What have we chatted about?
We take notes at all PITA meetups, because our memory is shocking.
PITA 052
Topic 1: Tips for interviewing/ recruiting PMs?
Look for PMs that have done things on the side - they understand how business actually works. Getting clients through the door, money flow, etc. (Though that has issues for people who don’t have the time for that.)
Use scenarios in the interview. Pick something that they’d have to do in the job that’s a bit tough; turn up the volume on it, and ask them to walk you through their approach. IMPORTANT: send it to them in advance. You’re not just testing their ability to bullshit/vamp. Also ask them to give concrete examples of what they’ve done in this space.
Really define the needs of the role in advance - know what you’re looking for. Do this with the hiring team and the people they’ll be working with.
Two questions I like to ask:
How do you make your team(s) better?
And how do you get better at your job/practice? (regardless of what the answer is, just to show that this is something they actively consider)
Look at using AI for some scripts - to get ideas for questions. Use it to analyse your ad. To review CVs, potentially. To identify gaps.
On AI: Raises a good point about any of the questions/case studies you share ahead of time, people could get a good answer from GPT, but you could ask your GPT to come up with in-person follow up questions that would allow to you uncover if it’s their actual answer or from an LLM.
See Hiring Product Managers - Kate Leto
Seconded - and this podcast with Kate.
Be very clear about what you want - PROJECT or PRODUCT manager, and what the organisation expects, and why the org needs a(another) PM.
And be clear (and consistently clear throughout) where the org is at with candidates.
Topic 2: Product slicing / teams definition, tips tricks, what to avoid
There’s no RIGHT way to set the team topology for every org. Define the issues that the org has, and create a model that addresses the ones that are holding you back. Know that you’ll reorg again some day.
Know that the teams will need to coordinate so that there are common elements/components/experiences across a user’s experience.
Avoid a model where you have multiple teams going to the same users, asking about different problems. You could end up looking disjointed or unfocused - or contradict yourselves.
Read Team Topologies.
Avoid a model that’s overly specialised - I was in an org where there were 10 PMs, but none of us had a real understanding of the product from end-to-end. I had to interview all my peers to understand how it worked.
I often come back to this article from Roman Pichler Feature Teams vs Component Teams
Do some customer journey mapping
Topic 3: Product consulting dealbreakers / red flags
As a consultant, you only see part of the picture. What’s stopping them from following through on your work may be external factors.
Examine: Is now the right time to be doing this for the org?
Sometimes this sort of stuff is done as a punt, to see if they’re “ready”. Or to be contradictory for the sake of self validation.
When consulting, your sample size is small. When something doesn’t work, you may need to iterate… but you also need to understand when something is an outlier.
Topic 4: getting hired in this job market / transitioning from product consulting back to pure product management
Work your network. Explain why you’re looking for non-consulting role.
Focus on the 2 or 3 things that you’re really good at and make you special, that will make you stand out.
Cast a wide net - be open to things.
Review your CV and really be critical of it: justify every word and the value it brings.
Make sure that you’re focused on the role, when you land an interview. You’re not selling YOU, you’re selling YOU in that role.
Practise your story, especially when it’s a bit tangled.
PITA 051
Topic 1: Who is experiencing Workshop/Innovation Theater? (Doing the motions and then going back to 'regular' work)
We did workshops, presented action items back to leadership… and then nothing happened
For open workshops, call out to pick one thing and take this to action
Follow-up workshops with coaching
Lack of time is an impediment - make sure they have the time to put new things into action
Especially design sprints might be the wrong format, it works best to get established teams unstuck
Workshops are just part of a bigger thing, it is not the main work
Structure the pre-work, to have a clear intent (User Needs, Business Value). Set up a clear structure around it
Use the GROW model - ask, what are the obstacles you see to putting this into practice? (Disaster perspectives, what would stop you reflection as part of the workshop)
Team-building activities really support this / Be clear if the goal is more a social activity
Topic 2: My new employer is using Shape Up across all teams. This is new to me, but it's pretty refreshing not to write all the PRDs anymore. Any other experiences with Shape Up?
https://basecamp.com/shapeup - free book and podcast with Ryan Singer about the approach
Breadboarding- creating a schematic/model for how this is intended to work without going into the weeds
Itamar Gilad’s roadmap template that makes use of some of this approach
Topic 3: 'Transformed' - anyone read it yet?
First chunk is all about DevOps. Second is the Product Operating model - Product-led, but a less-controversial term. And there’s a lot on how to do assessments and deal with objections from stakeholders. A good source for a lot of inspiration and experience. It’s a toolkit, not meant as a fun read.
Like every Cagan book, it’s helpful. It’s not anything really new if you follow his blog. A lot of things are - like in every book - over-simplified. I’m curious if it’ll really land at a CEO/CFO level.
In the interviews with him, it’s interesting to see how frustrated he gets when talking about it.
John Cutler’s article “bring fun back” has a view from the trenches on workplace culture
He refers back to Empowered and Inspired back a lot. It’s supposed to be for the C-level audience, but unclear if they’ll read it
Remember, not everyone is a board whisperer. Not everyone can lead or have major influence on a transformation. Marty & his peers only engage when they want to - when the C-suite has shown the commitment to change, using an approach that SVPG believes in.
PITA 050
Topic 1: How do you help teams see areas they need to improve without undermining / demoralising them? (bonus points - when they keep retrenching to old habits)
Test with the intended audience and show results. Now it’s not opinion, but fact.
‘Catch them doing something right’ (from The One-Minute Manager) to also reinforce good things, and compare to goo behaviours observed in the past - creates psychological safety
Show vulnerability about the things you needed to learn along the way
Using OKRs, clear targets (etc) to make expectations explicit
If not a team you have direct interaction with - Manage their managers (in private). People (largely) do what *their* bosses tell them, after all.
Create a culture of raising the bar. Heard a stat today that if sat with a high performer - your performance increases by c30% on average.
Help them to recognise the problem - in a good way.
Topic 2: how do you get a team to believe in move fast and fix and learn and fix and learn etc -- and not overthinking everything
What’s the value of the problem being solved? Is it worth all this faff? (You can also compare this to team burn rate)
Cynefin approach - figure out how to scale the insight
Risk vs Opportunity matrix - what’s the harm? Build a habit by getting them to consider the risk and just do some stuff - especially if it’s low risk and the opportunity is well understood, even more so if it’s a 2-way door.
Frame things as experiments - even delivery. Build the habit of building slice-by-slice.
There can be a fear you won’t be able to go back if it’s “delivered”.
Even if they feel they have ‘only one chance to get it right’, start to deliver ‘hidden’ slice-by-slice and build trust upstream that this is a more sustainable way to approach things. → 20% are better than nothing (because we canceled midway)
Are they chasing something perfect - perhaps talk about the opportunity cost of doing other things.
Deliberately test small things against each other, so that disposable learning is the norm. (Spikes work like this)
“Think in years - deliver in weeks”
Topic 3: How to sneak in Product methods without people (devs) realising?
Connect to what they are complaining about — bugs, “re-work,” nobody using it, etc.
Find something that actively helps them in their role and apply a technique - get some trust
Do some discovery: why are they so resistant?
How do you establish trust?
Look into the principles of transformation & change management
Stop using the language of product. Use their language and terms. (Due diligence instead of Discovery, for instance. Or Daily Check-ins instead of Stand-Ups.)
Topic 4: How long does it take to develop good 'product instincts'? How can you encourage that development in junior PMs?
Petre Wille’s Product Manager wheel - show the difference between the score they give themselves and others’ perspective on their competency
Setting expectations explicitly - make sure they know what’s being expected of them, and what good looks like
Do you do 360 feedback from a few people? a round of ‘keep doing / ( + do more of) / stop doing’. This approach has its flaws but wider canvassing has some pluses
Focus on the fact that they are showing progress (if they are) as well as how quickly they’re progressing.
Reference them against a development framework
If there are multiple people at that level, create peer relationships or communities.
PITA 049
Topic 1: How do you make change STICK in your organisation?
Trial & Error - when you push hard enough, brute force sometimes works
Frame what they are stopping - remind people of what they are NOT going to do, to make space for new things
ANTIPATTERNS:
reverting when things aren’t going well, so remove fear and pressure where possible
Look at what hasn’t worked - throwing money/people/resource may not do it
Leaders can destroy years of progress in a couple of months (from Marty Cagan’s Transformed workshop)
People trying to find alternate paths outside around obstacles
My guiding principle is following R. Buckminster Fuller’s quote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Switch book - 3 angles - Motivating the elephant, Direct the rider, Shape (clear?) the path
It takes time - it may not happen now, but sowing the seeds has value
In my experience the context means various elements of the Kotter's change model still apply - created sometime ago but all the points it makes still relevant
Remember - people may take different time frames to buy in
Celebrate success - remind people of WHY you’re doing this, give them a story (of the bad, the reasons, and what good looks like)
Repetition, continual reminders of what we’re trying to do. Breaking the habit of doing it the old way - to help them notice “when this happened before we used to this, and now we do this”. “I’m noticing that I want to go and micromanage, but…”
Be brave enough to be the dissenting voice
Put the finger on the wound again and again
Topic 2: Where to start with getting teams to truly learn and build credibility with "The Business" - getting aligned on goals and permission to pursue them?
Build and communicate effective business cases
Acknowledging the issues with loss of/taking control and the psychological safety impact
Talk the language of the organisation
Build the partnership - find somewhere to build a win
Understand partner motivations (Motivation mapping)
Wonder if there is a systemic org design question here as well, blended teams with commercial/traditional folk embedded in the teams
A team - Product, or Value - can Ask a question, get an answer, understand the answer, and take action/make decisions based on that understanding. Else you have a team that just gets code into production and hopefully makes it look nice.
Accountability without autonomy is a stressful place to be - you have to find ways to work together
If you’ve got to solve the business or the product problem - start with the business problem.
Look for the reporting rituals and artefacts - shift each one a bit at a time, to talk about why
Are operations and reporting a barrier to better decision making
Topic 3: How do you figure out which bit of your system/org/service to think of as your "product"?? (It feels like I should know this but I still don't!!)
In UK Gov, the Product is what people use (or multiple things different groups of users use), and a Service covers the Product and the infrastructure/ops/supporting services that enable it. It might be that you need to make that divide clear. (A Lead Product Manager or Head of Product can also provide this coherence)
Focus on the problems that are jumping out, rather than an abstract definition of what the product is. A useful Q I have found with folk asking this sort of question is “If I could wave a magic wand and I had a crystal clear definition — what problems would be solved?”
Build a service blueprint/map, and use that to show what’s affected/involved. Start with a Journey Map, then add in layers as needed. Facilitate the creation of this if you don’t own it. It also allows for questions about HOW to solve the problems - automate or ignore? Or do it manually? Also about WHO is working on each bit
A potential useful language to talk about this is unfix, it is like Lego for org design and can help figure out what which who etc
As someone restated Kennedy, “We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy”.
PITA 048
Topic 1: Tips to coach a coachee on not micromanaging
The goal is to successfully delegate decision-making - creating an environment of both understanding and trust
Understand what’s scaring them and try to address that
How vulnerable is the coachee to their report? Can they say ‘I don’t know’? Can they collaborate instead of micro-managing?
What should they be doing instead of micro-managing? Cause if they’re in the weeds, they’re not doing the other important thing
Manage your decision budget - there’s only so many you can make in a day. Do you want to make the decisions that others can make?
Claire Lew - Don’t be someone else’s worst manager. What was your worst manager experience?
Setting up what good looks like for the report, use the energy towards that instead
What would be a bad manager? Tap into their experience with bad managers, are they acting now like that?
How can you ever be promoted if no one else can do that role?
Tom Dolan - NotCon - Shit, I'm A Manager - Back in 2004 this was me. Sadly the CSS on the blogposts has long since died, so the powerpoint is the best approach.
Asking their direct reports what they need? How they can support them. Not assuming that what they are currently doing is the best way to support.
Topic 2: Finding the right level for leadership between being too prescriptive and clear enough
Repeat: The goal is to successfully delegate decision-making - creating an environment of both understanding and trust
Make sure you have generated a clear understanding of the problem and the north star, the WHY narrative
A mix of top-down and bottom-up goals helps. A standardised template that everyone can contribute to in an async way can be a useful approach.
If the team can’t act on things - they have autonomy - then you can be general. If they don’t, you might need to be prescriptive. Useful as a way to generate a better environment.
Are the “levels” understanding each other probably? Is the way things are communicated clear for the other side. Are the teams ready for this kind of direction? What is stopping them to act on them?
OKRs always fail at first - you need to build on them, iterate your way to success over a few quarters. Introduce them in a small space first, then grow.
Empowered leadership with broad goal-setting techniques does not work on waterfall projects - for example, infrastructure re-platofrming.
Give the context. Lead with context. Does the team get all the context. What would bad look like to establish guardrails.
Did the team go rogue? Or were they not provided with appropriate context?
We are learning this process together.
Autonomy with Accountability
Topic 3: What's your biggest learning from 2023?
Values vs Priorities -people demonstrate their approach by what they spend their time on, and I’m paying a lot more attention on it
Empathy for people I’ve been critical of in the past
Life happens fast, and the unexpected things will come and screw you up. Don’t worry too much about the expected things, as other things will come up!
Engage more with communities - be open, be present, network in a genuine way, and find the way that works for you
When you suspect that you’ve taken the wrong gig, you probably have done so
You can’t get all of your self-value from work. Your life is important. Build the habits to make sure you can survive beyond the next job hunt.
Make concrete proposals. Write things down, get out of only talking about them.
Work collaboratively - especially on research and building understanding
Feel free to define yourself - and tell everyone what it is you do, and what you want/need. IAnd feel free to redefine yourself.
People who care about you and will support you when you experiment, People who won’t do that may not be the ones you want around you.
PITA 047
Topic 1: How do you tell, from the outside, whether a company has good product process/discipline/philosophy?
I ask about a hard decision they made, and how they made it - looking for courage. Did they make the harder decision, or the short, quick wins?
Tell me about a time when an external customer request disrupted your strategy… When you had to pause your team’s plan to accommodate something external… Diagnoses what tradeoff decisions they make and how they make them
How do you define success for this role? What’s better? - helps me diagnose expectations and any mis-alignment
How does your roadmap get developed? Drill into detail.
Do they ship relevant, useful things?
Topic 2: Kanban Boards for Product Management work, pros & cons?
Trying to make measurable how I spend my time - and ensure that I’m making progress, especially when I feel blocked
Alternatives to using my calendar
Depends on what you’re good at
Weekly, track the top 3 things you spent time on and sense-check - are you on track?
Now/Next/Later can be useful
Topic 3: What's stopping you/your team from being more successful?
Stakeholder management - communication so that they get the info they need in a way that works for them, while still having the time to ship
Alignment around how we work - vision for the product set, so teams go off in their own directions, no coherent long-term vision
Culture - top-down, autocratic. Leads to empowerment issues
Lack of clear strategy
Over-delegated to people who needed a lot more guidance
Optimising my sales funnel
Changing the environment is key
Mark Dalgarno ‘s blogs are great on this topic
Topic 4: Making the transition from 'doing' product to a more strategic/Head of role, when a company doesn't know how to do that…
Melissa Perri’s chart on how to spend your time at different levels:
Move from counting in weeks to counting in quarters
High Output Management by Andy Grove
What problem am I solving? Who is my main stakeholder and what am I solving for them?
Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman - making sure you’re supporting the people on your team, so that they can succeed
Develop your coaching skills - and knowing when to coach & when to mentor
You’re only as strong as the weakest person on your team -
PITA 046
Topic 1: How might you help product people plan long-term without sending them on a SAFe course?
Lack of confidence that anything in LATER (Now/Next/Later) will ever happen - and lack of confidence that anything in Now & Next will happen in a reasonable time
Team lacks maturity in terms of planning
We put programme milestones on top of a Now/Next/Later roadmap to show our commitments
SAFe is not fit for purpose - it’s Waterfall in Agile’s clothing. And it’s been a disaster where we are
What do you actually mean by planning? And how honest do you want to be about it?
We had to take the stakeholder on a journey - so did a case study with them to get them there
Topic 2: When is a product initiative really an IT system change project, and does the difference matter?
Break it into pieces - they can be incremental and agile
Try Wardley Mapping - where are you reliant on user behaviour? Those need to be more agile/are more uncertain.
Differentiate between Lean and agile
If there isn’t a value story for PMs to realise over and above tech being de-risked - they may be getting in the way
Agile isn’t for everything - some things are infrastructure and thrive as waterfall, with some derisking of assumptions
Topic 3: I'm interviewing with a company that has both POs and TPMs dedicated roles. Looks overly complex IMHO. Curious if folks saw this type of org before and how exactly do they collaborate with PMs
Every org does this differently (POs and PMs) - we do it to try and stop PMs from burning out too quickly
This is “Product Owner = Backlog Administrator” - like the BBC use BAs. To fill in the detail for the devs because PMs are spread too thin.
Lots of orgs turn BAs into POs, because ‘agile is cool’
BAs get ahead by creating certainty. PMs by pointing out doubt.
Lazily PO (as a role) tends to own backlog, PM (as a job) owns roadmap. Just usually PM jobs expect both covered.
Depending on the size of the org - or the age of it! - this isn’t necessarily a worry. But in a smaller or newer company, it seems way too complicated.
PITA 045
TOPIC 1 Discuss the "Death" of Product Managers (AirBnB, etc) - based on Brian Chesky ast FigmaCon
Probably good for Product management to move away from proJect management
Seems to happen at places with poor management culture, lack of strategy, vision, etc
Many of them were moved rather than removed - to areas like product marketing, etc
Good conversation to have - there is huge overlap between product, UX, Design, etc - so good to have a chat about who actually does what, give the right people the right accountability
Public sector perspective (UK): they’re strengthening product, bringing in contract people to do service design, etc
Might heal the issue where there are both Product Managers (in the Tech org) and a Business Owner
TOPIC 2 Pricing - any favourite strategies for figuring out how to approach it for a new product?
Start with benchmarking - competitor analysis, establish the value prop of components, and work from there
We’ve done loads of work to see if we have Pricing PMF - what we’ve learned is that you have to try a few things to get at the nuance, don’t just do one thing. Including surveys, user testing of new flows with different pricing options, qualitative Van Westendorp analysis. The last one increased the leadership team’s confidence the most, due to the CEO’s familiarity of the approach - though it was also a bit all over the place, based on different age ranges, markets, etc.
People focusing on solving pricing/billing problems - OpenMeter, Stigg.io, Hyperline, SaaS Pricing Explorer, Prisync, Jade | Reach your monetisation potential
Need to also look at it from the business requirements side - what does the company need from this? - forms the Feasibility side of a strategic analysis
Also you need to look at subscriptions vs in-app purchases
TOPIC 3 Experimentation - communicating the less exciting stuff
We kept a spreadsheet of all the tests & hypotheses that we ran, with PASS/FAIL notes on all. If we got anything significant, we’d put it in a deck and present it more formally
Do you need to present the boring stuff? You may not need to communicate it all
Worth presenting all learnings as valuable - even if they tell you what not to do.
Share the connective tissue between the lower level experiment with the problem/opportunity and ultimate business outcome (e.g. through an Opportunity Solution Tree)
Communicate in advance what hypotheses you will be testing
The value of experimentation is not always about validation - changing the org’s understanding of users is just as valuable. Make sure you update personas, etc, when you have new information, and communicate that as well
TOPIC 4 Designing interfaces for LLM's and beyond. How are you measuring success?
Loom has introduced a feature that will summarise your thoughts into a summary - and then asks you for feedback as to value. That’s a good signal for the development team.
People understand that this is a new tech, and seem happy to give confidence score feedback.
Define why you’re using AI, what the problem that you’re solving is, and design your metrics around that
Predictive analytics - looking for risk patterns - is important to us, so we’re exploring the potential of it when the data we collect is largely free text
Speed is of the essence right now - try lots of things. We don’t yet know what good experiences and interfaces are when using this tech. Avoid one-way doors, and just try to innovate at pace.
Do you want to expose when AI is used? In Notion, most people likely don’t want others to know that AI was used
TOPIC 5 The joys (or not) of experiencing products as a product person
I understand the value of good (useful) feedback and find myself taking that responsibility seriously - I work hard to ensure that I do this, and take joy in it
I remind myself: I am an edge case, most of the time
Bad UX annoys me - especially when I have to ask my kids to help me with deciphering it
Bad use of fields - phone fields that accept text, for example
Knowing the logic behind the scenes can sometimes mean we’re not experiencing products the way they’re designed to be experienced
PITA 044
TOPIC 1 How do you balance folk [dis]liking practices with those practices being [in]effective?
Change is all about the learning curve - it gets worse before it gets better.
So... can I embed with the team for a sprint or two to empathise and then move on with the change?
Need to see and believe the problem first and then look at the right way to solve it
You can only solve for things people agree is a problem - so outcomes must matter before you work on outputs
Frame things as experiments, so you can back out of it if needed, be clear about your first time-frame and also make sure to revisit and reflect if the expected outcome was reached
Get aligned on where you are NOW (“point A”) and where you want to BE (“point B”) as a starting point (inspired by Janice Fraser - see this post)
Situational leadership - determine what type of leadership does each person need for a given issue. Determine if things are a WILL or a SKILL issue
There’s some great stuff on team contracts in Christina Wodtke’s The Team that Managed Itself
TOPIC 2: How are UX, UCD, Customer Success and Product Design taking away from vs augmenting the product job family?
It’s all been positive for me - there’s so much to do in a PM role, and it’s just getting more complex (customer journeys, etc) - so more collaboration is very welcome.
I see PMs with no training in these areas trying to do these roles - and it’s not great.
+1 It really pisses off user researchers when PMs tell them how to conduct research. Excuse my French.
We have designers in the same job family - so the challenge has come from Acct Management or Customer Success - they look at one customer at a time, not the big picture. So we bring them into a customer council to give them a wider perspective.
+1 to challenge of GTM or success teams having a myopic view of a single or few customers instead of the entire customer base - “Squeaky wheel syndrome” 😂
It works really well in some B2B teams, where the personalities jell - but it can be a mess when a new role is introduced. People already on the team may feel like they’re losing a part of their responsibilities. We had to redefine the team’s RACI to get it sorted, and had to sell them on why the new role is a good thing.
Every time a new person joins a team, it’s a new team
How people are compensated also comes into this mix
Where Product is the new kid on the block, it can generate a perception of screwing up existing practices. I like to get everyone in the room and talk about competencies and outcomes without job titles - then mapping them on.
People who had bad prior experiences can come with biases based on that.
Some people care deeply about craft and doing it ‘right’.
When people try to do things in a new way, some cling to the old processes - and try to hack around them instead of working with them
+1 to picking folk who have migrated from another discipline to be the comms person to that discipline.
TOPIC 3 Operationalising Customer Insights
We used ProductBoard to create bite-sized insights, linked to user stories…. But no one used it
We started including Insights & Experiments it in the Sprint reviews, which brought other parts of the org into it
Ensure the research is topical and useful, relevant & timely
Before we do any new research, look into what we’ve done - when did we last look at this question? How can we build on that? Avoid discovery fatigue amongst the customers
Qual and quant info, owned by & generated by different parts of the org - bringing the big picture together is really hard.
We put ProductBoard & ZenDesk together to do path analysis, etc - but the important thing is that PB was just for the Product team to own and use
+1 - we had a similar problem with ProdPad (non-product folks considered it to be the “PM tool”)
Can be a recruiting issue - we have the wrong kind of user researcher. All theory, not effecting change in the org
Give the researcher the challenge of documenting ‘ How are decisions made in this organisation?’ - if the answer is that the PM makes some crap up and puts it on the board, that’s not a problem that research can solve. But if the decisions are made at a big strategy meeting, it’s critical to get the info to the right people before or in that session.
If you value evidence-based decision making, it should be folded into the reason WHY decisions are made.
Prioritisation is not about value, it’s about confidence (Ant Murphy)
Data can go to information… but it needs to go to Insight to be useful
“Insight” in itself is an emergent thing, you can’t simply “give” someone else an insight. They need to emotionally invest to the extent they come to the same conclusion themselves.
The key thing is the ability to find answers quickly
Set experiments within the teams to operationalise insights - decisions made based on things we learned
PITA 043
TOPIC 1 How do you approach options where the pain/gain is not distributed evenly across the org?
Get the team with the most benefit/least pain to help out - lend a hand with the team(s) that experience more pain/less gain
Acknowledge it - be honest about it
Make it part of the overall incentive structure - ensure they are rewarded for their pain, if the org as a whole benefits
Interrogate & ensure that there is enough benefit to offset the pain
Communicate what the reasons & benefits are (cost-cutting may be the assumption but not the reality)
Attend to Folk’s Needs (the antimatter principle)
TOPIC 2 What do you do when everyone is scared of the CTO because he's the only one who understands the code?
It’s not a unique situation
Get more tech people in that he (it’s a he!) respects and make it a bottom-up approach
Does he want to be a CTO? And does he know what the job is - and what role he wants to do?
Look at role functions, not job titles
Scenario planning - what do we do if…? (if CTO is no longer available, etc)
Work to build a relationship with him by solving a problem/removing a pain; use that to have the deeper conversation outside the direct work context
NVC (Implicit) step zero: Empathise
Love NVC, but soooo hard to do well live in conversation. (I find I have to pause for many seconds to frame any thought)
TOPIC 3 Product Aikido - non violent product development
Product Aikido | FlowchainSensei (free book)
Fundamental principle of Aikido - avoid harm, defuse situations (mirroring, empathising, etc)
War Fighting Manual of US Marine Corp - how they prep and fight. Doctrinal, not command & control. Pushing down decisions to the people in the thick of it.
Translating that to product development - self-organising teams
Leads up to organisational psychotherapy - examining shared assumptions & beliefs
TOPIC 4 Ideas for better integrating design/UR/UX/BA work into team boards to help product prioritisation and visibility
Ensure that everyone is represented
Avoid a separate board for non-tech stuff
Avoid being TOO specific - no tickets to setup a meeting or create a ticket, etc
But having a central place for Devs, Designers & More to have conversations is a good thing
Make sure that you’re writing really good tickets
For UX/UR/etc - make the tickets about the Questions to be answered or Decisions to be made, rather than the specific tasks to achieve that
Make the board wider - Discovery steps to the left of the dev, Evaluative to the right…
…but this also has the potential to create domain bottlenecks
But the visibility allows you to have conversations about it if it creeps in
And surfaces it as Retros for resolution
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iancarrolluk is great at this
PITA 042
ICEBREAKER: Yellow things
TOPIC 1 How do you manage/design products at high speed? We have 3-months to fix a problem.
Have a goal & defined success criteria
Build small & iterate quickly
Minimise handoffs - have the devs see the research happening - make sure they see at least 2 sessions, so they don’t design for one person
Imagine we have half the time - what would we do if we only had half of that?
Plan for failure
TOPIC 2 How can we create that sense of stakeholder community in (entirely virtual) complex organisations?
Weeknotes - what did we do this week, what do we plan to do next week
Show & Tells - to extend the Weeknotes point, I really like short (3 - 4 min) summary videos, both for the visual element and to make the updates feel more personal
On the week notes front having “non work stuff” in that as well can be nice.
Quarterly planning - do it together
Figure out who owns the budgets & makes the decisions
Motivation mapping
On the motivations side of things, I also like to refer explicitly back to those motivations when I’m sharing updates - helps to avoid the feeling that “We’ve had the conversation about what matters to us, then we moved on and never mentioned it again”
Create a stakeholder group - talk to them about strategy together
Agendaless lean coffee together - e.g. using donut app for Slack
Getting people with different views - get them together to collaborate on success criteria - facilitate the conversations between them to diagnose and resolve issues
Tom Wujec: Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters Kindle Edition
Get people together in person from time to time (i.e. every 3/6 mo) and mix teams up
Create better relationships by having them in non-work channels/conversations - not company mandated but created by individuals
TOPIC 3 How do you ask for help?
Link it to bigger/specific change
Show examples of other companies that do it, especially competitors
Who owns the budget for different types of things - coaching vs consulting vs leadership/professional development
Emphasise *why* i’m interested in it now - how this helps things, and especially how this learning can be shared across the organisation
Emphasise continuous improvement, and trying it with one team before rolling it out everywhere
Also to address the point about vulnerability i.e you’re already supposed to know the answer, I’ve also seen this framed as “I am hoping to become *Even More Amazing* at this, and coaching with a leading expert can help me get there”
Identify specific needs/weakness/maturity of the organisation - internally, or via a third party - then use that as the basis to address them
Demonstrate by doing - show that you have a coach
Pitch that strong, capable leaders get coached, leading by example
Before you ask for help yourself, ask senior leaders how they ask for help - do we ask for help, resources or support? Ask in Town Halls, etc
Another pitch for leader coaching I’ve seen people be happier with is “I want to experience coaching so I can coach my people better” — wanting to “get better at coaching” being seen as more acceptable than “I need coaching”.
Frame the question around support/enablement for professional development rather than necessarily asking for help
TOPIC 4 How do you help people get used to change when they're used to stable environments?
Micro level: Controlled, small experiments within teams to get them comfortable
Macro level: Sports metaphors, showing how top teams have made changes after prolonged periods of success
Show how you participate in the change
Don’t talk about change. Talk about the problems being solved
John Kotter, Leading Change
People will only change to solve problems that they recognise and care about
Is it change or evolution?
PITA 041
(forgot to grab a screenshot!)
TOPIC 1 Ways of communicating commercial needs in a non-profit organisation
Working out a narrative to to ensure that there’s an understanding of how one fuels the other
Visualise the gap for people
Don’t use the term ‘monetisation’
Dark Patterns workshop
Culture change - use goals, behaviours and leadership comms to drive the change
Storytelling, long term sustainability
TOPIC 2 Do you have to be good at producing polished slide decks to be valued as a PM?
Yes, because storytelling is important - and this is a primary vector for comms in most companies. It may not be the BEST vector, though,
People respond well to visuals
Russell Davies - Everything I Know About Life I Learned From Powerpoint book, Everything I Know About Life I Learned From PowerPoint site, and Doing Presentations site
Know your audience and use the appropriate terms
Slides - not too many words, and if presenting, add something instead of just reading them out
Resonate® | Duarte book & course
2 use cases: (1) presentations and (2) decks made for reading, which can be more inviting than a doc with the same content. PE/VC all done with slides…
That lower barrier to entry for slides was why Jeff Bezos banned presentations at Amazon
Have good notes but don’t read them verbatim (maybe use bullet points or keywords as notes only and form your sentences on the spot)
TOPIC 3 ChatGPT - is anyone doing anything interesting with it? Planning to?
It did a good job writing release notes for an app, with a decent prompt
Writing HOW-TO blog posts, from an outline, then went through an edit process
Social media content creators - generate topics for new stuff, or create an ugly first draft
CEO used it to fend off PE questions
For generic answers or lists, for things I’ve argued many many times, when dealing with idiots
‘Give me 30 questions’ to use in an interview
Write 5 activities and a timing plan for a workshop - draft my plan
Basic explainers
Quick copy for landing page tests
Pinch-hit for a UX person when they were on holiday
TOPIC 4 Where do I start with startup funding?
Startup accelerators - they share relevant materials but mainly offer programs/support. Other resources available, but she will have to decide what she’s willing to give up on and what’s non-negotiable. Those people will take a proportion of the equity but will provide resources in return.
Be careful who they listen to - they have to be the decision maker
Smaller Angel investors are a possibility
Some banks have specialty startup loans
Government loans are a possibility
Make sure PMF, strategy, milestones etc. are well-presented and communicated
Find pitching events on meetup.com and listen to what others do - get examples and tips
Startup competitions are a good place to practise, pitching events are good place to practise. The hack --> go there not expecting to win, but expect to get feedback and observe what the winners do
Startup pitching events online - watch a few before even starting to form your pitch, many probably available on meetup.com, i.e. https://www.eventbrite.com/d/online/pitch/
PITA 040
Product nerds, deep in thought
TOPIC 1 How to manage demand for dates on a roadmap
Put in very rough - and wide - timeframes for anything in the NEXT or LATER parts of the roadmap.
Include confidence numbers/% on anything past the next quarter
Do a retro on the strategy - how much came true? What changed and why? Get a good chat with the boss regarding how much a long term roadmap is a work of fiction
Overcommunicte about change as it happens
Show both a Roadmap AND a Release Plan - separate tabs in the same doc
Understand WHY they have a need for dates
TOPIC 2 Tips on persuading management they need a strategy?!
Show the impact on recruitment, retention, team health
Can you point to any issues that the lack of a strategy creates? Use this to illustrate why
You need to be able to articulate why this is important - what problem it solves
Use a template doc and co-create it
Create it yourself and get feedback
maybe drive the need for a strategy to FOCUS - which will reduce costs/waste (since revenue is not driving)
TOPIC 3 (I'm almost ashamed to mention the next 2 words but...) business cases and agile - waaahhhh - anyone done one lately in a public sector org?!!
Create regular reviews, VC-style funding, to make sure that the work is still needed, appropriate, etc
The point of these is to make prioritisation decisions. How can you make them useful?
Finance runs in Waterfall; we’re trying to be responsive, the two are incompatible - try to have a good conversation about this with the people requiring it
Ensure that the case is comprehensible in 1 screen and review the assumptions together - it will be inaccurate and wrong, but make sure you agree on what the assumptions are
Does it matter if the business case is wrong? Don’t beat yourself about being super accurate; it’s just organisational process & politics
Run a retro on the previous business case to help influence how to write the next one (aka pre-mortem for the new one)
Lay out the options, from DO NOTHING to FULL FAT to come to an acceptable level and validate needs (a Clear choice review)
TOPIC 4 Best way to gather metrics for a B2B solution
Look at leading & lagging metrics, and metrics per persona (users and purchasers)
Align your metrics with customers realising value, not just your corp KPIs
Usage, time to onboarding
Measure sentiment/CSAT in usage
TOPIC 5 What's the difference between a Scrum master and an Agile Delivery Manager/Lead
Scrum Master runs scrum ceremonies; Delivery helps ensure that value is achieved; it's more iterative/nimble
DMs have a wider remit; SM’s remit is a subset of the DM responsibilities
The UK government has a good description
If you’ve ever worked with a good DM, you’ll understand!
The line does blur between a PM and DM’s responsibilities at time - but it means that the PM no longer has to be a project manager
See Part 2 of The Product Experience podcast with Marty Cagan for more on this!
PITA 039
TOPIC 1 How do you get a team comfortable with "I don't know"?
Go back to user research - ask, “What does it indicate?”
Model the behaviour
Co-create with the stakeholder - design sprint, estimation workshop, write the press release - something to get them collaborating, not fearing
Lower the stakes & tackle something smaller in this way
get someone senior/respected in the discussion to say "I don't know, and that's ok" - I usually do this if I am the most senior person in the room.
Repurpose the Failure SwapShop to an I Don’t Know SwapShop
TOPIC 2 How do people figure out what "level" to do discovery at? High-level to figure out what initiative to work on next vs low-level to figure out detail of what to build
It’s fractal, baby - it happens at all levels. Start somewhere (anywhere!) depending on who you need to get involved/what you need to achieve
Dragon mapping can help diagram the uncertainty
Do just enough discovery at any point to free up things so that you can make some progress
Things don’t move iteratively from ideation -> discovery -> build; sometimes they go backwards
Teresa Torres’ Opportunity Solutions Tree - you can modify it to use it as a primary artefact in place of a backlog
TOPIC 3 Tips on how to get CTO(!) to focus on the bigger outcomes, rather than the easy to add 'features'
Tie the results to a bonusable measure/motivation - ensure they are aligned to what matters (h/t to Rich Mironov)
Measure wasted code - and bin the features/code that isn’t being used
Other sensible ideas that won’t work with this particular individual…
Try to get them to focus on the unknowns - “wouldn’t it be even cooler if…?”
Apply the One Minute Manager - praise them for every good thing that they do. Find ways to make them a hero when they do so.
Conversely - point out the CTO jobs that they’re not doing
Or point the CTO at a tough problem (scaling?) that they can pursue solo while unblocking the rest of the team
Get them to talk to other CTOs — that's been super education for some folk I've worked with who sound similar.
TOPIC 4 Factoring environmental impact into product decisions
Carbon Neutral Roadmaps - Chris Adams on The Product Experience
Find a relevant measurement and set a target for the team - and track progress
Follow Amy Wagner
PITA 038
ICEBREAKER: Item that starts with D
TOPIC 1 Diplomatic but effective ways to tell people/teams their level of maturity is low
Give an example of what good looks like - fictionalised or real - for them to baseline against
Examples from other companies / experiences
Encourage experiments to bring about chats about outcomes
Talk about the characteristics of teams at all levels - what does poor look like? What does good & great look like? Show that it’s a continuum and teams move through them
Frame it as ‘I need this…’
Facilitate a workshop to help them find the answers themselves
TOPIC 2 What balance do you find between being customer-centric and competitor-informed?
Ensure you have a clear proposition for your product, else you may think you’re competing with everyone
How are you going to be different if you copy it? And what value do you add? Or are you just doing it because you haven’t a clue?
B2B, RFP-driven processes - sometimes you can’t avoid ticking boxes to ensure you do what competitors do. B2C, informed is good… but never prioiritise based on it
Understanding why someone chose a competitor is more important than copying their features list
Don’t be Excel
Where do Customer & Competitor stuff come together? - Are you in the same market?
Can you be customer-centric about your competitors? Interview people who use your competition’s product. What do they like & dislike?
Even if you copy… mind how it fits in to your experience
TOPIC 3 How best to influence product people that support experience for users is important
Get people to work the support desk regularly
Recruit PMs from the Support team
Get a OKR/target metric that’s aimed at saving money. Cost of Support is often quite high.
Can you tie support issues to people leaving the product?
Support is a signal for Product/Market Fit (retention, engagement, etc)
Get the actual data from the Support team and make it interesting
TOPIC 4 Organizations have written and unwritten knowledge - how do you share/socialise that with new hires or people moving around the organisation?
Onboarding buddy or two. One from the discipline, one from another area.
Get the people who have recently been onboarded to update the documentation as they go through
Accept that you can’t fix everything in this space
New starters only at the beginning of a month - create a bootcamp, rotating the hosts, with lots of informal chat
Baptism by fire - give them a project that makes them encounter everything important
People who move - give them a formal transition plan, too
Understand WHY the person was moved
PITA 037
TOPIC 1 How do you put in practice the continuous discovery in your company (Teresa Torres) ?
Start by understanding what problems it might solve
Work with Sales and Ops to do customer check-ins with them or to understand/prioritise their feedback
Write a 1-pager about what the team needs to learn
Regular check-ins with Sales & Support for context/empathy/alignment
Align to ranking of customer problems, then discovery about how you plan to solve them/how it’s going
TOPIC 2 How do you conduct cheap experiments to find PMF?
Use something visual - concepts are hard for people to understand
Pricing - test of different bundles, with Yes/No - make it binary & simple, people have no idea about price
Closed-Door testing & Concierge
Crowdfunding - test the appetite for something
David Bland’s book Testing Business Ideas
Test the reactions/messaging from people - are they saying similar things? Are you covering 80% of the same feedback in interviews?
TOPIC 3 Favourite PM resources?
Just Google it
Nielson Norman for user research
The world ahead: a different dystopia | The Economist (podcast)
Matt LeMay’s Product Management in Practice
PITA 036
ICEBREAKER: 15 second draw-a-horse challenge
TOPIC 1 Are you using opportunity tree mapping, and how does it work for you?
Teresa Torres’ book is great - Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value
Yes, it’s a great conceptual model…
But it can be hard for others to grasp at times. So: Dragon Mapping as an easier version to use
Doing a lot of upfront work myself to lay it out has helped, with others checking/validating it
It’s helped people to concentrate on one bit, and understand how it fits into the whole
The struggle: but how do I then get it into tickets?
TOPIC 2 - I am using Continuous Discovery methods (recently started) but would love to hear practical tips on how to actually translate the solutions on to a dev board
Issue: the solution is vague at this stage - so how do we translate that into actions
So: write discovery/testing stories? Use David Bland’s Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation as inspiration
It is the PM’s job to drag this thru - to get to the stage where there’s an artefact that can be understood for the next stage. That could be build, or prototyping - whatever is needed for the next level of validation.
There are some chapters in Shape Up that talk about translating the PMs “pitch" and the product team turning it into "scopes" to build
One team use the Opportunity Solutions Tree as the artefact. Another use it as the product backlog, then create sprint tickets. Another still used it to fill the gap between the streams of work.
TOPIC 3 - How do you balance transparency with information overload?
Start it small with lots of communication in an environment that isn’t used to it, then ramp it up slowly
People need to have access to the information that they need… but what are the right routes? What is the info that they need?
Regular cadence of things (show & tell, etc) is critical. It builds up expectations.
Self-service is good for people - solves the issue of overload
Centralised ops team and regular communications about business-critical capacity needs from the dev teams to deal with issues that weren’t part of day-to-day business strategy
TOPIC 4 -Communities of practice: where have you seen them work well? Where have they failed spectacularly?
OneHealth Tech - hubs in cities around the world, aimed at equality & diversity in the field, across many companies - worked really well for a while. A couple of amazing organisers really drove it. Really welcome and infectious. Fell off as one of them has dialled down their involvement.
Squad/Pod-based places - didn’t work well. Leadership by fear model, top down, meant that levelling up others was seen as a threat - going beyond your remit. It happened organically to some extent as a grassroots effort. Needs leadership with enthusiasm, especially as the org scales up.
In my org, commitment & prioritisation by the membership is key. Curation by the organisers makes a real difference - reading list/articles/content to share. Must be a safe space.
If you think that it’s important & valuable, then TREAT it like it is important and valuable. Don’t schedule it over lunch, devote actual work time to it.
Understand the makeup of people who attend - set up an agenda in advance, allocate time accordingly
Need to have a goal - and resource/sponsorhsip to follow up on any ideas
Failure modes: org not investing. Or community thinking it’s MORE important than the rest of the business priorities.
A sample agenda from a Goverment agency:
We meet weekly at 1pm on Thursdays.
Open dial in to all product people across the organisation – you will find:
Talks , show and tells & advice from other product managers
Product crits, bring us your work in progress and get advice
External speakers from across Gov and outside on all things product
Workshops on new product techniques
Share your product problems & woes
Lean coffee – come and ask and question of the product hive mind
See our Trello board for upcoming meet-up topics & useful resources
TOPIC 5 -Conferences and Events that changed you (for better or worse) -
For me, tech conferences get my creative juices flowing more than Product conferences - hearing from people doing OTHER things
It’s like Glastonbury - don’t see Beyonce, see something weird in a tiny tent
Going as a speaker is completely different than going as an attendee - sometimes better, sometimes worse
Don’t feel the need to see everything. Curate your experience. Relax. The ‘corridor track’ of just talking to people can be the best part.
Camp Digital was raved about recently
lots of good free ones too (and in my experience often more meaningful) - I like Women in Product
PITA 035
ICEBREAKER: Cards Against Agility
TOPIC 1: Ideas for ways to "claim" ownership over product with very old school command & control CEOs with zero product mindset
Case studies, gentle nudging
Starting vs scaling - the role of a founder changes
Do you WANT to work with these folks?
Consensus: uh, NO
Try to get them to focus on success and outcome definitions instead of specs
TOPIC 2: What's stopping your team from succeeding?
Noise - lack of consistency, changes in strategy/priority/focus
Communication - having to re-explain how we got to conclusions/justify the work/hypothesis - fear of committing to build
Firefighting
People are not motivated to build - they don’t believe in the strategy
Too much debt (product, tech, etc)
Psychological safety - worried about their role, commercial standing
Stakeholder alignment (lack of)
Lack of direction/ownership
Biz stakeholders don’t care about product/craft - they care about results in the short term // DONE is done before it’s done
Working with Procurement (they can (inadvertently) prevent good work even when all other parties are aligned)
Inexperienced team
TOPIC 3: What do you wish product leaders (Heads, etc) had done to help you in your role?Giving me the chance to prove i can handle complex things - they challenged me
Start the relationship with trust, not distrust
Bad - not having a compelling vision for the product & the practice
Model the behaviours for success in the org
Defining the roles & skills needed, career dev, mentoring & training
Supporting the development of the right relationships
Positivity - developing products can be joyful. Find the joy for the team
Curating for each person
TOPIC 4 -What (if anything) completely changed your approach to Product work?
Cenydd Bowles - Future Ethics: “The idea that a rank-and-file technologist can change the culture of a large firm, let alone the industry, reminds me of a lovesick teenager’s desperate attempts to heal a difficult partner: a generous but ultimately doomed act that saps emotional energy”.
Gaining patience & perspective 🙂
Sitting in on my first user research session
Letting go of perfection & ownership, embracing and seeking change
Being user-centred but also apply a commercial lens
Being able to step back and watch personal dynamics in meetings
Just because other people can’t see it yet, doesn’t mean that it’s wrong
Dolly Parton quote - “Find out who you are and do it on purpose,”
Getting a coach
Speak to users to learn, not to convince
PITA 034
ICEBREAKER: Cards Against Agility
TOPIC 1 - How do you tell people things they will (might) find hard to hear, in a way that they can hear?
Radical Candor - but this presupposes that you have formed a relationship
The Culture Map - cross-border cultural differences
Ask them questions around the outcome of that behaviour/issue and lead them to the answer
Motivation mapping - Empathy maps
The Five Conditions for Improvement | by Roy Rapoport | Medium
The Situation-Behavior-Impact-Feedback Tool - From MindTools.com
When I worked at Redgate, managers were asked to have 1-1s with all their reports each week. Good opportunity to pick up issues early. Everyone also got 360 feedback from people they worked with outside their line management hierarchy.
I went on a “how to have difficult conversations” course, so you can get training on this. Also one can practice. I coached someone who had to put some of his team at risk of redundancy and helped him practice different scenarios for them reacting differently.
TOPIC 2 - How to best use overlapping skills between PM and UX in the same team (e.g. user research)
The voice of the customer is… the customer!
Pair in concrete tasks/responsibilities that sit on the overlap, take advantage of the differences between people to extract richer insights (e.g. from customer interviews).
If everyone thinks that THEY are the voice of the customer, at least that shows that they care.
It doesn’t always have to work the same way - it depends who is best suited to do what at any point
PM’s role is setting the problem to solve taking into account business goals and overall strategy etc - perhaps it’s OK that they are a little decoupled from user insight and UX can bring that context to the problem space
CLAM (Contributes, Leads, Approves, Monitors) - a better option than RACI (RACI Chart Template For Project Managers + Example & How-To )
Focus on who has the most experience with least bias and leading communication - The Mom Test
TOPIC 3 - Empathetic management who thinks someone could benefit from mental coaching / support. How to introduce this / is it okay to introduce this at all??
Cautious about whether offering advice on this can tick HR off; may be better to raise with HR
Make it clear that help is available (indirectly, through company-wide communication channels, and may ask the company to support/offer that)
TOPIC 4 - How do you think about work you/the team enjoy/don't? Work that energises/drains? How do you choose?
Sharing war stories - you had to be there!
“For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun” - Mary Poppins, the first agile coach
Try to find the small wins along the way - and celebrate them!
PITA 033
ICEBREAKER: ESL Story Dice Online
TOPIC 1 - Making change happen in super large orgs, top-down versus community led, and ideas for developing products in this space.
Start small- try and join up good practices/approaches from a couple of the smaller regions/groups
Federation vs Centralisation
Create principles & standards with the community, coordinate loosely
Create a small central group with reps from each community
Don’t reinvent everything - who has done this well? Can you aim everyone at emulating that?
Confront them with the anti-product and ask the groups to respond to that
Is there a global architect? Can you build to encourage a good result?
TOPIC 2 - How to build team culture and engagement across lots of time zones?
Optimise for async communication
Delegate to the teams
Ring-fence budget and time for regular team offsites and activities
Culture-forming event - time-chained, where it keeps going in a follow-the-sun model
Maybe penpals? send care packages. Get people talking sync or async
TOPIC 3 - What are some good techniques for evaluating the competition when it comes to developing a new product?
Understand the problem, from the customer perspective. Then understand what their current options are in the market,. Then positioning: how will we solve this better than anyone else, on at least one axis? From https://outofowls.com/book
It’s a part of user research
Build a simple framework to work in - i.e. a table with the criteria you want to compare and learn what others do well or badly, all from a user perspective - e.g. tone of voice, target audience, payment options, web vs mobile app, reviews and feedback online, offering specific features, etc.
More on positioning: Obviously Awesome, by April Dunford
Also look at your product neighbours, doesn’t have to be immediate and obvious competitors in your industry, look at companies and products that have conceptual similarities you can learn from
Do usability testing oncompetitor’s products
TOPIC 4 - Dual-track agile, yes, but how?
Dual Track Development is not Duel Track – Help your organization focus on successful outcomes (Jeff Patton)
A 2x2 matrix, credit to Jeanette Fuccella: https://twitter.com/johnrayknight/status/1458041301497257990
Think of it as a balance, not a divide - where is the dial?
Don’t do it - we’re cleaning up the mess from having separate people doing it with poor communication/collaboration
Remember: research has a shelf life - it goes stale