really essential that the product
1:14:15
manager here all feedback yeah sure
1:14:21
Victor can you talk about the breath
1:14:24
strategy for at least HD is like if you
1:14:27
must three people what he wanted the
1:14:28
first time VP and how do you see
1:14:31
strategy there when the sources are law
1:14:34
and you still try to get the first
1:14:36
version okay well the first thing I
1:14:39
would say is that strategy is not like a
1:14:42
luxury for when you have big
1:14:44
organizations strategy is about making
1:14:47
much better use of the limited resources
1:14:49
you have most startups you know there is
1:14:54
this I don't know it's truth is I meet a
1:14:57
lot of startups some of them it's like
1:14:58
how did they get any funding they don't
1:15:00
like I don't know so I don't want to say
1:15:03
so some startups third grade and some of
1:15:06
them are not you know that but um but I
1:15:12
would argue a strategy is all about
1:15:15
smart use of resources in fact we can
1:15:19
take this back to that Pandora example I
1:15:22
mean I I already said I think it was
1:15:25
insane for them to try to go public in
1:15:27
that space with only 40 engineers and I
1:15:30
would have if I was on the board I would
1:15:32
have raised hell about that that's just
1:15:33
crazy and I think they ultimately paid
1:15:35
the price of that for sure but if there
1:15:39
was just 40 engineers then they
1:15:42
literally had the worst possible process
1:15:45
because you could argue that with only
1:15:47
40 if you don't have a super smart
1:15:50
strategy and you don't pick really well
1:15:52
you're toast
1:15:54
so strategy is a weight it's a force
1:15:59
multiplier right it's not a luxury
1:16:01
so suggest I can pull off you mean
1:16:03
strategy as a process not as it oughta
1:16:06
outcome butter
1:16:08
humans are something documented which
1:16:10
you really present your name oh maybe we
1:16:14
should talk privately yeah because I
1:16:17
there's a lot there we need to unpack
1:16:19
yeah but it's strategy is not a process
1:16:22
to be clear it's not a process it's
1:16:24
insights that turn into action and you
1:16:27
can document it if you want who cares
1:16:29
but what really matters is you've got to
1:16:31
make sure your team understands it but
1:16:34
let me just say if in the scenario you
1:16:36
described start up working early stages
1:16:39
trying to get to product market fit you
1:16:41
better be good at the stuff we're
1:16:42
talking about yeah hi so how do you keep
1:16:50
everyone happy and still be focused and
1:16:53
the same time no I love that question
1:16:58
how do you keep everybody happy well
1:17:00
that's the super easy to answer you
1:17:04
don't know I don't think it's possible I
1:17:07
mean you can keep them happy at least
1:17:10
until you know the stock drops through
1:17:14
the floor but no yeah this is not I
1:17:18
think this idea of keeping everyone
1:17:20
happy is fundamental
1:17:21
look that's why the CEO doesn't want to
1:17:23
focus and you know it's not just like
1:17:26
they're trying to please people it's
1:17:27
fear of missing out they're like oh all
1:17:30
these things could be important
1:17:32
so let's we let's do them all I mean it
1:17:36
sounds safer but no it's really not and
1:17:40
it's yeah we product people have to make
1:17:44
these trade-offs every single day is
1:17:47
really important now I do believe in not
1:17:50
being a jerk about it because some
1:17:53
product people are they're like because
1:17:55
I said so you know it's that kind of
1:17:57
thing no I believe in full transparency
1:18:00
being very open with the stakeholders
1:18:03
really showing them the strategy showing
1:18:05
them the insights showing them the
1:18:07
reasoning in fact I'm a huge fan of the
1:18:10
written narrative to really spelt like
1:18:13
for stakeholders to see why you decided
1:18:16
to do something is like all out here
1:18:18
take a look you know the CEOs read it
1:18:21
make sure you understand I'm not trying
1:18:24
to be arbitrary here to preach this is
1:18:26
so but the goal of keeping everybody
1:18:30
happy is not I think a realistic goal
1:18:34
how about keeping everybody employed so
1:18:43
there was yeah go ahead what would you
1:18:51
recommend somebody buy shoes what do you
1:18:53
think I should be mindful of can you say
1:18:55
I just there was just a some say that
1:18:57
middle part again I'm sorry I'll say
1:19:00
that I'm considering making it all from
1:19:01
sales to product management ok so what
1:19:04
do you recommend somebody like me these
1:19:06
shoes considering that both and what
1:19:08
should I be oh right
1:19:11
moving from sales to product I
1:19:13
definitely know some people that have
1:19:15
moved from sales to product cuz you know
1:19:17
in sales you've got that frontline
1:19:18
experience with customers the truth is
1:19:21
every single person that moves from
1:19:23
product to product has some gaps and
1:19:26
some strengths there's a tool that I
1:19:29
published as part of this coaching
1:19:31
series and I would strongly encourage
1:19:34
you to self assess just self assess I
1:19:37
mean I with your background there's some
1:19:39
things I'm pretty sure you're gonna do
1:19:41
pretty well in but there's gonna be a
1:19:42
lot of areas that the at least from just
1:19:46
your sales experience you haven't said
1:19:48
anything about education or other jobs
1:19:50
you would not have been exposed to so
1:19:52
you will probably have a pretty
1:19:54
substantial set of things to develop and
1:19:58
you can get to work on those things in
1:20:02
my experience most people they really
1:20:04
want to get the product can but they
1:20:06
have to do the work there's a and there
1:20:08
can be a lot of work it is definitely
1:20:11
not an easy job unless you go to a
1:20:14
feature team and it's pretty easy
1:20:17
hey buddy I'm a product manager at
1:20:20
springboard and I think we're in the
1:20:23
middle of this transition from being a
1:20:24
feature team to hopefully Ana's power
1:20:27
project team but building on the
1:20:29
question of how do you keepsake holders
1:20:31
happy how do you say no to them
1:20:34
when they come to you and when they've
1:20:36
been trained to come to you with feature
1:20:38
requests every quarter for planning and
1:20:40
especially when you're asked to defend
1:20:43
and compare and contrast their requests
1:20:45
against like everything you have planned
1:20:47
I understand
1:20:49
all too well I mean you're describing
1:20:51
feature teams exactly just to be clear
1:20:53
so you're not alone for sure but the
1:20:56
question you're really asking is how do
1:20:59
you transform your organization to a
1:21:02
modern tech powered product organization
1:21:04
and that is not a three-minute question
1:21:08
that is a major topic but I guess I
1:21:10
could say I'm writing a book about it
1:21:57
fear of people telling up you know this
1:22:02
is wrong or this can be proved and fear
1:22:05
of the people off to make me to change
1:22:08
things yeah yeah well I mean this is
1:22:15
you're not just talking about like the
1:22:18
like you said different swing feature
1:22:19
teams and empower teams you're talking
1:22:21
about a cultural change in a company I
1:22:24
mean the kind of company you're
1:22:26
describing you know it's not the kind of
1:22:29
place most people want to work the fear
1:22:35
is not a good thing you know that yeah
1:22:37
and I will say there's a great great the
1:22:40
people have heard me talk before now I'm
1:22:42
just a huge fan of Bill Campbell coach
1:22:45
Bill Campbell he died a couple years ago
1:22:47
but he's considered the best coach ever
1:22:50
he actually was CEO here at M to it for
1:22:54
a few years I just remembered that but
1:22:57
just an awesome guy and anyway he's I
1:23:01
have all these great quotes from him and
1:23:03
one of my favorites was there is nothing
1:23:07
more powerful than an empowered engineer
1:23:11
and I really believe that's true because
1:23:16
if you I do get to work with a lot of
1:23:18
cool product teams and inevitably the
1:23:20
real innovations come from the engineers
1:23:22
and I always encourage good engineers to
1:23:27
work at a place that can use their
1:23:29
skills so I mean if you hopefully you
1:23:32
can convince your management that they
1:23:35
should use your skills but if not you
1:23:37
should definitely there are lots of
1:23:38
companies in this valley that love to
1:23:41
use engineers and let them do like Steve
1:23:44
Jobs used to say we don't hire all these
1:23:46
people to tell them what to do we hire
1:23:48
them to show us what's possible so yeah
1:23:53
sorry
1:23:54
[Laughter]
1:24:08
[Music]
1:24:17
and then you know the company level or
1:24:20
the level you have increase revenue I
1:24:25
think that is well first of all good
1:24:41
part of what you said is their goals
1:24:43
right you didn't sort of rattle off a
1:24:46
bunch of features on a road map you
1:24:47
talked about goals that's good you
1:24:49
talked about some high level company
1:24:51
goals you talked about some team
1:24:52
specific goals the only part that was
1:24:54
missing was product strategy and so I
1:24:59
would argue your good example now there
1:25:02
might be one but you don't didn't share
1:25:04
that in there because that's the missing
1:25:06
part that was the underpants no Mew no
1:25:07
you have the big goals you have the
1:25:09
profit at the end but it's that middle
1:25:12
part so that's what I would encourage
1:25:14
you to work on is that clear
1:25:16
articulation of a strategy which will
1:25:19
then of course cause you to revise your
1:25:20
team goals and again they don't all have
1:25:23
to be the single it's normal in a larger
1:25:25
organization to be pursuing each team
1:25:27
pursuing different problems sometimes
1:25:31
the same problems but lots ly different
1:25:33
problems but they all need to be aligned
1:25:35
one of the virtues of okay ours is it's
1:25:38
a lot easier to align our organization
1:25:41
make sure we're going in the same
1:25:42
direction but that doesn't mean like
1:25:44
we're only working on what's one you
1:25:47
said onboarding were you know check out
1:25:53
well
1:25:56
that's that's kind of the presentation I
1:26:01
am but I understand where you're coming
1:26:04
from in fact one of the parts of the
1:26:06
book I'm writing on right now is a very
1:26:09
detailed case study because I want
1:26:12
people to not just think it's theory but
1:26:14
also see how it all plays out so it's
1:26:16
got the actual team topology it's got
1:26:18
their actual strategy their actual
1:26:21
objectives and so hopefully to be able
1:26:23
to answer that question but I'm also
1:26:27
writing a bunch of articles about to
1:26:29
publish more that I think will give you
1:26:30
more to work with but it's a big topic
1:26:34
there was yes over here hi
1:26:37
and so that thank you so much for
1:26:51
good
1:26:59
so what about somebody here you
1:27:08
so partly it's a similar answer to the
1:27:12
person who's coming from sales obviously
1:27:14
finance and sales are not the same but
1:27:16
you will have very different you know
1:27:19
you'll have similar a profile of things
1:27:22
that you need to work on there is one
1:27:25
other thing that I'd like to mention
1:27:26
that applies to the salesperson as well
1:27:31
don't worry so much about what company
1:27:34
you go work for because even even if you
1:27:37
go to Amazon which is I mean they are
1:27:40
really good at what we're talking about
1:27:42
they also have a demanding culture which
1:27:44
isn't for everybody so you kind of have
1:27:46
to know that but they're really good
1:27:47
about while we're talking about that
1:27:49
said I know teams there that are
1:27:51
featured teams so even in great
1:27:54
companies some teams are you know
1:27:58
usually because they haven't earned the
1:27:59
trust yet of the leaders but the point
1:28:02
is what matters more than the company
1:28:04
you go work for is the person you're
1:28:07
gonna work for literally the person
1:28:10
especially if it's your first job in
1:28:12
product you want to find somebody
1:28:15
there's really two things I tell people
1:28:17
to look for look at their look on
1:28:20
LinkedIn see where they've worked before
1:28:21
if they've worked at a good product
1:28:24
company that where they know how to do
1:28:26
this well that's number one number two
1:28:29
during the interview you want to say
1:28:32
look I'm coming here to learn from you
1:28:34
and I am willing to work very hard I
1:28:39
want to know if you're willing to coach
1:28:41
me to become great some people well most
1:28:46
people will be flattered they'll love to
1:28:48
hear that some people will say I have no
1:28:52
time I need people ready to hit the
1:28:54
ground running
1:28:55
but what really matters this for you to
1:28:57
find someone who's willing to invest in
1:29:00
you and it's to be honest it's usually a
1:29:03
year to of work of developing in this
1:29:07
situation if you're brand new to product
1:29:08
before you really at that level you
1:29:11
really want to be and can go go on so it
1:29:14
much more important
1:29:15
and the company is the manager you've
1:29:18
probably all heard that line too it's
1:29:20
it's so true but people join a company
1:29:22
but they leave their manager that's
1:29:25
really true
1:29:26
so don't get me wrong if you go work for
1:29:29
Netflix awesome but if you can't getting
1:29:32
somebody who used to work at Netflix
1:29:34
like a product director and Netflix and
1:29:36
now is willing to they're at another
1:29:38
company a smaller start-up and they're
1:29:40
looking for somebody like you that's
1:29:42
great yeah always and always like is it
1:30:12
okay to like no there's probably the
1:30:22
little story behind your question there
1:30:24
too I'm thinking but um uh to be clear
1:30:29
you know we all know those product
1:30:31
manager types that feel like they just
1:30:33
have to know everything or they have to
1:30:36
sort of appear like they know everything
1:30:37
I've never seen this work
1:30:40
I think it backfires so you know making
1:30:44
decisions is one of the most important
1:30:46
thing we do however they should you know
1:30:51
if the decision has to be proportional
1:30:53
to the consequence there's a lot of
1:30:56
minor things which frankly don't even
1:30:59
need to be decisions you probably could
1:31:00
defer to your designer defer to your
1:31:02
engineer it's just like fine on the big
1:31:05
things if you try to make like a right
1:31:08
away to sit you you're doing a
1:31:09
disservice to everybody starting with
1:31:11
you
1:31:12
so I did write about how a big topic of
1:31:16
coaching for me with coaching product
1:31:18
people is coaching them on how to make
1:31:20
good decisions I already shared some
1:31:22
parts about like being transparent but
1:31:25
you know you also have to bring along
1:31:26
the rest of the company you have to
1:31:28
bring along your stay
1:31:29
Calder's your teammates so there's a it
1:31:32
is not a minor topic the most important
1:31:36
thing though is my boss Marc Andreessen
1:31:40
used to drill this in know what you
1:31:43
can't know admit what you don't know
1:31:45
just really important don't pretend and
1:31:49
people I think respect that now of
1:31:52
course if I don't know something I see
1:31:54
it but I make a point to go find it out
1:31:56
you know so I'll go back and say okay I
1:31:58
looked into that or we ran a test or
1:32:00
whatever we did but here because the
1:32:03
they deserve an answer but they won't
1:32:06
you know they deserve a good answer it
1:32:09
should take time and all the only other
1:32:14
thing I'd say is don't make a decision
1:32:15
if you don't need to if you can just
1:32:18
defer to your colleagues that are the
1:32:20
experts in it that is much better we
1:32:22
hate those product managers that are
1:32:23
always trying to play you know boss
1:32:26
they're not really the boss of anybody
1:32:28
right the product manager was there a
1:32:30
quest yeah so I'm actually a designer
1:32:44
and now it's a super good question by
1:33:05
the way
1:33:05
everybody heard it but it's also really
1:33:08
common a lot of times product managers
1:33:11
will ask me that question about how can
1:33:12
they get their engineers to really
1:33:14
respond you know understand the pain our
1:33:17
users are really in and I actually big
1:33:21
fan I think it's the same answer for
1:33:23
both you need to bring them out to users
1:33:25
and customers face to face no messing
1:33:29
around with intermediaries face to face
1:33:31
and it is I think it's magical actually
1:33:35
it is very motivating especially for the
1:33:38
engineers and that you know it's hard
1:33:43
not to be empathetic when you really
1:33:45
know someone it's really easy
1:33:47
unfortunately especially for consumer
1:33:49
products this is a bigger problem in the
1:33:51
consumer space than the b2b
1:33:53
interestingly in consumer you know any
1:33:55
of millions of users like the millions
1:33:58
of users it's abstract it's like
1:33:59
whatever I'm never gonna make them all
1:34:01
happy so but you know you really have to
1:34:05
get that once you've got names and faces
1:34:07
and you really know them but it also
1:34:10
makes it makes all of product more
1:34:13
satisfying more meaningful one of the
1:34:17
you didn't ask this variant of the
1:34:19
question but one of the challenges is
1:34:21
you know we're not all working on
1:34:23
something like Google Maps which is like
1:34:26
everybody is like I can relate to Google
1:34:28
Maps it's awesome
1:34:29
or Google photos something like we're
1:34:30
not all working on a lot of this stuff
1:34:32
is like I'm doing payroll
1:34:37
[Music]
1:34:41
hey I picked that on purpose come on I
1:34:44
know where I am but we're doing payroll
1:34:47
it's like it's not like Twitter right
1:34:50
it's not like I'm telling grandma about
1:34:53
it that way so but I have found that
1:34:57
when you take your product manager when
1:34:59
you take your engineers to the payroll
1:35:02
departments of these customers and
1:35:05
literally sit down with them or even
1:35:09
better like we invite them to dinner
1:35:11
with you that night when you visit that
1:35:13
it's a whole different thing I mean
1:35:15
honestly I have seen this so many times
1:35:17
it's happened to me so many times
1:35:19
they actually tell you for example what
1:35:21
happens under stress on payroll runs and
1:35:24
what happens when there's a problem or
1:35:26
what happens when you know you've got
1:35:28
somebody yelling at you for getting this
1:35:30
done by a certain time or there aren't
1:35:33
funds in the bank to cover this and
1:35:35
you've got to now talk to finance and
1:35:37
it's just it's they realize that oh my
1:35:41
gosh these people have super hard jobs
1:35:43
and you know what I think we could make
1:35:46
it better for them so I found that works
1:35:50
and I want to go further
1:35:52
especially with developers developers
1:35:55
are I mean obviously I'm biased on this
1:35:58
but I they really want to help people
1:36:01
they really do and I think that one of
1:36:04
the biggest crimes in our industry is
1:36:05
when we shelter developers a lot of
1:36:08
developers the only way they feel like
1:36:10
they can help people is by helping their
1:36:11
colleagues by writing their tools so
1:36:13
they love doing tools and some people
1:36:15
think that's all the developers want to
1:36:17
do is innovate by doing tools no it's
1:36:20
just that they know their developers
1:36:22
that they work with if you introduce
1:36:24
them to these payroll clerks and
1:36:27
managers they are gonna care about them
1:36:30
too
1:36:30
I mean I guarantee it
1:36:36
yeah yeah I even sit and thank you again
1:36:40
because I started my part of my entire
1:36:42
thanks to your book as well but then a
1:36:44
wise but I did start with that as a
1:36:47
question about focus
1:36:49
there's flipside to focus right because
1:36:51
focus also means that you're putting
1:36:54
your eggs in one basket well or a small
1:36:56
number yes one of them no that's okay
1:36:59
for Google right because they have a lot
1:37:01
of Engineers they can do a lot of things
1:37:03
but for a smaller company you know
1:37:05
hundreds of other people maybe five
1:37:06
others people you can put you can have
1:37:08
maybe two three packs that's all clear
1:37:15
you're making my argument you are Google
1:37:18
it doesn't matter they have more money
1:37:20
than God from AdWords they do so they
1:37:24
can and they do spend it you know they
1:37:26
nobody could even count how many things
1:37:28
they're working on but if it's they do
1:37:31
most of them they do and that's fine
1:37:34
because they have AdWords I'd add some
1:37:39
but you're making I'm just trying to
1:37:40
point out you're making my point in a
1:37:42
smaller company you can't mess around
1:37:44
like that in a smaller company you have
1:37:46
not nearly you don't have a thousandth
1:37:48
of the resources they do so you know
1:37:50
what you better make good use of the
1:37:52
people you have that's the point of
1:37:55
strategy is you have to make sure you
1:37:58
are doing good use and what I was trying
1:38:00
to say is if you just say well we're not
1:38:03
sure we're gonna make 20 bets and we
1:38:05
have 30 engineers so we'll just do a
1:38:08
little this is the fear of missing out
1:38:10
you know we're just gonna all I'm saying
1:38:12
is that's a guaranteed you're gonna fail
1:38:14
you argue that maybe Pandora made like
1:38:18
one bit and that bet was the music zero
1:38:21
right that was dead and they said this
1:38:24
is what we're going for we have 40
1:38:25
engineers who cares I have like
1:38:27
people working on this music thing and
1:38:29
that's my partner I'm gonna go off with
1:38:32
this
1:38:32
right that could be an argument I would
1:38:35
argue they didn't I mean they they
1:38:37
really didn't make any conscious bets
1:38:40
right they abdicated that responsibility
1:38:42
by just giving it to the stakeholders
1:38:44
that's what I meant by absence of
1:38:46
product I would have argued you know and
1:38:49
I was all I wasn't there but yeah and
1:38:51
it's all hindsight but I would have
1:38:53
argued to them I hope I would have known
1:38:55
to say this that they are a tech powered
1:38:59
music company you know at the time it
1:39:02
was all about their deals with the
1:39:03
studios and there were dominated by
1:39:05
expensive costs that's why they said
1:39:07
they couldn't have more than 40
1:39:09
developers because all their money went
1:39:10
to pay for rights and I would have
1:39:13
argued look you are in a tech powered
1:39:16
business you have to have a machine for
1:39:18
continuous innovation and if you don't
1:39:20
it's only a matter of time they did have
1:39:23
a head start and they lost it yeah but I
1:39:27
would argue that even no guarantee with
1:39:29
only 40 engineers even with the best
1:39:31
strategy in the world that's not clear
1:39:33
but my it would have been a much better
1:39:35
shot than just random let's see what
1:39:39
everybody a little bit for everybody
1:39:47
Mariana actually I'm a product manager
1:39:49
on Google Maps
1:39:50
Oh we actually do so many users as
1:39:55
frequently as possible because it's just
1:39:57
so enlightening but my question is more
1:40:00
about I love your framework and the
1:40:02
point in that framework that are most
1:40:04
interested in unpacking is the
1:40:05
management part and you know the tuning
1:40:08
for certain leaders have been better
1:40:10
management not less meaning that but I
1:40:12
love to hear to mystify what management
1:40:15
means and what does product management
1:40:18
people management really
1:40:21
if you have like a framework for what
1:40:23
good management is I know there's
1:40:25
trillion-dollar coach that I love to
1:40:27
hear Marty's oh I would like to think
1:40:30
that anything I say is consistent with
1:40:32
trillion-dollar coach but this is more
1:40:34
yeah and I wouldn't frame what I have
1:40:36
you know what I argue is a framework cuz
1:40:38
I don't know if it deserves that level
1:40:41
it's more there are responsibilities of
1:40:44
managers that are absolutely critical I
1:40:46
think because we are now talking about
1:40:48
just to be clear first level managers of
1:40:50
product managers ok good this is what I
1:40:53
consider the most important role for
1:40:55
really making all this stuff happen so
1:40:57
this is the one I like to talk about so
1:40:59
number one is staffing staffing and you
1:41:05
know all of these things are on our talk
1:41:09
in their own right so I don't want to do
1:41:11
too much of a disservice but staffing is
1:41:14
huge the main thing I'd say is good
1:41:16
managers of product managers do not
1:41:18
depend on HR HR is a sourcing model but
1:41:22
good managers are using the recruiting
1:41:24
model what that means is you are going
1:41:26
to events like this and you are getting
1:41:29
to know people and you are building a
1:41:32
network of a pipeline of people that you
1:41:35
think are right for your team that's
1:41:39
really important and then man I I've
1:41:42
worked for years to get the right people
1:41:43
you know where you build trust and you
1:41:45
build and you know waiting for the right
1:41:47
point in their career and but the point
1:41:50
is you go recruit them you do not just
1:41:53
look at resumes that are coming through
1:41:54
HR second is coaching the biggest
1:41:59
responsibility I would argue you have as
1:42:02
a manager of product managers is to
1:42:05
coach and develop your product managers
1:42:07
and of course actually Google has a good
1:42:09
history with that and I hope and many of
1:42:12
the people I have sent over there have
1:42:13
told me how it's real it's like they
1:42:16
benefited but active coaching helping
1:42:20
people reach their potential and then
1:42:24
the third is this point with the team
1:42:26
objectives to really cuz you as that
1:42:29
first level manager you're really the
1:42:31
one can
1:42:32
hurting the strategy into objectives so
1:42:35
you're in the best position to see what
1:42:37
each team should really is best position
1:42:40
to do and you know you're right in the
1:42:42
middle of that negotiation between what
1:42:43
you need them to do what they think they
1:42:45
could do what is necessary to be done so
1:42:48
we're looking at that's those are the
1:42:50
three fundamental responsibilities of
1:42:52
managers it's also true that some
1:42:55
managers are leaders of the organization
1:42:58
and those people have even more
1:43:01
responsibilities now we're talking
1:43:03
product vision we're actually talking
1:43:04
this product strategy we're talking
1:43:06
product principles and a big evangelism
1:43:09
responsibility which is really back to
1:43:11
Tom was asking about with the strategic
1:43:15
and context yes and if you're interested
1:43:19
I did write an article called empowered
1:43:22
product teams that talks about the
1:43:24
responsibilities of managers and that's
1:43:26
really been a big focus of mine I want
1:43:28
us I want it I benefited from really
1:43:32
good management and I realized most
1:43:35
people have not had that so I want to
1:43:38
see a lot more people get it
1:43:44
[Applause]
1:43:49
[Music]
Start a conversation
Ask anything about Product Strategy: The Missing Link
100/100 free messages remaining
AI responses may be inaccurate. Verify important information.
Product Strategy: The Missing Link
Lean Product Meetup