Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators

How to align your organization and product management team with the voice of your customer In this discussion we address what it means to properly incorporate UX (user experience) into your product work. This is not merely making things look right. This is deeply understanding the user experience that creates greater value, beating competitors and delighting customers. Joining us is Mark Baldino, UX product design expert and co-founder of Fuzzy Math, which designs software products for companies. Mark has 20+ years experience implementing human-centered design to solve difficult problems. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:37] Why should UX (user experience) be part of product strategy? There’s no better way to provide customer value than aligning your organization and product team with the voice of your customer. Often, UX gets bolted on at the beginning and end of the product cycle. Many organizations only contact their customers during sales and support, often because they’re scared to listen to their customer and make product decisions based on knowledge of their customers. Sales and support are important, but you’re missing out if you don’t also talk to customers while they’re using your product. Listen to customers and rely on a customer-centered design process. [5:43] How do we make UX more effective in our product strategy? Often, underperforming UX teams are stuck in a cycle responding to developers’ requests and fixing features without aligning the overall product with the customer. To get out of the cycle, you have to level-up and understand the entire process. Product managers are our best partners in this because they value listening to customers. You need to invest time and energy talking to current and potential customers and watching them use your products so you can make research-backed decisions. The power of user-centered design is that it allows us to tell stories about customers and the future of the product, getting product and engineering in full alignment. Pull cross-functional teams into the research and synthesis of concepts. [10:15] What tools are helpful in UX? Quantitative Tools: Super Q: a standardized set of questions asking the user to gauge the product’s features and functions Net Promoter Score: would you refer someone to this product? Qualitative Tools: Interviews with customers: open-ended questions and discussion Observation of customers using the product Think Aloud method: customers says exactly what they’re doing while using the tool Story-telling Tools: Personas: archetypes of the users Journey Maps: tell stories of how customers use the product Through customer observation, you’ll learn that how people use tools is not how you think they use tools. Have stakeholders join you in observing customers; it’s illuminating for them to see how their customers are using the products. [19:59] Wouldn’t adding UX to product strategy slow us down? Adding UX will introduce new parts to the process, but you have to ask, What is the cost of not adding UX? What is the business suffering from because you’re not spending time with customers and not making informed decisions? It might be a decrease in efficiency of your team, a lot of rework, high customer support numbers, low customer satisfaction, or missing sales. One study showed that UX give a 10x ROI. It may be closer to 3 or 4 times, which is still really good. When you begin to use UX, you will slow down for a period of time, but the cost of not doing anything is much greater. If you’re going to embrace UX, start running parallel paths. Choose a pilot project you can run with user-centered design while still doing incremental updates on the current product. This gives you an internal case study that will demonstrate the benefits of UX. [25:14] Tell us more about how to incorporate UX. UX adds a Voice of the Customer program. You’re installing listening devices to find out how your customers are using your product, such as: in-app analytics quantitative longitudinal studies user interviews At the beginning, you need to do a batch of discovery. We use scorecards based on our experience in the industry to pair SaaS and UX criteria with customer research. The goal is to bring together all the data so the team can make decisions on it. Take bite-sized pieces. You could start with incorporating UX into one feature. If you do a complete redesign, know that it will take more discovery. During your pilot project, work on creating alignment in three areas: people, process, and purpose. You need the right people in the right seats doing the right things. The new people are doing a new process—research. You need UX to be aligned with the bigger vision. Many people equate UX with UI (user interface), but it’s not about making your product look pretty. Begin with low-fidelity design, moving to high-fidelity design. Action Guide: Put the information Mark shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Learn more about UX and Mark’s work at FuzzyMath.com Check out the Fuzzy Math newsletter Innovation Quote “The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to ‘have it all,’ the sooner it will die.” – Yvon Chouinard Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can solve positioning, packaging, and pricing for their products Today we are discussing how to price products, helping you avoid common mistakes and sharing steps to make your pricing smarter. Our guest is Ajit Ghuman. He is the Head of Product Marketing at Narvar, an enterprise-grade customer engagement platform for retailers. Ajit is an expert in software pricing and his book, Price to Scale, covers an end-to-end approach to packaging & pricing for high-growth technology companies.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:49] What mistakes do companies make when pricing their products? When a company is having trouble in the market, price point is never really the problem. Upstream issues cause price difficulties. Follow the PPP hierarchy: First solve positioning, then packaging, then pricing. Start with product strategy, determining why the product exists in the market. Then come up with positioning, which is how customers see the product. Next discuss packaging, which is a way to maximize value for different segments. Finally, choose the price point. [4:52] What’s involved in packaging? Packaging means including the right set of features the customer values. A large enterprise has different needs from a small business, and they want different features. The point of packaging is to maximize revenue from the market by creating an offer tailored to the customer. Large enterprises want a bundle of features, and higher pricing can increase their perception of value. Small businesses may value a cheaper, lightweight package. [8:57] Suppose we created a SaaS-based platform for product managers. How do we price this product? We’ll go through the PPP hierarchy. To determine our positioning, we identify our target segment and how we’re differentiating. Suppose we’re creating product management roadmap software for big enterprise teams. We’re differentiating by allowing a lot of PMs to collaborate. Next, we move to packaging. A common approach to packaging is “good, better, best,” where a company creates different levels of packages like Pro, Elite, and Platinum. Another option, which works better for enterprise products like our example, is value-based packaging. We make a list of all the features of the product and map them to the use cases the product solves. Then we decide whether our market is homogeneous, needing a single package, or heterogeneous, needing multiple packages. We present our packages to customers and ask them to rate how well the packages perform each capability to meet their needs. Let’s assume we create two packages for our product. Finally, we think about pricing. Before choosing the price point, we need to make two decisions: our pricing metric and our pricing structure. We have two options for pricing metric: Capability-based pricing sells the product for a flat fee. Consumption-based pricing, which is most common for SaaS products, charges a price per user (most common), API call, SMS sent, etc. For our product, we would choose consumption-based pricing and charge per user per month. We have two options for pricing structure: A linear scale charges the same amount per user. A three-part tariff provides a volume discount for more users. Finally, we choose the price point. There are many ways to measure this, including willingness-to-buy surveys, conjoint analysis, or Van Westendorp surveys. Conjoint analysis is best for simpler products. For our software, I would use Van Westendorp. We’ll get a range of options and choose the price point based on competition, positioning, and strategy. The three important decisions of packaging, pricing metrics, and pricing structure contribute more to revenue than the actual price. [17:39] What is the role of product managers in the PPP process? Product managers play a key role in positioning because they understand the customers’ problem and needs. Their insights from customers are also important in packaging. PMs play less of a role in pricing, which is mostly done by revenue teams. Too many organizations miss the opportunity to use product managers’ insights in marketing and positioning. In my career, every time we have a clear understanding of what the buyer and user want, everything—pricing, marketing, selling, sales—goes much better. I encourage product managers to take on a complete business role rather than being just product owners. Often product managers don’t understand or agree with the price attached to a product. The price should be based on the value the customer perceives. Everything is about value. [22:20] What can product managers do to help Sales present pricing information? For subscription products, customers want to be able to predict the impact on pricing as their usage grows. Product managers can communicate with other teams to create the best pricing structure based on what makes most sense from the customers’ point of view. For SaaS and other products, instrumentation can be added to collect user data. This is helpful for feature decisions and also for pricing strategy. [26:40] What do we do when competitors take action to compete with us on price and value? When a competitor offers a less expensive product, don’t immediately drop your prices. First, take a look at how you differentiate and bring value to your customers. Action Guide: Put the information Ajit shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Buy Ajit’s book Price to Scale Connect with Ajit on LinkedIn Innovation Quote “The thing is never about the thing. Be it engineering, medicine, finance, sports or any profession any thing is always about one thing and that is the mind.” – Kapil Gupta Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

Dive deep into a valuable tool for product managers In this discussion we are learning more about the power and use of Jobs-to-be-Done with Bob Moesta. Bob is an innovator, entrepreneur, and the co-creator of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to investigate consumers’ motivations and decision-making processes. He also co-founded the Re-Wired Group, which helps companies repeatedly innovate and reliably predict success. He is also a Research Fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. Bob has had amazing mentors and many accomplishments. I’m sure you’ll find this discussion valuable. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:54] How did you get involved in Jobs-to-be-Done? I’ve been breaking things for a long time and building things for the past 35 years. As I was building products, I would get marketing reports that told me who the customers were but wouldn’t tell me why they were doing what they were doing. One of my mentors, Dr. Deming, told me nothing is random; everything is caused; we need to understand why people buy what they buy. From that perspective, I started to understand the underlying causality behind why people buy something or do something new. I worked with Rick Pedi to make Jobs-to-be-Done a method and then another of my mentors, Clay Christensen, who made it a theory. Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a methodology based on the premise that people don’t buy products; they hire them to do jobs. It helps us understand the struggling moments that cause people to do something different. To solve problems, you need to see the big picture. [7:22] What’s an example of a time you used JTBD? When I was a VP of sales and marketing in the house building industry, I realized that our features looked like everyone else’s features and we could apply the JTBD methods to understand this business differently. We built homes for first-time home buyers, divorced families with kids, and downsizers. I asked, What causes someone to decide today’s the day they’re going to sell their house and move into one of my condos? The product is irrelevant. The important thing is to know what the customer wants, regardless of how we solve it. Understand people’s context, desired outcome, and the struggling moment that causes them to want to change something. JTBD helps us understand the forces of progress, anxieties, friction, and habit that are pushing and pulling people, and the phases they go through of having a first thought, passively looking for something new, actively looking, and deciding. When I was interviewing home buyers, I learned that a big friction point was getting rid of stuff to downsize. To decrease friction, we added two years of storage and a place to sort the stuff at the clubhouse, and increased sales 22%. We also provided crews that would fix people’s houses so they could sell. I realized I wasn’t really a builder; I was a mover. By making these changes, we went from 4% market share to 14% market share. One of my mentors, Dr. Taguchi, said, There is way more that we don’t know than what we know, and don’t ever forget it. He taught me to always talk to consumers and understand their underlying causal mechanisms. [14:01] What are the jobs of Snickers and Milky Way? Snickers and Milky Way are both chocolate candy bars with almost all the same ingredients, except Snickers has peanuts. You would think they compete, but we found the candy bars get hired in very different contexts for very different outcomes. When people eat Snickers, it’s typically because they have work to do and are running out of energy, and they want something small and quick to eat. People almost always eat Milky Way alone and very slowly after something emotional happens. Snickers satisfies physically. Milky Way helps people feel better emotionally. [18:53] How do we apply JTBD? Start with framing the fundamental question of what you’re trying to answer. We start with 15-20 questions, then boil them down to one core question. For example, “What causes people to move from the house they’ve lived in for 20+ years to a new condo?” The question can be about a product, a group of consumers, or a struggling moment. Next, we recruit people who have tried and successfully and unsuccessfully solved the problem. We conduct hour-long interviews with these people, asking questions that help us really get at what people mean and understand their actions. After each interview, we debrief and codify the causal mechanisms—pushes and pulls—that made them try to solve the problem. We start to see patterns of the different outcomes people want in different contexts. We use nearest neighbor analysis to understand how many unique stories we have. Now that we understand the jobs people are hiring a product to do, we decide what we want to do. [24:31] In your interview, how do you identify why people do what they do? Have an empathetic perspective; be able to see the world from their side. Most consumers can only talk about a problem without having any idea of the solution. We need to understand the language they use, instead of making everyone learn our language. People sometimes lie to themselves about why they did something. Discover the more complicated thread behind their decisions. Learn to unpack the cake layer. If someone says they want it to be easier or faster, ask, What does that mean? What outcomes do you get by having it be that way? Spend time unpacking down to the actions, outcomes, and context that cause people do to things. [27:59] How many interviews should we do? You don’t need to do a huge number. I would rather do three or four iterations of 10 than 40 or 50, because at some point you start to hear the patterns. I usually do rounds of 10-12. We then cluster the data and see which people gave similar answers. Analyze and then aggregate. Action Guide: Put the information Bob shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Connect with Bob on LinkedIn Check out Bob’s book Demand-Side Sales 101 on Amazon Learn more about interviews on Bob’s YouTube Channel Listen to Jobs-to-be-Done Radio Check out Clay Christensen’s Competing Against Luck on Amazon Listen to TEI 057 about Jobs-to-be-Done with Chris Spiek Innovation Quote “Context creates value and contrast creates meaning.” – Bob Moesta  Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can excel in both supportive and challenging organizational environments In this discussion we share ideas and experiences for getting more benefits from product management and how you can help with that, regardless of whether your organization supports product management or not. To help us with that is someone who has made it happen, increasing the visibility and effectiveness of product management, in different types of organizations. Her name is Monika Murugesan and she is Vice President of Product Management at Sentient Energy. She focuses on portfolio roadmaps, innovation, strategy, and customer success.  . Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [5:26] What’s it like to be a product manager in a product-centered organization where product management is valued? In an organization like this where the product manager’s function and value are understood, product management is usually a separate function. The product managers report to a chief product officer or CEO and have a big-picture understanding of the company strategy, which they can relate to the product portfolio strategy. [6:24] How can product managers excel in that environment? As a product manager, you build the right product and release it at the right time, so you need to know what the right product is and make sure you can build it with your resources and get it to market on time. PdMs interact with every division in the company—finance, marketing, sales, customers, quality, manufacturing. You have to be on top of everything and excel at time management and communication, because you are responsible for solving problems related to every division. [10:37] What’s it like to be in an organization where product management isn’t honored or recognized? Product management isn’t an easy job, because PdMs are the CEOs of the product without any positional authority. It’s a challenging role because it requires influential capacity, and it’s even tougher when no one understands product management. In organizations where product management is not well-understood, the PdM role blurs between project management and outbound marketing, and PdMs are usually under engineering teams or marketing teams. It’s a tougher position when your peers don’t recognize what you do. [12:02] How can product managers excel in that challenging environment? Build credibility and trust by influencing with the 3 H’s: Head: logical reasoning, e.g., using data to show the engineering team why it’s best for the company to pursue a project Hands: mutual benefits, e.g., showing a sales team why a strategy will benefit both of you Heart: emotional connection, e.g., showing developers how the product they’re building will help people; telling engineers what customers say about how your products are helping Consider organizing a brown bag lunch to share customer stories with your engineering or sales teams. [17:00] How can we build strong connections with customers? It’s important to build a good relationship with sales so they will introduce you to customers and take you along on sales calls. You can’t build the next product sitting at your desk all day. Innovative ideas come from seeing customers in action. [18:53] What are the benefits to having product management as a separate function? There are some pros to having product management aligned with another function. For example, if product management is under engineering, product managers are more technical and understand the engineer’s challenges and their innovative ideas that can become part of the product. However, the ideal output from product management is achieved when product management is a separate function. When product management is a separate function, product managers see the big picture and can set up product strategy that aligns with the long-term company strategy, so product managers have a direct connection with the leaders of the organization, and engineering and sales are their peers. Action Guide: Put the information Monika shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Connect with Monika on LinkedIn Find out more about Monika’s product manager coaching, Apex Specialist Innovation Quote “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” -Michael Porter Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can build great products by focusing on their customers’ unmet needs Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a valuable tool for product managers and innovators, and there are different thoughts on how to actually put it into optimal practice. Our guest, Jay Haynes, is helping that problem by creating the first and only JTBD software for product, marketing, and sales teams. He founded THRV (pronounced Thrive) to make that happen. Also, Jay has three decades of innovation experience and has helped Microsoft, Dropbox, eBay, Twitter, American Express, Oracle, Target, and others.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:54] What is Jobs-to-be-Done? Jobs-to-be-Done is a method to build great products that customers love. The core idea is that customers are not buying a product; they’re hiring a product to get a job done. A job to be done is a goal a customer needs to achieve, and it’s independent of any product. For example, we don’t want iPods, cassettes, or CDs; we want to create a mood with music using whichever product best helps us accomplish that job. [4:16] What problem does Jobs-to-be-Done help product managers with? It helps us fail less. If you start with a brand-new idea, you have no way to judge whether the idea is useful. JTBD lets you start with your customers’ unmet needs instead. Then you can more quickly and efficiently come up with ideas, which will be much more valuable once you understand their problems. [6:04] How do we get started with Jobs-to-be-Done? Everything starts with the customer. You need to know who your customers are. It’s amazing how many teams disagree on whom their customer is. Many companies define their customers using personas, which can lead us away from the core customer who benefits from getting the job done. Instead of limiting yourself to personas, group your customers into job beneficiaries, who are the people who benefit from getting the job done. For example, Nest the thermostat company focuses on the job beneficiaries. Traditionally, thermostat manufacturers sold to contractors, not homeowners. Nest redefined their customer and decided to sell directly to homeowners. This was smart, because homeowners are the job beneficiaries, benefiting from the thermostat, which performs the job of creating a comfortable home. Often, especially for B2B products, we have multiple different groups with different needs interacting with our product. In addition to job beneficiaries, there are job executors, who help the beneficiary get the job done, and purchasers, who purchase the product. Job executors perform consumption jobs like installing the thermostat, while job beneficiaries perform function jobs like using the thermostat. Both are important, but increasingly consumption jobs can be done by the job beneficiary. Focusing on the job executor isn’t good for your long-term growth, because someone is going to figure out how to get rid of the job executor, like Nest did. Focus on the job beneficiaries, because they’re your true market. [15:07] What’s the next step? Next we go to the market. The market you’re in is the most important decision you can make as a product team. If you have to choose between being a great entrepreneur in a terrible market or a mediocre entrepreneur in an awesome market, choose the awesome market. If you haven’t thought about what your market is and what your customer’s job is, you’ve made a critical mistake. There are no product-based markets. There are only markets for getting jobs done. For example, when Apple created the iPod, they defined their market based on the product. They sold $30 billion of iPods, but today the iPod market is zero. The market isn’t for iPods; it’s for creating a mood with music. Pandora experienced enormous success by finding a different way to create a mood with music. Speed and accuracy are the measures of success for Jobs-to-be-Done. The Kodak Brownie camera was one of the most successful products in history because it made photography fast and easy. All you had to do was point the camera and push a button. [21:47] Once we know our customer and market, what’s next? Next you need to identify your customer’s unmet needs. Jobs-to-be-Done theory breaks down your customer’s goal into very specific customer needs. We all know innovative products should satisfy unmet customer needs, but companies and product teams often disagree on what a customer need is. Let’s look at an example of how Jobs-to-be-Done can help define customer needs. Suppose the job to be done is getting a customer to a destination on time. First, break down the steps the customer has to take to get the job done. There are six categories of steps based on George Pólya’s problem-solving technique: Understand the problem: estimate the departure time Plan to solve the problem: plan the stops along the route Execute the solution: travel to the destination Assess how problem-solving went: when you run into traffic, assess whether you’re going to get there on time Revise: reroute if there is bad traffic Conclude: park the vehicle and walk to the destination These job steps help you identify the customer needs, which are actions your customer has to take with some variable in the job. All jobs have actions and variables. In this example, variables include the optimal sequence of stops, when each location is open, and the route to each stop. Like the job, these variables are independent of the solution. Next, you have to figure out the actions your customer must take with those variables. The customer has to plan the optimal sequence of stops. When you combine a customer action with a variable in the job, you have a customer needs statement that is independent of any solution, stable over time, and measurable. It’s easy to measure how well the customer need was met—did we help the customer determine the optimal sequence of stops? How fast and accurate was it? [27:43] How can Jobs-to-be-Done help segment customers? Unlike traditional personas that segment based on demographics, Jobs-to-be-Done helps you identify needs-based segments that struggle to get the job done in the same way. In our example, one segment might be customers who are traveling to multiple, unfamiliar stops each day. They all have the same struggles to get the job done, but the segmentation has nothing to do with demographics. [30:05] What’s another big piece of Jobs-to-be-Done? Jobs-to-be-Done is very useful for product roadmapping, which is prioritizing your features. Roadmapping is the most important thing teams do because it captures everything—who is your customer? Why are they struggling? Why are you prioritizing these unmet needs? How are you going to beat your competition? Jobs-to-be-Done can help teams agree on their roadmap because it helps them focus on getting the job done faster and more accurately for customers. Jobs-to-be-Done mitigates risk and helps you make sure you have the right roadmap. Action Guide: Put the information Jay shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Read Clayton Christensen’s book Competing Against Luck Learn more about Jobs-to-be-Done from THRV Take a free course on Jobs-to-be-Done Innovation Quotes “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” – Theodore Levitt Phil Schiller’s Grand Unified Theory of Apple: The job of the [Apple] watch is to do more and more things on your wrist so that you don’t need to pick up your phone as often. The job of the [iPhone] is to do more and more things such that maybe you don’t need your iPad, and it should be always trying and striving to do that. The job of the iPad should be to be so powerful and capable that you never need a notebook. Like, Why do I need a notebook? I can add a keyboard! I can do all these things! The job of the [MacBook] is to make it so you never need a desktop, right? It’s been doing this for a decade. So that leaves the poor desktop at the end of the line, What’s its job?… [The iMac’s] job is to challenge what we think a computer can do and do things that no computer has ever done before, be more and more powerful and capable so that we need a desktop because of its capabilities. Because if all it’s doing is competing with the notebook and being thinner and lighter, then it doesn’t need to be.” – Phil Schiller Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can benefit from Scrum for joyful, prosperous, and sustainable work The name of this podcast is changing to Product Mastery Now, to better reflect our purpose of helping product managers becoming product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love.  The 2020 State of Agile Report found that only 5% of organizations have never used Agile practices. Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology and there is a good chance you are using it. The move to remote work last year impacted how teams work, including their use of Scrum. To learn about these impacts and other tips for improving the use of Scrum, Howard Sublett, the CEO of the Scrum Alliance, joins us.  The Scrum Alliance is a member-driven nonprofit trade association that supports the Agile movement. They have trained and certified over a million people and provide a vast community for Agile practitioners to interact.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:55] What is the Scrum Alliance and what does your role as Chief Product Owner involve? The Scrum Alliance is a non-profit organization, or as I like to think about it, a “for-impact” organization. We’re a certifying body and training organization with trainers in every country and about 1.38 million certifications. We have a mission to empower our members and guide individuals and organizations into Agile practices, principles, and values in order to make the world of work more joyful, prosperous, and sustainable. Scrum gives teams the context, autonomy, mastery, and purpose to be able to solve complex problems and delight customers. Scrum teams have joy in their work because they understand the work they’re doing, the problems they’re solving, and their impact. [5:56] At the Scrum Alliance, how do you “eat your own dogfood”—how do you use the practices you promote? Our staff is organized as cross-departmental Scrum teams. Each team includes people from marketing, education, customer support, and software development, as well as a product owner and Scrum master. In the past, we had a separate team from each department, but we found that there were deep dependencies between departments, so we began to work in cross-departmental teams. Unlike many Scrum teams, our teams work in two-week cadences, and every two weeks they do a sprint review to an advisory team of real customers. Interaction with customers is huge for creating joyful work. It’s important for product managers to see the people who are going to use the products they’re creating. [12:05] How is Scrum being applied in a remote work environment? Many organizational leaders were afraid Scrum wouldn’t work in a remote environment, but they found out it does. Individual remote work can be lonely, but Scrum team members don’t do individual work; they work together. When a Scrum team works on a problem, the need to work together helps them collaborate. Many teams now have open Zoom calls that they use to see each other on video while they’re working on problems. Because it’s based on collaboration, Scrum makes remote work a little easier on people. New technology and tools are also helping make remote work easier and more connected.  [18:27] The most common struggle I’ve seen when organizations adopt Scrum is that leaders feel helpless since the natural rhythm of information flow is disrupted. What can leaders and organizations do about this struggle? I think the key word is feel. Leaders feel helpless. In a traditional environment, leaders feel like they know exactly when a project is going to be done and what it’s going to be like, but in reality it never happens exactly like they expected. Leaders need to acknowledge what they don’t know. Distributing some decision-making to people closer to the customer may feel uncomfortable, but the leaders were already uncomfortable—they just pretended they weren’t. It made them feel comfortable to have a chart that said a project was going to be done on October 3rd, but the product wasn’t finished then, and their expectations still weren’t fulfilled. Some organization are building Agile-enablement teams, which include leaders of different areas in the organization and function as information centers of how teams are progressing. Most importantly, leaders need to acknowledge they don’t have all the answers. In Agile work, the bets are short and the risks are small. Each sprint is only a week or two, and you can make a new bet next week. The pace of change is fast, and you get customer feedback frequently. By working in small increments, we reduce risk and can deliver a better product to the customer. [25:31] What is the role of the product owner? Some organizations try to change the role of product owner to make Scrum fit with their current organizational design rather than changing the organization to fit the Scrum framework. In the process, they may lose the external-facing role of the product owner. The product owner (sometimes called a product manager) should be external-facing and the voice of the customer, understanding the customer’s problem deeply and guiding the team. Some organizations fulfill this role with an external-facing product owner and an internal-facing technical product owner or a project manager. Other organizations use a product owner team. [28:54] Where is Scrum used other than for software projects? Scrum, although originally designed for software projects, is now being used for hardware projects and in other unexpected places. For example, some schools are learning to use Scrum. Kids work in Scrum teams and are empowered to take charge of their learning. They learn faster and develop collaboration and communication. Families can even use Scrum in their homes to help their kids do homework or chores. Action Guide: Put the information Howard shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Learn more about Scrum and take a free Scrum foundations course at ScrumAlliance.org Listen to TEI 224 with Mike Cohn, co-founder of Scrum Alliance Innovation Quote “Everyone has a great plan until you get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson  Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

Principles product managers can use to guide creativity and innovation The name of this podcast is changing to Product Mastery Now, to better reflect our purpose of helping product managers becoming product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love.  In this episode we discuss the obsessions of everyday innovators, as that is the language our guest uses to describe mindsets and actions that make us better innovators. You already know why this is important—because better innovators and product managers are more likely to create products customers love.  Our guest knows a lot about this as he is the founder and CEO of five tech companies and a frequent keynote speaker. Interestingly, he started his career as a jazz guitarist. His name is Josh Linkner.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:59] What was it like to transition from a professional jazz guitarist to a founder of five tech companies? Surprisingly, there are many similarities between jazz and business. Both are about improvising and course-correcting when you inevitably screw up; they’re both messy, fluid, and creative. Jazz requires skills like passing the baton of leadership, taking responsible risks, and tinkering. Both jazz and innovation are about collaboration and co-creation. [5:48] From your book, what are the “obsessions of everyday innovators”? In my research for the book, interviewing amazing creators of all types, I found several common mindsets or obsessions of innovators. We can all apply these principles toward the outcomes that matter most to us, whether in business, our families, or our communities. Let’s dive into some of the obsessions of everyday innovators. [7:06] Fall in love with the problem. Fall in love with the problem more than a specific solution. Be willing to adapt, and study the problem from all different angles so you can solve it in the best possible way. [8:38] Don’t forget the dinner mint. Find a way to add delight with no more than 5% extra creative juice. Think about when you go to a nice restaurant and they give you a special treat compliments of the chef. That small surprise totally transforms your experience. When you’re creating a product, add a little extra something to take it to a whole different level. For example, a restaurant in New York City called Eleven Madison Park has a team of employees called Dream Weavers whose job is to add extra delight. A family with young children was visiting, and a server overheard that it was their first time to see snow. The Dream Weavers arranged for the family to be escorted out to a limousine, presented with brand new sleds, and whisked off to Central Park for an evening of sledding. It might sound crazy, but that family will never forget that night. Eleven Madison Park follows the 95/5 Doctrine; they spend 95% of their resources, time, money, and energy being super efficient and disciplined so they can spend 5% of their time “foolishly,” but it’s not really foolish at all because providing those extra special “dinner mints” is part of their strategy and a key driver of their incredible success in a crowded space. [13:27] Start before you’re ready. Too often, opportunities are out there, but we wait too long. When we wait for certainty, we can lose the opportunity altogether. Don’t wait for a bulletproof game plane. Just get going. It will be messy, and your first iterations will be sloppy and ineffective, but you’re going to learn quickly and course-correct. Suppose you and I both have an idea, and you test it for six months in the lab until it’s perfect, while I get going today. My first version is going to stink, but I have six months to catch up, pivot, adapt, learn, and grow. By the time you take your first shot, I’m way ahead of you. Meanwhile, the opportunity might shift and you might miss it altogether. It’s better to start quick and sloppy than to wait for perfection. [17:17] Open a test kitchen. Embrace rapid experimentation. Some people think innovation is about creating a once-in-a-lifetime perfect idea, but that’s not how it works. It’s much more effective, efficient, and less costly to use constant rapid experimentation. Shake Shack, a restaurant in New York City, has an innovation kitchen underneath one of their stores where they test new recipes, get feedback from their customers, and experiment with shaving time off their processes. They constantly experiment not only with their product but also with their processes, marketing and technology. Even if you don’t have a physical test kitchen or innovation lab, you can still be testing. The test kitchen principle is about a mindset of constant experimentation. There are a couple of ways to test: First, is the farmer’s market model—you look around at all your options and start experimenting, just like you might pick up some ingredients at the farmers’ market and then decide what to make for dinner. The other model is like a cooking show where the contestants have to use a bunch of weird ingredients. Sometimes you don’t have all the resources you would like, but constraints fuel innovation. [21:01] Use every drop of toothpaste. Be effective with the resources you have rather than bemoaning the ones you lack. When I was studying music in college, a professor made me take one, two, or three strings off my guitar. Surprisingly, when I could no longer rely on the patterns I knew, I was forced to problem solve and my creativity skyrocketed. We think we need more resources to be innovative, but the opposite is often true—constraints can be a catalyst for creativity. [22:32] Reach for weird. We tend to reach for the tried and true when we’re making decisions, but I challenge you to reach for “Option X,” the bizarre, unexpected approach that an make all the difference in the world. For example, a village in Iceland was experiencing a high incidence of motorcycle accidents involving pedestrians. The obvious solutions were to install more traffic lights, have more police officers on duty, or issue more fines. Instead, they reached for weird and painted the crosswalks with an optical illusion that looked like slabs of concrete floating in the air. This reduced traffic incidents dramatically at very low cost. Another example solved the problem of which bananas to buy. If you buy yellow bananas, they’ll be brown and mushy in a few days, but if you buy green bananas you’ll have to wait a week for a perfect banana. A company in Korea reached for weird and sells their bananas in packages of seven, each at a different ripeness; as the bananas continue to ripen, you get a perfect banana each day of the week. They sell the same bananas, but their approach allows them to sell more bananas at a higher price. As another example, the children’s hospital at the University of Pittsburgh wanted to create a better experience for their patients, so they had their window washers dress up as superheroes. Kids look forward to seeing them and it takes their attention away from the medical care. [26:44] Fall seven times, stand eight. It’s unfortunate that most of us have been taught that failure is fatal. It’s important that we celebrate and understand the role failure plays in the creative, innovative process. You can’t have innovation unless you’re willing to have some failures, and if you don’t have failures, you’re not pushing the boundaries enough. The principle of fall seven times, stand eight is not just dogged persistence—it’s about understanding that you will hit obstacles and learning from them so you can adapt and go forward. There’s a museum in Sweden called the Museum of Failure that celebrates failure, displaying products like meat-flavored water for pets and a urinal disguised as a golf club. When we hear about products like these, we have compassion for their inventors and think, “Good for them for trying.” Why don’t we give ourselves the same compassion and permission to screw up? Let’s fall seven times, learn, grow, adapt, and stand up. Action Guide: Put the information Josh shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Josh’s book at BigLittleBreakthroughs.com Learn about Josh’s work and get free resources at JoshLinkner.com Connect with Josh on LinkedIn or Twitter Innovation Quotes “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.” – General Eric Shinseki “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can prepare for success in a rapidly shifting work environment This podcast will soon be known as Product Mastery Now. The name is changing, but the purpose is the same—helping product leaders and managers become product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence, and confidence so you’ll create products customers love. The future of work is changing for many people. We saw some changes accelerate as a result of the pandemic, and others have already been in motion. The changes will impact product managers and innovators. Our guest, Matt Coatney, has studied the future of work as it is also related to his interests in the future of AI, automation, and other applications of technology. Matt has 25 years of experience bringing advanced technology products to market in a variety of industries and for some of the largest global organizations, including Microsoft, IBM, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, Deloitte, and HP. Use this discussion to help you consider how your work will change in the near future. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:56] What is broken about work? As technology has evolved, it has made work easier, decreasing friction, but there’s a disconnect between changing technology and traditional corporations. Changes in technology are disrupting industries and, more importantly, changing the way we work, but large corporations are not set up to accommodate a world where technology is changing quickly. There’s a growing rift between management and employees. Engagement is at an all-time low, and job loyalty is not what it used to be. All these are symptoms that the underlying culture and systems need to be modernized for the world of the 21st century. Many people love their job but despise the environment. We see a lot of people loving project work, but the rest of their organization isn’t in a project-based mindset. [8:21] Your new book is titled The Human Cloud. What is the human cloud? The Human Cloud encapsulates the new world of work. In the book, we discuss two main themes and how they impact the way we work: the freelance economy and shift to project-based work artificial intelligence and how technology is creeping into every part of our life The Human Cloud is a visualization of a global cloud of people and devices that are all connected to accomplish an end. The cloud includes human and digital resources that you can tap into to do outsourced work. In the past, freelance work and AI were low-value, but now top-notch professionals are choosing careers of freelance work, and there are new capabilities that didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago. People are becoming more comfortable with using outside experts, and technology is making it more convenient and inexpensive to outsource work. [14:00] What is a Changemaker, and how will Changemakers drive the future of work? A Changemaker is an entrepreneur or intrapreneur who is leveraging their resources to create value. They’re growing themselves, their business, or their role in their company. They’re taking charge of their work, and their focus is to drive value. Taking ownership of your work is empowering and provides accountability. People aren’t born Changemakers; you can develop the Changemaker attitude and approach to work. While writing the book, we interviewed freelancers and found that they operate as a business of one. They constantly think about how they can add value and stop doing things that aren’t adding value. We see tensions and dissatisfied employees when employees want to take ownership of their work but are in an organizational structure that doesn’t know how to let them do that. The 20th century corporate environment was very structured and hierarchical, which produced results but did not empower individuals or provide accountability. Many companies are still using those structures, but some companies are finding ways to work better. For example, one model assigns everyone to a pod that is working on a project. Once the project is finished, they’re reassigned. Each pod is given a mission, constraints, and a budget and then works independently to create value. The corporate structure is like a portfolio, managing projects, putting more bets on the projects that show value. Reid Hoffman talks about the two types of roles in an organization. People in traditional management roles needs structure, rules, guidance, and certainty, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, when an entrepreneur is put in that environment, they rankle at it. Entrepreneurs work better in an environment where they are given freedom to complete a mission and add value, with a mindset of project-based work. We’re shifting toward project-based work, and the traditional infrastructure is still vital but becoming smaller. [23:54] What should product managers do to prepare for this paradigm shift in work? How can they be Changemakers?  Changemakers are orchestrators. Focus on how you pull together resources to accomplish something. As technology and AI take over routine tasks, humans will be increasingly valuable as orchestrators. As a product manager, define the strategy and be laser-focused on execution—specifically define what execution looks like and ensure the product is executed and delivered properly. As you’re staffing your projects, you have more and more opportunity to pull in the right expert, although your competitors also have access to increased resources. AI is becoming increasingly cheaper, quicker, and easier to implement, and it will affect your products and user behavior. You don’t need a computer science or data science degree to be a product manager, but develop your analytical skills to understand causality, impacts, trends, predictions, etc., because work is very data-driven these days. Action Guide: Put the information Matt shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out The Human Cloud on HumanCloudBook.com or Amazon Connect with Matt on LinkedIn Learn more about Matt on his website Innovation Quote “Move fast and break things.” – Mark Zuckerberg, in the early days of Facebook “Move fast with stable infrastructure.” – Mark Zuckerberg, present day Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

How product managers can avoid false beliefs and revive their careers In this episode, instead of me interviewing a guest, I’m being interviewed. Mike Belsito, co-organizer of the INDUSTRY conference for software product managers, interviewed me a few weeks ago for an INDUSTRY webinar. We both found the discussion very valuable and I’m sharing it with you on this podcast as well.   The topic is: Are your misconceptions about product management holding your career back?   Product management has a longer history than many people realize, dating formally back to the 1930s. The first professional association for product managers that is still in existence, PDMA, began in 1976. While the discipline is not new, several misconceptions exist about what product management is and what product managers do. In this discussion, I’ll help you find the best place for you to contribute to creating products and services customers love so your career will take off.   Check out the Virtual INDUSTRY conference coming up on April 20 and 21 by going to industryconference.com. I’m not receiving any commission from INDUSTRY, just recommending it because it is good.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [4:45] Tell us about the misconception that product management is a brand-new discipline. Recently, product management has grown in popularity and visibility, but the discipline has been around for a long time. People have been building products for a very, very long time, and product management as a discipline originated around the 1930s at P&G, where product managers were originally called brand managers and were responsible for developing a product, growing a brand, and getting customers to adopt the new product. The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), the first professional organization for product managers, began in 1976. I found out about product management through PDMA and found their resources and body of knowledge really helpful. As product managers, we have access to a solid foundation of knowledge. [8:00] What are some other common product management misconceptions? Many people think that because they don’t have the job title of product manager, they’re not doing product management. Actually, many people involved in product innovation, product development, or product marketing are doing product management. I use the IDEA framework to describe the full spectrum of product work: Ideate—coming up with ideas and putting together a concept to pursue Develop—making the concept real, e.g., writing software or manufacturing Evolve—continuing to make the product better after launch Accelerate—practices that improve product work At some organizations, product managers are all about Ideate; at others they focus on Develop or Evolve. Understanding the full breadth of product work helps us find the aspects that are a good fit for us and bring us joy. [13:15] What’s an example of someone reframing their work as product management? A listener of my podcast was a product marketer responsible for growing the product’s position in the marketplace. He reached out and said he really wanted to get into product management, which he believed was all about coming up with new ideas. After talking, he realized that he could easily call his work product management. He was learning what customers want and improving existing products. He ended up continuing to work in product marketing and loved it. All he had to do was think about his work differently and it became a good fit for him. I hear many people say they love the work they’re doing but despise the environment they’re in. If they reframe their work, look for the aspects they really enjoy, and try to find work that aligns with that, they may be happier. [15:53] What misconceptions about product management are holding people back in their careers? One thing holding people back is not having good alignment between their role in product and where they find joy. This might be because they don’t have a broad enough picture of what product work entails. Someone might think product management is all about customers but find that their organization thinks it’s all about data. With a broad perspective on product work, they may be able to help their organization think differently, because their organization is limiting itself if it doesn’t let product managers gain customer insights. One listener emailed me and said he had had his first interview for a product manager position, but he was disappointed because the organization didn’t talk about product management in at all the same way as I do on my podcast. It’s important to remember there are different perspectives on product management, and understanding the full breadth of product management can help us recognize we might be focused on different areas but we’re all working together on product. [19:01] What can we do if we’re in an organization where product managers don’t get to talk to customers? First, examine yourself and get feedback from others. If your organization doesn’t let product managers talk to customers, it’s probably a trust issue. At some point, a salesperson felt a product person jeopardized their relationship with a customer. To get the chance to talk with customers, you need to build trust, so don’t go behind the backs of the sales or marketing teams. Consider building relationships with non-customers first. For example, product managers from an exhaust fan company went to Home Depot and asked Home Depot’s customers how they chose which fan to buy. After you gain some insights, take your salespeople out to lunch and share what you’ve learned. Build relationships so they might invite you to come along when they talk to customers. [22:50] What are common missteps product managers take and what can they do to revive their career? Set a cadence of predictably getting feedback from those around you. Ask for feedback from people you can trust to give honest feedback, even if it feels like a gut punch. Recognize that product managers have a great deal of responsibility but no authority. When I ask people why they got involved in product management, I get two common responses: Some people do it because they want more influence; product managers have no real authority but have to learn to wield influence. Others want to contribute strategically to the big picture of the organization; product managers should be becoming senior leaders because they interface with more of the organization than almost any C-suite role. If your career is stalled, reflect on why you got into product management in the first place. [26:29] How should product managers navigate customer interviews when they aren’t trained as behavioral scientists or their organization has a dedicated research team? Don’t approach the interview to confirm what you already want to do. That’s a total waste of time. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Care deeply about the problem and be curious. Ask your customers questions about their problem. You can check out interview guides like Ash Maurya’s guide in Running Lean, but basically your job is to understand the problem deeply and not talk much about your solution. Action Guide: Put the information Chad shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful link: Check out the INDUSTRY 2021 Virtual Conference, April 20-21 Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

A framework for product managers to dig deep into their customers’ needs I am changing the name of the podcast to Product Mastery Now. The new name is coming soon. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Mastery Now. The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  This episode has two of my favorite things. First, our guest is discussing how he got started with Jobs-to-be-Done and how you can use this valuable tool yourself. Second, he is also the co-founder of Product Collective and the co-organizer of INDUSTRY, the conference for software product managers. INDUSTRY has a virtual conference coming up on April 20 and 21 and it is worth checking out by going to IndustryConference.com.  Our guest is Mike Belsito. Before his current work, he had a number of product roles and experiences, giving him insights that can help us. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [10:08] What’s an example of Jobs-to-be-Done? Jobs-to-be-Done is a framework for understanding how and why people choose products. For example, in my hometown of Lakewood, we have a restaurant called Angelo’s, which is a neighborhood pizzeria, and a Little Caesar’s, which is fast food pizza. If I’m rushing home from my son’s soccer practice and need to be home and eating dinner in ten minutes, I grab a pizza from Little Caesar’s. If friends are visiting, I take them to Angelo’s because I want to show them Lakewood’s personality. I’m not choosing a pizza based on the toppings or ingredients. It’s all about the context and the circumstances. In the language of Jobs-to-be-Done, I’m not “hiring” the pizza to complete the job of feeding me. I’m choosing convenience or entertaining my friends. [18:39] What are the elements of Jobs-to-be-Done? Struggling moment—a moment of pain or need, when we wish there were a better way. As Bob Moesta, a pioneer of JTBD, says, the struggling moment is the basis of innovation. Push—realizing there has to be a better way and deciding we’re not going to live with the current solution anymore. We’re pushed to find a new solution. Pull—when we become aware of the better way or new solution. Anxieties—excuses for why we shouldn’t switch to the new solution. Inertia—we stop exploring the new solution because it seems easier to stick with the old solution than to go through all the changes to switch. [23:59] How do we conduct a Jobs-to-be-Done interview? A Jobs-to-be-Done interview uncovers all the elements listed above. First, identify whom you’re going to interview. Avoid interviewing outliers; interview average customers or people who aren’t customers yet but have similar problems. Block off two hours for each interview. Spend the first 30 minutes doing a pre-interview; don’t plan out an exact script, but list the important areas you want to explore. Spend a full hour with the customer. Then spend 30 minutes in a post-session, reviewing while the interview is still fresh in your mind. When you’re interviewing, dig deep. I learned this from Bob Moesta, who helped us interview INDUSTRY customers. One time we were interviewing a customer named Matt and asked, “Why did you buy a ticket to INDUSTRY?” Matt said he wanted to learn from the best. I would have moved on to the next question, but Bob asked, “What do mean by that? Who is the best? What do you mean by ‘learn’?” Bob kept asking questions and digging deeper, and we uncovered valuable insights we otherwise would not have found. Bob told us to act like documentary filmmakers—we’re trying to uncover the story, and sometimes what people initially say is not the whole story. We need to dig deep to capture the whole story. Action Guide: Put the information Mike shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Learn more about Jobs-to-be-Done from TEI 106 with Tony Ulwick Check out ProductCollective.com Register for the INDUSTRY 2021 Virtual Conference Connect with Mike on Twitter or LinkedIn  Listen to Clayton Christensen discuss the job of a milkshake Innovation Quote “No one can stop you from doing exactly what you want to do. If you can accept that the cavalry won’t come, and if you can be the cavalry, it gives you a chance to be happy.” – Mark Duplass, filmmaker Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source