One Knight in Product

Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, a leading customer and product experience platform that aims to be the operating system for your customer journeys. He's a passionate advocate for Customer Success as a function and as a business strategy, an author of several books on the topic, and recently super-excited about the future of Customer Success in an AI world. We talked about all of these topics and much more. A message from this episode's sponsor - Leadfeeder This episode is sponsored by Leadfeeder. No more not knowing who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com: Check out Leadfeeder here. Episode highlights:   1. Customer Success is not the same as Customer Support Yes, they both have the same "CS" initials, and this can confuse people, but it's not the same role. Customer Success conceptually sits somewhere in between Sales and Customer Support and drives customer value and retention. Customer Success is also more than a role, it's a company strategy. It's also part of the product you sell. 2. The end of the zero-interest-rate climate has had a profound impact on Customer Success These days, CEOs and investors value profit today over profit tomorrow. Retention is a huge driver of pure profit, and it's one of the highest-leverage activities you can invest in for a recurring revenue business. On the flip side, leaders are looking to become as efficient as possible and reduce the human effort to drive this retention, leading to a requirement for digital customer success strategies. 3. Yes, you probably do need a Customer Success team in your organisation Chris Degnan (CRO at Snowflake) recently opined on the 20VC podcast that he sees no use for Customer Success teams and would immediately get rid of them. That doesn't work for everyone though, and there are many companies that legitimately need Customer Success teams. It's fair enough to say "Customer Success is a strategy" but someone needs to wake up thinking about this and having it as their biggest priority. Customer expectations are rising all the time, and not all products can look after themselves. 4. Product teams and Customer Success teams need to have a good relationship Too many teams have almost no relationship, or only speak when there's an escalation. Both teams have a legitimate claim to own the customer experience, but they should own it together. The best Customer Success teams don't just bring escalations, or even the "What" but the "Who" and the "Why". This makes the relationship strategic and helps build a great product. 5. AI is going to change everything, but it has to be human-first If you're not keeping up with AI you're going to be left behind. It's important to focus on the evolutionary and revolutionary changes that you can bring to your product. There need to be guardrails in your product to ensure that the customer experience doesn't degrade, and you need to be sensitive to the fears and paranoia of internal teams that might feel threatened... but it's going to happen so you need a strategy to survive and thrive in the AI-powered future. Check out "Digital Customer Success" "In Digital Customer Success: The Next Frontier, a team of trailblazing Customer Success professionals and digital entrepreneurs delivers an insightful discussion of the next stage in Customer Success management. In the book, you'll discover how to design and deploy touchless and automated digital interventions that help your software users learn and grow as they use your product and unlock the value trapped within it — without ever needing to reach out to a live Customer Success Manager. " Check it out on Amazon. Contact Nick You can catch up with Nick on LinkedIn or check out Gainsight. You can also check out the blog post that Nick mentions, The One Thing Billionaire Frank Slootman Got Wrong. Related episodes you should like: Is Product-Led Growth Really For You? (Leah Tharin, Product-Led Growth Guru & Head of Product @ Jua) Embracing Change to Innovate in Product Management (Greg Coticchia, CEO @ Sopheon) The Big Pivot to Reinvent Product Management (Yana Welinder, Founder & CEO @ Kraftful) Helping Superhero Startup Founders Stay Away from their Kryptonite (Richard Blundell, Founder @ Vencha & Co-author "The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders") Andy Walters' Hot Take - We’re Soon Going to be Living in an AI-Assistant-First World (Andy Walters, CEO @ Emerge Haus & Generative AI Expert) Bjarte Rettedal's Hot Take - AI Models Should Be Under Public Ownership or Completely Transparent (Bjarte Rettedal, UX Designer) Greg Prickril's Hot Take - AI is going to change everything for Product Managers (Greg Prickril, B2B Product Management Coach, Consultant & Trainer) Debbie Levitt's Hot Take - Democratising our Work means AI is Going to Steal all our Jobs Sooner (Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")

Rina Alexin is the CEO of Productside, a leading product training and consulting company (formerly known as The 280 Group). Rina is passionate about furthering the craft of product management around the world. Her hot take? Product managers complain about stakeholders, but they're just doing their jobs and we need to spend some of our energy on understanding them and properly collaborating rather than treating them as annoyances. Find Rina on LinkedIn or check out Productside If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time!   Related episodes you should like: May Wong's Hot Take - Product Management is a Team Sport (May Wong, Product Operations Consultant & Coach) Untrapping Product Teams and Getting Rid of Bullsh*t Management (David Pereira, Author "Untrapping Product Teams") Dean Peters' Hot Take - There's More to be Said About the Instagram-ification of Product Management (Dean Peters, Principal Consultant & Trainer @ Productside) John Cutler's Hot Take - The Instagram-ification of Product Management is Driving us Crazy (John Cutler, Product Educator & Author @ The Beautiful Mess) Build Better Products at Scale with Product Operations (Melissa Perri & Denise Tilles, Product Consultants & Co-authors "Product Operations") Knowing your Customers, Seeking Evidence and Sticking up for Continuous Discovery (Hope Gurion, Product Leader and Team Coach @ Fearless Product) Transforming your Organisation to the Product Operating Model (Marty Cagan, Author "Inspired", "Empowered" and "Transformed") Applying Product Management Principles to Life (Miloš Belčević, Author "Build Your Way")

Andy Walters is a long-time consultant who has recently focused his consulting work on supporting companies with GenAI adoption with his new firm, Emerge Haus. His hot take? Within the next few years, we're going to be moving to an AI-assistant-first operating model, and we can't stop it. There are too many financial incentives, but it might actually be better for users too; as consumers, but also potentially for their private lives too. Find Andy on LinkedIn or check out Emerge Haus If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time!

Bjarte Rettedal is a photographer-turned looking to take his interest in behavioural economics and systems thinking and pursue a career in UX design. His hot take? AI models should be under public ownership or at the very least fully transparent. We don't let people release supplements or medicines without extensive testing, so why are we OK with something as potentially high-impact as AI models? Find Bjarte on LinkedIn or bjarterettedal.com If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time!

Greg Prickril is a B2B Product Management coach, consultant and trainer who has gone all-in on AI and is bullish about the impact that he thinks it'll have on product management. His hot take? AI is going to change everything about product management. It's going to mean fewer jobs are required to deliver products, but it also opens up opportunities for business-focused product managers to make a real impact in their jobs, and accelerate them in doing so. Find Greg on LinkedIn, Prickril.com or https://www.coachpms.com/ If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time! A message from this episode's sponsor - Leadfeeder This episode is sponsored by Leadfeeder. No more not knowing who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com: Check out Leadfeeder here.

May Wong is a product operations consultant and coach who also runs ProductTO, an in-person product management meetup in Toronto. Her hot take? Product management is a team sport, and too much product management literature focuses on what the product manager should do, not what the team should do. If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time! A message from this episode's sponsor - Leadfeeder This episode is sponsored by Leadfeeder. No more not knowing who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com: Check out Leadfeeder here.

David Pereira is a product leader, speaker and regular blogger who loves to contribute to the wider Agile and Product communities with insights from his own career, including some of the mistakes he's made and not just the successes. David was recently tempted into writing a book, the newly released "Untrapping Product Teams" where he provocatively rails against "bullshit management" and tries to inspire us all to affect change in our organisations (but step-by-step). We talked all about themes from the book, as well as what it meant to have an endorsement from Marty Cagan. Episode highlights:   1. When someone starts doing something differently and delivering value, people get curious Sometimes it can seem almost impossible to change things yourself, but you don't have to change it all at once. If you can start showing the impact of smaller changes that deliver value then you can get both interest and buy-in from stakeholders. This gives you permission to try more things. 2. The more bullshit you handle the less value you create David coined the term "bullshit management" to represent the work you have to do in many low-performing product companies. Bullshit management is where you spend all your time working on the work around the work, prioritising requirements with no context and being actively prevented from delivering value to your users, and it has to stop. 3. Collaborative flow trumps coordinative flow Coordinative flow is when you spend more time in meetings about the work and struggle to align people than you do actually doing the work. It's focused on outputs and gives you someone to blame when it goes wrong. Collaborative flow is when teams come together to work on problems... collaboratively and use what they know to uncover what they don't know. 4. You don't need to die on every hill Sometimes you have to hold your nose and do things in ways that you don't believe are effective, or actively destructive. This is part and parcel of the job and something you have to get used to. As long as you can find small ways to make an impact in some areas, you can give way in other areas. Rome wasn't built in a day. 5. If you really want to make an impact, ask more questions than you give answers We're all primed to look clever and give answers as quickly as we can but product people need to think deeper than that and ask good questions. Why do we really need that? What does success really look like? What don't we know? Check out "Untrapping Product Teams" "Untrapping Product Teams guides you to simplify what gets unintentionally complicated and equips you to overcome dangerous traps while steadily driving customer and business value. This isn't just another book about product management. It's a thought-provoking guide filled with simplicity, encouraging you to act today for a better tomorrow." Check it out on Amazon. Contact David You can catch up with David on LinkedIn or check out his website. Related episodes you should like:   Survive the Feature Factory by Applying Product Thinking to Product Thinking (John Cutler, Product Evangelist & Coach @ Amplitude) Build High Growth Products by Following the Product Science Success Path (Holly Hester-Reilly, Founder @ H2R Product Science) Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck) Optimising Product Planning with the Quartz Open Framework (Steve Johnson, Product Coach) Servitising Product Management & Setting Up Product Teams For Success (Jas Shah, Product Consultant) Surviving a Lack of Product Thinking & Riding the Product Maturity Curve (Nis Frome, VP Product @ Feedback Loop) Is this Seriously Game Over for Scrum? (David Pereira, Editor @ Serious Scrum) Transforming your Organisation to the Product Operating Model (Marty Cagan, Author "Inspired", "Empowered" and "Transformed")

Dean Peters is a former opera singer turned product management leader, coach and educator who works with Productside to uplevel teams. His hot take? That there's more to say about the Instagram-ification of product management, the root causes and contributory factors. If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time! A message from this episode's sponsor - June This episode is sponsored by June. June is a user retention hub for early-stage B2B SaaS companies that enables early-stage B2B SaaS companies to understand and act on their product usage, dig into activation, churn and key feature usage. Check out June here. Related episodes you should like: Survive the Feature Factory by Applying Product Thinking to Product Thinking (John Cutler, Product Evangelist & Coach @ Amplitude) The Five Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams (Saeed Khan, Founder @ Transformation Labs) Practice Makes Perfect: Embracing the Messy Reality of Product Management (Matt LeMay, Product Management Consultant & Author "Product Management in Practice") John Cutler's Hot Take - The Instagram-ification of Product Management is Driving us Crazy (John Cutler, Product Educator & Author @ The Beautiful Mess) Applying Product Management Principles to Life (Miloš Belčević, Author "Build Your Way") Nils Davis's Hot Take - Product Managers Need to Tell Better Stories on their Resumes (Nils Davis, Resume Coach & Go-to-Market Consultant @ Confidence & Impact LLC) Debbie Levitt's Hot Take - Democratising our Work means AI is Going to Steal all our Jobs Sooner (Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck") Build Better Products at Scale with Product Operations (Melissa Perri & Denise Tilles, Product Consultants & Co-authors "Product Operations")

Aakash Gupta is a product leader turned author and professional newsletter writer, with a huge following on LinkedIn and Twitter. He writes regularly on product management principles, and personal and career growth and recently put out an article about nailing the product leadership job search. We also recently collaborated on an article about fractional product leadership! In this interview, I spoke to Aakash about his journey into full-time content creation and some of the lessons he learned about the product leadership job search. Episode highlights:   1. The product leadership job market is slowly coming back to life It's been tough out there, and loads of amazing people have been laid off and struggled to find new roles. Some might doubt they'll ever get another job again! But there are good and great jobs available if you know where to look. 2. Many of the best jobs aren't advertised in public and relationshps are everything There's a "dark web" of networking and personal relationships, without which you might struggle to get introduced to some of the jobs. At the highest level, the majority of jobs are not posted publicly. Whether you like it or not, you need to play the game and build strategic relationships with boutique recruiters and especially investors. 3. You need to prioritise the type of job you want and it's not all about money Most people are trying to optimise for something in their new job. Maybe it's a big pay packet. Maybe it's a mission they believe in. Maybe it's the stage of company, influence and impact. There's no wrong answer, but make sure you know what you're getting yourself into and what success looks like. 4. Try to make your career look linear to land the role you want Many of us have squiggly careers and we've bounced between industries or types of company. This is fine, but if you're looking to get a job in a particular niche then you need to optimise your career narrative to tell a story about why YOU are the person for that niche. 5. Many leaders are still biased towards Big Tech employees, but you can beat the odds Some founders or business leaders will always prioritise someone with a stellar name on their CV, and this can leave people who have worked for lesser-known companies feeling adrift. However, you can take a strategic view of your job search, outwork and outsmart your competition. Contact Aakash You can catch up with Aakash on LinkedIn, or Twitter or check out his newsletter. Related episodes you should like: Connecting Product Management to Business Goals by Mastering your Product Strategy (Gabrielle Bufrem, Product Leadership Coach & Advisor) Moving Beyond Founder-Led Product Development & Setting PMs up for Success (Jennifer Yang-Wong, VP of Product @ Contrary) How to Build Products when the Founder IS the Product (Saagar Bains, Fractional Product Leader & Former Head of Product @ The Body Coach) Landing That Perfect Role by Finding Your Inevitable Edge (Erika Klics, Job Search Strategist & Founder @ ErikaKlics.com) Supporting the Next Generation of Female Product Managers with Women in Product UK (Namrata Sarmah, Founder @ Women in Product UK & CPO @ INTO) Making our Product Teams Stronger through Building Communities of Practice (Petra Wille, Author "Strong Product People" and "Strong Product Communities") Nils Davis's Hot Take - Product Managers Need to Tell Better Stories on Their Resumes (Nils Davis, Resume Coach & Go-to-Market Consultant @ Confidence & Impact LLC) Transforming your Organisation to the Product Operating Model (Marty Cagan, Author "Inspired", "Empowered" and "Transformed")

Nils Davis is a resume coach who wants product managers to realise they're AMAZING, and help others realise it too. His hot take? That the majority of product managers are doing themselves a disservice by producing resumes that simply list a bunch of tasks that pretty much all product managers have done. If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time at https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/hot Visit Nils's site: https://perfectpmresume.com/ Nils on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilsdavis/

John Cutler is a systems overthinker, product educator and author of "The Beautiful Mess" newsletter. His hot take? That the Instagram-ification of product management sets unrealistic standards, and is driving us all crazy. If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time!    

Debbie Levitt is a UX and CX consultant, the author of a few books, including "Customers Know You Suck" and runs a thriving community of UX professionals. Her hot take? That if we are all fine doing each other's jobs (and maybe not doing them well) then AI can do all of our jobs today. Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT5IBKsIE-E&ab_channel=OneKnightinProduct  

Melissa Perri is the renowned author of "Escaping the Build Trap" and a well-known product consultant and educator. She has worked for a long time with Denise Tilles, another seasoned product leader, with whom she has been evangelising Product Operations to help scale product companies effectively. They recently collaborated on a book, coincidentally called "Product Operations", and we spoke all about the story behind the book and the themes within it. Saeed Khan and I are planning a new course - please give us your feedback! The relationship between product management and sales teams is traditionally tricky, and a common complaint from B2B PMs. Saeed Khan and I are looking to help with this with an online course and we'd love your feedback on your relationship with sales. This will help shape the course and, if you want to take part when the course is ready, we'll give you a special discount. Please fill in the survey here. Thanks! Episode highlights:   1. Product Operations is about helping product managers make faster, better-quality decisions It's important to dispel the myth of multi-armed product managers who can just do everything. There's too much for everyone to do! This creates barriers to doing great product management work and pulls product managers away from doing the real, value-add product management work that they're judged on. 2. There are three pillars of product operations... The three pillars are ways to think about how to organise enablement. They are "Business & Data Insights", "Customer & Market Insights" and "Process and Practices". They are all the foundation of good product decision-making, and all companies will have a certain level of maturity already. 3. ... But you don't need to build all the pillars all at once You don't need to fix everything at once. If you already have good capabilities in one or more areas, fix the ones that you don't have good capabilities in! You don't need to boil the ocean, just find the biggest gaps and opportunities to improve, and start to work on them. 4. Process shouldn't be seen as a dirty word There's such a thing as too much process but, even if you don't call it process or try to define it, all work involves a process. It's important to have people to oversee the process at scale, prevent duplication or rework, and make sure that process is right-sized rather than ever-expanding. 5. The first step is being honest about your current state There are plenty of ways to go with product operations as you scale, but the most important thing is being really honest with yourself about what your most important limiting factors are, what your product managers are spending time on and what's going to work for you. Check out "Product Operations" "Many companies want to reap the benefits of economies of scale that comes with being a product-led company. As our businesses change shape to focus more on software, so do our ways of working. We need to make sure we’re breaking down these silos of information and capabilities that arise at scale. To react quickly and set great Product Strategies, leaders and team members alike need access to high-quality data and a process to implement their decisions." Check it out on Amazon or the book website. Check out "Escaping the Build Trap" "To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. " Check it out on Amazon. Contact Melissa & Denise You can catch up with Melissa at melissaperri.com, check out https://productinstitute.com or follow her on LinkedIn. You can catch up with Denise at denisetilles.com or follow her on LinkedIn. Escaping the Build Trap with Product Operations and Strong CPOs (Melissa Perri, Product Management Leader, Educator & Author "Escaping the Build Trap") OKRs: The Gateway Drug to Agility & Good Product Management (Jeff Gothelf, Product Management Consultant & Co-author "Lean UX" ) Achieving Product Excellence with the Product Operations Manifesto (Antonia Landi, Product Ops Consultant & Co-Author "Product Operations Manifesto") Adventures in Product Management (Dan Olsen, Author "The Lean Product Playbook") Going Global! When and How to Take your Product International (Chui Chui Tan, International Growth Adviser & Director @ Beyō Global) Your Product is a Joke - How to use Improv Comedy Principles in Product Management (Amogh Sarda, Co-founder @ Eesel) Leading & Evolving Product Teams Through Hyperscale (Brian Shen, Product Director @ ClickUp) Optimising Product Planning with the Quartz Open Framework (Steve Johnson, Product Coach)

Hope Gurion is a seasoned product coach and one of Marty Cagan's recommendations from his new book, "Transformed". Hope also works closely with Teresa Torres, teaching continuous discovery, as well as working directly with incoming product leaders to help them make an impact in their organisations. We spoke all about knowing your customers, gathering evidence, and whether continuous discovery is really a threat to user researchers. Episode highlights:   1. Product coaching is more than just being there to ask good questions When working with incoming product leaders, potentially without a product background at all, it's important to have a coach who has product experience who can help you identify your weaknesses, assess the state of play and provide actionable advice. Ultimately, it's important to empower the coachee. 2. It's really hard to make decisions if you have no idea who your customers are It's important to define who your target customer is and what are their key attributes. This could be demographics, firmographics or whatever characteristics you need to know who you most need to learn from to calibrate your decisions as a product team. But, too many product teams end up resorting to proxies in other functions who "know the customers". 3. Many leaders are overconfident, but evidence is everything Some people are just naturally confident about everything and can react badly if their ideas are challenged. But, as product people, we absolutely need to look beyond innate confidence and work out what informed the perspective. Which customers are we basing it on? Can I speak to some of those customers? It's not about trashing people's ideas but moving forward with confidence. 4. It's important to get comfortable with making bets and understanding the difference between one-way and two-way-door decisions Sometimes teams get stuck into cycles of trying to do "perfect research", possibly because they're afraid that they're only going to get one shot at it. This means that they end up not making any moves at all, and everyone ends up getting frustrated at the amount of time product teams take to do anything. 5. Continuous discovery is about removing as many blind spots as possible and probably isn't responsible for mass user research lay-offs All teams have an imperfect understanding of their product, the pain points associated with their product and their customers. Continuous discovery helps address this by removing blind spots but doesn't aim for perfection - simply evidence about how to make your next move. Is it contributing to user researcher lay-offs? It feels difficult to argue this when it feels like the majority of companies don't do any user research in the first place. User researchers and continuous discovery can co-exist. Contact Hope You can catch up with Hope at Fearless Product or follow her on LinkedIn. Related episodes you should like: Data-Informed Decision Making and the Three Cs of Product Management (Roger Snyder, VP of Products & Services @ 280 Group) Adventures in Product Management (Dan Olsen, Author "The Lean Product Playbook") Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres, Author "Continuous Discovery Habits") Build High Growth Products by Following the Product Science Success Path (Holly Hester-Reilly, Founder @ H2R Product Science) Selling Product Thinking by Influencing Companies at the Right Time (Anthony Marter, Product Coach) Putting Customers at the Heart of your Product Decisions (Hubert Palan, Founder @ Productboard) Servitising Product Management & Setting Up Product Teams For Success (Jas Shah, Product Consultant) Build What Matters with Vision-Led Product Management (Rajesh Nerlikar, Author "Build What Matters")

Marty Cagan is the founder and a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, a leading product consultancy that aims to get companies to work "the way that the best companies work". He is the author of two desk references for product managers: "Inspired", aimed at product teams, and "Empowered", aimed at product leaders. He has since come to realise that "the way the best companies work" is too vague a term, and also that many companies have no idea where to get started. He's now back with "Transformed", a book that aims to get companies to adopt the Product Operating Model. A message from this episode's sponsor - New York Product Conference Join hundreds of other product people in New York City on April 18th 2024 for the New York Product Conference! You'll learn from some of the best minds in product today — including Dennis Crowley (Founder of Foursquare), Sahil Lavingia (Founder of Gumroad), April Dunford (product positioning expert and bestselling author) and so many others through masterclass keynotes, interactive working sessions, small group discussions and more. Topics covered include Product Strategy, Product Leadership, AI for Product Managers, Customer Research, and more.  Pricing increases on the first of the month, so you'll want to register soon. Plus, use the code OneKnightInProduct and save another $50 when you register! Episode highlights:   1. It was finally important to give the Product Operating Model a name Whilst Marty doesn't like to unnecessarily label things, or have any sniff of "process" for the sake of process, he started to realise that just saying "the way the best companies work" was too vague and handwavy. However, the core principles of great product companies and product teams have not changed, and this isn't a framework. 2. Marty and SVPG didn't invent any of this stuff, and you shouldn't listen to him (or anyone) uncritically These days, it's fashionable to beat up product "thought leaders" and complain that they're being too dogmatic, idealistic, or unrealistic. But, SVPG didn't invent any of these principles, they just observed them in the best-performing product companies. It's still important to apply critical thinking and make sure they make sense to you and your organisation. 3. Product managers and product leaders have more power and more responsibility than they realise It's not always easy to transform, and there are limits to how far you can go bottoms-up, but you can generally make progress one step at a time. There's an incredible amount of onus on product leaders to evangelise and champion this change and, if they can't (or won't) do it, they shouldn't be product leaders. 4. Not everyone in an organisation will understand why it's transforming, or want to be transformed It's easy to see this as something that just affects product teams, but the whole organisation needs to buy into the change. Reading bits of "Inspired" at them, or talking about the number of experiments you've done this week, is unlikely to sway them, You need to show business results and real impact and make them care about it on their terms. 5. There are four key competencies for a successful transformation, and they need investing in The competencies remain the same... Product Managers, Product Leaders, "proper" Product Designers (not just pixel pushers) and Tech Leads who care as much about what they're building as how they're building it. If you just expect to get results with a disengaged, outsourced engineering team, graphic designers and product owners, you're going to be disappointed. 6. Sometimes you need help to know what good looks like It's easy for people like us to sit there and talk about the benefits of product transformation and how we should all definitely do it but, for some people, this is all alien. In cases like this, a good product coach can be the difference between success and failure. But, there are so many product coaches these days, so make sure you get a good one. Check out "Transformed" "The most common question after reading INSPIRED and EMPOWERED has been: "Yes, we want to work this way, but the way we work today is so different, and so deeply ingrained, is it even possible for a company like ours to transform to the product model?" TRANSFORMED was written to bridge the gap between where most companies are right now and where they need to be. The leaders of these companies know they must transform to compete in an era of rapidly changing enabling technology, but most of them have never operated this way before. " Check it out on Amazon. Check out "Empowered" "Most people think it’s because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products. The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you’ll need to create just such an environment. " Check it out on Amazon. Check out "Inspired" "How do today’s most successful tech companies―Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla―design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than most tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love―and that will work for your business. " Check it out on Amazon. Contact Marty You can catch up with Marty at Silicon Valley Product Group or follow him on LinkedIn. Related episodes you should like: Survive the Feature Factory by Applying Product Thinking to Product Thinking (John Cutler, Product Evangelist & Coach @ Amplitude) The Five Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams (Saeed Khan, Founder @ Transformation Labs) How to Build an Effective Product Organisation (Marty Cagan, Author "Empowered" & "Inspired") Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck) Optimising Product Planning with the Quartz Open Framework (Steve Johnson, Product Coach) Surviving a Lack of Product Thinking & Riding the Product Maturity Curve (Nis Frome, VP Product @ Feedback Loop) Is this Seriously Game Over for Scrum? (David Pereira, Editor @ Serious Scrum) Transforming companies & instilling a product mindset (Dave Martin, Founder @ Right to Left)

Miloš Belčević is a product manager and author who believes that product management principles are powerful not only when managing products, but also when managing the ultimate product; your life itself. He has written a book on the subject, "Build Your Way: Applying Product Management to Life". We spoke about the book as well as some of the lessons inside. Episode highlights:   1. We can apply product management principles to life We can apply product management principles to one's life, beyond just professional settings. This includes using prioritisation frameworks to manage personal goals and tasks, and considering whether there's a "North-Star metric" that can help guide personal growth and decision-making. 2. Context switching can be hell at home as well as work Whether we're switching contexts between different roles in our careers or having to balance multiple responsibilities, we can apply product management strategies to help us prioritise our time and manage our mental bandwidth. 3. We can define "Value" for our life as well as our products There's no magic formula for "value", but it's important to understand the deeper meaning of the concept of value, whether delivering value to customers or identifying what brings value to one's life. 4. Our time is limited and we need to prioritise what's most important to us We don't have to use prioritisation frameworks for everything, but applying product management prioritisation techniques can help us focus on what is most important. If we practice enough, we can get into the habit, and it even becomes somewhat intuitive to our life decisions. 5. Product discovery techniques can foster better interactions and conversations in life We can use our empathic and discovery mindset to help solicit genuine feedback and dig into people's motivations in conversations. This offers the tantalising prospect of being able to bridge ideological divides and improve the quality of our interactions with society as a whole. Check out "Build Your Way" "Perhaps you have heard about product management. Maybe you use it in your work. If that’s the case, chances are high that you know that product management is full of useful frameworks, principles, and tools that focus on prioritization and maximizing value, better planning, agile delivery, and more. But what if you want to use these tools in your personal life? How would you do that in a way that will make sure you will live a better, happier, and more fulfilled life? In this book, author Miloš Belčević will show you how." Check it out on Amazon. Contact Miloš You can catch up with Miloš on LinkedIn or check out his website. Related episodes you should like: Survive the Feature Factory by Applying Product Thinking to Product Thinking (John Cutler, Product Evangelist & Coach @ Amplitude) Practice Makes Perfect: Embracing the Messy Reality of Product Management (Matt LeMay, Product Management Consultant & Author "Product Management in Practice") The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Productization (Eisha Armstrong, Co-founder @ Vecteris & Author "Productize") Achieving Product Excellence with the Product Operations Manifesto (Antonia Landi, Product Ops Consultant & Co-Author "Product Operations Manifesto") Paying Off Your Organisation's Human Debt Through Agility & Psychological Safety (Duena Blomstrom, Founder & CEO @ People Not Tech) Embracing Change to Innovate in Product Management (Greg Coticchia, CEO @ Sopheon) Fearlessly Defeating the Four Horsemen of a Product-Friendly Culture (Eisha Armstrong, Co-founder @ Vecteris & Author "Productize" & "Fearless") Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck)

Debbie Levitt is a long-time UX and CX consultant who wants us all to get better at putting our users at the centre of the conversation, rather than paying lip service. She's the author of a few books, including "Customers Know You Suck" and runs a thriving community of UX professionals. Some of the stories from that community have concerned her, alongside the general perceived decline of the strategic role of UX, and she recently came out all guns blazing against continuous discovery, PM-led research, and one particular author who champions it. We spoke about the role of UX and CX in organisations, what's happening to user researchers, and whether PMs are really to blame for it. Episode highlights:   1. User Experience and Customer Experience used to be the same thing, and they can be again In these digital days, it seems like most people think UX people are just there in the corner to colour in people's ideas, but UX should be a strategic role that enables user and customer-focused decision-making and makes sure we always balance our business's needs with those of our users. 2. We prize and prioritise speed over quality - we just have to get it done We've been moving fast and breaking things for long enough now to realise how often it doesn't work. User research feels unconscionably slow to some people, but it doesn't have to be slow, and doing good user research (whoever does it) is an investment in trying to get things right. 3. No matter how much product managers feel they're disempowered, they're still the Golden Children of the company Back in the old days, product managers were hiding in the corner with the UX people, as agilists and engineers rode through the company calling all the shots. Now the UX people are hiding with the engineers whilst the PM makes all of the decisions. There's a power imbalance, and it's not a true "trio". 4. User researchers are getting laid off, some of the jobs are gone for good and, at least in some cases, this is because leaders think they can just hand the work off to PMs It's not fair or reasonable to lay all of this at the doors of PM thought leaders championing certain approaches. There are plenty of UX thought leaders who champion them too. But, people are getting laid off and at least some of them are blaming PM-led product discovery as the root cause. 5. We should be able to look at books and take what works from them, but apply critical thinking and ensure that we don't follow any message blindly Most books have something useful in them, and all approaches can work in some contexts. Debbie has her approach, others have their approaches, and there's no one "right way". But, it's important to make sure that approaches can be challenged, expanded upon, and that the approaches and techniques are described clearly and without room for interpretation. Check out "Customers Know You Suck" "Customers Know You Suck is the how-to manual for customer-centric product-market fit. Its highly actionable models, maps, and processes empower everyone to improve the Customer Experience (CX). Learn how to investigate, diagnose, and act on what's blocking teams. Gather the evidence and data that better inform decisions, leading to increased satisfaction, conversion, and loyalty. Use our governance model for implementing and monitoring the progress, success, and failure of internal process changes and experiments." Check it out on Amazon or pay what you want. Check out how to use a Knowledge Quadrant Debbie is a fan of doing good discovery, naturally. Here's a video of an approach she recommends called the Knowledge Quadrant: Workshop: Discovery Phase - Knowledge Quadrant Contact Debbie You can catch up with Debbie on LinkedIn or check out Delta CX. Related episodes you should like: Using Solution Tests to Make Sure You're Building Products Users Want (Jim Morris, Founder @ Product Discovery Group) Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres, Author "Continuous Discovery Habits") We're All Responsible For Accessible Product Design (Holly Schroeder, Senior UX Researcher & Accessibility Advocate) Making Sure You Make an Impact through User Research (Steve Portigal, User Research Consultant & Author "Interviewing Users") Product Leadership Principles for Tumultuous Times (Giff Constable, Author "Talking with Humans" & "Testing with Humans") How to Deploy Empathy to Truly Understand User Needs (Michele Hansen, Author "Deploy Empathy") Chinese Startup Culture & Putting the Minimum into MVP (Carlos Lastres, Creative & Marketing Director @ Kaiyan Medical) Building a Culture of Continuous Discovery (Cindy Alvarez, Author "Lean Customer Development")

Lloyed Lobo got his first understanding of the power of community when visiting his grandparents in the Mumbai slums, and watching people come together in his childhood during the Gulf War. He has since turned this into an entrepreneurial superpower and used community-building to catapult his bootstrapped startup into the big time. He's since written a book about all of this stuff called "From Grassroots to Greatness: 13 Rules to Build Iconic Brands with Community-Led Growth". We spoke about the book and many of the topics within. Episode highlights:   1. Community is a company strategy, not a marketing strategy It's not enough to just sit there and layer "community" on top of your existing marketing and expect it to pay back instantly. It has to be part of your company's DNA, something that your customers and your employees can be inspired and motivated by. Attribution is hard, but the results will come. 2. You need to show up for your community or they won't show up for you You cannot take your community for granted. You need to provide them with constant, consistent value with no immediate expectation of reward. They will keep coming for the value, and you are engineering serendipity for future conversations. 3. Don't be afraid to have the sales conversations That said, if you don't ask, you don't get. You cannot be afraid of trying to offer paid value to your community, even if it feels uncomfortable to ask. If you are providing value then people will be happy to talk to you. Not everyone will become a customer, but some will. Use the reciprocity bias to your advantage. 4. There is power in finding your niche and sticking to it Don't try to go too wide chasing vanity metrics. You will get more value out of a smaller community of people who share your exact passions than out of a generic sea of people who couldn't care less. Make sure you identify your people, show up for them, and own your white space. 5. Community can be as much of a moat as technology or industry expertise There are more communities and products to solve problems for communities than ever before but, if you have the right community, you can use it to your advantage. Having an engaged, passionate community can help prevent your company from becoming a commodity. Check out "From Grassroots to Greatness" "In a world where traditional marketing is losing its edge and products are struggling to stand out, a thriving community is your biggest asset. Recognizing that true success lies not in products or technologies, but in the power of people, author Lloyed Lobo explores the intricate art of harnessing the community's strength as your ultimate acquisition channel, brand differentiator, feedback source, retention lever, and catalyst for transformative change." Check it out on Amazon. Contact Lloyed You can catch up with Lloyed on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Shyvee Shi is a Product Lead at LinkedIn, a community-builder, content creator and educator. She's been making waves through her online courses but she's now co-authored a book, "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI", which aims to help all of us survive and thrive in the new normal of AI-powered products. We talked about some of the themes from the book, and why it was important for her to write it. Episode highlights:   1. Now is the time for product managers to get into generative AI Whether you're experimenting with putting it in your own products or using it to turbocharge your product management duties, you need to check out generative AI if you want to stay ahead of the curve. It's not going to replace product managers any time soon, but it can help us dream bigger. 2. If your competitors can use AI to serve your customers better than you, your business could disappear overnight 75% of CEOs are terrified that generative AI will kill their business. It's like the Kodak story on steroids, and it's not even about tankers getting outmanoeuvred by speedboats anymore. Big companies are also getting in on the game and you need to have a response. 3. PMs have a responsibility to concentrate on the problem, not the technology It's as important as ever for product managers to focus on solving real user problems, no matter what the tech. We can't just slap ChatGPT onto everything and call it a success. Generative AI can help us and our customers in new and interesting ways but we must concentrate on solving their real problems. 4. It can be hard to craft a workable go-to-market plan for AI products This could be down to falling in love with the technology, struggles with pricing or quality, lack of explainability or poor understanding of your customers' most important jobs to be done. Make sure you're intentional about your go-to-market plan to avoid failure. 5. It can be hard to create moats when using generative AI solutions So many of these solutions are built on the same back-end, and there are de facto default LLMs. In some cases, startups building on top of things like ChatGPT end up disappearing overnight because OpenAI has developed a new feature of its own. It is possible to create moats through proprietary data, excellent UX and good old-fashioned verticalisation. Make sure you create a moat! Buy "Reimagined" "Did you know that incorporating AI into products is now a pivotal strategy for businesses worldwide? According to a 2023 study from Accenture, a staggering 75% of C-suite executives agree that failure to integrate AI effectively in the next five years could lead to business obsolescence. "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI" is your essential guide in this transformative journey. It's not just about understanding AI and Generative AI technologies; it's about strategically harnessing them to drive innovation, team efficiency, and market success. Check it out on Amazon. Contact Shyvee You can catch up with Shyvee on LinkedIn or check out Product Management Reimagined.

Becky Flint started her career at Paypal and helped build out their portfolio management and product operations functions before product ops was a thing. She's since moved through a variety of startups and larger companies before forming her own firm, Dragonboat, through which she hopes to provide tools to help companies manage product portfolios at scale.   Episode highlights:   1. Even if you have one product, you might still have a portfolio People tend to think about a product portfolio, they think about a massive web of products, but even one-product companies may have multiple product managers working on different aspects of the product and these may well still need to be traded off against each other. 2. It's not enough to make strategic decisions, you need to be able to explain them We're always told to create visions, strategies and roadmaps, but you need to be able to lay these out for a variety of stakeholders and explain them in ways that resonate with them. 3. As soon as you have product management, you have product operations You may not have a Product Ops team, but someone is doing the product ops work. When you have a small team, maybe you can handle the work but, eventually, you'll need a team to ensure the product teams deliver. 4. All product operations professionals should be comfortable with portfolio management Going further, product ops professionals who aren't comfortable with managing a portfolio shouldn't be in the job. Product ops people aren't babysitters for the product management team, they're senior, strategic partners. 5. ROI isn't enough to make good strategic decisions for your portfolio Sometimes, you might not make big, strategic bets with unclear payoffs if you only use financial ROI metrics. You may also make bad resourcing decisions if you don't consider which teams are available when, and not taking account of bundles of value when making trade-offs. Contact Becky You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn. You can also check out Dragonboat. Alongside their SaaS software, they also have a bunch of available resources.