Product Momentum Podcast

In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean and Paul welcome Ronke Majekodunmi, Senior Product Manager at PayPal, for an inside look at product leadership. Especially during tumultuous times, it’s the leader’s job to acknowledge the context that the team is working in and to support them both personally and professionally. This can be done in big or small ways, and she shares several easy-to-apply examples. Ronke Majekodunmi also points to imposter syndrome as another challenge of product leadership. What if my dev team doesn’t trust me? Am I good enough? What’ll happen if I screw this up? Her advice is not to minimize the feelings or push them aside. But rather to embrace the vulnerability and work through it. “To overcome this, I verbally acknowledge to myself and others, ‘I don’t have all the answers, but let’s go sort it out together,’” she said. “The scary thing is that’s actually become the secret to my success. Recognize you don’t know everything; then go out and learn as much as possible from your team.” Listen in to catch Ronke’s insights about building trust on teams, and how making decisions “within the triangle” helps ensure that your team is working together toward a shared vision. At the end of the day, she says, “It’s everybody’s perspective that makes the product successful.” The post 80 / Lessons in Fearless Product Leadership appeared first on ITX Corp..

Josh Seiden broke into product development from the designer’s perspective, crafting beautiful things he could be very proud of. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn’t change human behavior at all. “That deafening silence that comes when no users engage with your product is just a terrible feeling,” he says. So what we’re always trying to do is generate the maximum outcome from the minimum output. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Josh presents a simple but thought-provoking framework, called The Logic Model. The framework introduces three important levels: outputs, outcomes, and impact. Outputs, Josh adds, are the stuff we make. Outcomes are what we get from having made the stuff. Impact is the change in user behavior that drives business results. To change human behavior, Josh adds, product teams need to do three things: understand how their work aligns with the overall strategy; express that strategy in terms of outcomes – not outputs; and be aware of the big uncertainties that are out there. That requires discovery. “Discovery may reduce your team’s delivery velocity,” Josh says. “But it also means your product development is more efficient. Prioritizing the things that create value…outcomes over outputs. Tune in to catch the entire conversation with Josh Seiden. The post 79 / Create Outcomes That Change Human Behavior appeared first on ITX Corp..

Psychological safety is the great enabler, says Dr. Timothy Clark, founder and CEO of LeaderFactor. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Tim joins Sean to give us a behind-the-scenes look at his 4 Stages of Psychological Safety and explain why it’s the foundation of all high-performing teams. Product leaders are vital to building that foundation, he adds. When they model and reward “everyday acts of vulnerability,” they guide their teams from Stage 1 (it’s not expensive to be yourself) through Stage 4 (respectfully challenge the status quo). Imagine an environment where you’re free to direct your energies and intellect to solving complex problems — instead of whether your team members will criticize your every suggestion. Acts of vulnerability include asking questions, challenging opinions, offering feedback, and even responding, “I don’t know” – perhaps the epitome of vulnerability. Teams that do this well are on the fast track to building psychological safety and celebrating the innovative creativity that is sure to follow. Tune in to learn more from Timothy Clark, and follow along as he guides us through the 4 Stages. Listen carefully as he clearly defines a glossary of key terms we use regularly in our product space. By simplifying the complex, Tim provides actionable strategies from which we can all benefit. The post 78 / Psychological Safety Inspires Innovation appeared first on ITX Corp..

We product leaders work to solve problems that are fundamentally human, explains Tatyana Mamut. They are by the people, with the people, and for the people. Applying a human-centered mindset is key to creating value for our customers and our teams. An anthropologist by training, Tatyana Mamut, Senior VP of New Products at Pendo, brings her unique perspective to how product people work to understand and relate to the customers and their real-life experience. In addition to anthropology, Tatyana has experience in design, entrepreneurship, advertising, and product innovation. “The key to building good products is understanding that customers are humans,” she explains. “They are not a market. They are not abstract. Customers are people.” When we solve problems for real people, they become evangelists for our product – every product person’s dream. The human experience cannot be captured in a dashboard or PowerPoint presentation, she adds. Only when product leaders immerse ourselves into our customers’ real-life environment can we bring their “life-world” onto our teams. Catch this entire episode of the Product Momentum Podcast to hear Tatyana describe the product leader’s number one challenge, and learn why sharing the broad context that only we have as product leaders is part of its solution. The post 77 / Building Human Solutions for Human Problems appeared first on ITX Corp..

Jay Haynes, founder and CEO of thrv.com, guests on this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast. He and Paul discuss market disruption and the role Jobs-To-Be-Done plays in assessing the risks and optimizing the benefits. Jay learned all about the phenomenon of disruption from the late Clay Christensen; it’s what happens when market leaders become so focused on pleasing their most profitable customers that they overlook the needs of their other segments. We product managers find it tempting to measure our progress based on what we want our products to do rather than on what customers want to get done. Just ask product leaders at Blackberry and Kodak. Resisting the temptation requires fortitude and takes a lot of work, Jay says. But it’s worth the investment. “You have to change an organization’s culture that is product-focused into a culture that is customer-focused,” he adds. That’s a mental leap many are reluctant to take, as it calls for commitment to a vision and leadership to initiate and sustain the transformation. It takes time to realize that the risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of self-disruption. What type of risk analysis is required to move from the current state of your product to what it could be? Jay explains: “If it’s obvious your product could be better (and every product in the world could be better), you can then go and communicate, ‘We’ve got to avoid this risk.’” Listen in as Jay Haynes explains how to get your organization’s self-disruption plan headed in the right direction and happening faster. The post 76 / JTBD and the Benefits of Self-Disruption appeared first on ITX Corp..

In this final episode of our 3-part series on Self-Determination Theory, Scott Rigby, Ph.D. discusses Relatedness – “the experience of belonging or connection between people.” As product leaders, we feel the power of that connection when a customer says, “Wow, it’s like the people who designed this app were thinking about me when they built it.” Scott ties the three episodes together here, describing what happens when the fundamental human needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are simultaneously met. Quite literally, we create a psychologically safe environment where the art of caring abounds. And where the needs of the business are tended to as well. “I understand we all have business objectives,” Scott cautions, “and that there’s a fundamental nature to how businesses and employees interact.” The good news, he adds, is that one does not stand in opposition to the other. “The key is to demonstrate care for employees and customers for their own sake, not so we can get more out of them,” Scott offers. “As a customer or employee, we’re blown away when a person or a company has put our needs ahead of their own.” We feel the connection; it’s like we belong. Listen in to hear more from Scott about strategies to build relatedness on your teams, how emotional metrics can be measured, and more. Liked this episode? Check out the first two from the series with Scott Rigby on Autonomy and Competence. The post 75 / Relatedness: The Catalyst for Care and Creativity appeared first on ITX Corp..

Among the many lessons Shopify’s Mamuna Oladipo has learned in her career is that communicating a product vision isn’t a “one-and-done” exercise. Working with such diverse audiences requires product leaders to create a narrative around the vision and communicate it multiple times, in different ways. Not everyone, she explains, digests information in the same way or at the same pace. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Mamuna Oladipo joins Sean and Paul to share her vast experience leading product teams across a broad range of industries. Currently VP of Product at Shopify, Mamuna’s experience includes service at Kickstarter, SeamlessDocs, and The Orchard, a division of Sony Music. “A product leader’s view of the world is a lot better than their teammates’,” she says. “They can’t always see what we see. So our job is to help them get up there as efficiently as possible. We do that by ‘scaling trust’,” which is a sort of shorthand for deepening team cohesion, understanding customers’ needs, and thinking holistically about our product. It’s a significant investment, Mamuna adds, but it’s critical to communicating product vision and delivering value to your users. Check out our pod conversation with Mamuna, and catch more of her insights – Product work is people work. Spend time with the people who use your product and who build your product. Change is going to happen. Learn to embrace it so you can minimize its impact on your team. Words matter. Adapt your vocabulary – and your approach – to communicate the product narrative to diverse audiences. The post 74 / Crafting A Product Vision Begins With ‘Scaling Trust’ appeared first on ITX Corp..

Scott Rigby, Ph.D. joins Sean and Paul for the second in a three-part series on Self-Determination Theory – specifically, the basic human needs of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. In this episode, our conversation centers around Competence: the need to be effective and successful at what we’re doing. It doesn’t come easily, or immediately; rather, it’s part of a continuum that develops over time through a series of stages. As product managers, we can think of these stages as a ramp, or an evolution, that begins with “understanding the schema” – i.e., the rules of the game. Schema frames the question, what can I do inside this experience? As learning occurs, competence deepens. And users gain comfort in knowing they possess the ability to be successful. This efficacy leads to skill – that is, a sense that not only can I accomplish this task; but I’m really good at it. Efficacy and skill form the foundation upon which we build a sense of growth in pursuit of mastery –  the sense that I’ve reached a level of competence where I can create new ways of using this application or interacting in this environment, or I can be training others. Catch more of our conversation with Scott Rigby, and learn to apply the Competence Ramp in building successful user experiences through your products. And be sure to tune in to part 3 of our conversation on Self-Determination Theory – Relatedness. The post 73 / The Competence Ramp: From Efficacy to Mastery appeared first on ITX Corp..

As product leaders, we’re rarely hired to build a product from scratch. Unless, of course, you’re the founder. Much of the time we’re handed our predecessor’s backlog with little guidance – other than, perhaps, “Here, help us with this.” And with that, you’re faced with a decision to make, as introduced by Janna Bastow: press forward, predictably and safely, in a project-led mindset. Or change tack, introducing the thrill of possibility and risk into a product-led process. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast Sean and Paul are joined by Janna Bastow, co-founder of ProdPad, ProductTank, and Mind the Product. Janna discusses the tension within organizations between the predictability that shareholders long for, and the uncertain sprint-to-sprint existence of the product manager. “The people who are investing in your company are watching your stocks,” Janna says. “They want predictability at that level. They don’t care about the individual product features and, you know, agile vs. waterfall vs. whatever else. To them, Agile is just a means to the end.” But for product managers, predictability is often just as risky as innovation. To us, Agile helps us run our experiments we need – some of which lead to innovation. It’s not reasonable to expect us to know what the results of these experiment are, though. Janna suggests that product leaders should work with management to carve out the freedom and budget to find the right balance between predictability and possibility. The post 72 / The Product Leader’s Dilemma: Balancing Possibility, Predictability appeared first on ITX Corp..

Connecting the dots between theory and application is rarely an easy task. It’s made a bit easier, though, when the theory goes to the heart of human existence: we want – no, we need – to be the authors of our own narrative. And that narrative must be something that we endorse and take ownership of. In other words, humans need Autonomy. In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Scott Rigby, Ph.D. joins Sean and Paul for the first in a three-part series discussing Self-Determination Theory – specifically, the basic human needs of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. This episode focuses on Autonomy, with future episodes addressing Relatedness and Competence. Autonomy, Scott shares, is not the freedom do whatever we want to do. “Autonomy is this idea of endorsement…that even within the structure of an organization, even when there are assigned goals and objectives, I can still endorse what I am doing – that I’m on board.” And that’s a very important concept for product managers to embrace, particularly within the context of assembling and motivating product teams to create complex technical software. We need our teams to endorse the role they play in translating shared goals into reality as we bring together multiple disciplines to meet the needs of our users. “There’s a lot of structure there,” Scott Rigby adds. “So we can’t define autonomy as freedom and expect to get the job done. When we create that optimal balance of structure with our team’s self-expression, we create the space for them to innovate and to solve challenging problems for their users.” The post 71 / From Autonomy to Innovation appeared first on ITX Corp..