Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators

Discover the smorgasbord of tools for product managers and innovators This is a little longer introduction than normal and there is a good reason for it, so bear with me for a moment. In 2007 I sat in a small conference room with 12 other people. We were there to prepare for the New Product Development Professional certification from PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. I wanted to learn what PDMA, the longest running professional association for product managers and innovators, said about product management. Studying for the NPDP certification was my way to accomplish this. Seeing how they organized the many aspects of product management and made connections between them was a huge ah-ha moment for me. It connected the work I had been doing for many years and filled in holes in my knowledge and experience. I saw my work more clearly and even more holistically. Needless to say, it had a huge impact on me. I found it so helpful, that after earning the NPDP certification, I created a virtual training program to help others learn the body of knowledge as well and earn the certification. Coupled with a PhD in Innovation, that is what got me started teaching product and innovation management. PDMA’s body of knowledge is updated every three years now. It reflects relevant practices, tools, processes, and concepts that the best organizations use based on the most credible research and the deep knowledge of expert practitioners. It has only been in the last few years that we’ve had the body of knowledge represented in a single book. Previously, the Body of Knowledge was expressed as a collection of many books and numerous articles. Now, the key elements of the knowledge are published in Product Development and Management Body of Knowledge: A Guidebook for Training and Certification. The second edition was published this summer, and I had the pleasure of reviewing it and providing editorial feedback; previously, I helped write portions of the first edition. This is the start of an 8-part series to explore the Body of Knowledge. I’m publishing the series every-other week, with interviews on other topics in between. Each part of the series is with one of the 7 authors who contributed to the second edition. Today we are joined by Dr. Allan Anderson, past chairman of PDMA and the person who led the development of the first and second editions of the Body of Knowledge. He has had a long career in product management, primarily in food products, and is professor emeritus at Massey University New Zealand. I hope you enjoy exploring the PDMA Body of Knowledge and find it as helpful to your career growth as I did. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [4:07] Chad’s story of his lightbulb moment with PDMA. While I was earning my PhD in innovation and working as a software project manager, I needed help with product management, and I stumbled across PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a non-profit that has curated the body of knowledge for product managers and innovators since 1976. PDMA gave me a network of others doing product management and allowed me to gain insights from people across industries. I studied for the New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification, and that was such a lightbulb moment for me that I now train others to earn the certification. At that time, the body of knowledge was a collection of books and articles, but now, thanks to Allan’s efforts, it has been codified into a book, allowing people to get their hands around the material much more easily. [7:05] Alan’s story of his involvement with PDMA. I’ve been in product management my entire career, in many roles, but I didn’t even know much about PDMA until around 2007. I got involved when a colleague and I set up a PDMA chapter here in New Zealand. Since then I’ve been to every international conference since 2008, and I’ve been in nearly every role in PDMA, including president. When I first got involved in PDMA, I thought I knew everything about product development and didn’t need a certification, but I took the exam anyway, mostly to encourage my colleagues to do it. Two problems I encountered led to creating the book. First, many of the books and articles that contained the body of knowledge at the time were written in the U.S. and included American terms that were confusing to a global audience. Second, several of those books and articles were out of print, difficult to find, or challenging to read. I created the book as a single, 350-page reference book, making it much easier for people around the world to take the NPDP exam. [10:37] What is PDMA? PDMA is the only professionally-based product innovation organization globally. It’s made up of people from all areas of product innovation, across 17 countries, with difference experiences, ideas, and backgrounds in product innovation. For me, after 40 years in product innovation, discovering PDMA was a lightbulb moment because I realized that there were other people who knew more than I did or knew different things. [12:59] What are some of the resources that PDMA provides? CPAS—performance assessment study that identifies the best practitioners in innovation and product management and the factors that make them successful The Journal of Product Innovation Management—the most highly regarded product innovation journal globally Outstanding Corporate Innovator Award—given to companies that show outstanding performance in product innovation NPDP Certification Program Conferences Global Community New Knowledge Hub [15:41] What are the benefits of getting the NPDP (New Product Development Professional) certification? The certification makes you aware that there are other ways of thinking about product innovation that you might not have thought about before. My intention when I’m teaching NPDP is to encourage people to get enthusiastic about product innovation and learn more. Getting the certification doesn’t mean you know everything; it’s the start of your journey. Although the certification exposes you to foundational ideas, we find that most people pursuing certification have significant experience in product innovation. Benefits of NPDP certification for: Individuals: Gives the starter tools, framework, and philosophy, and teaches practices and processes. Management in companies: Identifies individuals who have the fundamentals to enhance product innovation in their company. Whole organizations: Leads to better product and innovation performance. [20:03] What is the value of the PDMA Body of Knowledge (BoK)? The BoK shows product managers where they fit into the big picture of their company. NPDP and the BoK is a holistic approach to product management. The BoK is now contained in the only single volume that covers the whole picture of product innovation. [23:51] Take us through a brief summary of the seven knowledge areas of the Body of Knowledge. Strategy: Gives overall context for the company and product innovation. Portfolio management: Choosing the right mix of projects in the context of the company’s goals, mission, and strategy. Product innovation process: Choosing the right process to take you from the initial product idea to the product launch. Product design & development tools: Design of the product. Market Research Culture, Teams and Leadership Product Innovation Management: The role of product management in product innovation; focus on product lifecycle. The BoK is a smorgasbord for product managers and innovators, introducing them to tools and practices and showing how these tools and practices relate to other aspects of product innovation. Action Guide: Put the information Allan shared into action now. Click here to download that Action Guide. Useful links: Connect with Allan on LinkedIn Learn more about PDMA at pdma.org Check out the PDMA Body of Knowledge book on Amazon Innovation Quote “Innovation is the successful exploitation of ideas.” – Allan Anderson  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

Simple steps product managers can take to become Time Rich Would you like to get more done? Product managers are pulled in many directions, and if you are like others, you struggle to get the most important things done, let along everything you are asked to do.  Our guest knows a lot about this. He was an intrapreneur in large organizations. He got tired of being “busy” all day and having little to show for it. When he started his own company, he needed to learn how to actually work, and what he learned was how to get twice as much done in half the time. That is something I want, and I bet you do, too.  He is still involved in innovation, as he co-founded Collective Campus, a corporate innovation accelerator. His name is Steve Glaveski and we discuss his system for getting more accomplished in less time. He also has written about the system in his recent book, Time Rich.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:17] How did you create your system to get twice as much done in half the time? When I worked for large corporations, I and my coworkers had little incentive for greater efficiency, but when I started my own company, I became intentional about creating an organization where people walk away from their work fulfilled. I found that I was fulfilled on days when I got high-value work done. We ran an experiment to try to double our output or at least keep it consistent while having only a six-hour work day. The time it takes to complete a task expands or contracts in proportion to the time we are given to do it. Having a six-hour work day forces us to focus on high-value tasks and figuring out how to outsource or automate low-value tasks. [6:10] How does your Time Rich system contrast with The 4-Hour Work Week? The 4-Hour Work Week had a significant impact on my life, but Time Rich is different. The 4-Hour Work Week focuses on making the leap from employee to entrepreneur, but my system is for individuals working either for themselves or as part of a team, and for leaders of organizations looking to build Time Rich cultures. A lot has changed since The 4-Hour Work Week was published in 2007. We have more distractions; today the average person spends four hours a day, or eight weeks a year, looking at their smartphone. Picking up the phone every few minutes gets us out of the flow state, where we’re up to five times more productive than when we’re doing shallow work. [9:59] In order to become Time Rich, what behaviors should we avoid? Saying yes to too much: Some people say they’re time-poor, but they’re really decision-poor—they are saying “yes” to things they should be saying “no” to. Saying “yes” to every opportunity means saying “no” to your goals. Distractions: Even a distraction of one tenth of a second can lead to a 40% productivity loss over the course of the day. Glancing at a notification on your phone takes you out of flow, and your intense focus fades away. The average person spends three hours per day checking email; we are efficient at responding to other people’s demands on our time but not at prioritizing our time.  Residual work: We might spend a day putting together a proposal but then spend two days tweaking the wording and formatting. We’ve created 95% of the value the first day, but it’s much easier to spend two more days tweaking than to move on to the next difficult thing that requires thinking and focus. The best way to get started on difficult work is to take the smallest possible step. Commit to reading one page; then it’s easier to read the whole chapter. [17:40] What behaviors should we start doing? Follow my acronym P-COATS. Prioritize: Focus on the highest value tasks. The 80/20 Principle says that the top 20% of your tasks create 80% of the value. If you have ten tasks to complete, chances are the top two or three are way more valuable than the other seven. If you only get those top tasks done, you have won the day. Prioritize tasks by determining the value on a scale of one to ten and dividing by the cost in time. If you find a task that is not aligned with your strengths, you might want to outsource it to free yourself to do tasks that you enjoy and are good at. Cut: Eliminate tasks that aren’t worth doing. Every quarter, my team and I draw four quadrants labelled “start,” “stop,” “more,” and “less.” We reflect on tasks, customer segments, product features, etc., and write down what’s working and what’s not. Writing this down on a quarterly basis will help you avoid getting stuck in the habit of doing the same old things. Outsource: Use external contractors to do work. Nowadays, organizations can achieve more with fewer full-time permanent employees because the cost of finding, onboarding, and working with quality resources for complex work has gone way down. You can outsource not only rudimentary tasks but also more complex tasks. Automation: Use tools to do low-value work for you. Not only does low-value, process-oriented work take a long time; it’s also demoralizing to spend time doing work that a tool could be doing it for you. Test: Evaluate assumptions on an ongoing basis. The two biggest ways people waste time are internal analysis paralysis, which means doing the same processes again and again and making no decisions, and jumping to conclusions, which leads to spending time, money, and energy on things that don’t really serve us. Instead, test to know whether you should continue doing what you’re doing. Start your engine: Keep your energy levels high. This is different for different people but could include exercise, nutrition, taking a short walk in the sun before work, or taking a lunch break rather than eating at your desk. [28:05] What do people struggle with when trying to implement P-COATS and become Time Rich? People often struggle with pushback. If they’re working in an organization, they get invited to a lot meetings and feel obligated to attend these meetings. Start with a conversation; explain to the person who invited you that you have a lot of work to do and ask them to explain why you need to be at the meeting. Dominic Price has a method called sticks and boomerangs. He started rejecting every meeting invite. Two-thirds were sticks and would not come back and one-third were boomerangs and would come back. By only responding to the boomerangs, he freed up 15 hours per week. If you’re uncomfortable making the choice to not attend every meeting because you’re afraid you’ll lose your job, you may need to consider whether your job is right for you anyway. As people, we want to be doing meaningful work. If you’re in an organization that has a toxic culture built around 100% availability, maybe that’s not the kind of organization you want to work for. The most important thing is to take action. If you want to be Time Rich, you will need some personal accountability to start implementing this guidance today.  Action Guide: Put the information Steve shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful link: Check out Steve’s book Time Rich and download the first chapter for free. Innovation Quote “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; education will not; genius will not. The world is full of talented, unsuccessful men and women.” - attributed to Calvin Coolidge  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 create product names that make people smile Not many product managers get involved in naming products, and that is a mistake. If you were involved during the initial idea work and problem solving—creating a product concept that fulfills customers’ unmet needs—then you have valuable insights for the product name. You can be a great brainstorming resource to help Marketing or a naming consulting.  That is, if you know the attributes of a great name, how to avoid naming mistakes, how to use a creative brief, and how to effectively brainstorm. Those topics and more are in a new book titled Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick. The author is Alexandra Watkins and she joins us to discuss many of these topics so you can become a product naming champ.  Alexandra has created names or renamed many brands and products you would recognize, including the Wendy’s Baconator. She has many great tips for us that take the mystery out of naming.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:59] What are the SMILE elements of a good name? SIMLE is an acronym for the five qualities that make a name great. Suggestive—your name suggests what your product is; the name doesn’t have to be descriptive, just suggestive of a positive brand experience. Memorable—a name is memorable if it is based in the familiar; for example, the bike lock Kryptonite is based on the familiar kryptonite from Superman. Imagery—when someone sees your product name, they have something to picture in their head; for example, the energy drink Bloom gives you a picture to imagine. Legs—your name lends itself to a theme, which is great for brand extensions; for example the Scrub Daddy sponge expanded to Scrub Mommy and Caddy Daddy. Emotional—your name makes an emotional connection, which can help you command a premium price; for example, you might buy a bottle of wine you’ve never tried before because you connect emotionally with the name. [9:50] What are some examples of product names that deliver all the qualities of SMILE? Silk Almond Milk—it suggests that it’s rich, creamy, silky smooth; it’s memorable because we’re familiar with silk; we can picture something silky; the connection between milk and silk gives it legs; and it makes an emotional connection with something luxurious. Retriever GPS for dogs Wendy’s Baconator The Church of Cupcakes Suppose Anne is a product manager trying to come up a with a great name for a new pool cleaner. What advice would you give her? [13:00] Creative Brief First, we would fill out a creative brief. This includes: Background information on the product, target audience, and desired brand experiences. Styles of names that Anne and her team like and styles they don’t like. Tone and personality of the name—is it a pool cleaner for millionaires or for families with kids? The creative brief is your brand name roadmap that helps you keep on strategy while you’re going through the naming process and helps you know at the end whether your name meets all your needs. [14:57] Kickoff Meeting Next, we’ll do a kickoff meeting with the team. We discuss words that Anne and her team might like to have in the name, perhaps clear, sweep, or speed. We also explore themes like less energy or quiet. [16:11] Brainstorming We brainstorm name ideas. I look for metaphors, parallels, and things that are unexpected. Let’s say we’re focusing on speed. I would look up lists of things that are fast, maybe names of power boats. I use the internet to search and dig deep. As another example, I was naming an athleisure clothing brand for a client who like mixed martial arts, so I looked for lists of movie fight scenes. I skimmed the lists and saw the name “stunt double,” and that was the name. [21:32] What do you think of making names by mashing together foreign words? I’m not a fan. It’s the go-to for a lot of people—using a word from another language that relates to their product. Foreign names are foreign to customers, and you want your name to be approachable, friendly, and easily pronounceable. [24:20] This podcast is named The Everyday Innovator, because it’s for people who think about innovation all the time. However, my core audience is product managers. How could I come up with a better name? The Everyday Innovator is approachable and aspirational, but if you wanted to focus more on product managers, put the word product in your name. My first go-to with any naming assignment is alliteration. I would look up words that start with P. You could be the Product People Podcast. You want to include interesting words, although not too many. Product by itself isn’t very interesting, but Product People is. We all want to find our people. Product People Podcast fits all the qualities of SMILE. Action Guide: Put the information Alexandra shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide.  Useful links: Check out Hello, My Name Is Awesome on Amazon Visit Alexandra’s website, EatMyWords.com Check out Alexandra’s online course How To Create Super Sticky Brand Names and get $300 off using code EVERYDAYINNOVATOR Innovation Quote “Sitting in a white room staring at a white board is not how colorful ideas materialize.” – Alexandra Watkins  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 discover customer needs and build the right product I’m often asked by product managers on their journey to product master what books they should read. I have a new one to recommend. It covers a broad perspective helpful to less experienced product managers all the way to those who are leading other product managers. It covers:  How to think like a product manager,  How to have influence in an organization,  Several specific tactics that extend from idea through product launch, and  A plan for structuring your career growth.  The book is The Influential Product Manager and it was written by our guest, Ken Sandy. Ken has over 20 years of experience in technology product management. He served as VP of Product Management at online education companies, MasterClass and lynda.com, and is currently an advisor for startup and scale-up companies.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [8:07] How can we discover customer needs? It’s so important for product managers to not outsource the most important part of their job—engaging with customers. The product manager’s job is not to build the product right. It’s to build the right product. How are you going to know what the right product is unless you spend time with your customers and understand their problems? Value both qualitative and quantitative research. Quantitative helps you find market opportunities, spot trends, and know what customers are doing with your product. Qualitative gives you nuggets of insight about the underlying root needs. Don’t overlook qualitative research. Discovery is long-term process of both getting into the data and going out into the market. Don’t make customer discovery harder than it needs to be. If you think you need a time-consuming, expensive process, you’re going to do it less often. Instead, incrementally learn new things, using what you have. Do customer discovery early, often, and inexpensively. Focus on a few hypotheses at a time and meet many customers over a long period of time. All the little things add up to really big things. [17:07] How have you seen organizations change after developing a more customer-focused culture? In one organization, product managers were emboldened by having data about customers, and they built the confidence to tell the founder when he was wrong. He gained confidence in them because they had the context to make better decisions. I’ve seen a lot of success with exposing people throughout the organization, not just product managers, to customer discovery. Share the experience throughout the organization so that you all have empathy. It creates common language, a sense of purpose, commonality. There may be resistance, but it’s very impactful. [20:18] How do we move from customer insights to developing the right product (specification)? There’s a big gap between understanding your customers’ needs and encapsulating that into something useful your team can build into a solution. Discovery and specification are parallel processes that should both be happening constantly. First, you must immerse yourself in the problem space. Devel0p a shared understanding of the problem and your constraints. Agree on what success will look like. It’s challenging to not jump to solutions. If you think you have an understanding of the problem, you probably don’t. You might be working on the wrong problem. Zoom out and understand the true problem. If you don’t spend time creating shared context with your team, you risk de-motivating your team. You don’t want them questioning why the product is valuable or why they’re putting time into it. Without agreement at the beginning about what success looks like, you could roll out a product you think is really successful and find your stakeholders completely unhappy with it. If you are clear with your goals, you’re setting yourself up to inspire and empower your team. [26:50] How do we communicate the criteria for success? There are different ways to communicate success requirements (one template is in my book), but all templates should include five critical elements: Written hypothesis: Articulate your goal as a learning outcome. Even if you’re wrong, it’s okay because you’ll still learn. Measurable outcome: Identify the metric in the business or customer-centric metric you’re trying to drive forward. If that metric is lagging or hard to measure, develop some leading indicators that you can measure more quickly. I often write these measures as success criteria. Be clear on constraints in a useful way: Start with solving a smaller problem. You might want to eventually apply your solution broadly, but start with a small audience or one product. Be clear on your jobs to be done and user stories for the target customer. Share only potential solution approaches. Leave it open for the team to collaboratively come up with the actual solution. Action Guide: Put the information Ken shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Ken’s book, The Influential Product Manager, on Amazon Visit Ken’s website Connect with Ken on LinkedIn Innovation Quote “We always want to create something new out of nothing, and without research, and without long hard hours of effort, but there is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence—and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap.” – James Dyson 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 increase team performance by understanding Team Dimensions The only thing better than hearing about how an organization improved their product management and innovation capability is sharing it with The Everyday Innovators! I was talking with Teresa Jurgens-Kowal about innovation culture and she shared some work she recently did with an organization that is building their ability to innovate products. The company is a B2B software developer. She took them through exercises to explore their work styles and better align their styles to the execution needed using the Innovation Z model. We discussed the tools to do this. Teresa is the President of Global NP Solutions. She has a PhD in Chemical Engineering and has advised several organizations, helping them grow by improving their new product development capabilities. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:35] Take us through your case study of helping an organization apply the Team Dimensions Model. I worked with the eight-person innovation group of a company that develops software for scheduling at hair salons and yoga studios. The company has grown rapidly, the team has an open culture, and they love their customers, but they were at the point in their growth where they needed to learn how to manage conflict, increase communication, and do more than templates, procedures, and processes. Successful companies dig deep into teams and leadership. I help them with functional team building, starting with the Team Dimensions Model. We begin with a short assessment of the behaviors of team members. We identify four categories of work styles based on combinations of spontaneous, normative, methodical, and conceptual behaviors: Creators are spontaneous and conceptual. They’re good at creating new ideas. Advancers are spontaneous and normative. They focus on interactions and transform ideas into procedures and processes. Refiners are conceptual and methodical. They turn ideas into plans. Executors are normative and methodical. They like data and getting work done. [7:02] Why is it important in innovation to have the right mix of people doing the right things? Understanding the culture of the company and how teams interact is transformative in creating a high-functioning team. Digging into teams and leadership transforms teams from creating one successful innovation to creating ten or twelve or fifty successful innovations. When you can match people’s preferred work styles to the different steps in your innovation process, you have a higher level of success. There are many innovation processes, but they all have the same four steps, each of which corresponds to one of the four work styles: Generate ideas—creators focusing on possibilities Build support—advancers focusing on interactions Plan a project—refiners focusing on analysis Execute the work—executors focusing on realities This plan is called the Z Model because it can be sketched like the letter Z. [12:22] What are some examples of why identifying team members’ work styles is useful? I was on a volunteer team with a tight deadline, and we discovered that everyone was a creator. We had only two months to get ready for an event, but everyone kept going backwards and presenting new ideas. We had to realize that while we preferred creating, the team had to execute, so we needed to put on our execution hats and focus on that. That mindset shift helped us move toward the deadline. On the software development team of the case study, we plotted a graph of the eight team members’ work styles and realized that we didn’t have a person who worked between creator and advancer. However, we realized that they were filling that gap through talking with customers in customer focus groups. Generally, you want to have a distribution of creators, advancers, refiners, and executors. If you don’t, you need to figure out how to get the missing input into the team. [14:37] How did the Team Dimensions model help the company in your case study? The team shared their work styles with each other, and using that information we discussed which person should be in each role. They were using Scrum, so we identified which person would be best for each step of Scrum. We found that some people were already in great roles, and there were some mismatches, so by swapping roles were were able to get the team better aligned. [20:26] What were some of the reflections of the team members? “I have begun to talk and respond to my coworkers differently.” “[I] make use of the different work styles to more effectively communicate with my coworkers.” “Good job of helping us find ways to tie into our existing process and encapsulate people or steps in the process.” “I know who I can leverage for help when I find myself struggling with a task.” “Not only does this help me understand my coworkers, but when I went home, I understood how my spouse worked better.” I observed that after doing Team Dimensions, the team improved their communication and were able to communicate beyond conflicts. Also, when teams work together like this, they can increase speed to market, which is one of our key goals in innovation. Action Guide: Put the information Teresa shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Teresa’s The Innovation ANSWER Book on Amazon Visit Teresa’s website Read Teresa’s blog post about Team Dimensions Innovation Quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker  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

What product managers need to know to build a product into a successful company When I’m working with a group of product managers to help them move towards product mastery, I always ask them to introduce themselves by sharing what they love about product management. Among the numerous answers, in the last year the most frequent response is to create value for customers. Many product managers also aspire to create their own group to accomplish this, whether it is as an intrapreneur inside an organization or as an entrepreneur founding their own company. Product managers make the best founders. To explore what being a founder involves, I had a discussion with Ryan Frederick. He is a product manager and founder and now helps software companies build great products. He has put his lifetime of experience into a book titled The Founder’s Manual, and we discuss the key strategies. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:46] Tell us about your book, The Founder’s Manual. I wrote the book to increase awareness about what it’s like to become a founder of your own company. There are a lot of similarities between building a product inside a company and starting your own company. I structured the book in three sections, Founder Flow, Startup Flow, and Product Flow. I address the human aspect of being a founder; I discuss building a successful product; and I talk about how to commercialize that product into a successful company. Flow is a state of higher productivity achieved by understanding the principles that allow you to perform at your best. [6:17] Let’s walk through a scenario. Suppose Lisa is a product manager who has an idea that her company isn’t interested in, so she decides to strike out on her own. Where should she start? The first thing I would say to Lisa is that she needs to look at herself as a problem solver. Entrepreneurs are problems solvers. They start with the hypothesis that they can solve the problem they’ve identified. The entrepreneurial life is a series of unending problems and obstacles. We aren’t wired to run to problems, but we need to learn to run to the fire. Lisa needs to get in the mental and emotional state not only to create her product as a solution to her customer’s problem, but also to solve the problems of getting her enterprise up and running. [9:39] Let’s talk about Founder Flow. What are some of the ways Lisa can embrace the entrepreneurial mindset to face problems? When deciding to become an entrepreneur, Lisa needs to understand her risk tolerance financially, emotionally, physically, and mentally. She’s coming out of a successful career, so she needs to ask herself, If my enterprise doesn’t work, am I okay with that? You can figure out your risk tolerance by taking incrementally riskier chances and tracking how you react. An easy way to start is by doing something physically challenging and uncomfortable, like taking rock climbing lessons, and tracking your progress over time. A lot of people take the entrepreneurial step without having ever assessed their relationship to risk, and then they’re in uncharted territory when they face risk as an entrepreneur. Instead, understand your risk tolerance first. It’s also important that Lisa’s personal life is ordered. If she starts a company while she’s experiencing personal stress, it’s super challenging to make it work. No one is an entrepreneur on their own, but it’s often a lonely journey. You have team members, partners, friends, and family who are going through it with you, but being an entrepreneur is consuming, and others may not understand what you’re doing and why. At the beginning you’ll feel like it’s you against the world, so it’s important to find a community of other founders you can relate to so you can support and guide each other. [20:50] Let’s talk about Startup Flow. What should Lisa be expecting and working on next? When they’re trying to commercialize a company, people often start looking for crutches. They struggle to get funding from investors, and they don’t realize that the best funding is customer funding because it proves that customers value what you’re doing. Because customers can be complicated, founders often don’t pursue customer funding as much as they could. There’s no better way to get other investors to pay attention than to have customers already paying you to solve their problem. Consider converting an early customer into a strategic investor. Find a customer who is paying for your product and ask if they are interested in becoming a strategic investor and taking a royalty or equity in exchange. It might be hard for Lisa to ask a customer to become an investor because she might be afraid of losing them as a customer, but customers make good investors because they already value your product. [25:25] What do you think about bootstrapping a company? It depends on the founder’s goals for the company. A company that depends on growing quickly or has a really high potential will need additional funding. Bootstrapping can mean funding through customers. Sometimes when people talk about bootstrapping they mean using some other financial mechanism like a personal credit card or mortgage to fund the company, which means the founder will have to pay the debt even if the company doesn’t succeed. Funding a company out of the founder’s own money is extremely rare. When startups are looking for investments, they should be able to answer quickly and definitively how they would use the money to propel the company forward. If they don’t know, they’re not ready for investment. [29:41] What do we need to know about Product Flow? Product managers understand the fundamentals of Product Flow that many founders ignore. Start at the most basic level: What is the problem and what is your level of understanding of the problem? You can’t build a successful product if you don’t understand the problem at an expert level. Our first instinct is to find a solution, but that’s the worst place to start. We need to start with understanding the problem well enough to solve it in a meaningful way. It can take months or years to get to that expert understanding. If you take your solution to customers without understanding the problem at an expert level, the customers won’t be very willing to engage with you around understanding the problem better. As product people, we need to be transparent with customers at the beginning and tell them that we don’t have the solution but are trying to understand the problem before experimenting with solutions. Then customers will engage with you and help you get that expert level of problem understanding. [34:10] What could Lisa do to understand the problem more quickly? First, she should consider how she identified the problem in the first place. Where did the problem originate? How long has she been aware of it? She needs to take an honest look at why she’s interested in pursuing it when her old company isn’t. It could legitimately make sense for her to pursue the problem, but she shouldn’t ignore the reasons the company had for not pursuing it. I often see people leave corporates to pursue a rejected initiative because their egos got damaged, not because it should be pursued. There’s no better way to understand the problem than to stand next to the person who has the problem and have them explain to you why the problem exists and what the impacts of the problem are. That could be talking to people at a mall, engaging with people on a factory floor, or visiting a retail store. Putting in the time to get people to give you their problem knowledge will ensure that you’re working on something that other people really care about. Only then will you have the chance to build a solution that people will actually want to use. Action Guide: Put the information Ryan shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out The Founder’s Manual on Amazon or TheFoundersManual.com Visit Ryan’s website Innovation Quote “You can’t be great at innovation without being great at product.” – Ryan Frederick  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

Five behaviors of great product managers and innovators In this discussion we visit two topics—one to help you be more successful personally and another to help your organization be more successful. The first examines five behaviors to be a better innovator. The second is breaking through barriers in your organization that limit innovation and the effectiveness of product managers. Our guest for this discussion is Scott Anthony, a Senior Partner at Innosight, based in the firm’s Singapore office. If you are unfamiliar with Innosight, this is the innovation consultancy created by Clayton Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation and Harvard Business School professor. The insights that Scott shares with us are from a new book he co-authored with a title that is perfect for this podcast—Eat, Sleep, Innovate. As Everyday Innovators, we see innovation opportunities each day, and that notion is conveyed well in the Eat, Sleep, Innovate title too! Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [4:28] How do you define innovation? Innovation is something different that creates value. It’s purposely a broad definition. “Something” can be more than just new products or technology; it can also be new ways to market, new ways to organize meetings, etc. “Different” reminds us that while big leaps forward are great, you can also make something different by simplifying or making it more accessible. “Creates value” means that innovation isn’t just the idea; you have to do something with it to increase revenue, profits, engagement, etc. [5:04] What are the five basic behaviors of innovators? Curious—questioning status quo Collaborative—if you want a great idea, you need to work at the intersections Customer-obsessed—so you can find problems worth solving Adapted to ambiguity—because every idea is partially right and partially wrong Empowered—you can’t innovate until you go and do something [5:35] What are some hacks for being better innovators? [5:47] Hacks for being curious: Make it a regular habit to ask prompting questions that can open up avenues for innovation. Stay positive. Reframe worries as opportunities. [8:37] Hacks for being collaborative: When you’re solving a problem, find someone who’s already solved it. You might find a source related to a different context, but once you have inspiration you can bring it to your context. [10:53] Hacks for being customer-focused: Increase the amount of time you spend with customers. If you don’t understand what your customer values, you run the risk of innovating for innovation’s sake; you’ll come up with something cool that no one cares about. Great innovators have an empathetic understanding for the person they’re trying to serve. Understand the job they’re trying to get done or the problem they’re having. Use the many available tools to help you understand the problems you’re solving. [13:25] Hacks for being adapted to ambiguity: Follow an emergent strategy, meaning you discover truth through controlled experimentation. Early in innovation, your idea will be a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and you won’t know which part is which. The tendency is to solve this analytically, but you’ll make assumptions and miss something. Instead, recognize the few things you know and the many assumptions you’re making, and find the most effective and efficient way to experiment. Experiments don’t have to be complicated. Look for low-risk ways to test your idea. Create models or simulations. [18:11] Hacks for being empowered: Ask forgiveness, not permission. Figure out how to do stuff in a scrappy way in a constrained environment. Get other people behind you by telling the story of why your idea is compelling. [22:06] What are tools for overcoming barriers to innovation? Defeat the shadow strategy with BEANs. The shadow strategy comes from institutionalized inertia, which is the enemy of innovation. Innovation is doing something different that creates value, but organizations aren’t wired to do something different; they’re wired to do what they are currently doing better. They perpetuate today rather than create tomorrow. Even if your intended strategy is to do completely different things, the shadow strategy is causing you to make decisions to keep doing the same thing. Defeat the shadow strategy by planting a BEAN—a behavior enabler, artifact, and nudge. A behavior enabler is a tool that helps you consciously think about changing your behavior—it could be a ritual, checklist, or community. Artifacts and nudges remind you to change behaviors that you do without thinking. In our book, we have 101 different BEANs that encourage innovative behaviors. Some of my favorite BEANs are: [25:28] Adobe Kickbox: Participants in the Kickbox program get a physical box with behavior enablers like checklists, and artifacts and nudges like stories about people who have used the Kickbox, and a $1000 prepaid debit card. [26:16] OXO glove collection: The kitchen equipment company OXO has an artifact of lost gloves to remind themselves that their customers have all different hand shapes. It’s a visual reminder that they need to think about their customers when they’re designing products. [27:01] Open innovation at DBS Bank: Over the past few years, DBS Bank transformed into a digital pioneer. They used BEANs to encourage open innovation. As their chief data and transformation officer and co-author of the book says, You can only change what your company does if you change what your people do. BEANs are so simple, but if you systematically encourage specific behaviors, it works. [29:02] Shine a spotlight on what’s working: Rather than trying to find problems to fix, look for how you’re already being innovative and do more of it. Realize that you already have innovation stories and replicate those.  Action Guide: Put the information Scott shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Eat Sleep Innovate on Amazon or at EatSleepInnovate.com Visit Innosight’s website Connect with Scott on LinkedIn or Twitter Innovation Quote “For every one of our failures, we had spreadsheets that looked awesome.” – Scott Cook 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 conversation of insights for product managers This is our 300th episode. The podcast started in January 2015, and we have not missed a week. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing it with others! The purpose of the podcast has not changed—to better equip product managers and leaders for more success. Some Everyday Innovators have shared how listening has helped them—doubling their salary, finding a new job after not interviewing for many years, moving to a different industry, gaining a better appreciation of customers, and more.   To mark the 300th episode, I asked past guest Steve Johnson to join me for a completely unscripted, off-the-cuff discussion. We had no specific topic or questions in mind, and the result is a free-flowing discussion about changes with product management we are seeing and changes we want to make.  I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers Why product managers are important This has been an interesting year for business. Companies are re-thinking product management. Throughout the challenges, organizations have realized a couple of things: They really need product managers. They’re embracing product management as a repeatable, sustainable function to keep their products going. They need to optimize their team. There has been a lot of chaos, caused by confusion about the role of product management. Prioritizing ideas Companies should prioritize projects or new features based on… value for the customer. value for the business. Sometimes a new feature will not provide good value to customers and may even distract them. We might like to polish our products, but we shouldn’t waste resources or create distractions. Creating value for the customer will return value to the organization. Assuming all possible features are valuable to the customer, a feature that creates more business and increases profitability is a better outcome. The Lean Canvas is a tool to help product managers prioritize projects. It’s focused on creating a product and identifying the customer, the customer’s problem, and the solution you could provide. It helps you compare projects and choose one or two to accomplish with the resources you have. Customer discovery and the role of product managers Many organizations have too many ideas. Before describing possible solutions, spend time doing discovery, personally talking with possible customers. Before prioritizing, get commitment from leadership. Only then, flesh out the canvas and begin development. If product managers are involved in development, they must also be preparing for launch and market. Release is the end of development, but launch is the beginning of marketing. Companies must be judicious about selecting projects—they may have many good ideas, but must figure out which one or two they need to get to first to create the most value for the customer and the business. Product ideas should be: supported by evidence, not just someone’s pet project. something customers are willing to pay for. feasible for the business. The product manager generates ideas by talking to customers. Then the company needs to prioritize what they’re going to do, get the ideas to the developers, and then to the salespeople and ultimately the customer. The magic wand If you had a magic wand that could change an organization, what key thing would you do to improve product management? Steve’s answer: I wish product management were recognized as a profession. People aren’t clear about what product managers are supposed to be. Scrum and Agile say that product managers are sitting next to developers all day, but somehow also have to be aware of what’s going on in the market. We need a product management degree and a professional definition of product management. Chad’s answer: We need to spend more time with customers. You can’t do product management if you don’t spend time with customers. Based on research, 30% of a product manager’s time spent with customers is ideal. I know very few product managers who spend that much time with customers. But spending time with customers is where ideas come from. It’s how we understand the customer problem, how we drive innovation. It’s the deeper understanding that sets really great companies apart. Action Guide: Put the information Steve shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Visit Steve’s website Past TEI episodes with Steve: TEI 115, TEI 168, TEI 265 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

Why product managers need to understand introverts and extroverts If you work with other people, and I think that is just about all of us, you are going to love this episode. People are either extroverts or introverts. For everyone leading a team or working in a team, you can improve the team performance by improving how introverts and extroverts interact. To help us improve team performance, I went to the person who has spent her professional life researching, writing about, and speaking on introverts. That is Dr. Jennifer Kahnweiler.   She helps organizations harness the power of introverts. Her recent book is Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces: How to Unleash Everyone’s Talent and Performance.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [6:30] What are the definitions of introverts and extroverts? The identifying factor is where they get their energy. After being with people all day, introverts need to recharge during quiet time. Extroverts get charged up by being with people. There is some misunderstanding about introverts. Many introverts are labeled as shy, which is seen as a problem. Shyness has to do with anxiety, and it can be overcome. Introversion is a natural way people are wired. [9:49] How can we identify introverts and extroverts by their characteristics? Introverts tend to be calm, take time to think, embrace silence, and be humble. Extroverts can get people to talk and like to be in a large room where they’re having multiple conversations. Usually, someone can determine whether they’re an extrovert or introvert by their characteristics. There are also ambiverts, people who identify with both extroverts and introverts. There’s a myth that introverts aren’t in people-facing roles. That’s absolutely not true. A study a few years ago showed that introverts make the best leaders for extroverts because they’re very good listeners. [14:20] How can introverts better relate to the people around them? Introverts will do well to prepare for their interactions with others and to connect one-on-one. Consider some questions you would like to ask and schedule a meeting or phone call with someone for an intentional reason, such as hoping to learn from them or serving as a mentor. Having deep relationships is an introvert’s strength, and they like to get into deep conversations, but it’s also important to learn to use small talk to build relationships and then move to substance. [19:53] How can extroverts better relate to introverts? An important principle is “Accept the alien.” Realizing that somebody is different from you and you cannot change them takes away stress because instead of spending time trying to change them you’re learning how to work with them. Extroverts need to listen. When introverts pause in a conversation, they may be reflecting and have more to say. Extroverts can tend toward “loudership,” meaning the loudest voice gets to lead. If you do this, you’re excluding others’ ideas that you and your team need to hear. Extroverts can discipline themselves to listen, such as waiting for three people to talk before offering their opinion, or asking someone to email them ideas after a meeting. It’s also helpful to tell people the agenda for a meeting ahead of time so they have time to prepare their thoughts. Another tool is giving everyone a few minutes to write down their ideas before anyone shares. [24:44] As an introvert, after seeing myself on video at a professional development event, I realized that even though I was engaged, my voice and body language weren’t showing that. I’ve learned to speak louder and use my eye contact and body language to show my engagement. What are your thoughts? We want to choose behaviors that narrow the perception gap, which is the difference between what we’re intending to show and what people are seeing. Being self-aware is important for all of us. Watching yourself on video can be very helpful. Even if there’s not a real camera, imagining you’re being videoed can cause you to focus on the attitude you’re projecting. Another useful strategy for introverts is to have an advocate in the meeting. When everyone ignores your idea only to accept it when someone else brings it up, your advocate can point out that you just brought it up and ask you to share more. [30:17] How does remote working affect introverts? Some pros of remote working for introverts are solitude, the ability to arrange your day to work at your peak, and others’ openness to having deep conversations. The loss of connection is a challenge. We all need to be intentional about having conversations with others. There is a lot of stress in people’s lives right now, so we need to be deliberate about checking in and seeing how people are doing. Action Guide: Put the information Jennifer shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Jennifer’s website Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn View Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces on Amazon Innovation Quote “Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen, and never forget that no matter how caught up we are in the world, life is shaped from the inside out.” – Arianna Huffington  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

The five languages of appreciation for product managers Dr. Paul White is a psychologist, author, speaker, and leadership trainer who “makes work relationships work.” For the past 20 years, he’s improved numerous businesses, schools, government agencies, and non-profit organizations by helping them:  Create positive workplace relationships and improve staff morale.  Eliminate the cynicism, sarcasm, and lack of trust that often are associated with traditional employee recognition programs.  Overcome the obstacles to help staff communicate authentic appreciation to one another.  Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [5:03] You recently wrote The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. What is appreciation and why is it important? Appreciation is feeling valued for what you do or who you are. Stephen Covey said that appreciation is the highest need beyond physical survival. As opposed to employee recognition, which motivates toward specific goals, appreciation helps people feel valued for who they are. [6:37] What are the benefits of appreciating our colleagues? Appreciation does much more than just make people feel good. We have over fifty citations of research that shows the return-on-investment of appreciation. When team members feel valued, absenteeism and staff turnover go down and productivity and profitability go up. Appreciation is the oil in the machine that helps things running smoothly with less friction and less sparks. Let’s talk about the five languages of appreciation. [10:39] #1 Words of Affirmation (preferred by 46% of employees) When using words that affirm a person’s value, be specific. Don’t just say “good job.” Use the person’s name. Specify what they’ve done that you value. Tell why their action is important to you. [11:56] #2 Quality Time (preferred by 26% of employees) Quality time doesn’t have to take long. Just a few minutes can mean a lot. Quality time can take two forms… Focused attention—some people like to meet one-on-one to share and listen. It’s important you are not distracted. Peer interactions—others people, especially younger employees, prefer time with several colleagues, e.g., going to lunch together. [13:02] #3 Acts of Service (preferred by 22% of employees) Acts of service isn’t rescuing a low-performing colleague. Instead, consider serving a colleague working on a time-limited project. For example… Doing some work they delegate. Running interference with their email or phone calls. Bringing in meals so they can keep working. [14:00] #4 Tangible Gifts (preferred by 6% of employees) Tangible gifts does not mean raises and bonuses. It’s small things that show you’re getting to know your team members. For example… Their favorite cup of coffee. A gift card, especially for something you know they enjoy. Magazines related to their hobby. Pair tangible gifts with another appreciation language to make it more impactful. [16:06] #5 Physical Touch (preferred by 1% of employees) We struggled with whether to keep this in, but we did because… We don’t want to advocate a touchless society. Appropriate physical touch can be meaningful in an appropriate setting. Physical touch does happen in the workplace, usually as spontaneous celebration such as a high-five. [18:15] How can we identify which language of appreciation someone prefers? You can ask someone how you can show them appreciation, although that can be an awkward conversation, and you may not learn much. It works better to ask people how they are encouraged since this is similar to appreciation, but we tend to be more in touch with what encourages us. You can also observe how they show appreciation, although we found that 25% of the time people communicate appreciation using a different language from how they prefer to receive appreciation. We have an inventory that identifies people’s preferred appreciation languages along with specific actions they’d like and from whom they want that action. You can take this inventory and our training with your team. Our training helps the whole team become involved in communicating appreciation. [21:22] What happens if you use the wrong appreciation language with someone? This can be a problem. For example, in the general workforce, 40% of people do not want to be recognized in front of a large group. They know you mean well, but for these people employee recognition wouldn’t effectively show appreciation. A person’s preferred language of appreciation is also the way they’re most easily offended.Don’t fake it. You need to be sincere and real. Learn to actually appreciate people. You can value them as people even if you don’t value their performance. Build trust and loyalty by communicating your appreciation for something not associated with their work. Point out their cheerful personality, discipline in training for a marathon, or commitment to their kids. [26:04] How is communicating appreciation affected by remote working? A couple of years ago, we studied 88,000 people, some working onsite and some remote, to see if there is a difference in how they want to be shown appreciation. We found that remote workers want to touch base at least occasionally by video. In onsite settings, you might see someone for a few minutes in the break room or stick your head into their office to check in, but when working remotely, you have to be proactive about seeking out communication. It’s key that some of your communication be personal. It’s good to communicate about work tasks, but also interact at a personal level. At the beginning and end of a video call, have time to chat.  Action Guide: Put the information Paul shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide. Useful links: Check out Paul’s website for info about the book, inventory, and training materials View The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace on Amazon Innovation Quote “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance.  It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller 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