One Knight in Product

A message from our sponsor Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program by 15th June, 2022. About this Episode An interview with Andy Budd. Andy is the founder of Clearleft, one of the UK's original design consultancies. He's now an in demand speaker, thought leader and advisor on the topics of design & entrepreneurship. We speak about a lot, including: The story behind his departure from day-to-day operations at Clearleft, how he believes that startup founders have a shelf life as CEO, and the importance of bringing new blood into the company as you scale The problems with getting design practices changed in established companies and why he's focusing now on going back to basics with early stage startups and working with founders to instill good design practices from the beginning Why it's important to get design into the startup as early as possible to apply structure and rigour, but how many founders have done more product discovery than we give them credit for How early product managers in founder-run startups are often brought in as the equivalent of short order chefs and the folly of trying to turn McDonalds in to a Michelin starred restaurant The common situation when early founders being people into the company to help apply process, get frustrated when everything slows down but how it's fair enough for founders to feel this since it's ultimately their business on the line How most companies should probably do more research but how most product designers should be more pragmatic and realise that ultimately they can help to sustain the business with less-than-perfect designs The trouble that product & design people can have getting to the top table, the things they might need to do to get there and how product & design teams are playing chess while the rest of the leadership team are playing poker And much more! Contact Andy You can find Andy on Twitter or check out andybudd.com

A message from our sponsor Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program by 15th June, 2022. About this Episode An interview with Nicole Reineke. Nicole is a strategist and author with 75 patents to her name. She wanted to help others unlock the innovator within them and wrote "Compassion Driven Innovation" with a cross-functional group of co-authors. The book aims to give business owners and product leaders a proven methodology to defeat the Innovator's Dilemma and get the best innovation results. We speak about a lot, including: Some of the early reception for her book, how people have started to adopt it and use in within their organisations, and how she wrote it very cross-functionally with 2 co-authors from different fields Why she needed to "write the book she needed to read" after having been granted 75 patents and realising that there was a method to drive true innovation How she started off researching a number of companies to work out the four core root causes of innovation failure: Exclusivity, Missing the most pressing challenges, Overestimated value and Unsupported moon shots How this book tackles some of the gaps left behind by the classic Innovator's Dilemma and offers innovators a way to solve it The tale behind the compassion driven innovation methodology, how can it help mitigate the 4 different types of innovation failure, and the 4 stages of the compassion driven innovation process: Include, Discover, Enlighten & Activate. The importance of transparency and openness, using artifacts to ensure everyone knows why decisions are being made, and having political nous to make sure you get buy in and nip dissent in the bud Why it's essential to be able to pivot based on new information or data throughout the innovation cycle, not falling in love with your ideas and the perils of discovery theatre And much more! Buy Compassion Driven Innovation "This book is for pathfinders— product, services, business, and nonprofit managers searching for ways to reach beyond the artificial barriers that constrain innovation and make “work” harder. Inspired by real life trailblazers and their own experiences, the authors decode the secrets of achieving breakthrough success at both organizational and interpersonal levels. Learn to use their methodology with the help of checklists and detailed examples that will transform your thinking and skills."   Visit the book website or check it out on Amazon or Goodreads. Contact Nicole You can find Nicole on Twitter or LinkedIn

A message from our sponsor Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days. About this Episode An interview with Radhika Dutt. Radhika is a product leader, consultant & author of "Radical Product Thinking". This is actually the third time I've spoken to Radhika about some of the themes from her book, and product vision in general and on this episode we go deep on vision vs survival. We speak about a lot, including: How the book's going international these days into various markets, how it's going down there and whether she has plan for world domination Why she's not making the mistake of some product companies and avoiding getting seduced by expanding market share or increasing revenue by going to international markets unprepared Why revenue can never be your North Star or part of your vision at all, and how product companies need to learn to prioritise vision against survival The concept of vision debt where you just build stuff to survive, how much vision debt is healthy and how you're always going to have to pay it back The importance of storytelling when trying to sell the benefits of a vision-led approach and a lesson from the different strategic approaches Marvel & DC took with their films The idea of an ethical line in the sand which product people don't want to cross but how easy it is to accidentally cross it, not with one big mistake but many small ones Why you should examine your personal vision and survival metrics, make sure you stay true to yourself and take an ethical stand where you can And much more!   Buy Radical Product Thinking "Iteration rules product development, but it isn't enough to produce dramatic results. This book champions Radical Product Thinking, a systematic methodology for building visionary, game-changing products."   Visit the book website or check it out on Amazon or Goodreads. Listen to Radhika's other episodes We covered some of the broader themes from Radhika's book in our first episode Episode 82 - Curing Product Diseases with a Radical Product Vision or our second episode Episode 92 - Digital Pollution & The Product Hippocratic Oath. Contact Radhika You can find Radhika on Twitter or LinkedIn

A message from our sponsor Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days. About this Episode An interview with James Mayes. James is the co-founder and former CEO of Mind the Product, one of the world's leading product communities. James came on to talk about the recent acquisition of Mind the Product by Pendo, his new role as Product Evangelist for Pendo, and some of the themes he's talking about on his travels. We talk about a lot, including: Why the Mind the Product team decided to sell themselves to Pendo in the first place, why they did it now and whether they've maintained editorial independence post-acquisition Whether there was any concern that they might be doubling up or treading on each others' toes with the two sets of product conferences, podcasts and online communities His new role as a Product Evangelist, what that means for Mind the Product and for Pendo, and whether he's an evangelist for product management as a whole or for Pendo's solutions Whether he's the Pendo answer to John Cutler, the prospect of an arms race of content creation and whether James could beat John in an arm wrestle Whether there's a growing need for product advocacy to help product people be successful & some of the similarities with developer relations teams His continuing desire to support the growth of product teams and product processes but also the fundamental craft of product management Some of the thoughts on his mind right now about scaling product teams through technology & the missed opportunities of many attempted digital transformations And much more! Contact James You can email James at james@mindtheproduct.com or connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

A message from our sponsor Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days. About this Episode An interview with Tessa Kriesel & Wesley Faulkner. Tessa & Wesley are passionate advocates for the craft of Developer Relations (DevRel), building communities and supporting users of products aimed at developers. We talk about a lot, including: What DevRel is, what they love about it and how there's not one boring DevRel person in the world Their journeys into DevRel and whether there's a standard career path for people trying to get into the trade The types of companies that need DevRel teams and how the concept of "developer-first" and "developer plus" products informs when you need to spin up a DevRel team Where DevRel sits within the organisation, the other functions it intersects with and whether it's really just a part of marketing Why it matters that business leaders understand the true value of DevRel rather than seeing them as one team to do just about anything that comes up Whether we need DevRel at all when the vast majority of PMs claim to be technical enough to talk to developers anyway The ways that DevRel and Product teams can work together, some of the things that DevRel teams need from PMs & what they can give back in return And much more! Contact Tessa or Wesley (or both!) If you want to catch up with Tessa, you can reach out to her on Twitter, on Polywork, at TessaKriesel.com or check out Devocate If you want to catch up with Wesley, you can reach out to him on Twitter, on Polywork or check out his podcast Community Pulse.

A message about mentoring I'm passionate about mentoring & think it is a high leverage activity for product managers as they develop in their careers. I mentored 76 people in Q1 2022 but have realised I don't scale so am working with a buddy to match mentors & mentees. Sign up here to be a mentor, mentee or both! About this Episode An interview with Jim Morris. Jim's a product discovery & experimentation coach who wants teams to stop wasting their time with discovery if they're not going to do anything with it. He's currently running Product Discovery Group out in Silicon Valley. We talk about a lot, including: The goals of Product Discovery Group, the problems he helps to solve, how he got started as a product discovery coach and that time he hung out with Jeff Bezos How many companies see funding as the ultimate validation of their idea but forget to talk to their customers and check if the idea is actually viable for the business Why we need to remember that product discovery is not just there as an artificial stage gate to delay decision making and should always serve the overall business goals How there are bad product companies with good product managers and good product companies with bad product managers, and how Silicon Valley startups are in the same boat as the rest of us when it comes to good product discovery practices How we can bed product discovery in with leadership, how to persuade them that there's a different way to lead, and how to skill up product teams that have never done product discovery before The concept of a Solution Test, the importance of presenting multiple solutions, why you have to get interactive rather than just show stuff, and why you should never concentrate on usability first How to apply structure to your discovery data collection to make it easier to extract insights from the data and turn them into action And much more! Contact Jim You can reach out to Jim on Twitter, on LinkedIn or check out Product Discovery Group.

A message about mentoring I'm passionate about mentoring & think it is a high leverage activity for product managers as they develop in their careers. I mentored 76 people in Q1 2022 but have realised I don't scale so am working with a buddy to match mentors & mentees. Sign up here to be a mentor, mentee or both! About this Episode An interview with Sophia Höfling. Sophia is a former Head of Product at Babbel and now co-founder and Head of Product at Saiga, a Berlin-based productivity startup where they're aiming to save people from life admin. Sophia's passionate about life-centred design and collaborative product discovery. We talk about a lot, including: The mission behind Saiga and how they have started with a Wizard of Oz product as they try to work out the most important problems to solve The tricky transition from established product companies to new startup foundership and having to do everything yourself The concept of life-centred design and why we can't just listen to users but have to consider the holistic impact of our products on all stakeholders What to do when your customers don't care about the ethical merits of your product but you want to do the right thing anyway The importance of collaborative, rather than cooperative, product discovery and how to include people from outside the classic product trio in your discovery journey Whether doing all this discovery slows you down, whether that's OK and the importance of timeboxing discovery efforts to avoid getting caught in an infinite loop How to get buy-in for product discovery from sceptical leadership and convince them of the benefits of a good discovery flywheel And much more! Sophia's on Medium Check out Sophia's articles on Medium, including It’s time we move to life-centered product development The importance of collaboration in product discovery (and how to get it right) Contact Sophia If you want to catch up with Sophia, you can reach out to her on LinkedIn.

An interview with Anna Maste. Anna is a software developer turned company co-founder who set up Boondockers Welcome with her mum. Having never owned an RV or had any dealings with the community, Anna engaged with said community via her mum's influencer status and ended up scaling the business and exiting. She's now back with her second company and going for it again in another industry. We talk about a lot, including: Explaining what the heck a "boondocker" is to this Brit, the problems they where having that were worth solving, and how they created a mix of Airbnb and Tinder to solve it Whether starting a company with your mum is the ultimate Mom Test and the pros and cons of working with close family members How she had no experience with the RV community, but used her RV influencer mum's experience to understand the needs that the community had and how they might solve them Some of the challenges of creating a digital platform for people that are by definition "off grid" and how the platform grew over time as mobile technology improved Whether playing the long game and working to build community relationships would have been possible if they'd been forced down the growth at all costs VC route How their successful exit came about, how they had to pick a company that they could trust to carry on their good name, and whether the community felt it was a betrayal or sell out How she's started a new company to solve a problem she had in her first company, and how she's going about engaging with a brand new community for the second time And much more! Contact Anna If you want to catch up with Anna, you can reach out to her on Twitter or check out Subscribe Sense.

An interview with Dan Chapman. Dan is a British export to the US where he's busy building internal products to help make smart scientists more successful. Dan's strong on product principles but flexible on the details as he tries to transfer book talk into action for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. We talk about a lot, including: His work with Merck, how there are actually two Mercks and a summary of the differences between them and why they diverged The challenges & opportunities of working in product management when your end users are hardcore scientists, and whether this is the one time you actually do need to be an industry expert to be an effective product manager Whether situations like the Theranos scandal loom large over the medical research industry, and how "move fast & break things" doesn't work when people's lives are on the line That tricky balancing act where you're trying to be agile and move fast whilst working for a company (and an industry) that values process, predictability & compliance Whether working for a big multinational means he's defaulted to having to use SAFe and why legacy waterfall companies are attracted to such frameworks Whether being an introvert in product management is a barrier or a superpower, and how to survive all the meetings & presentations when your natural tendency is not to want to be in the room Why idealistic product principles only get you so far, how to work out which ones matter, which don't, and why waterfall might actually be the better option sometimes (🤢) And much more! Contact Dan If you want to catch up with Dan, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

An interview with David Dylan Thomas. David is a product designer and self-taught expert in cognitive bias. He's now consulting with companies to help them make ethical product design decisions and is the author of "Design for Cognitive Bias", a book that aims to help us all understand the implicit biases that underpin our decision making when we design products. We talk about a lot, including: How he got into writing and consulting about cognitive biases in the first place, whether you need to go back to college to learn about this stuff and whether it's intimidating having your work reviewed by academic experts Why we have cognitive biases, how our brains are constantly lying to us, and how we'd struggle to cope with having to make a trillion decisions a day without them The importance of taking complicated scientific concepts back to a human level and making sure you can explain things like you would to a five-year-old How cognitive biases can manifest themselves when we're designing products, the most common biases that we might come across, and why the framing bias is by far the most dangerous bias of all Why it's sometimes important to insert speed bumps into our products rather than continuously trying to optimise for speedy decision making Some of the ways to interrupt cognitive biases in product design, including the red team / blue team approach and the Black Mirror test The importance of participatory design and giving the people most affected by bias the power to decide when something that affects them is actually ready to go And much more! Buy "Design For Cognitive Bias" "We humans are messy, illogical creatures who like to imagine we’re in control—but we blithely let our biases lead us astray. In Design for Cognitive Bias, David Dylan Thomas lays bare the irrational forces that shape our everyday decisions and, inevitably, inform the experiences we craft. "   Visit the book website or check it out on Goodreads. Contact David If you want to catch up with David, you can reach out to him at https://www.daviddylanthomas.com