Product Momentum Podcast

Open APIs are sets of rules that enable systems to freely communicate with each other. They allow companies to “tap into the wisdom of the crowd,” Marshall Van Alstyne explains, shifting the burden of value creation to external sources. “You want people you don’t know to bring you ideas you don’t have,” he adds. In this episode of Product Momentum, Sean is joined by guest host Nathan Shapiro, Head of Platform Strategy and User Experience at Paychex. Together, they draw out Marshall’s expert insights on the correlation between a firm’s open APIs and the progressive growth of its financial performance over time. Marshall is a Professor of Information Economics at Boston University and co-author of the international bestseller, Platform Revolution. Firms that open their architecture and APIs expand their ecosystem and ignite an interoperability within it, thereby creating a network effect – a phenomenon by which the value a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. The key, Marshall adds, is to position your firm to “command the center” of your ecosystem. “Individuals tend to gain influence or power in proportion to the degree of centrality within their network,” he says. “We found exactly the same thing for firms. The more focal you are, the more central you are in your ecosystem, the greater your increase in market capitalization.” But, he cautions, opening your data is not without risk. Bad actors exist everywhere. So your firm needs to open for a reason, all the while weighing the pros and cons of sharing your data externally. One of those reasons, Marshall adds, is to “invert the firm,” a mindset that leverages APIS and enables you to share the production of value beyond your own employees. Marshall van Alstyne is one of the world’s foremost experts on network business models. Be sure to catch the entire podcast to capture all his insights. The post 105 / Innovation Through Open APIs: Shifting the Locus of Value Creation, with Marshall Van Alstyne appeared first on ITX Corp..

UX Design isn’t about building beautiful products for the sake of beauty itself, says Jon Daiello. We’re building something that solves people’s problems. “Design isn’t here to just manufacture,” Jon adds. “It’s here to help us understand what we should manufacture. That’s one of the big distinctions.” In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean and Paul chat with Jon Daiello. Jon is a UX Design Manager at Paychex, where he encourages his designers to “have your head in the clouds and your feet in the mud.” Think of design as “a long-term investment,” he says, like retirement planning. “You don’t start a job and have your retirement built on day one. Design is like that; you’re looking into the future and asking, ‘What is my goal? Where do I want to go? What do I want this thing to be in the end?’ Design can really help you kind of tease out what that future could look like.” Over time, within the team’s Agile process, you’re choosing the most important pieces to deliver, Jon adds. So the business case is understanding that Agile practices are not in competition with design; but that they’re inside the process and baked in in a way that works with design. Catch the entire conversation to hear Jon’s practical tips for answering the ultimate question: what are we actually solving for? Get as many people involved as possible; workshops help. Be creative with time you have available – even just an hour here or there can be productive. Creativity blocked? Change your workspace. Try a different design medium. Simple design tools like paper & pencil help express design ideas quickly and cheaply. Early bird pricing is now available as the ITX Product + Design Conference returns. Save the date: June 22-23 in Rochester, NY. Learn more. The post 104 / Building the Business Case for UX Design, with Jon Daiello appeared first on ITX Corp..

Dr. Nesrine Changuel credits innate curiosity and a personal motivation for unlocking new knowledge as the catalyst that has brought her to Nokia, Microsoft, Spotify, and now Google. Her career journey has been thoughtful and deliberate, first as a researcher and later a transition to product management. Nesrine explains how a growth mindset encourages learning – and the confidence that comes with it – that allows us to break out of our comfort zones to grow as individuals and product leaders. The key to success, Nesrine adds, is never forgetting what the problem is. “Fall in love more with the problem than the solution,” she says. One way to achieve this mindset is to have a very clear product discovery roadmap that is distinct from your execution roadmap. The discovery roadmap outlines a list of problems – not solutions. It leans on her experience as a researcher, generating incredible value validation that includes lots of time engaging with users to understand their challenges and pain points. And it’s work that brings together the product trio: product manager, UX researcher, and engineering to deliver products that improve users’ lives. Be sure to listen to the entire pod; capture in minutes some of the vital nuggets Nesrine Changuel has picked up as her career continues to unfold, including: Failing fast during product discovery: taking educated risks, validating them through regular, rapid feedback. The power of iteration: the ability to stop, inspect, and adjust. Avoiding the Scrum Fall Trap. Using data to distinguish between what users say they want and what users actually do. Product Collective’s Mike Belsito returns to emcee the 2023 ITX Product + Design Conference. Save the date: June 22-23, 2023 in Rochester, NY. Learn more. The post 103 / A Product Manager’s Journey through Discovery, with Nesrine Changuel appeared first on ITX Corp..

Inclusion is for everyone, says guest Bernadette Smith, CEO of Equality Institute. And, she adds, it’s good for business. Companies that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion are more profitable than those that don’t. But the key piece of DEI best practices, she concludes, is inclusion. “In order to realize the financial benefits, we have to unleash psychological safety; we have to unleash inclusion.” In this episode, Bernadette joins Sean and Paul and shares her best practices for bringing an inclusive mindset to your organization, many of which are captured in her best-seller, Inclusive 360: Proven Solutions for an Equitable Organization. She “keeps it real” in this discussion and is not afraid to admit that she’s still learning, too. “We’re all on our own learning journey, whatever it happens to be or look like,” she says. “And when leaders model that, and share a sense of their own vulnerability, it gives other folks permission to do the same.” Bernadette presents the A-R-C Method, a framework for getting to connection before content – a mantra that drives better conversations among teams. With practice, this simple method can help you create a more inclusive environment where there is genuine learning among individuals from diverse backgrounds. Ask. Be curious. Learn more about another person’s perspective. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Respect. Be present and attentive. Listen…actively. Trust will follow. Connect. We’re all on our own learning journey. Using the A-R-C method is one way to foster the inclusion that drives innovation. Catch the whole pod with Bernadette Smith, and bring a true DEI mindset to your organization. Save the date! The ITX Product + Design Conference is back. June 22-23, Rochester, NY. Learn more. The post 102 / Driving Innovation Through Inclusion, with Bernadette Smith appeared first on ITX Corp..

The Product Momentum Podcast team is taking a brief pause this week but be sure to enter our 100th Episode Book Giveaway. We hope you’re enjoying some R&R time as well. See you again in the New Year! The post Product Momentum Podcast – 100th Episode Book Giveaway appeared first on ITX Corp..

No product manager wants to build a bad version of their software. But sometimes that’s what it takes to accelerate the learning process. Well, maybe not a bad version. But an early, admittedly incomplete one. Something you can quickly get out in front of users, gather some feedback about, and iterate on. Today’s podcast guest, Candu co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Anderson, explains, “If you then decide to go down the development route, you’ll be so much smarter, so much further along the path of figuring out what the right thing to build is.” This concept of drafting is super-valuable, he adds, “but not because we know what the end product will look when we’re done. But because we don’t.” Candu provides no-code web tools for SaaS apps; at its core, no-code is like products for product people. It helps non-tech-savvy product managers bring even greater impact to their teams – a sort of counter-punch to the vexing “all the responsibility, none of the authority” PM mantra. “So often we think of building software a little bit like a sacred cow, something only a handful can do along a very prescriptive process.” Jonathan says. “Maybe it’s time to allow non-technical people – like product managers, growth teams, maybe even customer teams – to actually build some of these interfaces themselves.” No-code, low-code tools help transform passive, receive-only PMs just waiting for requirements to fall from on high into more engaged product builders. We’re better positioned to shift the development effort upstream and figure out where that cut-off is – when the “bad” version of our software is still good enough to ship. Be sure to catch the whole conversation with Jonathan Anderson; and don’t forget about our 100th Podcast Episode Book Giveaway. Enter for your chance to win! The post 101 / How No-Code Tools Accelerate the Learning Process, with Jonathan Anderson appeared first on ITX Corp..

When UX design guru Jesse James Garrett first started out, user experience as we know it today wasn’t even a thing. Yet he remains among the most prominent voices in digital product design. As both witness and catalyst for more than 20 years, Jesse’s work in this space triggered much of the UX evolution and inspired the cultural change we’re now experiencing within our organizations. The emergence of product and design leadership has accelerated the ‘professionalization’ of traditional roles and has empowered teams to deliver better products and user outcomes. As Jesse explains in this – the 100th episode of the Product Momentum Podcast – “The exciting thing is that many product leaders are finding the way to gain the empowerment and the support and the leverage to drive not just good product outcomes, but organizational outcomes that fundamentally shift the way these organizations approach and think about what they do.” Product leaders are forever balancing the technical realities of what it takes to deliver a good product with the market realities of the business model, the competitive landscape, and customer realities, he continues. “And what I’m seeing are product leaders turning to design as a way to deepen their expertise … around that customer piece of the equation,” Jesse adds. “The designers who are elevating into those more senior leadership roles are the ones who are able to frame design in terms of its ability to deliver value around user insight more than around delivery.” Sean and Paul chat with Jesse not to wax nostalgic about the early days of UX, but instead to discuss the growing influence that human-centered design is having on human-centered decision-making, which eventually brings about a human-centered culture within organizations. Listen in to hear more tips from Jesse James Garrett about strategic leadership and the role of design in delivering value in this 100th episode of Product Momentum. You can also watch our conversation with Jesse James Garrett on the Product Momentum YouTube channel! The post 100 / The Emergence of Product + Design Leadership, with Jesse James Garrett appeared first on ITX Corp..

Make no mistake. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are super-powerful tools; their benefits seem endless. But let’s not confuse them with superpowers. AI possesses a fragility, says Dipanwita Das, co-founder and CEO of Sorcero, who is working to improve patient outcomes through advanced analytics. More blind spot than flaw, the fragility of AI is nuance that algorithms cannot now account for. Ironically, even paradoxically, AI requires interaction with humans to reveal its true power. Thought of in this way, AI quickly becomes more approachable. It’s really thinking about the people who build the tool, those who interpret its suggestions and predictions, and all the lives impacted by the outcomes down the road. Dipanwita shares some examples relating to human health. Dipanwita continues: “So it goes right back to us in how we’re collecting and organizing the data, how we’re designing the products, how we are applying this AI, and then what we are doing with its suggestions that will determine the end outcome.” Anything we have not factored in, she explains, we have to account for somewhere else. If you don’t, you invite uncertainty as to whether the AI-driven product feature will perform as it needs to. “AI is neither the silver bullet nor is it a demon,” Dipanwita concludes. “It is, at the end of the day, a tool, like anything else in software, to help us do our jobs better.” Catch the entire podcast with Dipanwita Das as she joins ITX co-hosts Paul Gebel and Roberta Oare to discuss – The role of bias in data collection and interpretation, and gaps it creates The impact of nuance on user experience design Criteria for finding the right balance of AI + Human Interaction Sorcero’s “human in the loop” approach – a built-in touchpoint where an expert is able to give active feedback. The post 99 / Overcoming the ‘Fragility of AI’ to Improve User Outcomes appeared first on ITX Corp..

Accessibility is not one of those things that’s done well when it’s tacked on to the end of a project, Sheri Byrne-Haber says. “It’s going to cost more, it’s going to put your schedule at risk, and it’s not going to offer the best experience.” Embedding accessibility into product design early on, she adds, becomes a whole lot easier when your organization’s mindset defaults toward diversity and inclusion. In this episode of Product Momentum, Sheri joins Paul Gebel and guest co-host Collene Burns, ITX’s VP of Global Talent. She explains what happens when the why of product design comes before the what. You’re free to escape a rigid checklist mentality and naturally consider how your product will be experienced in the world. When you hire the best and brightest – regardless of ability – accessible design outcomes follow because the teams are diverse. You start to see it in the DNA of the products they develop. In our conversation, Sheri also discusses the implications that new technologies have on accessibility. “Technology is moving faster than our ethical use can keep up,” she says. She adds that we can close the gap by building teams who think about all the humans who use their products, and designing experiences that actually solve the problem the product is trying to solve. Sheri Byrne-Haber is a prominent global thought leader in the fields of engineering, accessibility, and inclusion.  A senior accessibility architect at VMware, she was recently named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Social Impact 2022. The post 98 / Digital Accessibility & Inclusive Design: Understanding the Why appeared first on ITX Corp..

Kent Weathers is Chief Product Officer at Brainmates and Director at the Association of Product Professionals (APP) – valuable perspectives for a conversation about the future of software product management. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Kent Weathers joins Paul Gebel and asks us product people to imagine for a moment a world without waste – specifically, the staggering 70% of the estimated $6.8 trillion investment that companies will make in digital transformation in 2023 (HBR). As product managers, our role must be to teach organizations not only how to build things better – but also how to build better things. “That’s what product management does; that’s the missing component,” he adds. Despite making tremendous progress in recent years, professional development for product managers has been slowed. Not by the scarcity of training/learning options for them, but “by organizations that unintentionally prevent them from doing good product work.” Kent’s mission (and, by association, APP’s) is to empower product people to do what they know to do by helping C-suites structure their organizations and develop their processes around product. The key is to develop within the organization a product management practice, Kent explains. “A practice is about aligning all the necessary product functions and all the functional heads around good, sound product management and then developing a culture where people are empowered, where they’re trusted, where they know what to do.” The end result, he adds, is an organization that can unleash the power that product management brings to the table. “Without it,” he concludes, “they’ll never actually see the true value of product.” Catch the entire episode to learn more about Kent’s and APP’s shared approach: Problem. Unlike the fields of law, accounting, and education (among others), no clear standards exist that guide candidates and prospective employers where product managers are in their careers. Action. Through APP, Kent is working to get all the voices together to create – and codify – industry-standard best practices for the field of product management. Objective. Provide a genuine assessment of where product managers are in their careers, and what hiring managers should be looking for, to optimize the PMs’ fit within their organizations. The post 97 / Empowering Product Managers To Unleash Product’s True Value appeared first on ITX Corp..