Product Momentum Podcast

When Ralph Dandrea founded ITX a quarter-century ago, the notion of product was a whole lot different than it is today. In 1997, he and other product builders thought about software through the lens of themselves as users – not of the end users who were truly using the products they built. That thinking evolved over time, not unlike the software industry itself. “In those early days,” Ralph explains, “we weren’t thinking through all the edge cases that would be discovered out in the real world. Product thinking gives you this opportunity to look at something separate and distinct and to analyze it in a way that you really can’t if you’re just trying to substitute yourself as the user.” In this special episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, ITX Founder and CEO Ralph Dandrea joins Sean and Paul to recognize the company’s 25-year history – from the Internet’s infancy and Y2K to the post-Covid era and beyond – but also to celebrate the people who helped create the culture of innovation that ITX enjoys today. The attention paid to culture at ITX is not accidental. At the intersection of intentionality and culture lies an environment where not just product innovation thrives – but also the people who drive those innovations. “That’s the foundation of our work at ITX,” Ralph says. “We’re creating this environment where we use our values, like Integrity, to create a sense of workability. We share similar beliefs; and we have expectations about how each other is going to behave,” he adds. “It makes life so much easier, makes our work so much easier. We’re lot more efficient than we would otherwise be.” “As I reflect on these past 25 years, I feel gratitude,” Ralph concludes. “I’m very grateful to everyone who’s ever worked at ITX, many of whom are still around me, which has been fantastic. A lot of it is because of the fun we’ve been able to enjoy because the environment has been set up the right way. “While I’m proud of where we are, I’m even more excited to see where we go next.” Catch the entire conversation with Ralph to hear his insights on the next 25 years – People. The broad trend is that people will be even more at the center of what we do. As product people, we can facilitate that through the software we build by including more users with different needs and goals. Discovery. The fun part is discovering trends as they’re happening, experimenting to see what works, and bringing solutions to our customers as a new innovation. Value. We look at innovation from the value that’s created in the outcome. Everything we do to innovate is about helping people do what they want to accomplish in a way that better suits their needs. The post ITX at 25: Creating a Culture of Product Innovation appeared first on ITX Corp..

There’s a lot that product managers can do to empower themselves and build reputational capital within their organizations. But the path is not a straight one. We know all too well the imbalance between our substantial responsibilities and the comparatively meager authority we have to execute on them. “It’s a tough world out there for product managers,” Paul Ortchanian says. “It’s an up-and-coming function that’s been around for a while, but it’s still misunderstood by most leaders in organizations.” In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Bain Public’s Paul Ortchanian sits down with Paul Gebel to discuss not only the tactics required to navigate everyday challenges, but also the career strategies we need to build reputational capital within our organizations that allow us to effectively do our jobs. There’s a case to be made for training organizational leaders about what a product manager can be, and to deepen their understanding of what the product manager role is truly capable of. “As much as PMs try to learn and practice their craft, there’s some critical soft skills that we need to learn and apply,” Paul adds. “We want to make sure that we’re planting the seeds that help develop product managers of the future to work within those organizations where the process, the tools, and the value we bring is well understood by leaders.” Catch the entire pod with Paul Ortchanian to learn his take on – The importance of empathizing with Customer Support and Sales, as they are proxies of your B2B customers How to manage your leadership team and convince them to embrace PM best practices The power behind the “good, old-fashioned business case” for prioritizing decisions Putting yourself in the position of problem solver – proposing more than a feature, but a feature that actually solves the problem The post 96 / How Product Managers Build Reputational Capital Within Their Organizations appeared first on ITX Corp..

As consumers of everything from soap to software, all we’re looking for is better, easier, simpler. Most of the time we can’t explain why a thing is better; we just know delight when we experience it. “That’s the height of product management done well,” says Martina Lauchengco. “And it’s also when product marketing takes over to help the world understand why your product is truly different.” Martina Lauchengco is a Partner at Costanoa Ventures and author of LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, she joins Sean and Paul to explore the role product marketing plays in a go-to-market strategy. Too often, Martina explains, we emphasize the marketing piece and fail to recognize the connection between our product and the humans who are using it. And that’s the big thing that gets missed. “Product marketing is the act of connecting the market to the product, not just promoting the product in the market.” There’s actually a strategic framework for all the activities that bring your product successfully to market, she adds. “And it represents a very big difference in terms of the actions that are taken. First is the when and why. Then comes the what, followed by the how. In that order.” Martina’s framework examines not only the activities we product managers need to navigate. We’re also responsible for encouraging our teams to share product market-facing activities – each of which is assigned a specific role. Listen to the entire pod to learn more about Martina’s product marketing framework, including the fundamental roles responsible for its execution: the Ambassador, the Strategist, the Storyteller, and the Evangelist. Other insights from Martina Lauchengco: Owning the market is about owning the conversations in your category – and you can do that pre-launch. Product marketing is more a framework than a checklist of activities. Building software is not about the features you add; it’s about making someone more successful at the job they’re trying to do. The post 95 / The Product Marketing Framework: Connecting the Market to the Product appeared first on ITX Corp..

Data we collect about our products are really just a summary of the thousands of stories our users would tell us if they could. Part of our job as product managers is gathering and processing these stories, and then converting them into the products and tools that enhance the human experience. Taylor Murphy provides some insight into how product managers can approach data science in this episode. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean and Paul are joined by Taylor Murphy, Head of Product and Data at Meltano, an open-source data platform whose mission it is to make data integration available to all by turning proprietary ELT solutions into true open-source alternatives. Part of the PM’s role is to be the conduit through which data are shared, what Taylor refers to as being “the glue and message broker between everyone to make sure folks are aligned.” But data are only one part of the message. And not all data are created equal. “We’re gathering insights from the market. We’re listening to consultants. And we’re digesting what others are saying about our space,” he adds. “The challenge for PMs is integrating all those data points into “Okay, now we’re going to build this feature; now we’re going to fix this bug.” Catch the entire pod to hear Taylor’s straightforward approach to data management and data science for product managers – Importance of working with anonymized data When, in the product life cycle, to use qualitative vs. quantitative data (see below) Applying the golden rule to data sharing Risks associated with over-indexing your data Role of the scientific method in our decision-making process Knowledge of SQL in the PM skill set As Taylor explains, reliance on qualitative data works well when your company is pre-Product-Market Fit. “But it can take you only so far,” he adds. “As time passes and you grow and mature, you can lean more on quantitative because you have more data to work with.” The post 94 / A Pragmatic Approach to Data Science for Product Managers appeared first on ITX Corp..

When we trust others – including organizations – we do business with them whenever it makes sense. When we don’t, we look for alternatives. Trust is the foundation of every positive relationship, and its absence is the reason so many relationships struggle. In the product space especially, where we’re building complicated things that don’t yet exist, the risk of failure is everywhere. Teams that trust overcome these challenges to find innovation and success, says Charles Feltman. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean is joined by Charles Feltman, author of The Thin Book of Trust and a nationally recognized expert in organizational trust. Charles offers a unique perspective: “I talk about trust, or more specifically, trusting, as making what I value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” The essence of Charles’ definition is the reliance on another individual to honor and protect what we hold dear. Even more important is the notion that our act of mutual trust “will further our work together.” So whether it’s a relationship between two friends or the complex interactions among an entire software team, when we make what’s important to each member vulnerable to others, we create an environment in which we can work more effectively together. This is precisely the kind of psychologically safe environment in which innovation abounds and product teams thrive. Trusting behaviors manifest in team compacts – explicit, agreed-upon ways of working that members buy into and are set to live by – foundational activities for newer teams searching for a foothold. And for established teams focused on next-level performance. Catch the entire episode to hear Charles describe trust as a compilation of four assessment domains, including Care, Sincerity, Reliability, and Competence. The post 93 / Teams That Trust Find Innovation and Success appeared first on ITX Corp..

Turns out there is an ‘I’ in ‘team.’ Effective product leaders know the importance of giving credit to their teams for a job well done. But too often, we forget to accept some of the praise for ourselves. The risk we run in overlooking our own contributions can actually be detrimental to the team in the long run, says Jocelyn Miller. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean and Paul catch up with Jocelyn Miller, who converted her product management experience at Google and Amazon to help professionals in product, tech, and UX create their dream careers. “If you leave the ‘I’ out of ‘we,’” she says, “that’s when product managers are more likely to get burned out…when even the most effective leaders can become resentful. One of the things so many of us forget is that the more we are recognized and rewarded, the more we can bestow that recognition upon our teams, and the more we can elevate others,” Jocelyn adds. As we learn what it is to be a product manager, she adds, we’re learning that it’s okay to think about ourselves in the team and to accept that it’s okay to think about ourselves outside the team, in our own lives. Catch the entire episode to learn more from Jocelyn Miller, especially – How to balance team advocacy with self-advocacy Why leading a team requires confidence in both the vision and the path Modeling the behaviors you want to see in your team If the culture you’re in isn’t fun, it isn’t sustainable The post 92 / Product Leaders: Don’t Overlook Your Own Contributions appeared first on ITX Corp..

“It depends.” A two-word answer that might seem overly safe. But is the only honest response to the question: “What does it take to be one of the top product managers?” Among dozens of dependencies, the PM role depends on whether you’re at a startup vs. a large, well-established company, says Karthik Suresh, co-founder of Ignition and a product leader with extensive experience as an early start-up hire and a key player in defining product strategy at Facebook. “It’s like two completely different roles,” he adds. When at a startup, Karthik realized that product managers worked with limited resources, so much of the role was based on how well you hustle just to get things done. At Facebook, his role focused more on stakeholder management and collaboration than product strategy. One skill that all top product managers possess – regardless of specific role or circumstance – is the capacity to learn. Particularly helpful when things don’t go according to plan. As Henry Ford once said, “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” This holds true even when that mistake cost a company $400 million in just 30 minutes! Be sure to listen in as Karthik Suresh shares a story about an algorithm gone wrong – and the important takeaways not only for a company, but also for an entire industry. The post 91 / Capacity to Learn: A Skill All Top Product Managers Possess appeared first on ITX Corp..

Not everyone experiences that polarizing, “fork in the road” moment in their career. That catalyzing realization when a choice needs to be made about which path to take. Before we get there, how do we recognize the signals telling us to step back, take stock, and unpack where we are in our personal and professional life? Liz Li provides some answers in this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast. Liz Li, a Senior Director of Product at LinkedIn, introduces us to the notion of “career principles” to help us navigate that decision. “Think about your career in the same way you think about the products and solutions you build,” she says. Like getting clarity of vision for our next software product, Liz wants us to ‘productize our careers’ by crafting a vision for our future and a plan to achieve it. “Especially for folks in product management, think of your career principles like it was a product strategy or spec – personal rules that you align your career to,” she says. “Write down your career principles in the same way you’d prepare to guide the building of your next product.” Liz believes that for every phase of our careers, we should have a set of rules – unique to ourselves – that we set down to guide our next play. These rules help answer fundamental questions, like what job to take, what role to assume, and what project to take on. Catch the entire pod with Liz and hear her comments about – Women in tech, especially women of color, in people management roles The signals to look for that tell us to reevaluate our circumstance, and think through what’s important Why innovation is more than “a big idea;” there’s actually addressing the challenge and doing the work The post 90 / Amid The Great Resignation, It’s Time To ‘Productize Your Career’ appeared first on ITX Corp..

Saleema Vellani first visited the Product Momentum Podcast two years ago, shortly before the release of her now best-selling book, Innovation Starts with I, and just as a global pandemic tightened its grip on our world. Now two years later, we’re delighted have her back on the pod, this time with Paul and ITX product strategist Roberta Oare. Saleema shares her experiences during what she coined “the reinvention revolution.” Product leaders tend to emphasize a market- or user-focused awareness, and rightly so. Empathy for others is a critical ingredient in improving their experience. But is that truly where innovation begins? Or might the source of that “lightbulb moment” be found elsewhere? Saleema believes that until you truly know yourself – and know what motivates you to be your best self – it’s difficult to bring your best effort to your team, to your users, to your product community. “It’s important to understand who we are as individuals,” she adds. “Whether you’re a business owner or a product manager, if you’re trying to design or innovate and ignite some kind of change, it’s important to start with knowing who you are and what makes you unique. It’s not about just having new ideas.” Tune in to hear more from Saleema Vellani about how you can start your own transformative journey, including: How important it is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable for reinvention and innovation to occur Why failure is the key to success What she means by “optimizing the constants and customizing the variables” The post 89 / Innovation Starts With Self-Awareness appeared first on ITX Corp..

Imagine you have over 300,000 customers who love your product. Then, in the span of one weekend in March 2020, you suddenly find yourself with no product to deliver them. Where do you go from there? You go back to the basics, says James Mayes, who joined Sean and Paul in this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast. As co-founder and CEO of Mind The Product, the global flagship product management conference, James Mayes went from having a business model he thought was the product, to the brutal reminder that the market is in control. “The pandemic, and the lockdown that followed, made our core product unviable,” he adds. “When your environment changes at that magnitude, you can’t prepare for that. So this was a reminder of something we already knew: You cannot be prepared for every eventuality and every change that will occur.” In a world full of uncertainty, James contends, you go back to what you know. “So we said, ‘we’re product managers, right? We’re designed to live in uncertainty. It’s part of our DNA.’ So we did just that; we went back to the basic fundamentals of product management.” Turns out, the same lessons MTP applied to navigate the pandemic will help your team in times of ambiguity. Catch the entire fast-paced conversation with James, and learn how the steps MTP applied can work for your team too – Stop the bleeding. When you find yourself deep in a hole, stop digging. Take inventory. What do we have that still works in this world. Tweak existing assets where we can. Create new ones as opportunities arise. Stay close to customers. Be available, accessible. Discover, create, test, refine, release, learn, and repeat. The post 88 / Effective Product Managers Embrace a ‘Back to Basics’ Mindset appeared first on ITX Corp..