Product Thinking

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about ways to research and stay on top of the market in order to conduct a thorough competitive analysis, when adopting a Stage Gate process makes sense and how to design it, and how to organize teams around the product strategy framework.  Q: What tips do you have for competitor analysis? Q: What is your experience with Stage Gate? Am I just being stubborn and intractable by thinking that adopting Stage Gate is the opposite of creating a product-led organization? Or, for example, a risk-led organization? Q: In your experience, would it make sense for each squad to have its own challenge, or should there be one or two challenges for the entire product area? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Tara Scott discusses the importance of psychological safety in the workplace with Melissa Perri. Topics include assessing safety in organizations, the impact of micromanagement on morale, leading with curiosity, and fostering open communication for productive teams.

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about the importance of hiring a more experienced product leader to help more junior product managers steer clear of bad product habits, how to organize and manage an influx of ideas from different stakeholders, why product shouldn’t be part of the IT organization, and where project managers fit in a product led team.  Q: What are the chances of a junior PM unintentionally developing unhealthy habits without the ongoing regular guidance of an experienced PM? What are key signals that might indicate it's time for me to ask my leadership team to bring in a product leader? Q: Any tips for setting up a structure for managing ideas? Q: Why shouldn’t product be part of the IT organization? What are the key talking points you would hit when trying to convince the company that products should be its own organization? Q: Does project management or the business analyst role belong in a product lead or empowered product team? If a large company is undergoing a transformation, where would you see people who have traditionally played the role of project manager or BA succeed? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri welcomes Becky Flint to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Becky is the Founder and CEO of Dragonboat, the responsive portfolio platform for product and technology leaders, and is an expert in outcome-focused product practice and operations. Becky joins Melissa to discuss how she recognized the need for a portfolio management tool like Dragonboat, why portfolio management should be adopted by any size team, common pitfalls in early portfolio management, why it’s the next iteration of agile, and how to implement a portfolio management practice into an organization.  Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Becky talk about: Becky’s journey into product and how Dragonboat came about. Portfolio management is not just for large companies or about how you create a hierarchy. It’s about how you make a decision across the product organization to support various needs and lenses of the business. Product operations ensures that people work at a consistent output - this consistency needs to be to an extent where effective decision making can happen. Melissa asks Becky about some mistakes people make with portfolio management. “When people think about portfolio management, they usually think about hierarchy,” Becky shares. “The challenge with hierarchy is that it’s static - once your business changes, you’re stuck. People forget the problem they’re trying to solve with the business when they spend so much time trying to figure out a hierarchy.” When companies started out trying to do agile and Scrum purely by the book, they encountered many difficulties because there was so much learning, evolving and adapting involved in those processes. You don’t need to roll out portfolios in every facet of your company - that would be way too time-consuming and tedious if you have multiple products. Rather, you can start in a few product areas. “Take one or two teams who are ready for change and start to apply portfolio management to areas that are somewhat independent,” Becky advises. No one can build a product alone, and no one can take it to market alone.  Becky and Melissa discuss why the role of Chief Product Officer is necessary. Becky says, “Having a leader driving the vision and strategy and enabling the team actually innovates and creates ideas, and makes them able to deliver.” Resources Becky Flint on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about what to expect when transitioning from a small to a large product team, how to work with subject matter experts that have strong opinions on product design, and making the case for creating an internal product team to support a growing organization.  Q: I've heard about the dangers of transitioning to a smaller team after being in a large organization, but I'm curious about movement in the other direction. Q: How can I help the team to make the most of everyone's expertise and work better together? Q: Do you have any suggestions for ways to frame a request to start an internal product team? Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri welcomes Gopal Erinjippurath to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Gopal is the co-founder, CTO and Head of Product at Sust Global, a company whose mission is to “develop data-driven products that enable every business decision to be climate-informed so that humanity can thrive in a changing planet.” Gopal joins Melissa to discuss climate sustainability and why climate data is proving to be valuable to all kinds of organizations, how he tested and iterated to build this complex data product, how he’s de-risking bets in a rapidly evolving market, the balance of being mission-driven and commercially minded, and the importance of making product thinking part of an organization’s DNA.  Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Gopal talk about: Gopal talks about his professional background, how he got into climate sustainability, and what led him to found his company, Sust Global. [1:29] Melissa asks Gopal what type of companies purchase climate data products and services and how they use them in a professional capacity. Your long-term strategy should include holding financial instruments that directly correlate to tangible assets. There are several physical climate risks related to these assets, so ask targeted questions about the climate to protect your assets. [5:26] Gopal shares how he was inspired to go into the business of climate-related data and insights. [8:29] Melissa asks how Sust Global tested their climate-based data product. Gopal explains that the first step was “to start with the outcome rather than the outputs and work backward from there.” Creating mockups of the data-based outcome and testing them with the early set of gated customers can provide valuable feedback. [10:42] Melissa asks Gopal how Sust Global ensures that their climate data product is of the highest quality. Gopal suggests that the best approach is to “sandbox the data capability into an area that one customer cares about and wants to decide on, and then provide them with that data in the simplest form so they can try it and use it for the first time.” [14:22] Your data should fit three criteria: temporal - how fresh your database and data product is  geographic - dimensionality of your dataset, how it's partitioned before it is handed to customers, and what interfaces there are  the business problem [16:26] Gopal highlights the challenges Sust Global faced when creating their product. [19:06] “You must enable your team to stay on top of things and…to fundamentally have product thinking be part of the DNA of your team,” Gopal says. [20:19] Gopal looks at capacity building, strategy and execution when he is building a data-based product team. [22:07] Climate change is a space where it is possible to stay mission-aligned and also be highly commercially minded, due to the rising importance of ESG and climate change initiatives. [24:54] Resources  Gopal Erinjippurath on LinkedIn  Sust Global | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about scaling up a whole junior product team at once, how a listener can align her team’s KPIs to user value, and why product managers are more susceptible to experience burnout.  Q: What’s a successful approach to scaling up a team of junior PMs without leaving stragglers behind? [3:47] Q: How can a team responsible for security set measurable goals that show whether we're delivering real value to users when we're so far removed from the user value? [9:08] Q: What makes product people seemingly have a higher potential to experience workplace burnout? What can we do to proactively prevent or combat this? [13:19] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this special episode of the Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri invites three graduates from her CPO Accelerator program to share their stories, insights, and advice about moving into the C-suite. Amy Carmichael of Crowdcube, John Martin of Housecall Pro, and Simone Dive of Clir Renewables all recently took on the Chief Product Officer role in their companies. They tell Melissa what it was like to make the jump, how the job differs from other product leadership roles, how to start practicing for the job now as an IC, and the skills they recommend strengthening if you hope to land a CPO job in the future.  Here are some key points they will be discussing: Amy, John, and Simone talk about their journey from entering the product field to becoming CPO. [2:16] Melissa asks the guests to reflect on the most surprising aspect of the CPO role. Simone highlights the human element of the product; for Amy it’s taking the time to plan product strategy, and John talks about going to market. [5:21] When transitioning into a CPO, you may need to finetune some skills to succeed in your new role. [8:29] Being a CPO is not only about managing teams and setting strategy – it's about understanding how your product and company fit into the larger market. [10:00] Although financial skills are important as a CPO, John believes that learning to invest in people was the biggest skill he needed to hone. He explains that product managers and product leaders are sought after, so it was important for him to develop his people skills and relationships with his team so they’re likely to stay with the company. [12:32] Melissa asks her guests how they managed to build relationships and foster collaboration with their new team. [14:20] Melissa asks her guests how IC roles can prepare a person to become CPO, and what they can do to put them on that path. [18:52] Simone advises aspiring CPOs to get comfortable not taking credit and to build relationships with the people who make executive decisions. [20:53] Amy, Simone, and John talk about how to evolve into a great CPO [25:11] Resources   Amy Carmichael on LinkedIn    John Martin on LinkedIn  Simone Dive on LinkedIn

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about organizations that are at a crossroads. She talks about how to help reorganize a product hierarchy that’s lacking strategic product development, how to shake up an org that seems content to operate as a feature factory, and where to focus your company’s resources and energy during an economic downturn. Q: What would be a good way to separate the long-term work of gathering ideas and looking at market trends versus the shorter-term discovery and delivery work? [2:07] Q: Do you have any tips for how I can interact differently with a team who seems satisfied to operate like a feature factory? [9:07] Q: With a downturn in the economy, should I turn the attention of my product team more towards optimization rather than exploration? [16:11] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri welcomes Steve Maclaughlin to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Steve is the Vice President of Product Management at Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider that serves clients within the social goods community. Steve shares his insights on what good product management looks like in nonprofit organizations, product managers as decision makers, the importance of benchmarking, and what it means to operate as a data-driven nonprofit.  Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Steve talk about:  Steve talks about his induction into the world of product management and why he started to help nonprofit organizations with product strategy. [2:04] Melissa asks Steve how to set product strategy and OKRs for nonprofits since they're not working towards increasing revenue but towards the greater good. He responds that the main objective as a product manager of a nonprofit is to "get revenue, keep revenue, grow revenue, and reduce cost". [4:42] To have a successful product that achieves your goals, you need the trifecta of time, talent, and treasure. [10:01] In today’s digital world, the product is the whole experience – it must be a holistic experience for the consumers. [13:43] Despite opposing opinions and ideas on strategy, product team members must ultimately make a decision that takes all perspectives into account. [18:50] Steve explains how he was led to the field of data-driven nonprofits and his journey to becoming a best-selling author with his book, "Data-Driven Nonprofits". [20:34] Data health, data quality, underlying technology, and data science are all important, but the most important thing is the culture surrounding the data. [22:18] Benchmarking is crucial in the nonprofit space: your organization can compare their progress to their competitors’ and determine how to replicate success. [24:42] It may be difficult to stay true to your original mission and vision while ensuring you’re progressing towards your goal, when running a nonprofit. Steve advises using data and benchmarking to measure your progress; more importantly, choose a goal that people would be interested in and build on it over time. [28:11] Melissa asks Steve how to balance keeping the long-term mission in play while ensuring that you're not just over-optimizing for revenue. Steve responds that best practice is to be "very firm on vision and very flexible on details". Once you achieve your vision and mission, it does not matter how many times the fine details of your plan change over time. [31:32] Resources  Steve MacLaughlin on LinkedIn | Twitter