One Knight in Product

An interview with Merina Khanom. Merina is a Product Manager at BBC iPlayer, which she boldly names as the inspiration for Netflix, and a passionate advocate for increasing diversity & inclusion within product companies as well as the wider product community. We talk about a lot, including: Her work for BBC iPlayer, how she took her passion for mobile solutions into product management, and whether mobile product management is easier or harder than other types of product management How her CV doesn't look like anyone else's, how she took a non-linear path in product management, and the challenges of getting past recruitment filters when you have a different-sounding name How she felt when she found out she was the only hijab-wearing Muslim woman in the history of BBC iPlayer, and why it's reductive and lazy to blame that on a pipeline problem The problems with breaking into tech when you have no role models that look like you, and the problems you can have getting taken seriously if people have never seen someone that looks like you working in the role How the killing of George Floyd affected her personally & gave her the energy to speak up & take a stand for racial equality at work, and some of the challenges marginalised people can have opening up when they've been bullied into submission Some of the initiatives she helped kick off at work, and how she tried to work with product conferences & communities to challenge the lack of diversity on their rosters Why a lack of diversity & inclusion is everyone's responsibility, not just something for marginalised people to sort out or advocate for alone And much more! Contact Merina You can reach out to Merina on LinkedIn.

An interview with Crystal Parker. Crystal is a Product Manager at Spear Education and an entry-level career coach. She's using her personal experience of getting into product management to help others do the same through her coaching, where she aims to map out a strategy and work out their golden path to that first product management role. We talk about a lot, including: The mission behind Spear Education, what it's like building an analytics platform for dentists and how she built up her dental domain knowledge How she got into product management in the first place, why it's the perfect job for her and how she got past the interview process given that she had zero product management experience How she upped her product management game once she got in, how she managed to "finesse the rest", and the resources she used to build her product management skills Her passion for mentoring others & how it led her to start coaching those following her and help get people from non-traditional backgrounds into tech careers where they belong How she gets strategic with the people she's coaching to map out their path to success and how that's informing a new e-book which will allow the wider world to follow the Crystal Parker approach (™?) The sorts of things you shouldn't really waste your time on when trying to get that first product management role, and where to best focus your efforts instead Some of the gateway positions you could consider to get into a product company, get close to the product management team & eventually transfer into the role you're after And much more! Contact Crystal You can reach out to Crystal on Twitter or check out her website crystalaparker.com.

An interview with David Bland. David is a Lean consultant who aims to help you make good business decisions by testing your business ideas and making sure they're worth pursuing. He's doing this through his day job as founder of Precoil, and also as the co-author of "Testing Business Ideas", a desk reference with 44 different experimental techniques you can use to do the same. We talk about a lot, including: The story behind "Testing Business Ideas", the idea behind the visual design, and how it's part of a box set that will make you the ultimate businessperson Whether there's anything he would have change from his book based on his work since, and whether there are any new techniques that people should be considering Some of the preconditions you need to have in your organisation to enable an experimentation culture, and whether this can work at all stages of a company How to tackle the reluctance to experiment with customers, either because they're seen as too important or because the company leadership think they already know what they want The importance of ethical experiments, and making sure you're working with customers & not on them or against them How assumption mapping can help land the idea of risk of desirability, feasibility, viability risks and how this framing can help pierce leaders' reality distortion fields The importance of balancing discovery & delivery and ensuring that discovery & validation is part of the work, not an optional extra And much more! Buy "Testing Business Ideas" "7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas."   Check it out on Amazon or Goodreads. Contact David If you want to catch up with David, you can reach him on Twitter or LinkedIn. You can also check out his work at Precoil.

An interview with Dan Balcauski. Dan is a pricing & packaging consultant who is aiming to demystify the world of high-volume SaaS pricing and support this via his own consultancy, Product Tranquility. We talk about a lot, including: The mission behind Product Tranquility, the problems they solve and some of the ways they can help you get your product packaging & pricing strategy right The pros & cons of the three main pricing models; cost plus, competition based pricing and value based pricing Why it can be dangerous to "herd", where everyone is following everyone else's pricing models but no one's done the research to see if that pricing's right Some of the early warning signals of bad pricing that you can look out for before you go bankrupt The 4-step plan a company should go through to identify its target market, the value the product brings, the competitive alternatives & the pricing model that can support it The importance of keeping packaging simple so that customers can understand what they're going to get & salespeople are able to sell it effectively Why freemium pricing is "almost always a bad idea" - some of the downsides of this approach and what you can do instead And much more! Contact Dan You can reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or check out his pricing blog on Product Tranquility.

An interview with Richie Lokay. Richie is the VP of Product Design & Services at Wunderkind, a "one-to-one performance marketing engine". Richie is passionate about the field of performance design and driving for a world where user experience meets customer experience. We talk about a lot, including: The mission behind Wunderkind, how they're balancing white glove services with products & tools to enable them to scale The importance of mixing big picture strategy with an understanding of how the sausages are made, and knowing when to hand over to people with more suitable skills The importance of having a good working dynamic between product, design & engineering teams, with each contributing their own unique skills to the mix Why you need to get designers up the front of the funnel and make them true partners, and how to weigh up strategic decision making with actually having time to do the design Whether it's possible for designers & developers to work well together in an agile, iterative fashion The importance of good design systems as enablers for scale and how they can enable the big picture work The concept of pioneers, settlers & town planners, what kind of mix you need in your team and who thrive in which environment And much more! Contact Richie You can reach out to Richie via email of all places richie@wunderkind.co. He's social media averse!

An interview with Hanne Ockert-Axelsson. Hanne is a Senior Product Manager at accuRx, a UK-based Healthtech company revolutionising the world of General Practioners (GPs) in the UK National Health Service (NHS). Hanne formerly worked at various NGOs and health-focused organisations before seeking out digital product management to make a measurable impact quickly. We talk about a lot, including: The mission behind accuRx, how their solution got into the hands of 98% of GP practices in the UK, and how healthcare providers deserve great products like the rest of us How she got her first product job without any experience, and used her passion for healthcare to become the first product hire at accuRx The resources she used to level up her game once she'd got that first job, and the one key book she'd recommend to other people making the move Her passion for high performing teams, what that means to her and some of the ways she tries to help build a performant culture The difference between Big Tech product management & other companies and why it's important to get in the trenches with your team Why you shouldn't fix what ain't broke when moving into a new team, to avoid demoralising people and losing their buy in to fix the real problems How to be a good team leader, the importance of identifying your leadership style, being your authentic self but the being best version of yourself where required And much more! Contact Hanne You can find Hanne at Twitter, LinkedIn or check out her writing on Medium.

An interview with Jonathon Hensley. Jonathon is a digital transformation consultant who has seen the problems of misalignment up close and wanted to help companies avoid it. He's the recent author of "Alignment", a book that aims to show how companies need to drive for alignment through the business to avoid internal sabotage costly product failure. We speak about a lot, including: How misalignment within companies represents a billion dollar problem and how this spurred him to write the book to help avoid that His definition of alignment, why it's not as simple as people think it is, and how he structures it into four pillars Some of the early warning signs of misalignment in a company, and why it all starts from having a measurable product strategy What happens when companies are misaligned, how toxic it can be to innovation, and how it can impact team morale How some companies seem permanently misaligned and whether it's even possible for misaligned companies to succeed The importance of aligning incentives & breaking out of solos, avoiding cognitive dissonance & aligning on a common language Why leaders need to be honest, open to new input, self-reflective and humble and why the HIPPO can't be the loudest voice driving a decision And much more!   Buy "Alignment" " Alignment is the one thing you’ll find at the heart of every successful relationship, team, and organization in the world. When developed and leveraged, alignment can create the foundation for unparalleled product success."   Visit Amazon for more info. Contact Jonathon You can find Jonathon at Emerge or LinkedIn.

An interview with Wolfgang Bremer. Wolfgang is the Head of Design at Elli, an electric vehicle company that is part of the Volkswagen group. Wolfgang wants to help make people's lives simpler through design, build true cross-functional relationships and is passionate about getting designers a seat at the table and making them valued business partners. We speak about a lot, including: The mission behind Elli and some of the considerations & challenges of creating physical products where you actually have to make things Why he tends to bounce from big company to small company and vice versa, the pros & cons of each type of company and whether, given Volkswagen own Elli, he's in a small company or a big company right now Some key considerations you need to think about when hiring designers depending on the size of your company and what you might optimise for The problems that silo thinking can bring, where you have designers, product and engineering throwing grenades backwards and forwards over the fence Why it's so important for designers to be true business partners and some of the problems it can cause when they're not Whether it's important to have a CXO representing the design team at the top table, or whether it really matters who the team reports through Some of the hallmarks of bad managers, how even small things can make a difference, and some principles to live by when trying to build effective teams And much more! Contact Wolfgang You can join Wolfgang's 20K followers (and counting) on Twitter or visit bremer.co.

An interview with Phyllis Njoroge. Phyllis is a product manager, cognitive scientist and now author of "From Fraud to Freedom". Phyllis wants us all to know that imposter syndrome is something that can be tackled, and wrote a book to help us examine how to tackle an issue that affects many product managers due to the ambiguity of our roles. We speak about a lot, including: Her book, from Fraud to Freedom, and how it digs into what Imposter Syndrome actually is and whether everyone has it Her journey into product management, and whether going into an industry she had no experience in made her imposter syndrome worse The problems of getting into self-reinforcing negative feedback loops and the ways you might intervene to stop you sabotaging yourself How imposter syndrome isn't just in your head but can be imposed on marginalised groups by a society that gives every impression that you don't belong there How imposter syndrome isn't something that goes away with seniority or perceived success, and how these might even make it worse Whether her background in cognitive sciences informed the book, and how she used that background to examine the cognitive biases that reinforce imposter syndrome Whether product managers are more prone to imposter syndrome due to the vague, ambiguous nature of many product management roles And much more! Buy From Fraud to Freedom "From Fraud to Freedom is a book about how we all play a part in contributing to or calming impostor syndrome. It’s a solution-oriented book that discusses methods for individuals, mentors, managers, and friends to manage their own impostor syndrome and helps others in the process too. Even though an estimated 70% of people experience impostor syndrome, the guidance in this book is not one-size-fits-all but filled with a range of intrapersonal and interpersonal methods to achieve your best self."   Visit The Book Website for more info. Contact Phyllis You can find Phyllis on LinkedIn or Twitter.

An interview with Ebenezer Ikonne. Eb is an experienced product leader and social scientist who wanted to contribute to the product leadership community. To support this goal, he's recently published a book, "Becoming a Leader in Product Development" which aims to help us all take a long, hard look at our leadership practices and make us the best leaders we can be. We speak about a lot, including: How most leaders are winging it, with teams that are successful in spite of the leader in question, and how effective teams can hide ineffective managers The chain of leadership mediocrity; how people are left to work out leadership on their own, with their only role models being people that were left to work it out on their own Why the world needed another leadership book and how he sees it as the healthy alternative to "microwave thought leadership" & meaningless leadership memes Whether we need "assigned leaders" these days in this lean & agile world and whether it's really true that "everyone's a leader" What good leadership looks like, and why it should be more than whether the job got done but how the job got done The often discussed, poorly understood concept of servant leadership, what it really means, why it's important and whether it can be taken too far Why it's so important to take care of yourself as a product leader, how leadership is hard and how you can't be a good leader if you don't take care of yourself And much more!   Buy Becoming A Leader in Product Development "It is becoming increasingly challenging for product development leaders to effectively lead as workplace demands continue to increase. The rate of change in technology, society, and business places immense pressure on leaders to ensure their groups move in the direction of their goals. What might have worked in the past no longer works."   Visit Amazon or Goodreads for more info. Check out "Joy at Work" Eb has a YouTube channel! Check it out Joy at Work. Contact Eb You can find Eb on LinkedIn or Twitter.