Product Thinking

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about advocating for resources in a non-leadership role, whether or not a bottoms-up transformation can really work if leadership isn’t immediately on board, and how to effectively communicate with teams outside of product in order to set realistic expectations and get them on your side.  Q: As a product manager that is not in a leadership role, how do you recommend advocating for additional resources on your development? Q: Have you ever seen a product transformation work from bottoms-up, work at the team level first, and then improve at the executive level? If so, what do you think were the deciding factors? Q: How do I work with non-product teams who have no regard for prioritization or respect for the actual product team’s process? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Ken Norton, an executive coach, discusses the evolution of product management and the difference between empowered and unempowered product teams. He emphasizes the need for experienced product leaders and suggests developing apprenticeship programs. The podcast also explores the challenges of transitioning from reactive to purpose-driven leadership and creating an environment for product people to thrive. Ken highlights the power of setting big goals and having a vision in inspiring and rallying teams.

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa addresses a recent Twitter topic worth further discussing: how important it is for PMs to carve out the time for creative thinking and processing outside of scheduled meetings and tasks. Then she dives into subscribers’ questions about measuring the value of a platform change, how to create prototypes when the product requires personalization and balancing outcome-focused and functional-focused work. Q: How do you measurably prove the value of a platform change?  Q: How do you rapidly prototype features that rely on personalization as a value driver without creating the actual product? Do we just build personalized prototypes per test user? Q: How do we balance outcome-focused work with functional work? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri welcomes Giff Constable to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Giff is a product leader and former CPO of both Meet Up and Neo. Giff is passionate about helping product people sharpen their financial skills, which is a big topic of conversation in this episode. He talks to Melissa about why it’s key that product executives understand the nuances of financials, the most important relationships for a product executive to cultivate and how, why Giff never regrets investing time in the exercise of creating FP&A models, the ins and outs of understanding valuation, and so much more.  Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Giff explore: Giff talks about his career path and how he ended up in CPO and CEO roles. When communicating in a corporate space, adjust your language depending on who you're speaking to, with the goal of finding common ground.  Giff explains the FP&A model.  Nothing changes user behavior more than your pricing model. Adjust your pricing model so that the majority of your customers are satisfied. "When both the customer and the company are being successful together, everyone's reinvesting, everyone's happy," Giff tells Melissa. Product leaders should build a relationship with their teams. An easy way to do this is to involve them in decision-making. Trust is built. You don't have to do everything by yourself or work in silos.  Valuation has to do with what someone is willing to pay for what you have. Companies are valued with a multiple of their top or bottom line. Lower growth companies are valued in the multiple of the bottom line. Higher growth companies tend to be valued as a multiple of revenue. How fast or slow a company grows has to do with its product. If a company has poor prioritization or if there are market shifts, its product will become obsolete and contribute to slow growth for the company. For larger companies, there's also the risk of being so far ahead that you don't see who's catching up with you, and by the time you do, it's too late. Prioritization and paying attention to market trends and shifts are key. Resources Giff Constable | LinkedIn | Twitter

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about whether or not having clearly defined terms and a common language within an organization matters, how to convince founders to hand over the product reins and hire an interim CPO, and how to convince your team and leadership that you belong in your new role as Director of Product.  Q: Do you have any advice on how to establish a common language? Q: As a product consultant, what's the secret to convincing founders to give up control of a product that was a labor of love? How do you best convince a founder that having an interim CPO is worth the investment? Q: How can I build the trust of my team of four product managers and show leadership that they made the right choice with me? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri welcomes John Athayde to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. John is a design team leader, strategist, and individual contributor, as well as VP of Design at PowerFleet. John and Melissa discuss how he shifted focus to the importance of internal tools at Living Social, how he got buy-in from leadership to prioritize internal tools, the process of creating a design system for a scaling organization, the benefits of design systems, design systems vs. style guides, and the tools and org structure he recommends to get set up for success.  Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and John talk about: What led John to PowerFleet. John shares how he started pushing for improved internal controls. “As I was working on the front-end screens, [I realized] we could make this a little better.” He convinced some product people and engineers, and they collaborated to do a bunch of mockups. They presented them to the CTO, who gave them his blessing. Designers should know how to code, or at least know how code happens, according to John. “You can’t design a building without knowing how a building is built.” You can use product thinking to design your internal tools. It’s less of just a design issue and more of an issue of creating a product, which is a complex internal operating system. This is necessary to actually scale. A UX engineer is a front-end developer who is primarily focused on the look and feel as opposed to functionality. They are the bridge between functionality and design. It's a person with the design sensibility who can speak code and help implement, but they're not doing the implementation. Now that almost everyone has some kind of experience with software, UX and UI have become more essential. Consumers are going to subconsciously compare their experience with your user interface with others. Every company needs a source of truth for their operations, that is, documentation for all the relevant information needed to continue operations. In the event of key people leaving, the work they did would still be there for the next person to take over. We often take for granted how important the role of a UX designer is in a high-growth organization. Resources John Athayde on LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about relationships between program and product managers, the right questions to ask during the interview process so you end up in a company with strong product values, and how to experiment when iterating on complex hardware. Q: What does a great partnership between a product manager and a technical program manager look like? If my long-term career goal is to pivot back into product, how might I build up my product chops in this role in the short term without stepping on the toes of my product partner in crime?  Q: Do you have any suggestions for questions I can ask when interviewing for a new role to make sure that I don't fall into the same situation in the future? Q: Do you have any advice for how to do product discovery when you are working with high-end systems and prototyping and iterating are really expensive? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Donna Lichaw and Melissa Perri discuss leadership coaching, imposter syndrome, and the power of storytelling in becoming the heroes of your own story. They highlight the challenges leaders face, the importance of self-awareness, and how to harness behaviors as superpowers for positive outcomes.

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to handle the unfortunate reality that oftentimes product managers are blamed for things out of their control, how to communicate to engineers when it’s time to pivot off of a project they’ve devoted a lot of time and effort towards, and how to build a shiny new product without completely disregarding all of the learnings from the original one. Q: What should your course of action be if you perceive yourself a scapegoat position in product management? Q: Have you ever had to pause a tool or product? Do you have any frameworks when making such decisions? To what degree is it my responsibility to communicate this as opposed to senior management? Q: How can we use our current product to help us build a better replacement? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Josh Seiden and Melissa Perri discuss the challenges companies face in transitioning to an outcome-centric approach, emphasizing the importance of understanding impact and outcome. They highlight the significance of focusing on data, avoiding fixation on processes, and storytelling for shifting focus. Additionally, they explore the value of evidence-based decision-making, data-driven strategies, and creating psychological safety in organizations.