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

• Emily Webber, Team Onion

• 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

• Manage Uncertainty with Commander's Intent

• 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