Product Momentum Podcast

Welcome to this special episode of Product Momentum, where four ITX leaders share their hands-on experience establishing (Upstate Product Meetup) and growing (Upstate UX Meetup, to nearly 600 members!) two Rochester-area communities of practice (CoP). Perhaps it was the recent conversations with Petra Wille and Jared Spool that inspired the idea for this up-close look at communities of practice. Or maybe we’re just eager to spread the word about our communities and support our colleagues. And, of course, it could be that we’re ramping up to host our upcoming Product + Design Conference, where the primary focus is always on bringing our communities together for learning and sharing knowledge. Whatever the reason, the underlying theme of today’s episode is this: work as a designer or product manager is challenging enough; none of us should feel we need to go it alone. So spend a few minutes with ITX CoP leaders Paul Gebel (VP of Delivery), Christina Halladay (Director of UX Design), Sean Murray (Director of Product Management), and Brian Loughner (Lead UX Designer) and catch their advice about how to find (or start from scratch) your own Product or UX community of practice. 5 Tips for Building + Growing a Community of Practice The community is about the members – first, foremost, always. The first question organizers should ask, Brian advises, is ‘What are you interested in?’ or, better yet, ‘what do you care about?’ Organizers should focus on serving their community, not their own agendas. Don’t be afraid to fail. Accept the fact that not everything will work out as you expect, Sean says. “That’s totally okay. As CoP leaders, our job is not to direct the community; it’s to facilitate the effort on their behalf based on the direction our members say they want to go.” CoP Size Doesn’t Matter. The CoP you launch or join doesn’t have to be large. “Upstate Product Meetup’s first gathering was like five people,” Sean says. “But it worked because the people who attended were there to talk about what they were doing as product managers – a topic we all shared and wanted to talk about.” Balance in-person and virtual events. When you first get going, start with in-person events, Brian says. Then, as your community matures, you can mix in virtual events to ease some of the logistical challenges. Provide a safe, inclusive environment. Attendees, especially first-timers, will be anxious. You can help relieve some of that social anxiety by doing the little things: provide directions and signage to help folks find your location, supply name tags and markers, show excitement about greeting your guests and introducing them to others, and stay positive. Communities of practice offer opportunities beyond honing your craft. Sure, you’ll have lots of opportunity to learn and to give back to others. But maybe the greatest discovery you’ll make is how to create real human experiences that foster enduring relationships among your community. The bottom line is this: Come with an open mind. Expect to make a connection. And remember: you have to play if you want to win. You can also watch our conversation with Paul, Christina, Sean, and Brian on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 141 / How To Build a Community of Practice, with ITX Leaders in Product + UX appeared first on ITX Corp..

Rich Mironov, a veteran product manager, shares insights on aligning product strategy with business goals. He emphasizes speaking the language of business and translating use cases into financial cases. The podcast discusses integrating a money story with user stories, strategic prioritization, and seeking inspiration for product managers.

Back in episode 132 of Product Momentum, Janna Bastow talked about using AI tools to do much of the “grunt work” product managers and UX researchers do so that they can spend more time on the higher-value work that’s actually helping to transform product building. In this episode, John Haggerty and Prerna Singh go a bit deeper explaining how AIs can expedite – and simplify – those mundane, repetitive tasks to analyze qualitative data compiled from reams of user experience research. John and Prerna will conduct a pair of workshops at the ITX Product + Design Conference, in Rochester, NY on June 27-28. Leveraging AI for Customer Research John’s workshop will include a comprehensive overview of AI applications in product management, covering key topics like product feedback analysis, churn prediction and retention, risk assessment, competitive intelligence, etc. “AI is really good at doing things like sentiment analysis, topic modeling, named entity recognition,” he says. But it can be a lot to take in. “The best, fastest way to get familiar with AI is to just play with it. Just have fun, go out and use it, whatever it is.” Embracing the Data We Already Have Prerna’s workshop in Rochester will help attendees understand the data we already have — and how might we leverage it to make better customer decisions. Gathering customer research doesn’t need to be some extensive, intensive effort, she says, “but is really something that we should be doing on a continuous basis to make higher quality decisions.” Bias, Ethics, and AI Both John and Prerna stress the importance of understanding AI biases, ethics by design, and ensuring equity in training data. They also highlight the significance of “preserving human elements in user research,” such as non-verbal cues and emotional feedback, to maintain genuine human connections. Be sure to catch the entire episode to grab a few tips from John Haggerty about AI prompt engineering, and learn why Prerna Singh believes humans are becoming more comfortable responding to an AI researcher than to another person — and the new frontier of opportunity this creates. You can also watch our episode with John Haggerty and Prerna Singh on the Product Momentum YouTube Channel! The post 139 / User Experience Research: AI’s New Frontier, with John Haggerty & Prerna Singh appeared first on ITX Corp..

As Holly Hester-Reilly explains, “Intuition isn’t magic. People who have good product intuition know this, because they’ve worked hard over time through lots of hard practice to build it up – and build better products in the process.” Holly is the founder and CEO of H2R Product Science (and a good friend of Product Momentum). We jumped at the chance to catch up with Holly right after her talk at the New York Product Conference.  3 Pillars of the Product Science Strategy The product managers who develop this intuition have learned real, tangible skills, benefitting from an evidence-based scientific approach to get there. In her keynote, Holly touched on the three pillars of her product science strategy:  Evidence-based product strategy. A plan for how you will win in the marketplace.  Continuous Discovery + Delivery. Gathering evidence and new learnings with every build.  Empowered teams. Aligned on outcomes, trained and supported with context and tools.  Product managers, regardless of experience or seniority, can develop their own product intuition by applying the methods embedded in this strategy to learn more about their customers, their market, and their product. Evidenced-based decisionmaking helps validate our assumptions, test ideas, and measure outcomes.  Holly’s Key Takeaways We’ve only summarized them here, so you’ll want to watch or listen to catch every nugget: Not every outcome is equally important or equally uncertain. You need to prioritize the outcomes that matter most to your customers and your business, and assess their risks. It is not enough to be right; you also have to be persuasive. Evidence strengthens your hand as you seek buy-in from stakeholders and team members. Practice the Built-Learned-Planning demo. “Planning” is another way of saying what you ‘intend to learn.’ Check out our conversation with Holly Hester-Reilly on the Product Momentum YouTube channel!. The post 138 / The Science Behind Building Better Products, with Holly Hester-Reilly appeared first on ITX Corp..

Among the many hats product managers wear is that of change agent. In many respects, product management is change management. PMs always seem to be flexing their approach to new circumstances, adapting to evolving markets and technologies, and side-stepping organizational landmines. “It’s hard,” says Zoia Kozakov, “especially when the change you’re trying to bring about might actually move the needle.” Zoia heads up device-based Digital Wallets at JPMorgan Chase. Product Momentum caught up with Zoia Kozakov following her talk at the 2024 NY Product Conference, where she shared her observations on change management (and resistance to it) within the context of innovation and organizational culture. In her keynote and during our conversation, Zoia offered 3 key takeaways: Embrace the Momentum Not surprisingly, everyone here on the podcast team believes strongly in the power of momentum; Zoia builds on this notion, encouraging product managers to establish a mindset of continuous wins to keep team members motivated. “Building momentum with continuous wins is a way to keep everybody well-spirited,” Zoia says. “But remember that what keeps you well spirited is likely very different from what keeps me well spirited.” Recognize the Symptoms of Resistance Zoia highlights the dangers of organizational apathy as a symptom of momentum-sapping resistance. “To me, disassociation is the worst one,” Zoia adds, “and it shows up when that person who derails your meeting (or doesn’t speak up at all) becomes the villain of your whole change management effort.” Find Your Innovation-Culture Fit Zoia introduced the NYPC audience to the notion of innovation-culture fit – and maybe even coined a new term in the process. Product managers often experience resistance to change because the organization’s culture of innovation doesn’t align with their own. “PMs need to evaluate the innovation fit,” Zoia advises. “If working on process enhancement feels like innovation to you, then you should go work at the company that sees the world that way. But if you want to build a rocket ship, there are some that do that too.” Zoia’s journey reminds us that change management is not just about implementing new strategies, but also about fostering a culture of continuous improvement, proactive engagement, and innovation alignment. Be sure catch our episode with Zoia Kozakov on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 137 / 3 Tips for Fostering a Culture of Change, with Zoia Kozakov appeared first on ITX Corp..

As a profession, product managers have been battling through some pretty lean times of late. Layoffs in big tech, market uncertainty across the board, and steep competition for fewer vacancies keep many of us up at night. All the more reason, as Denise Tilles explains, that product operations is more important now than ever. In this episode of Product Momentum, recorded live at the NY Product Conference, Denise introduces us to this fairly new phenomenon called product operations (aka, “product ops”). She says that exploring product ops solely through the lens of sustained market challenges is short-sighted.Establish Strong Product Culture “We all need to be more operationally efficient and crisp when we’re doing more with less,” Denise says. But it’s more than survival; it’s also about establishing the strong product culture that will enable organizations to scale for growth, she adds, “which is the goal.” Part of it is just having a core understanding of what product operations is, Denise continues — and what it is not. “Product operations is not supplanting product management; it’s enabling it.” Helping PMs Contribute Real Value Product management still makes the decisions, she says. Product operations facilitates that process; it’s all about giving product managers the leverage and flexibility to contribute opportunities that offer real impact. Product operations relieves product managers of time spent on “the work around the work” – by providing (as Denise and co-author Melissa Perri write in their new book, Product Operations) providing three key pillars: data insights, customer market research, and process/practices. You can also watch our conversation with Denise Tilles on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 136 / Product Operations: Why It’s More Important Now Than Ever, with Denise Tilles appeared first on ITX Corp..

In this episode of Product Momentum, Laura Barnard invites us to imagine the strong business outcomes our organizations can realize when we create space for strategy and execution to work in concert, instead of at odds. Founder of PMO Strategies and author of The Impact Engine (available Sept. 2024), Laura has been a driving force behind the integration of project management and organizational strategy, helping clients discover the mindset shift that improves how organizations execute strategies through projects. Sharing the Mindset Shift The power behind this approach is that the burden for the mindset shift is shared by both the project manager (or project management office (PMO)) and the business executive. As the PMO works to understand the business leader’s desired outcomes (and to speak their language), the business leader begins to see the PMO as a strategic partner in solving their challenges. “There’s actually a world where product people, project people, and business leaders happily coexist because they’re all doing their part to achieve business goals,” Laura says. “If you’re wasting time and energy defending turf and protecting egos, your business leaders won’t take you seriously. “The only thing they care about is, ‘what are you doing to help us achieve our strategic goals,’ Laura adds. Shifting Left A few episodes back, cybersecurity specialist Paul Connaghan spoke about embedding a security mindset into your software as early in the development process as possible. This “shift left” approach works for project management too. Too often, eager executives begin to execute strategy before they have a project plan in place. “If we set those projects up for success before they start, we’d have this positive ripple effect of benefit to the rest of the life cycle of strategy delivery, project execution, and strategy realization, where you get those better business outcomes,” Laura says. Facilitating Complex Change Effective change management is about helping people understand the reason for change, and then bringing them along with you through the process. The secret, Laura continues, is to make the change about the people we’re serving in a way that puts them in the driver’s seat instead of feeling like they’re being dragged behind the car. People want autonomy, freedom, a sense of control, and the ability to be a part of the solution, Laura adds. “People aren’t resistant to change; they’re resistant to having change done to them.” You can also watch our conversation with Laura Barnard on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 135 / The New PMO: Strategic Partner in Business Transformation, with Laura Barnard appeared first on ITX Corp..

Product coach Gabrielle Bufrem discusses the importance of effective communication for product leaders, emphasizing the need to consider timing, volume, and audience context. She highlights that good communication is crucial for solving product and people problems. The podcast explores the balance between long-term vision and short-term delivery in product management, as well as the significance of personal growth, human connection, and joy in leadership.

April Dunford, expert in positioning and author of 'Obviously Awesome', discusses the challenges of B2B sales and the importance of helping buyers make confident decisions. She emphasizes the need for a compelling sales pitch that communicates unique value. The podcast delves into strategies for streamlining the buying process and collaborating effectively between product managers and sales teams.

Integrating AI tools into the product management workflow isn’t about cutting humans out of the loop. There’s nothing in the product manager playbook saying, “yeah, yeah, just build this idea and ship it.” Instead, as ProdPad co-founder and CEO Janna Bastow suggests, use AI tools to remove some of the grunt work so that we can spend more time working on the important stuff that’s helping to transform product management. In this episode of Product Momentum, Janna rejoins Paul and ITX Product Manager Sean Murray to discuss how AI tools are driving the transformation of Product Management. (Catch our first conversation with Janna here: The Product Leader’s Dilemma: Balancing Possibility, Predictability). Swap Out the Grunt Work To Focus on the Premium So much of what we do is just grunt work, Janna says, repetitive tasks that require little in the way of expertise. “AI tools remove a lot of that pain,” she added. “That’s the sort of thing that product managers can easily outsource to a GPT-type agent to help us reduce our effort on.” But the real power of AI comes not in streamlining existing tasks, but in “creating time for higher-level tasks that require human interaction, like talking to customers and stakeholders and using those conversations to figure out what our strategy should be.” AI as Strategic Copilot Janna sees AI as more of a sidekick than a replacement for human engagement. “I really like the term ‘copilot’ that’s been flying around,” she says, highlighting an AI strong suit in providing insights and feedback that guide product managers’ decision-making and strategy development. “[AI] is a copilot, an assistant. a sidekick,” she adds. “And it’s there to help us get to the point that we can communicate or make decisions faster and better. It’s all about making sure the whole org is making better products, and the product team is empowered to do so.” Lowering Barriers of Entry Into Product Management Years ago, would-be product managers steered away from the role – voluntarily and otherwise. As Janna explains, “The assumption was that we needed a computer science degree or that we should know how to code.” AI tools have lowered that barrier – maybe even removed it – attracting a more diverse range of talent. “It’s going to open product management up to people who otherwise weren’t going to look down this path.” Learn more from Janna Bastow by reading her blog and checking out her webinars, talks, and podcast. You can also watch our conversation with Janna Bastow on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 132 / 3 Ways AI Is Transforming Product Management, with Janna Bastow appeared first on ITX Corp..