0:00

Randy , when you were a little kid

0:02

, did TV shows

0:04

ever start with the words you

0:06

know ?

0:07

tonight , on a very special episode

0:09

, oh wow

0:12

, that brings back memories , Lily

0:14

. Why are you bringing that

0:16

up ?

0:17

Because Today , on

0:19

a very special episode

0:21

of the product experience , we're

0:25

doing something a little bit different in

0:27

our interview .

0:29

Ooh , now I'm excited . So

0:32

who are we going to talk to , and what

0:34

are we going to talk about ?

0:36

Great questions and I

0:38

think you already know the answer , Randy

0:40

. Today you're going to

0:42

be our guest and

0:45

we're going to talk about your Mind , the

0:47

Product . Talk about the one

0:49

thing that separates the best product

0:51

people from the merely good

0:54

ones .

0:55

Well , if you're listening to this podcast

0:57

, we already know that you're one

0:59

of the good ones and hopefully , by

1:01

the time this episode is done , you'll

1:04

be ready to become one of the great ones

1:06

.

1:07

So let's get to the

1:09

chat .

1:12

The product experience is brought to you by Mind

1:14

the Product . Every week on the podcast we

1:17

talk to the best product people from around

1:19

the globe .

1:20

Visit MindtheProductcom to catch up on

1:22

past episodes and discover loads of free

1:24

resources to help you with your product practice

1:26

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. There's probably one near you .

1:53

Welcome , Randy , to

1:55

the product experience podcast

1:57

.

1:58

This is so weird .

2:02

Okay , well , before we get started

2:04

, would you like to give our

2:07

audience a quick introduction to

2:09

yourself ?

2:10

Sure , okay , well , we don't actually

2:12

do this very often , or at least this

2:14

part of Farah . So I'm Randy

2:16

, I'm the co-host

2:18

of this podcast and in

2:20

a previous life I was a music journalist . I did

2:22

it for a lot of websites and that

2:24

got me to a weird place where

2:26

I was working with designers

2:28

and developers and other people and somehow

2:32

that led to becoming an interactive producer

2:34

and then one day someone offered me a job as a product

2:36

manager and I had to ask them what that was

2:39

and they told me about Lean

2:41

and Scrum and Agile and all that , and I've

2:43

never looked back . And then for the last

2:45

five years now I have been a

2:47

coach and a consultant and I build communities

2:50

around product and really I just like

2:52

talking to people about this stuff

2:55

.

2:56

And we've done . I think it's nearly

2:59

. It's either nearly 250

3:01

episodes or maybe just over 250

3:04

episodes Something like that .

3:05

Who keeps count ?

3:07

Who keeps count . So suffice

3:09

to say you know a little bit about product

3:11

management .

3:14

I know what other people have told me .

3:16

And recently you also

3:19

did a talk at Mind , the Product

3:21

conference , on the classic

3:24

Barbican stage . How was that for you

3:26

?

3:27

It was great . It was really

3:29

weird . It was , you know , after

3:31

being in the audience for that so many times

3:33

. Actually standing on that stage is

3:35

weird , but it was very

3:37

, very cool . It was a lot of fun .

3:39

I always find that conference feels

3:42

like home , like you just feel

3:44

like you're surrounded by your people , so

3:46

probably one of the best

3:48

stages to do a talk

3:50

on , I reckon Even though it's a huge

3:52

space it's something like 1200 people or so

3:54

in the room it doesn't feel very big

3:57

.

3:57

It feels really comfortable . It was

3:59

a really nice experience .

4:01

Nice , okay , so

4:03

we're going to have a chat today about the topic

4:05

of your talk , and one

4:08

of the things you talked about is what

4:11

divides good product people from

4:13

the best product people

4:16

. So before we get into that , though

4:18

, how did you figure out

4:20

the good from the best ?

4:22

Through a lot of trial

4:24

and error Mostly error . I

4:28

think it was one of those things that I thought I had

4:30

it all figured out . I thought I was really good

4:32

at this stuff years ago and

4:34

there were definitely parts

4:37

of it I was good at . But

4:39

listening to some of the amazing

4:41

people we talked to and reflecting

4:43

back on some of the problems that I've had

4:46

made me finally realize

4:48

it . And then an experience

4:50

I had a few years back where I worked

4:52

with someone who

4:54

was a bit of a challenge and

4:56

looking back I'd say they're probably

4:58

the toughest person I've ever worked with , Maybe

5:03

realize what it was I was doing badly

5:05

and what I could do better , and

5:07

I wanted to jump up and down

5:09

and tell everyone else about this . So you

5:12

know , it's what I saw from a bunch of people that

5:14

we've interviewed and the best people

5:16

that we've interviewed and what I've learned from them

5:18

and how I applied that to some of the lessons

5:20

I've I've in some of the things I've

5:22

gone through in my own career .

5:24

Okay , so I think , feel like we

5:26

need to get to the crux of the matter . So

5:28

what is it ? What gets

5:30

you from good to great ?

5:32

Okay , so I'm not going to answer that in the most straightforward

5:35

way . I'm going to do the long answer and

5:37

yell at me if you need to , but

5:39

I think it's four things , and

5:41

the first three things are the easy

5:44

ones . They're the ones that I thought I had figured

5:46

out for years . It's about having

5:48

your priorities straight , so

5:50

knowing what to work on and what not to work

5:52

on . Then , if

5:54

you are a head of product , or even if you're just

5:57

a product manager , in working with your team , making

5:59

sure you've got the right people with the right culture , they

6:01

know what to do , they clearly understand

6:03

it , they have the permission to do the stuff and

6:06

to speak about it and

6:08

ask questions . And then

6:10

Also , do they have processes

6:12

that allow them to actually get worked on

6:14

? Or you just sitting there , sitting in meetings

6:17

, writing reports and just doing bureaucracy ? I've

6:19

been in so many jobs where I've spent so much time

6:21

doing bureaucracy that actually

6:23

, shipping value was almost a second

6:26

secondary Concern for us . So

6:28

I thought it was those three things for

6:30

the longest time and , to be fair , those are table

6:32

stakes . You have to be able to get those

6:35

three things right and do them . That's

6:37

what makes you a good product manager or

6:39

a good product person at all , but

6:41

the thing I realized that makes you a great one , the things that

6:43

I've seen . Really

6:46

separate people are the ones who

6:48

are conscious of the perception

6:50

of others about how they're handling those things you

6:53

know . So it's not just you . Do

6:56

you think you're doing these things well ? Are you doing

6:58

them by the book and doing it the right way it's

7:00

? Does your team agree with that ? And , more importantly

7:02

, to your partners and your stakeholders and your customers , do

7:05

they all agree that your priorities

7:08

, your people and your processes are working

7:10

to give them value ? Okay , so let's dig

7:13

into that .

7:14

I think that's like a really , really good summary , but

7:17

I want to . I want to take each one of those pieces one by one

7:20

. So let's start with priorities

7:22

. Let's prioritize this . How

7:28

do you kind of like make sure

7:30

that you're doing just this piece well

7:32

, because I feel like we we

7:35

don't really talk about Maybe

7:38

other people do , actually , but I feel like I don't talk

7:40

about prioritization enough

7:42

and kind of how we do it and how

7:44

we do it in our business and

7:46

the different levels of prioritization

7:48

as well , because you're doing it with that long

7:51

term view and then like the micro

7:53

kind of decisions that you make on a daily basis . So

7:56

what do you see as

7:58

like best practice or work really

8:00

really well , and what do you see people get wrong ? I

8:02

mean , that's a big question , but I'll take

8:05

, take whichever bit takes

8:07

your fancy .

8:09

I think there's two key things to this

8:11

. There's one is knowing what's

8:13

important , what's really important

8:15

and why it's important . So the whole idea

8:18

of having a North Star metric and having

8:20

an opportunity solutions tree and you

8:22

know things like that , being able to articulate

8:25

what are you really trying

8:27

to do and what are the things that

8:29

that load up

8:31

into it , that make that up , that are

8:33

the preconditions to that success . You

8:35

know that are critical to adding

8:38

up to making that success . You have

8:40

to have that straight in your mind to be able to explain

8:42

it . You have to have that logic part , but

8:45

the logic itself doesn't always

8:47

win argument , so you need to . Doesn't

8:49

always get everyone understanding

8:51

it . So I think the really critical

8:54

part is , once you have that , how do

8:56

you turn that into a story ? How

8:58

do you tell people we really want to

9:00

? This is our vision , this is our mission , this is what we're

9:02

trying to achieve and this is how we will

9:04

know when we've achieved it . So that anchors all the

9:06

decision making . But then you

9:08

say to do that , we're going to do a . We

9:11

could do BCD or a , but we have decided

9:13

a is the pathway to do it and a

9:15

gets us to the next thing , gets us to the next

9:17

thing and this is why we're doing

9:19

it . These are why we've made this , these

9:21

decisions . You know I'm going to

9:24

reference a lot of other people probably today

9:26

, so you know I've an opportunity

9:28

. Solution stream North Star metrics you can talk to

9:30

people like Teresa Torres and John

9:32

Cutler about that . I think the storytelling

9:34

side of it . Don Alicia

9:36

is an amazing person to talk to about storytelling

9:39

and Jeff ravine did an amazing

9:41

talk at mind the product a few years ago . That is just

9:44

a masterclass in how we tell stories

9:46

about things that shouldn't be interesting

9:48

, but the way he didn't he can

9:50

explain it totally is .

9:53

And what about the situations where prioritization

9:56

becomes really difficult ? For instance

9:58

, if you have a

10:00

very opinionated exec

10:05

on your leadership team who's

10:07

just like feeding you feature

10:09

requests or

10:12

, you know , doesn't really think that you're working on the

10:14

most important thing , like how

10:17

? How do you see people tackle

10:19

that in the best way ?

10:21

Well , that's the perception stuff . So you

10:23

know you've understand . First

10:26

comes understanding why they're saying that

10:28

. Is it because they don't understand

10:30

what the strategy is and why

10:32

you're doing it that way ? Is your storytelling and

10:35

or your facts not strong enough for them ? That's

10:38

, that's the easiest way to handle this

10:40

. But the others maybe you don't have the trust

10:43

yet . Maybe they do they , or maybe they

10:45

have a different motivations for it . So

10:47

, understanding why are they asking for this stuff ? Is

10:49

it because their their bonus is

10:51

tied to something that's different than your current

10:53

strategy ? Rich Marinov

10:55

has a great bit about . When he goes into places

10:57

and sales are trying to sell things that

10:59

are not in the current strategy

11:02

. He looks at their bonus of all

11:04

measures and he rewrites their bonus

11:06

criteria to make sure that they're

11:08

selling things that that the company

11:11

actually needs to do to accomplish their

11:13

strategy . You know , are these things tied

11:15

to your ideal customer profile and things like that

11:17

? If

11:20

you're still doing that and you just don't have the

11:22

trust , you know they they're asking

11:24

for these things because they think they know better

11:26

. Then you kind of have to

11:28

invest in that . It's figuring

11:30

out what are the reasons they're asking for it

11:32

, what do they not understand . What do they

11:34

not believe in ? How do you gain that trust ? So

11:37

it's looking at things that you

11:39

might think are our assumptions

11:41

, but they think our facts . So doing

11:44

a will get us this deal and

11:46

we need that , or we'll get

11:48

us five more deals . So

11:50

the question is how do you prove that that is

11:52

or is not the case ? How do you do the minimum viable

11:55

to accomplish that ? So what kind of experiments

11:57

, what kind of research , what kind of discovery can

11:59

you run to get that as soon as possible

12:02

to say , yeah , actually , this is contrary

12:04

to our current strategy and we don't need to do

12:06

it ? Or , oops , we made a mistake

12:08

. Our strategy is wrong . We should pivot to

12:10

what you told us .

12:13

You make it sound so simple . But

12:16

just playing like that kind of

12:18

scenario in my head , I'm thinking like

12:21

it can be so frustrating when

12:23

you are battling

12:25

different perception , and

12:28

I know that you've had like direct experience

12:30

of this , which was kind of like how you

12:32

came to some of this conclusion yourself . So like

12:35

how did you have those words

12:37

with yourself or like that conversation

12:39

with yourself to try and

12:41

remain cool-headed in the

12:44

face of , I guess , like

12:46

misperception ?

12:49

I mean that's assuming I'm

12:51

good at this and there are times I've

12:54

definitely gotten better at it . But and this is

12:56

the reason I put all this together and did talk

12:58

about it and put a canvas together about this is

13:01

because I need the help . But

13:03

I've been looking back at you know what

13:06

are . What do other people do that

13:08

I admire what . What have I seen succeed

13:10

for other people ? And I remember I had a

13:12

boss years ago who would always

13:15

seem to be coming out ahead . He

13:17

would win every war forgive the

13:19

metaphor , but he lost a lot of battles

13:21

along the way and he never

13:23

got to steamed up about them . And

13:26

you know , I know you

13:28

and me and lots of other people , we , we

13:31

feel it . It hurts every time we

13:33

lose something because it's wrong , but

13:35

it's . The question is , is it

13:37

OK to invest in a relationship

13:40

and be right in the long term and take

13:42

some small , inconsequential losses

13:45

along the way ? And sometimes it's

13:47

important to slow down , to speed up later

13:49

, to invest in relationships . There

13:52

are other things you can do . You know it's working

13:54

around them , working with other people , seeing

13:56

you know if it's your CEO that's your

13:59

is fundamentally disagreeing with you on

14:01

some of these things , you better invest

14:03

in it . But if it's one

14:05

person , one partner on the leadership team

14:07

or one partner is somewhere else in the company who

14:10

is who is being problematic , but you've got

14:12

everyone else on side , unless

14:14

other people , you don't have to take them on directly

14:16

. You know , ultimately you need to get

14:18

to disagree and commit from that person and

14:21

get them to trust the process instead

14:23

of trusting you initially . So there's

14:25

a lot of things you can do , but now it's

14:27

emotionally . It's really hard . What

14:29

I've had to realize is when I

14:31

get emotional one , I find myself getting excited

14:34

or hot under the power about stuff , trying

14:36

very hard not to be reactive , and

14:39

that just honestly . A lot of that comes

14:41

from experience and learning

14:43

that being reactive does not

14:45

work very well .

14:48

I think that's a really great point

14:50

and it is personally . I

14:52

have my like go to people

14:54

who I know I can

14:57

you know in

14:59

I think it's Brenny Brown's

15:01

words of like this is

15:03

my shitty first draft of like how

15:05

I'm feeling and I'm just going to talk like

15:07

a stroppy child for a moment

15:09

and then I'm like OK

15:12

, now I'm going to like get over it and just

15:14

carry on .

15:16

And this is also one of the reasons I got so

15:18

into into working with people

15:20

and communities . It's because it's so

15:22

important to have these safe spaces where

15:24

you can blow off steam and ask for advice , and

15:26

sometimes it's just hearing from other people

15:28

that they've been through it too , or

15:31

telling them giving you alternative approaches

15:34

to things that you haven't thought about . You

15:37

know , sometimes that's all that you need .

15:40

OK , so let's talk about people . What

15:43

is it with the sort

15:45

of people side of things that we need to get right

15:47

to be good or best product

15:49

managers ?

15:50

I think there's one of my

15:52

favorite documents is this thing called the

15:55

11 Laws of Show Running and it's written

15:57

by I'm going to butcher the guy's name so I'm not even

15:59

going to try it , but he was an executive producer

16:01

on Lost . He's got his free

16:03

PDF . We'll put the link in the show notes . It's

16:06

25 pages of the best management

16:09

advice and it's the most . It's the best thing

16:11

I've ever read about product management . That's not about

16:13

product management at all , and he has

16:15

things like expect varying

16:17

levels of competency from people and delegate

16:20

. Often make decisions early . It's

16:22

so relevant to what we do . But I think

16:24

the that thing about expect

16:27

varying levels of competency from people

16:29

Not everyone can do everything Set

16:31

your expectations appropriately , create

16:34

cultures where people can ask questions

16:36

where they have the permission

16:38

and if they can't do it , take

16:41

a look at is it the culture ? Are they in the right

16:43

place ? Do you have the right capabilities in the team

16:46

? It's hard

16:48

, you know . Something seems like

16:50

they should be easy , but they

16:52

might not be , because the , the organization

16:54

, the organizational structure isn't

16:57

set up for them to succeed or you don't have

16:59

the capabilities that you need . So

17:01

it can be a lot harder than it should be and

17:03

just recognizing what are the problems

17:06

, what is the reality and what can you do to

17:08

make things better for people . You

17:10

know you , we're product people is very

17:13

little that we actually do ourselves in terms

17:15

of well , we do a lot , but there's

17:17

very little that we do in terms of rolling

17:20

out the , the features , the capabilities

17:22

, the product itself . We're organizational

17:25

people , we're leaders .

17:26

We were setting directions and asking people

17:29

to come with us and do stuff for us or

17:31

with us , but very rarely

17:33

are we actually doing it ourselves and

17:36

You've done quite a lot of consultancy

17:39

work as well and I imagine when you're doing that

17:41

, the you have to kind of go

17:43

in and quickly establish relationships

17:45

with you know , your team

17:47

and your peers and the leadership . Do

17:50

you have like a

17:52

method of like trying to understand

17:54

the dynamics of

17:57

the business and the relationships and the

17:59

different characters in the business , or Is

18:02

it very much just a ? It

18:04

just takes time ?

18:06

It does take time , but there are some , some

18:08

tricks , some things you can do to make

18:10

it go faster . One of them

18:12

is doing informational interviews with people

18:14

. When you first go in , ask everyone a very

18:17

similar set of questions about what

18:19

is it that they're trying to do ? What's stopping

18:21

them , what are their biggest obstacles and challenges

18:23

. Asking them about North Star metrics

18:25

, bonusable measures , things

18:28

like that . Just trying to understand their motivations

18:30

and their perception of things . And

18:32

if you're getting a lot of Different answers

18:34

, then you know you've got problems because the organization

18:37

isn't on the same page . One

18:39

of the other really good tricks especially when

18:41

you're going into a new place and you don't have

18:44

context yet is For

18:46

bigger meetings and workshops going in

18:48

offer to be a facilitator . It's

18:50

fascinating because you have this position of power

18:52

by standing up in the room and Controlling

18:55

the board and things like that , but

18:57

you're just asking questions . You're

18:59

not doing anything in terms

19:01

of offering opinions . But

19:03

there's a lot of subtle things you can do in the power

19:06

dynamic to see how other

19:08

people act , making sure that

19:10

everyone is speaking up , asking

19:12

for clarification . You know there's

19:14

. The facilitator role is one that's actually

19:16

really powerful and if you master it , there's

19:18

a lot you can learn by facilitating some

19:21

meetings for other people .

19:29

It seems like you just can't breathe these days

19:32

without hearing the term AI Tell

19:34

me about it . If I hear someone say AI

19:37

one more time , I'm I'm gonna

19:39

scream when chat GPT

19:41

launched , it felt like things absolutely

19:43

snowballed , and it's quite an effort

19:45

to keep up with it all , which is why

19:47

I wanted to tell you all about mine . The

19:49

products , brand new AI knowledge

19:52

hub .

19:53

I told you I was gonna scream , didn't I ? But

19:55

Actually Tell

19:58

me more please don't scream .

20:01

It's a dedicated place for all things

20:03

AI , with a wealth of completely

20:06

free content from voices in the field , including

20:08

insights from working product managers and

20:11

AI experts . In In

20:13

the AI knowledge hub created in

20:15

collaboration with Pendo , you'll discover a

20:17

range of free Resources that will

20:19

help you delve into the world of AI . You

20:21

can learn what AI truly is , explore

20:24

its impact on product management and

20:26

dive into Extensive case studies

20:28

that showcase how product teams have harnessed

20:30

AI to improve their craft .

20:33

Okay , there'll be no screaming this time , because

20:35

that sounds like a good way to actually explore

20:38

the angles of AI and product management . Is

20:41

there anything in particular you'd

20:43

recommend ?

20:44

Absolutely . Sign up for a free

20:46

AI webinar , download

20:48

the free AI playbook and take

20:51

the brand new AI for product management

20:53

online course in Partnership

20:55

with Google Cloud . Just visit mine

20:57

, the product comm forward slash AI

21:00

knowledge hub , and dive in

21:02

. One

21:09

of the things I loved in my

21:11

last workplace was

21:13

they did the see

21:15

me color profile . It's like one of those

21:17

psychometric tests and

21:20

it gave you like a cheat sheet for

21:22

everyone in the office and

21:25

, as someone who

21:27

Feels slightly

21:29

on the spectrum when it comes to

21:31

people and

21:34

doesn't always understand where people are

21:36

coming from , having that like kind of cheat sheet

21:38

I find really

21:40

really helpful , because then you're like okay

21:43

, so I know that you generally think about

21:45

things in this way or you care about

21:47

this type of situation

21:50

more , or whatever . So , yeah

21:53

, I really love that . I mean , it's obviously not available

21:55

in lots of companies , but when companies do do that , I

21:58

think it's so helpful . Okay

22:01

. So the

22:04

third element is processes

22:07

. Tell me about prices .

22:11

You know there are so many things

22:13

that , especially if you're dealing with older

22:16

companies , there are so many things that build

22:18

up over time . But even with startups

22:20

, you know things that work when you're at a certain

22:22

stage don't always work . As you

22:25

get bigger , as there's more nodes of communication

22:27

, sometimes you have too little process

22:29

, sometimes you have outdated process but some people

22:32

have left . Sometimes you're repeating processes

22:34

because you're doing this something for marketing and for

22:36

sales and for somebody else and for somebody else

22:38

. And there

22:41

are times when you know You're trying to

22:43

ultimately , as product teams , you're

22:45

trying to make sure that value

22:47

is really such stuff that is a value to the

22:49

company and to your customers , so that ultimately

22:52

, you're getting the metrics that you want to get . And

22:54

if you're spending all your time on bureaucracy

22:56

internally , you might be

22:59

delaying the shipping of value

23:01

and the realization of value . So

23:03

you need to ask the question on a regular

23:05

basis why are we doing this ? Is this

23:07

still the best way to do it ? How do we go

23:10

from decision to to shipping

23:12

and what are the critical things along the way

23:14

? I find that mapping is really useful

23:16

here , doing some story

23:18

mapping about how we go from going

23:21

from the Strategy to

23:23

making sure that things are released and

23:25

what are the critical points along the way ? What are

23:27

the things that you need to worry about ? But

23:29

sometimes things just they just persist

23:32

over time and they build up and it's not

23:34

really adding value anymore any

23:36

value to the process . Philip , I'm saying the

23:38

word value way too many times , but that is okay

23:40

. It's important

23:42

. It is important , but yeah . So just

23:44

taking a look at your processes and

23:47

questioning them , is this still worth

23:49

doing the way we were doing it

23:51

before ? Is there a better way ? I

23:54

talked to someone the other day who was talking about

23:56

a report that his team did that he

23:58

knew For a fact that

24:01

someone spent an entire afternoon doing it once

24:03

a week and only two people were reading

24:05

it , and one of them was himself and he was

24:07

the guy's boss . So he started

24:10

doing things on these , on these emails , with the

24:12

report saying if you see value in

24:14

this email back , if not , we're going

24:16

to stop producing it

24:18

in X number of weeks . And

24:20

they were able to start cutting reports that they were doing

24:23

. If you know , if no one's

24:25

opening it , if no one's getting any

24:27

value out of the stuff you're doing , you can

24:29

stop doing it unless there's no audit requirement

24:32

.

24:33

I think process is really interesting as well in

24:36

different types of businesses . So

24:38

, like a small startup versus

24:40

a big corporate , you're

24:42

gonna have like Different

24:45

levels of maturity of

24:47

process but then also Different

24:49

amounts of influence over the process

24:51

that you have within your , your product

24:53

team . So I guess you

24:56

have to kind of flex

24:58

and , you

25:00

know , go with what you can do in

25:03

that situation .

25:04

Yep .

25:06

He's nodding . Nothing

25:09

doesn't work on a podcast .

25:11

I did say yeah , okay .

25:15

And then let's just kind of cover it

25:17

again , because I do think it's

25:19

a really , really good point perception

25:22

how do you understand

25:24

, like , what everyone's perception is

25:26

of you ? Know you

25:28

as a product person

25:30

in your business and like

25:33

where you are , you

25:35

know how you're performing on each of those

25:37

different areas .

25:39

Yeah , this is hard . I mean , ultimately you

25:41

do need to do discovery about this . You need

25:43

to talk to people , you need to find out

25:46

. So Sometimes

25:48

you can ask people directly . Sometimes you'll

25:50

see subtle signals about it . Are people

25:52

asking you for things that aren't on the roadmap

25:54

, that aren't in part of your strategy

25:56

? Sometimes you'll see it in

25:58

Internal polling

26:00

. You know employees satisfaction and things

26:02

like that . Sometimes you'll

26:05

get signals from your boss and other people

26:07

about what's what they're happy about and

26:09

not happy about . I did

26:11

a talk years ago about how

26:13

to judge whether you're successful or not

26:15

and I finished it with one slide which

26:18

showed a dog

26:20

at Doggy daycare when

26:22

their owner came to the door and the dog got super

26:24

excited , jumping up and down and couldn't wait

26:27

to be with their owner . And I said If

26:29

this is what your customers are acting like

26:31

when you come to visit , or what your stakeholders are acting

26:33

like when you've come to visit , then you're doing

26:36

your job well . If they're not

26:38

acting like this , then you still have

26:40

work to do . Ultimately , it kind of comes

26:42

down to that . If people are welcoming

26:44

, if they're , if they're Collaborative

26:46

, if they really are enjoying working

26:49

with you , you'll know , and

26:51

If they're not if you're having

26:54

problems . You'll know that too

26:56

. Most of the time

26:58

we focus on us and them

27:00

. You know , product versus the business

27:02

and things like that , and that's not healthy . It's

27:05

we're all on the same team . We're all trying to do the same thing . Sometimes

27:09

the organizational structure isn't there to support us

27:11

doing it right , but we need to keep

27:13

working on that . We

27:15

need to keep working with people and and

27:18

trying to change it . And this is the difference , what I see , between Good

27:22

product people who are trying to do the job , trying

27:24

to do it Well , who have the best of intentions , work

27:27

great with their teams , and the ones who are really making great

27:30

Environments

27:32

within their company for them to succeed and for their teams to succeed . They're

27:37

making alliances and building bridges

27:39

across the entire company . I

27:42

mean , I make it sound touchy-feely and like it's

27:44

all about being nice to people . It's not . Sometimes there's

27:46

hard truths . Sometimes there's a lot of

27:48

things that are not right . Sometimes there's real

27:51

candor involved . Sometimes

27:53

it's Sometimes you have to

27:55

work around people and change things . But

27:58

being honest about it , finding the right

28:00

alliances , building the trust , building

28:03

the credibility to get there that's

28:05

the stuff that you need to do .

28:07

Okay . So why is it so like

28:10

? What kind of compelled you to talk

28:12

about this , and why do you think it's so important

28:14

that people understand how

28:16

important perception is ?

28:18

So I'm gonna guess the

28:20

last time you went to a conference or

28:23

to product tank or something like that , you met a lot

28:25

of people who were frustrated with their

28:27

jobs . And when you talk with other

28:29

product people , you hear them blowing off steam

28:31

and being frustrated and

28:33

there's a lot of burnout

28:36

in our community . The average tenure of

28:38

a senior product person is Somewhere

28:40

around two years . That's

28:43

not really healthy . It's not healthy for us

28:45

as the product people , it's

28:47

not healthy for our friends and family around us

28:49

and it's not doing a whole lot of good for

28:51

our companies . If we're not lasting that long

28:53

, you know whether that's because we

28:56

get into a place and we say this isn't

28:58

really a product company , this is a feature

29:00

factory or this is a company doing agile

29:03

I'm sorry , doing waterfall using

29:05

. You know two-week sprints and

29:07

things like that . Whether it's one of those scenarios

29:09

and we say we got to leave . Or whether they hire

29:12

us because they Fundamentally believe

29:14

they want to transform and then we

29:16

get there and try and change it and they

29:18

don't want us to . It's

29:20

, it's not good , it's not helping

29:23

the companies , it's not helping us . So

29:25

you know , fundamentally

29:28

product people are change agents . We're

29:30

brought in to make change , and whether

29:32

that's at the , the feature level and the product

29:35

level , or Often it's also

29:37

about how the company delivers things . So

29:39

we're trying to do transformation of the organization

29:42

as well . Companies

29:44

are resilient . They don't really

29:46

like change , no matter how much they say

29:48

they want to . So it's a hard

29:51

job . There's a huge psychological load

29:53

on us , there's a lot of stress and we

29:55

get a lot of frustration a lot of the time . So

29:57

it's really important that you can

30:00

step back and see the bigger picture and understand

30:02

which are the battles worth fighting . How

30:05

are you going to do it ? What is your strategy

30:07

for doing this ? How are you going to create a better environment

30:09

for yourself and for everyone else around you ?

30:12

I think that's such a valuable message

30:14

. And you're totally

30:16

right . When I go to networking

30:18

events with product people , there's

30:21

always , like everyone always says

30:23

, it's like a therapy session .

30:25

Yep .

30:27

Which sounds terrible , but

30:29

yeah , it's . It's a full-on job

30:31

, so it's a really

30:33

important point , and do

30:35

you feel like this message is kind of generally

30:37

more for leaders than Practitioners

30:40

, or a bit of everyone ?

30:43

Definitely for everyone , because you know , no

30:45

matter how Unimportant you

30:47

might feel in your job sometimes , how

30:49

powerless you might feel , the reality is you

30:52

are organizing things for other people

30:54

. You were directing how other people work and

30:56

your job is

30:58

to set direction and influence other

31:00

people , and it may be on different levels . You

31:02

know , if you're in a CPO or in a proper

31:04

leadership position , your scope

31:07

of influence is much bigger . But even

31:09

if you're a product owner or product manager or one

31:12

team and it's just you and a couple of devs and

31:14

a researcher or a designer , they're

31:16

still depending on you to have a good environment

31:18

for them . So being able to set direction

31:21

for them , get some wins and

31:23

have a good relationship with your

31:25

keys Customers and stakeholders is

31:28

really critical . The other thing is

31:30

, the sooner you get this , the

31:32

sooner you understand this , the more likely

31:34

you are to be successful in the long run . So

31:37

if you you know , yes , this is incredibly

31:39

important for leaders . But if you want

31:42

to get to that level at some point

31:44

, whether it's as a manager or

31:46

as an individual contributor , understanding

31:49

this will make your road a hell of

31:51

a lot easier and

31:53

you have a great tool

31:55

for Making , I

31:58

guess , pathways into understanding

32:00

this .

32:02

So now the canvas .

32:04

Yes . So the product environment canvass . So

32:06

so , first of all , yes , it is a tool

32:08

, and if you've heard me talk about tools before

32:11

, I do still believe that

32:13

all tools suck , but sometimes they are

32:15

useful . The

32:18

fundamental point is nothing is

32:20

perfect . This is something that helps me

32:22

. It's my mental model and I've

32:24

shared it with people and it's starting to

32:26

help them as well . If

32:28

it's helpful to you , fantastic . If

32:30

it's not quite right for you , please

32:32

change it . I will not be the least bit offended . I'd

32:35

love to hear back about what you've done to

32:37

make it work for you . But , that said , the

32:40

canvas is very simple . It's as you

32:42

can get it at outofowlscom

32:44

MTP . It is pretty

32:46

much exactly as we've talked about . It's

32:49

four boxes , essentially , with a bunch of

32:51

prompts . On top

32:53

are three boxes around Do

32:56

you have the right priorities ? Are your people

32:58

operating as well as they can , and

33:01

do you have the right processes ? And then

33:03

, across the bottom , underpinning everything

33:05

, are some questions about Perception

33:07

. Do other people agree with this ? Do

33:10

they understand it ? What are the problems they have ? But

33:12

there's a couple of different ways you can use

33:15

this . You can use it by yourself or

33:17

you can use it with other people . I

33:20

think it's better . You know it's good if you use

33:22

it by yourself , in that it prompts you to think

33:24

about some things that you might not have considered . Personally

33:27

, I like using it with other people even more

33:29

Fundamentally

33:31

, it's because it changes the nature of the conversation

33:34

you're having . So if I'm having

33:36

a Beef with you , lily , about something

33:38

and we're just talking about it to each

33:40

other , it's almost us back and forth

33:43

being adversarial to each other . But

33:45

if , instead , we're looking at the canvas

33:47

together and we've written some things down

33:49

, now we're arguing with the canvas

33:52

itself . So we're kind of standing side

33:54

to side , shoulder to shoulder , and trying

33:57

to work on Constructively , on how to

33:59

make something better , and we've

34:01

got things written down that we can look

34:03

at and try and manipulate together and form

34:05

a partnership about . So I

34:08

asked people to do three things with it . I

34:10

say , if tomorrow , take

34:13

the canvas and spend 15 minutes filling

34:16

it out for yourself and just see what you've

34:18

got and see if there's anything that sparks

34:20

Sparks an idea of something

34:22

you can do better , but the next time

34:24

you're doing a retro with your team , do

34:26

it with them and you can get them

34:28

to fill it out in advance and bring it all together

34:30

and do a Synthesis , or

34:33

you can just spend the time in the retro

34:35

all filling it out and spending a few minutes

34:37

on each box adding things and then talking

34:39

about it , and then , lastly , at

34:41

your , the next time you're doing quarterly planning

34:44

with stakeholders and you're looking over everything

34:46

, you're looking over your strategy and prepping for that

34:48

do this with them and

34:50

say you know , are there things

34:52

we can be doing to create a better environment

34:55

for our teams ? Are there problems that we want to do

34:57

? So , aside from shipping value

34:59

, are there some things that we want to do to work

35:01

on the organization To

35:03

make the way we work together better , and

35:06

what's one or two things that we can find as a priority

35:08

to help us be better together over

35:10

the next couple of months ?

35:12

so the Million

35:15

dollar question is Did

35:18

this approach and did the canvas

35:20

help with your awful

35:22

CTO that you were working with ?

35:25

Yeah , that's a good question

35:27

. Um , no , but

35:30

not for . Not for a battery , isn't

35:32

? It's mostly because I I hadn't

35:34

developed the canvas yet . I kind

35:36

of knew all this but I hadn't

35:38

really put it together and

35:41

If I'm being

35:43

incredibly honest and

35:45

I would never be less than incredibly honest

35:47

with you , lily I'm

35:49

not sure it would have helped . I'm

35:52

not sure that this person and

35:54

I ever could

35:56

have built a relationship that we need to do . But

35:58

, that said , it would have given me a

36:01

way of talking about it with

36:03

some of the other critical people and

36:05

I think we as a leadership team , we could have

36:07

worked better together and this

36:10

CTO we never

36:12

would have agreed that , just fundamentally , wasn't

36:14

the way , the way we're built and it wasn't

36:16

going to work out between us . But we

36:18

could have disagreed and committed and we could

36:20

have found a better way of dealing with things and

36:22

it would have been a lot less antagonistic

36:24

, we would have gotten things out and we

36:27

could have worked with other people on some of those critical

36:30

things . And I think whether it worked

36:32

well for the two of us is immaterial

36:34

, if it worked well for everyone

36:37

else around us , if it worked better for

36:39

the product managers , the developers and the

36:41

other teams so that they had a better

36:43

chance of success . So

36:45

yeah , I don't know . I think , like I said

36:47

, all tools suck . Some of them are useful . I think

36:49

this would have been useful . I don't think it would have been perfect

36:52

. I don't think anything's perfect , so so

36:55

. So , lily , before we end , I want to ask you You've

36:58

talked to been in Every podcast

37:01

, episode 2 is this ? What you see

37:03

is one of the the big differences between good

37:05

people and really successful people

37:07

.

37:08

Do you know what ? I've never Framed

37:11

it in that way before and I think it's

37:13

really , really helpful to

37:15

you know to have it framed in that way

37:17

of you know , trying to

37:19

understand where people are coming from

37:21

. I've certainly , like

37:24

, found myself thinking in that

37:26

kind of way as I've gotten older and

37:28

, you know , as I've got more experience

37:31

. I tend to be a lot

37:33

calmer when people you

37:37

know Situations in ways that I

37:39

don't expect , or they clearly

37:41

aren't getting the process

37:43

, that you know the product process

37:45

, or you know the reason why we prioritize

37:48

things . I feel like , you

37:50

know , as I've gotten older , I've I've kind of

37:52

understood that it it

37:54

doesn't matter how good you are if

37:56

you're not explaining Stuff

37:59

well to other people and you're not

38:01

bringing everyone else on the journey , but

38:03

I had I'd never kind of considered it

38:05

around , you know , around framing

38:08

it as like other people's perception of

38:10

you and your work . So I think it's

38:12

really , really helpful to have it as

38:14

a To have language

38:16

around it and , you know , to be able to have

38:18

that conversation .

38:20

There's so many more conversations we could

38:22

have about speaking in other people's

38:24

language rather than expecting them to understand

38:26

ours , and so many more things

38:28

, and a lot of this stuff has come up , I

38:31

think , at the mind the product

38:33

leadership conference the day before the big

38:36

conference . Matt LeMay , georgie Smallwood

38:38

and some others talked a lot about this stuff

38:40

. It came up when we had

38:42

a Tobias friend , rick , on to talk

38:44

about a leadership across

38:47

the organization . Is I can ? So

38:49

many people that was so many of our

38:52

guests have talked about this in different language

38:54

.

38:55

Yeah , and one of my favorite questions

38:57

that I ask other people

38:59

across the business Every now and

39:02

then , like I had a chat with the CFO the other

39:04

day and I was like , is there anything that you

39:06

think that products should be doing that we're not currently

39:08

doing ? And

39:11

he was like , actually

39:13

, yeah , there is . And you know , you

39:15

have to kind of ask things in that

39:17

sort of frame of mind and invite the feedback

39:19

and invite the kind of the criticism

39:22

and the Keep that kind of

39:24

dialogue open . But

39:26

yeah , it's , it's a super interesting topic

39:28

.

39:29

Oh god , now I want to ask you it was it something

39:31

that product should be , product in your

39:33

company should have been doing , or is it just

39:35

something that should be done period

39:37

?

39:41

um , I think it was

39:43

probably it was about pricing in

39:45

different territories , so , and

39:47

pricing sits with product in

39:49

our business . It doesn't always sit with

39:51

products in other businesses . So

39:54

, yeah , it

39:56

was more , it was more , it was a product

39:58

thing . It was something that wasn't on my

40:00

radar at all , so it was helpful Fantastic

40:02

.

40:04

I want to keep going on this , but I think we've

40:06

probably run out of time

40:08

.

40:09

Hey , I meant to say that , but

40:13

you all right , randy

40:15

, thank you so much for joining me .

40:18

Really thank you for interviewing

40:20

me for a change . This was so weird .

40:23

The product

40:35

experience is the first and

40:37

the best podcast

40:39

from mind the product . Our

40:41

hosts are me , Lely Smith

40:43

and me , Randy Silver . Lou

40:46

Run Pratt is our producer and Luke

40:48

Smith is our editor .

40:50

Our theme music is from Hamburg based band

40:52

POW . That's PAU . Thanks

40:54

to Arnie Kittler , who curates both product

40:56

tank and MTP engage in Hamburg

40:59

and who also plays bass in the band

41:01

, for letting us use their music . You

41:03

can connect with your local product community

41:05

via product tank regular free

41:07

meetups in over 200 cities worldwide

41:10

.

41:11

If there's not one near you , maybe you should

41:13

think about starting one . To find

41:15

out more , go to mind the product comm

41:17

forward . Slash product tank .