Product Thinking

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about product operations, how to structure teams in an organization cross-functionally, and knowing when it’s time to scale your product. Q: What is the problem product operations solves? What does success look like for these teams? How should these teams be structured? Who should these teams report to? [1:08] Q: How do you know in advance when your product is ready to scale and how do you prepare from a roadmap funding perspective? [11:41] Q: Can you provide some sample product and design team organization structures that you’ve seen work well? Where do product and business analysts sit in the organization? Do designers, assuming they're part of the product management team umbrella, have assigned PMs to partner with? Do you see product directors who manage product managers as stronger in the company domain, or great PM craft practitioners? [16:38] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Ray McKenzie. Ray is the CEO and founder of StartingPoint Technologies, an organization that develops solutions for service-based companies. He has expertise across a variety of fields, most notably strategy development, workforce analytics, and behavioral analysis. Ray joins Melissa to discuss the ideal marketing strategy that product leaders should be adopting. Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Ray talk about in this episode: How Ray got into product management. [1:16] Product leaders need to consult with customers and rely on other uses and experiences to outline how to build products. [5:01] One of the biggest challenges when it comes to a company startup is opening yourself up to criticism and feedback. However, allowing yourself to get feedback, both positive and negative, can benefit your business. [7:41] Melissa expresses that when building a product, leaders’ main focus should be on how they can make products easy for customers to use. [12:00] Product management should be tied into strategic decisions in the organization. Product leaders need to be present in decision-making so that they can understand the vision for the business and build products to align with that. [13:50] Product is a revenue driver and not a cost center. [16:58] Being product-led is a go-to-market strategy. Building a product-led company means that product building becomes ingrained in the day-to-day work. [18:07] The different go-to-market strategies that companies need to be thinking about, and how they should decide on which strategy is right for them. [26:53] The main way to experiment with your go-to-market strategy, or test it, is to talk to people. Talk to your ideal customer, your colleagues, and do market research. “If you just talk to people they will lead you in the direction of where it is easiest to go. And if you're taught to understand who your ideal customer is, talk to as many people of that kind as possible, and they'll tell you where you should invest your go-to-market dollars or go-to-market strategy,” Ray tells Melissa. [30:13] Companies that aren't software-based need to think about their ideal customers, what their competition is doing, and what differentiates their product from everyone else. [32:52] Resources Ray McKenzie | LinkedIn | Twitter StartingPoint

Q: I have been offered a senior leadership role, but part of me feels I still haven’t proven myself with any actual company outcomes as an individual contributor. Should I take the role, where I’d be fairly hands-off, or spend more time honing my craft? [0:46] Q: Is there a way to evaluate an organization before applying? [7:04] Q: Do you have any tips for finding a good VP of product for a growth-stage startup? [12:18] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Marty Cagan, product executive and author of 'Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love', talks about the essence of product management. He emphasizes the importance of leadership in product teams and provides advice on finding an amazing product leader. The podcast also explores hiring for product management, the history of Agile, and challenges faced by product leaders during transformations.

Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Amy Radin. Amy is a growth advisor and problem solver for FinTech and MarTech businesses. She has spent over two decades in the marketing, digital, and innovation sector and is currently a member of the Fast Company executive board. Amy joins Melissa to discuss implementing digital transformation in our organizations through relationships. Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Amy talk about in this episode: Amy’s professional background and how she got into digital transformation. [1:29] You can’t solve new problems with old tools. Helping your organization feel comfortable and embrace a new way of doing processes is key. [6:16] It is important to build relationships with the influencers and decision-makers within an organization when you are seeking to implement digital transformation. Get a clear understanding of what success means to them. Once they believe that your first priority is to make them successful, you will win their trust and support. [9:01] When building organizational teams, there is no one-size-fits-all. You have to build on what exists within the organization at the moment as well as acknowledge that there are elements of culture that affect the organizational structure. [14:53] If employees are unable to adapt to new realities of change in their organizations, leaders have to ask themselves if they’ve given them enough opportunity to build new skills. [17:57] “You need to build a very diverse team when you're building change...it’s internal and external people who are bringing different life experiences, different backgrounds. You need diversity to solve hard problems,” Amy stresses. [19:49] We must focus on developing real empathy and deep understanding of our customers’ needs and bring this insight to the organization in a way they will find compelling. [24:32] How Amy gets her teams to take initiative. [24:45] Even on the worst days we have to maintain a sense of optimism and believe that we will get there. [30:22] “You have to look for the actions and behaviors that the organization and the leadership have done either at the organization, or in their prior roles that indicate they understand that you have a common expectation of what transformation and change means and what it takes,” Amy remarks. [35:34] The behavioral evidence Amy looks for that tells her that the company is ready for transformation. [38:14] Resources Amy Radin | LinkedIn | Twitter

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers a subscriber’s question about ‘soft skills’ and why they are equally as important as hard skills. Q: What would you say to someone who's concerned about their assertiveness? [00:51] Q: What resources or experiences would you recommend for people who recognize the need for hard skills as part of product, but who would intentionally like to cultivate these soft skills (empathy, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence) as well? [9:06] Q: What would you recommend a team of product managers to do if they’re headed by a CTO who does not have time for the team, or product management know-how? Can a product team ever be successful if they are led by someone who doesn’t seem to have organizational power? [14:03] Going to the C-suite yourselves may not be the option, but how do you surface up the problem? If it's a good C-suite they should start to see that this is an issue because the team might not be performing the way that they actually expected to be. I think you can go to the C-suite to have conversations about your individual products, not necessarily the same product leader but helps surface up what good looks like. [15:48] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Melissa Perri’s guest on this week’s Product Thinking Podcast is Kathy Pham. Kathy is a computer scientist, a product management executive, and co-leads the Ethics and Responsible Tech at Mozilla. She also co-founded the Mozilla Fix the Internet Incubator, as well as the Product and Society at Mozilla, which focuses on product management, ethics, and the public interest. Kathy joins Melissa to discuss product ethics. Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Kathy talk about in this episode: Interesting details about the product management class Kathy teaches at Harvard. [00:47] Kathy’s experiences working at The White House, Harvard, and in product management. [5:52] Ethics and its implications for product management. [12:58] Accessibility and security are important and need to be integrated into a product from the very beginning. [15:48] When designing products for an inclusive audience, you have to take into consideration the team culture that is in place and build out those personas to be as inclusive as possible. “I think it's important to build into the culture knowing that the moment something is built it's really hard to reverse,” Kathy tells Melissa.[19:35] How to respond to changes or challenges with your product platform when it happens in another country where no member of your team is from. [23:34] As product managers, we need to be listening to our users, and that includes listening to those users who are telling us what we don’t want to hear. It means not condemning or shutting down their feedback by telling them they’re wrong. [28:34] Having diverse perspectives within our product teams is very important for the decision-making process. It ensures that the concerns of the target audience are heard and are taken into account. [30:32] When the people building our program algorithms make terrible assumptions or have blind spots, they bake into them issues that already exist in the world and just propagate them through code. [38:50] Resources Kathy Pham | LinkedIn | Twitter

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers a subscriber’s question about choice architecture and competing priorities between the business and the customer.  Q: How do you balance the ethics of choice architecture as a product manager who is responsible for satisfying possible divergent priorities between the business and the customer? What is our duty when priorities may conflict? Hear Melissa talk about: Choice architecture and dark patterns What to do with your priorities conflict with each other How ethics in product is vital to how you view your products Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Matt Wallaert, a behavioral scientist and product strategist with over twenty years of experience, dives into the intersection of behavior change and product design. He emphasizes that products should aim to change user behavior, focusing on outcomes rather than mere demographics. Wallaert discusses the importance of activating users by showing them how they create business value. Curious and engaged product managers are crucial, and Wallaert shares insights on fostering effective leadership traits in product teams.

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to use their time wisely, whether they’re trying to support their sales team with a complex product, getting the most out of a customer advisory board, or finding time for discovery work on a Scrum-focused team. Q: I'm constantly helping our sales team run demo calls and our account managers onboard and set up new customers. What can I do to empower my team so I can focus on improving our product instead? Have you ever used a dedicated team member to fill this space as a product specialist role? [1:38] Q: What am I signing up for when setting up a customer advisory board? What should I do to launch it smoothly and get the most out of it? What risks am I facing? Is this a stupid idea? [9:31] Q: Is there a way to make product discovery a process and make time for it, like what scrum does for delivery? [16:28] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com