The Everyday Innovator Podcast for Product Managers

A value proposition for feeling good for product managers. Performing at your best requires a lot of mental dexterity. Product managers need every edge we can get to beat the competition and create successful products. To be at your best, you must also consider your health, and our guest, medical doctor Gus Vickery, is the go-to person for this. He is an expert at getting your body and mind performing well, and his book Authentic Health provides the actions we can all take. He also goes further, helping individuals hack their health for even greater performance. Optimize your health and use it to your advantage as a product manager and in all aspects of your life. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:39] How did you come to do this work and write the book? I started practicing as a family physician and ended up walking into what I’ve described as an epidemic of poor health. Rather than treating acute problems, I was treating chronic diseases. I realized that the toolbox I had of prescriptions and referrals was not adequate to address what was going on. I had to dig deeper to find out what was really going on and take a more holistic look at human design. That’s what I try to do in the book. [10:47] What can people do to help manage their weight? The first thing is to understand the truth about what causes us to be chronically overweight. Our bodies have a genetic baseline of what a healthy weight is for us; it’s not a conscious choice. If you have short periods of overeating or undereating, your body will eventually make it back to that state. Over time, people can develop visceral fat, which is linked to high blood sugar and triglycerides. When you try to lose it, your body will try to pull you back. In order to make weight loss last, you need to reprogram your body to a different threshold. We are not designed to eat all the time; feeding and fasting periods are important to retrain your body. You also need to eliminate processed foods from your diet. Your body does not know what to do with them so it triggers an inflammation response. The final aspect is mindful eating — being conscious about what you are eating and how you are eating it. [20:14] How does fasting help your body? Our body is a closed energy system. It’s designed to go for a while without putting more energy into it based on our ancestry. The only way to restore metabolic flexibility is to go through fasting periods. Leveraging sleeping time helps make fasting easier. If you can give yourself a 12 hour window where you aren’t putting anything into your body, you can begin to reset you body. [23:50] Why is sleep so important? Everything else you do as far as diet and fasting is no good if you are not getting enough sleep. Our brains are designed to have a period of rest and recovery each day. It’s like running a factory without ever stopping to clean the machines. If your brain doesn’t get that rest period, it will send signals to your body that something is wrong and create more stress hormones. Almost everyone needs 7-8 hours of sleep. Beyond just getting enough sleep, you need to get good sleep, which is difficult to do with technology and other distractions in our life. When people are able to get past these things, their performance increases and they find energy they never knew they had. Naps can be effective to recharge your brain, but they are not a substitute for sleep deprivation in the long term. [30:11] What can we do to better manage stress? The first step is mindfulness and recognizing that stress is there and recognizing that it’s okay. We’re always exposed to sources of stress — cable news, social media, demanding jobs, etc. When you trigger a stress response, you’ll inhibit your higher mind function because you go into survival mode.

Understanding attitudes, motivations, and blind spots with your product teams. Would you be interested to know what start-up founders with successful exits of up to $1.2B have in common? I know I would, because start-up founders share similarities with product managers. Indeed, many founders also take on the responsibility of product manager for their business. Our guest, Michelle Duval, shares the first 20-year study of what successful entrepreneurs and business builders do share in common. Further, the research has been applied to intrapreneurs — those Everyday Innovators in organizations who are striving to create more value for customers. The study is called Fingerprint for Success. Listen and learn what qualities are needed for your success. Also, you’ll hear about an assessment you can take in a few minutes to help you identify your key strengths. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:10] How did you get started in this line of work? I created one of the first coaching businesses in Australia and ended up working with creative people like artists, actors, and writers. I saw both successful people and those who were struggling to get off the ground. We ended up with 15 years of an inventory spanning hundreds of clients and noticed that attitudes have an impact on how commercially successful someone is. We followed that up with a quantitative study that also found significant correlation between attitude and business outcome. [7:17] What is Fingerprint for Success? The platform allowed us to commercialize the research. There’s an engine that measures 48 different aspects of work and benchmarks them against our success group. You can find out where your entrepreneurial talents are and where your blind spots are. We all have attitudes and biases and sometimes we don’t know what we’re not paying attention to. [9:45] How does Fingerprint for Success apply to people in an enterprise? People use it to map company culture, or look at a team or individual. You can identify where your organizational blind spots are. For example, people who have high degrees of creativity are not inclined to follow step-by-step procedures. Having procedures are critical to some part of an enterprise but not to others, and finding that balance is key. You can also see how your team or your organization compares to both the U.S. population in general, and some of the world’s most successful people. It can be really beneficial for creating a team of people with the right attitudes and traits for success on whatever your project might be. [16:00] What are key characteristics of successful entrepreneurs? Initiation is a critical ingredient. How quickly do you turn your ideas into action vs. pausing for reflection? Being able to rapidly turn ideas into actions is essential for innovation. There’s also a high degree of self-efficacy, which means taking the first step without knowing what the other steps are. A second finding was a big-picture orientation. The goal is to figure out what’s most important to get the product to market, then come back to the details later. A third finding was an “attitude for indifference.” How motivated are you following rules and thinking outside the rules that have been set? Innovators have a high amount of indifference to the rules. This means they’re not constricted by the norms that everyone else is seeing in that environment. [22:06] How do these traits compare between startups and people in enterprises? Both have a sense of “ask for forgiveness, not permission” and they’ll do small tests to validate ideas. The funding process forces you to do that, as do organizational rules. Taking a small step means you’re inventing something as you go. The indifference is also common. If you’re the person in the organization wh...

Use trust, purpose, and partnership to achieve change in any organization. How should leaders actually lead innovation? This is a topic we explored back in episode 149 with Dr. Mike Mitchell, teacher and researcher for the Center for Creative Leadership. Then he was conducting research on the topic and discovering what organizational leaders need to do differently when they are involved with innovation projects. Now he has finished his research and has published a book with the findings, titled Supporting Innovators: Trust, Purpose, Partnership. The subtitles are the three areas where leaders need to approach innovation differently than they are used to, and they are also the three topics we discuss: * Trust * Purpose * Partnership Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:17] Has anything changed about the importance of innovation to organization leaders? Innovation is still very important. Our research shows that 94 percent of executives say research is important, but only 14 percent say their organizations are good at it. We’re working on figuring out how to fix that gap. We also asked whether leading innovation is different than leading an ongoing function. 80 percent said yes because there is greater risk and greater ambiguity. You’re creating something new to the organization, and there’s nowhere to hide if you make a mistake. The focus of the new book is how to support people in those situations. [5:34] Why is trust important to leading innovators? Competency trust means that leaders trust that innovators have the competency to get their work done. The innovator is walking a high wire in a high risk, high ambiguity situation. They need confidence that they can continue to walk the high wire in order to continue innovating. We use an example of this in the book where a leader instilled confidence in a product manager to work through a snag in a project about packaging design. He eventually reached a solution that got the project back on track and the packaging ended up winning an award. [15:10] What role does purpose play in innovation leadership? Innovation takes a long time and purpose can get lost over time as snags come up along the way. Leaders can help make sure innovators do not lose sight of that purpose, no matter what happens in the day-to-day. It can tie into the organization’s overall mission and the leader should be trying to make those connections and helping employees see how the project they’re working on fits into the overall mission. [20:22] How can leaders partner with their innovators? Partnership is the most difficult element for leaders to get their heads around. It means rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever the innovator needs to do. It could be anything from brainstorming to freeing up resources. It involves the leader coming down off of their pedestal and let go of ego. The person reporting to them is now telling them what to do in some sense. There’s also a concern that if the leader is an equal, trust will be broken. In practice, it looks like a boss being a servant leader. [25:20] Why is innovation lacking in the C-Suite? Harvard Business Review found that many boards have a lack of understanding about innovation. This trickles down to executives and senior leadership. The lack of innovation experience makes it difficult for these leaders to give innovators the support they need. We found that trust, purpose, and partnership were just as important at the C-Suite level as they were at the management level. If those three elements are not in place at the highest level, it trickles down to the rest of the organization. Useful links: * Part 1 of the discussion: TEI 149: How to effectively le...

An IoT Technology stack and framework for product managers. More and more product managers and innovators are bumping into IoT, the Internet of Things, as part of their current or future product roadmaps. I’m seeing a convergence of product forms. In the past, we may have categorized a product as being digital, physical, or service. Now it is more common to see all three categories associated with a product. Further, more of you have been asking for me to bring on an IoT product expert, which is why Daniel Elizalde is joining us. Daniel is an IoT product coach who helps Product teams develop an IoT product strategy. He has over 18 years of experience in managing the lifecycle of IoT products across several industries. He also has trained numerous product professionals through his consulting practice, online courses, and his popular course at Stanford University. In the discussion we cover: * What is and is not IoT * Challenges with IoT products * The IoT Technology Stack * Six decision areas for product managers Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [5:08] What is and is not considered IoT? I think about a concept called the IoT stack, which is made up of five building blocks: Device hardware, embedded software, communications/networking, cloud platform, and cloud applications. From this model, you can see that a lot of different things fall into these categories. For example, if you have a lightbulb in your home that you control from your phone, that is technically IoT. The lightbulb has hardware and software, connects to a network, connects to a platform, and has a mobile app. However, a lot of people only think of IoT as automated home appliances. They are technically IoT devices, but the real value comes in industry in things like autonomous vehicles and improving the yield of farmers from ground sensors. We’re seeing most of the IoT growth on the industrial side. [10:01] What are some of the challenges in developing IoT products? The traditional challenges like listening to customers do not go away. However, there are a few patterns I see over and over again across industries and companies. Most of the problems have to do with the complexity of IoT products. They’re really systems and each component has individual complexities. It’s difficult to find a company that’s good at developing and managing all five parts of the IoT stack. You have to deal with all of them at the same time. Manufacturers of physical devices are accustomed to sending products out into the field and moving on. IoT products are always out in the field sending data back, which creates opportunities for service and maintenance contracts that companies are not equipped to deal with. They do not know how to secure and monetize these products. Innovators need to know how to deal with these complexities because IoT is not going anywhere. [16:54] Can you walk us through the six decision areas for IoT product managers? If you think of it like a matrix, the IoT technology stack is on the horizontal axis and the decision areas are on the vertical axis. The decision areas are: UX, data, business, technology, security, and standards.  You have to think about the possibilities and ramifications across the stack and across the decision areas. The first area is user experience, which means considering the users and their needs at each stage in the stack. This is important because the users are different at each stage. At the data step, we’re asking what data needs to be collected and processed at each point in the stack. In the business area, we’re asking how we’re going to monetize the solution and what is the build vs. buy strategy at each step. Technology is fourth in line because the other three components need to be in place first. Once we know the technology we’re going to use,

Creating a product vision of the future that’s awesome for everyone. Got to Part 1 of Product Roadmaps. Got to Part 3 of Product Roadmaps. Part 2… Product roadmaps are frequently used badly, almost as handcuffs for product managers. A year ago we explored roadmaps and how they should be used with Bruce McCarthy. At the time, he had recently co-authored the book, Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty. Since writing the book, Bruce has been busy helping companies improve how they use roadmaps. I wanted to find out what more he has learned in the last year, which is what this discussion is about. We cover: * What a product roadmap is * Who the roadmap is for * The pitfalls of roadmaps * The inputs needed to create a roadmap * How to organize a roadmap * How to prioritize product features Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:35] It’s been a year since your book came out. What’s changed since then? A lot has not changed. The idea that a roadmap is a collaboration tool, not a project plan, still holds true. It’s all about the why and crafting a compelling vision that explains the vision to the customer and the company. A good roadmap avoids being specific about dates to achieve those outcomes. One of the things I’ve discovered in working with companies around the world is that they don’t have clear objectives for outcomes. If they are done correctly, those Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can map really nicely to the roadmap. The specific dates and deliverables on the roadmap are in support of those larger objectives. I’ve also worked with companies to make sure they are organized in a way that’s conducive to executing their roadmaps in support of their objectives. When companies do not have cross-functional teams, they become siloed and progress slows down. [13:40] Who creates the OKRs? It usually starts in the product or engineering teams, but there’s an increasing interest among organizations trying them out and adopting a top-down approach. In those situations, the leadership will write the OKRs in isolation and hand them down without collaboration. Without that input, no one does anything to support them and they wind up sitting on a shelf. Getting buy-in from all levels is necessary for OKRs to be successful. A number of companies are returning to this method a second or third time after running into some of these issues the first time. [19:02] How do you create a roadmap? The first thing people often do is start making a list of features and they think in terms of engineering steps. The result is a list of things that no one has stopped to consider whether they’re really needed. I encourage them to take a step back and think about who the customer is and what that person really needs. It starts with the why and a vision of the future that’s awesome for everyone. Once you have that vision, you need to consider what the obstacles are to achieving it. Make a list of problems and prioritize how to solve them. If you follow the process correctly, you have a framework to determine which features to include. [28:15] Once you have the basics in place for your roadmap, what comes next? One of the main things is obtaining buy-in. To do that, you need to understand how big each part of the project is and how long it will take to complete. This can be as simple as assigning problems to quarters and trying to do as much you can to work on that problem during its assigned quarter.

The power of small groups, loosely connected, with a common purpose to propel products. I’ve been looking forward to this discussion with Greg Satell since hearing he was working on a new book, titled Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change. Greg is an innovation author we first met back in episode 126, when he shared predictable patterns in different types of innovation. Now he is talking about how to create a movement around a product. A movement turns a valuable product into a super valuable sensation. Such products often appear to be overnight successes that come out of nowhere, but they are actually the result of the proper combination of actions that can lead to cascades (he’ll explain that) creating transformational change. There are many examples, but I remember when Toms Shoes became a big thing — it was like suddenly, everywhere you turned someone was talking about Toms Shoes. Greg will tell us how that happens and what is needed to make it happen. That’s something Everyday Innovators should be aware of. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:49] What led you to write this book? We always underestimate the transformation. We think that our job is done once we get a product into the market, but getting users to adopt is often the longest and most difficult part of the process. In 2004, I found myself running a news organization in Kyiv, Ukraine, during the Orange Revolution. Thousands of people would stop and do the same thing in unison; everything went viral all the time. I thought that it would be great for customers and employees to do that. I learned that successful transformations all ended up with the same set of principles that allowed them to drive change, and that became Cascades. The value of the product for the consumer comes from using the product for their own purposes, which might be different from your reasons for creating that product. [9:33] Can you explain what you mean when you say transformational change is built on small groups that interact with each other in a loosely connected manner with a united purpose? When you say “cascade,” everyone knows what you mean because it’s a colloquial term. But it’s also a technical term driven by small groups loosely connected. The most vivid example in the real world is Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which has more than 20,o00 people attend services. What makes it work is networks of small prayer groups that meet throughout the week and create strong bonds that drive the passion. We all belong to a lot of groups at work and in other parts of our lives. Information spreads through these small groups as people share among people in their networks. Leadership comes in to unite those groups around a sense of shared purpose and inspire and empower their members. Social movements often fail because they don’t have a strong leader giving direction and implementing values. [18:52] Where do influencers fit into this picture? The influencer concept has a lot of resonance because it seems right, but research shows that long chains of influence are much more effective than a few concentrated people. The chain stops unless the influencer’s followers keep it going. People often confuse celebrity with influencer, when in reality they are very different things. When you feel like you have to convince people, you’ve picked the wrong product. [22:56] How do these concepts apply to creating new products? When you are trying to create something new or innovative, you want to find a “hair on fire” use case. This is someone who has a problem that needs to be solved so badly that they’re willing to work with the little glitches along the way. Before you create a market, you need to have a customer. You can’t expect commitment up front; participation must...

Commit to the process and work through challenges to achieve product success. Many of the companies I have worked with this year want to make their product development and management capability more agile. They sometimes express their current process is too linear, rigid, and heavy as well as not providing the shorter time-to-market they want. Most often they are using something that is of a stage-gate nature, but being more agile doesn’t mean throwing away a stage-gate framework. However, it does mean adopting agile philosophy and processes. This is what our guest, Mike Cohn has been doing for more than 20 years — building high-performing software development teams and organizations through the use of agile and Scrum. He’s worked with startups and some of the largest organizations in the world and has valuable experience to share with us. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:20] Why do organizations adopt the scrum approach? Many organizations have an ad-hoc development approach with no formal processes in place so there’s nothing in place across the organizations. Other organizations have too many processes in place and need to speed things up as the business cycle becomes quicker. [4:50] What are the challenges organizations face when adopting scrum? Some people think that scrum is just something developers do and no one else is affected by it. Not everyone has to adopt scrum, but everyone has to stop doing things that work against scrum. For example, sales can’t make promises without talking to developers. Most people transition pretty well into scrum, but occasionally HR has to get involved when issues arise. There are other instances where management doesn’t understand the philosophy and they think it means they can change things all the time. [7:42] How do you help align expectations with reality? In a pre-agile world, teams would still make plans and promises that were mostly false. It’s still possible for agile teams to make long-term commitments, but it’s difficult to do so with precision. For example, it’s very possible to give a broad overview of what you’ll deliver in six months. Planning with accuracy isn’t hard, but planning with precision is nearly impossible. [14:53] What must change to adopt agile? Teams have to be empowered so they can be self-organizing. They’re given a problem and plenty of room to figure out how to solve it, which requires giving the team freedom to make it happen. One of the earliest agile projects was a team in Japan that was tasked with making a photocopier that was state of the art at half the price in two years. They thought it was impossible at first, but with the freedom to work, they took ownership of the problem and solved it. A stakeholder can define what success is, but the team needs to determine how to deliver that success. [19:30] What makes a good product owner vs. a product manager? Ideally, it’s one person who is both externally and internally focused. However, it’s often difficult for one person to have the time to do both of those jobs well. The more common scenario is to have a product manager who is externally focused and a product owner who is internally focused. It’s important to make sure they have a good working relationships and one isn’t trying to overtake the other. Normally the product owner is a little more analytical and organized, while the product manager is more extroverted and focused on the big picture. [22:47] Are there other things that surprise organizations about moving toward a scrum model? People think that scrum will fix the problems in the organization. It won’t, but it will help expose the problems. Be prepared for some roughness when you first transition. If you work at it, you’ll get past those problems and life on the othe...

Find out what makes your customer “hire” your product. You don’t have to listen very long to this podcast to know that I place the emphasis of product management on the creation of customer value. If we understand the needs or problems of our customers and solve them in a way that creates value for them, we, in turn, create value for ourselves and our organization. A handy tool that has emerged to more deeply understand the needs of customers is the Jobs To Be Done (JBTD) framework. This tool helps product developers and managers to look at the actual customer problem in a more specific way, asking what job the customer hired the product for. Some quick examples include: * Milkshakes “hired” by morning commuters to satisfy them during a long drive. * Cordless drills hired by homeowners who need to hang curtains (they need a hole for a curtain rod, but their job is blocking light or adding beauty) * Snicker bars that are hired to quickly satisfy an empty stomach when there isn’t time for other snacks or food We’ve discussed the tool a couple of times in the past with practitioners involved in its development. First is Tony Ulwick, who along with Clayton Christensen, is credited as the founders of JBTD. That was episode 106. Second is Chris Spiek, who works with Bob Moesta, another co-creator of JBTD, who shared useful examples of applying the framework in episode 057. It’s time for another look at JTBD and for that we are joined by Brian Rhea, a product practitioner who helps startups build better products. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:55] What is Jobs To Be Done? The basic idea is that customers don’t buy products, they hire them to do a job or improve their life in the same way a company would hire an employee to help with a pain point in the business. It’s helpful to remember that people don’t care about your product; they care about themselves and the progress they want to make. They hire a product to help them do that. [9:57] Can you give us some examples of JTBD in action? Someone in a Slack group I’m in just launched a time tracking application. He was receiving support requests asking to bulk add time at the end of the month. He was confused about why people would want to do that, but we encouraged him to talk to his customers. He ended up finding out that his customers were forgetting to properly track their time and determined that what he really needed were regular reminders for people to track their time. Usually, these insights are held in customer support — they hear about the hacks people are using to get around missing features or functionality. Product managers should be talking to customer support regularly. As another example, I was working with a camp management client whose system only supported PDFs. I heard that camp staff were converting JPGs to PDFs because people were taking pictures of their registration forms from their phones. We ended up adding the ability for the system to accept JPG files. [17:30] How should someone get started with JTBD? Start with interviews. A lot of times, people will think they need to start by identifying the job to be done and then find out how their product is helping people do that. That’s not the correct approach because products are hired for many jobs. You need to find out what those jobs are through interviews. There are two types of JTBD interviews — one that’s very task oriented and one that’s more qualitative and emotionally focused. I recommend the qualitative method for anyone who is new to JTBD. You are asking people to tell you the story of how they came to buy the product. You’re trying to understand all of the forces at play on that person. It’s your job as the interviewer to pull out of them the functional, emotional,

Learn how to cut through the noise and make human connections presenting new products A lot of new products are announced at trade shows and other events, such as CES for consumer electronics, International Builders Show for construction materials, and the National Association of Music Merchants for all things musical. For many product people, participating in their industry trade show each year is one of the most important things they do. The real pros who know how to launch products at trade shows are the ones who know how to compete for attention in noisy and crowded environments. It’s a real skill. They quickly capture interest and generate opportunities. Consequently, they have knowledge and experience Everyday Innovators should have as well. Which is why I spoke with one of the handfuls of people who large brands trust to announce their products at trade shows. She is Amy McWhirter, corporate event host, emcee, and trade show presenter. Her superpower is engaging audiences in an authentic way that creates connection. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:54] You’ve helped launch numerous products, but you’re not a product manager. Tell us about your work. I am a professional trade show presenter. I do not work for any of the companies I represent, but people often think that I do. I am hired to talk about a product or service at a trade show. I started as an actor doing commercials and corporate videos. I presented at auto shows and other B2C events and discovered that there was a whole B2B trade show world. That’s where I’ve been ever since. [8:02] Who from the organization typically hires you? It’s usually marketing or an events manager. There’s always a product marketing person or a director of marketing involved. The CMO may also be included. Sometimes I meet people at trade shows who see what I do and want me to come work for them. [10:31] What is a product launch that stands out in your mind? I just finished a series of two shows for a company for the second year. Rinnai just launched its tankless water heaters in the U.S. The company is well known around the world, but not in the United States. They recently made some changes that made the water heaters much easier to install. We wanted to get the word out that the products were less expensive and easy to install. [12:05] How did you work with the company? The director of marketing contacted me a few months before their two big shows. I started by working on the script with the marketing team. We used animations behind the screens as visuals and crafted the presentation from there. This was my experience using a touch screen at a show, and people were very engaged an interested. I personalized the script to make it sound natural and relatable. I also had to time out the script so it fit with the animation. [16:40] What are the elements of a good presentation? The standard attention span is 5-6 minutes. It’s enough to grab attention and encourage people to learn more. People’s attention spans are shorter than they used to be. The content should speak to how the product will address a customer’s pain points and end with a call to action. Most often, that’s coming into the booth for a demo. The visuals are also important — what’s compelling and what will tell your story the best? PowerPoint is still used, but increasingly people are adding animation or video to it. Audio is another important component, and having a dedicated A/V person is key. [22:49] How should the content be structured? Avoid marketing speak. The content should not sound like a brochure. You are trying to connect to people on a human level. The content can be high level and still draw people in. One of my clients used an “I Love Lucy” theme last year. Not everyone knew the reference,

Focus on customers, not competitors, to drive product success. Are your products not generating the revenue they should be just because you didn’t price them right? Pricing is a key concern of not only product managers and leaders but also the executives of organizations. Knowing the right price for a product is a challenge, especially if the product is new to the market. But, how to you determine the right price? If your pricing strategy resembles a dart board, there is a better way. You just need to know the steps and what data to collect to determine the right price. Our guest, CEO and co-founder of ProfitWell, Patrick Campbell, is a pricing pro and he shares the steps to determining the price of any product. Before founding ProfitWell, he served as an Economist at Google. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:50] How did you become a pricing expert? I started working in the intelligence community, which is all about using data to hunt bad guys. It was interesting, but I didn’t find government work very exciting as a young person. I got a job at Google in a sales ops role and built a lead scoring model for sales. I then moved into the startup world and started working on pricing. I saw that the people I worked with put so much work into their products but didn’t put nearly that level of effort into pricing. I decided to strike out on my own and focus specifically on pricing and have been doing that for about 6 years. [6:56] ProfitWell focuses on pricing for SaaS products, but does the philosophy behind it apply to other products? We primarily serve the subscription space, but we started off agnostic to the company we took on. We’ve worked on with Hallmark, Reebok, and nonsubscription companies in other industries. Our algorithms are fine-tuned to subscription companies, but our content is a good fit for everyone. [8:16] Can you give us an example of how your model works? Let’s say we’re starting a CRM or a media site where we’re going to publish content about a specific niche. The biggest thing to understand is that it’s not about your existing data, it’s about getting fresh data from your customers to understand the value from that customer’s perspective. This where people go wrong when they look at things like competitive benchmarks. This approach assumes that your competitors have done their pricing homework, which most have not. [11:56] How should someone begin thinking about a pricing strategy? The first thing you have to think about is who you’re targeting and what we call persona-pricing-fit. Start with a spreadsheet that has customer profiles in each column and value metrics in the rows (how do they want to pay, what are their most valued features, etc.). Then just fill in the sections and add your confidence level. This helps to centralize your thinking about pricing and understand who you are building the product for. [17:04] What comes next in the process? Next comes validating and adjusting based on what you find. This happens through collecting survey data. You can use market panel companies if you don’t have access to the people you want. In the survey, show them the product and give them a landing page’s worth of information, make sure they understand the information, then ask some pricing questions. You want to understand at what point they feel the product is too expensive and at what point they think it’s too cheap. With enough data, you can put together a pricing elasticity curve and validate your personal assumptions. The big thing to keep in mind is that you’re not trying to be perfect, you’re trying to hedge risk and understand what users value. It’s an interactive process as you grow and change your product. [23:49] What do you do with the data once you have it?

It’s all about creativity, curiosity, and customer focus for product managers. This is a listener requested episode. Several Everyday Innovators have asked, “What are the qualities of a good product manager?” While many listeners are already good product managers, a little self-reflection from time to time on your strengths and how to be an even better product manager is valuable to your career as well as to those who you work with. One listener put this in a different light and asked who should not be a product manager. I thought that was a really insightful question. So, the following discussion addresses both topics:  qualities of a good product manager and who should not pursue a career in product management. To help us explore these topics, our guest is Marc Abraham, coordinator at ProductTank and author of the book My Product Management Toolkit: Tools and Techniques to Become an Outstanding Product Manager. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:35] How did you get into product management? I started as a corporate lawyer. My first role after that was as a project manager for digital products. That was a great way of getting into the world of digital and understanding how to build products and work with stakeholders. I became interested in product management because I thought there had to be more than just managing schedules and budgets. It took me a while to make the transition from project management to product management. I got my first product management job in 2011 and have been learning ever since. [5:55] What do you hear from others about why they got into product management? I typically hear people talking about the desire to solve problems for customers and the need for creativity. Some people get into product management because they want to gain more influence at the organization. My response is that you’re not going to become the next CEO so if that’s your only goal, you are probably going to be disappointed. It requires a lot of teamwork and collaboration. [10:19] What do you see as the most important value of a good product manager? It’s a close call in my mind between being customer focused and being curious. Ultimately, a product manager’s role is to serve the customer. If you deliver customer value, you’ll be helping the business by default. It doesn’t mean you have to blindly follow what the customer says, but you should always be thinking about them. Curiosity is all about not being afraid to ask “why?” and use it as a technique to break something down and gain a better understanding. I also expect product managers to be curious about their customers and about new trends in the market. That curiosity drives innovation and product improvement. [20:24] What are some other attributes that make a good product manager? One that comes to mind is being value-driven as opposed to output-driven. Product managers should always be thinking about whether they are delivering value for the customer figure out ways to test that your initial assumptions held true. Another one is the ability to learn and iterate. There’s no set formula you can apply to creating successful products, so you need to be able to learn quickly and adapt accordingly, then try again if needed. [25:11] Where should concern about revenue fit into the mix? You should always think about the revenue aspect of your product and whether people will find the product or service compelling enough to spend money on. However, there are parts of the customer experience that are not related to revenue and it’s harder to make the case for doing those things if revenue is your main focus. [27:57] Are there characteristics that make someone not a good fit for product management? People looking to become the next CEO typically do not do well because they’re o...

The surprising ways middle managers can drive innovation and product management. I love hearing how companies improve their innovation capabilities and foster a culture of innovation. Anytime I hear such stories, I always find lessons for how other organizations can also improve their capability. In my experience, this best occurs by enabling the largest number of employees to participate in innovation activities. More employees thinking and acting like innovators results in more innovation for the organization. Cisco has had a program for the last four years that is built around an Innovation Challenge and Innovation Centers. It grew out of work with startups that expanded to Cisco employees. To learn about this, our guest is the Managing Director of the Cisco Innovation Centers, Alex Goryachev. Alex enjoys turning disruptive concepts into emerging business models. He has a good cross-functional background for doing so, serving in senior roles in product development, marketing, finance, and sales. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:25] What does your role entail? Cisco has more than 74,000 employees, many of whom do not have innovation in their title but have it in their mindset. I connect employees with our 14 innovation centers around the world and oversee the teams who are responsible for innovation. Our innovation centers are places where we can create new technologies and act on ideas. We work in conjunction with universities, government, and other partners. [4:20] How do you connect employees to innovation? I used to run start-up competitions at Cisco and would field calls from employees asking to participate. I had to tell them no because the competitions were not open to employees. I realized that this was not a good approach so we created a cross-functional program for employees to innovate and execute their visions. Innovation is not about invention, it’s about execution. We’re looking for people who will stand up and act on their ideas and put in the time to make it happen. We ask managers to give us a percentage of the employee’s time to work on their idea. If the idea advances, the employee can choose to pursue it full-time within the company. The culture is very cross-functional and focuses on making sure people are involved in many projects. [9:10] How are middle managers important to innovation? At the end of the day, middle managers have the most control. The only thing that individuals have control over is their time because they don’t have budgets or teams. Senior leadership only controls the strategy. Middle managers control tactics and execution. We see clusters of great ideas that come from teams managed by certain people within the company. Once the culture of innovation is implanted in a team, it tends to take hold. At the end of the day, our manager designs our experience at work and can do a lot to promote a culture of innovation. [12:50] What do these managers do to drive innovation? They are open to new ideas that are not in their field and are willing to listen to ideas that come from other people. Innovation comes from inclusion and diversity and hearing different points of view. Every organization has silos, but innovative managers know how to develop cross-functional teams. You can have a lonely inventor, but you can’t have a lonely innovator. You need to have a team to drive innovation. [16:08] Do these collaborations happen through structured programs, or is it more organic? It’s a little of both. Innovation is fluid and there’s a culture that exists within a team. We do run an annual challenge that’s more focused and has a milestone-based approach. It really evangelizes the idea of being an innovator. The challenges have three phases: idea collection, judging, and implementation. About 50 percent of Cisco’s workforce partic...

Learn how to go from “gear head” to “group head.” Two spheres of capabilities are needed for product managers to be successful. One is competency in the processes, practices, and tools of product management. That is where I spend much of my time helping product managers and teams. The other sphere is competency in what is often called the soft skills and aligned with leadership. It is this sphere that many people find more difficult to master, especially those of us from technical backgrounds. But, without these competencies, you are severely limiting your potential. My passion is inspiring and equipping product managers and leaders. To that end, this is one of the most important discussions we have had yet on this podcast. At one point in the discussion with our guest, my passion for helping you and other product managers came out in the form of a few tears. Hopefully, that will make sense when you hear it. My guest is Paresh Shah, who is pursuing his passion of helping engineers transform into innovators, intrapreneurs, and inspiring leaders. Paresh taps into his experience as a mechanical engineer, Harvard MBA, serial entrepreneur, leadership coach, and other roles to inspire you to future-proof your career, innovate more efficiently, and advance faster. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:02] Tell us about your program and how it came about. Product managers are the nexus in companies because they work at the intersection of many functions from engineering to marketing. As companies want to become innovators, one of the primary areas we advise CEOs to look to is product managers. Product managers are the least appreciated, most overworked, and most talented resources many companies have. Few people know what they do and they rarely have management authority over the people they’re expected to corral. They are the people who can create innovation and transform a company’s culture. [11:55] How do you help product managers become leaders? We have created the 7 7 7 leadership transformation model. The idea is to transform gear heads into group heads. Group heads are leaders in an organization, the people that others always go to for help, even if they don’t have direct reports. We help organizations solve four big problems every organization faces: disruption, employee motivation, customer trust, and alignment of purpose and social responsibility. Only 3 in 10 employees are motivated and engaged by their work. Group heads are the most motivated people and create an innovation environment around them. They also have a likability and a believability that resonates with customers and vendors. [17:15] What is a lifter leader? Lifters exhibit the mind shift of consequences and are attuned to authenticity. We help people get out of their own heads and develop empathy to listen to customers and authenticity and integrity to inspire people who work for us. In the future hopefully, we’ll be able to monitor these skills just like we can analytics on a dashboard. Lifters are ordinary leaders who elevate their customers, their coworkers, their community, and their companies in the process. We identify the 7 great strengths and the 7 blind spots that gear heads have, and deliver the 7 essential upgrades that are needed to go from gear head to group head. [23:12] What are the 7 great strengths? Gear heads are great at problem-solving, being detail-oriented, analysis, innovation, working independently, being action-oriented, and critical thinking. We love solving problems and getting into the weeds to figure out what’s going on. We like putting things together and seeing our products out there in the world making a difference, but we’re often not as skilled at working with people, who are much more variable than products and technology.

Map your value chain and rethink your business model to stay ahead of the curve. Many companies have faced disruption. Of course, Uber and Airbnb are the poster children of disruption, but there are many more. Kodak was displaced by the digital camera. Blockbuster’s physical doors could not stay open in the face of Netflix’s virtual service. Borders Books failed in the wake of Amazon. Some companies have also managed to continue in the face of industry disruption, such as Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. What companies, both big and small, established and startup, can do to avoid disruption is the topic of this discussion. Our guest is Dr. Thales Teixeira, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and research of digital disruption. He has a new book examining disruption titled Unlocking the Customer Value Chain. We discuss how value is now being created for customers. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:21] How did your book come about? I visited my first startup in 2010 and visited Mark Zuckerberg and other executives at Facebook. I asked them how they were planning to disrupt the media industry and found they had a clear plan for doing so. Since then, I’ve had similar conversations with Netflix, Airbnb, and many others who were all doing versions of the same thing. The book is about that common pattern of disruption across industries. [4:55] Your book covers a few key terms — decoupling, disruption, and the consumer’s role. Can you define those? I use different terminology for disruption than some people do. For me, it happens when you have an established big company in any industry that loses a significant amount of market share to a disruptor in a short period of time. For example, Uber stole a large portion of market share from taxis, and Dollar Shave Club took market share from Gillette. The customer value chain is the process by which customers evaluate which product will be the best fit for them. Customers have to go through it to acquire the goods they want, whether it’s cosmetics or appliances. Decoupling is the breaking of the links in the customer value chain. For example, Birchbox makes it easier for customers to test beauty products. It does not try to replicate Sephora, but it makes one part of the process much easier from the consumer perspective. [9:22] What are some of the ways that startups decouple the customer value chain? Many of them use value capturing activities or new ways of doing things that the customer might not have enjoyed previously. For example, if you don’t like going to the store, a service like Birchbox or Zappos makes it easier to replicate the experience of trying products from the comfort of home. Uber is cheaper than cabs and eliminates the need for the consumer to physically hail a taxi. No matter what type of product or service you have, all you can do is create more value for customers, reduce value capturing activity, or eliminate value eroding activity. [16:02] What’s at stake for established companies that are not paying attention to disruption? A large portion of market share is at stake. A generation ago, market share gains and losses were less than 1 percent between established brands like Pepsi and Coke or Ford and GM. We’ve seen startups capturing 30-40 percent of market share, which is very disruptive. No one seems to be immune from it, regardless of industry. In response to this, companies typically blame technology and build their own technologies. We have yet to see an example of a company that made its own technology and been successful. The other response is to try to buy out the startup. This does not stop the bleeding. In the end, customers are what’s disrupting your business. Their behaviors are changing rapidly and startups can more easily accommodate their needs.

Understand a customer’s jobs, pains, and gains for effective product management Figuring out what your customer wants and needs from your product or service is the heart of product management. That is the beginning of how we create products that customers love. And, there are tools to help you do that. In this discussion, you will learn about a tool that has been available for a few years, but I rarely find product leaders and managers using it. It’s called the Value Proposition Canvas. We explored the concept of value proposition back in episode 123 with Alex Osterwalder. Now we talk with his co-founder Alan Smith. Together they started Strategyzer, which may be best known for their award-winning books Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design and related training. Alan is a multitalented designer and UX professional. He loves building tools to help drive strategy and innovation in organizations, which makes him a great person to talk with us, Everyday Innovators. The Value Proposition Canvas consists of two sides: * customer segment profile, and * the value map Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:03] How did the Value Proposition Canvas come about? We looked at how people were actually using the Business Model Canvas. We found that people couldn’t express the value proposition in one or two post-it notes. They were trying to express their customers’ problems and goals and the signal to us was that it was a separate problem. It sounds simple, but it’s really hard to do and there are a million ways to do it. [6:22] Can you give us an example of how it’s been used? In the early days of Strategyzer, we built an iPad app for the Business Model Canvas. We created a roadmap filled with what we thought were logical features to add. We zoomed into the value proposition and saw that very few of the features we wanted to add were going to add value to the customer or address issues they had. In 60 minutes of working with the Value Proposition Canvas, we realized our roadmap was wrong and scrapped it completely. [12:34] What is the Customer Segment Profile? We based it on the Jobs to be Done model and tried to make it a little more actionable. What are the risks associated with getting something done? What current solutions are not working? We call those the pains. Then, there are the gains, which are the opposite. You can define a job as a series of tasks or a larger narrative – either will work in the Value Proposition Canvas. [17:04] What’s the best way to use the Customer Segment Profile? It’s best if you have some customers already. Have your team go through them and pick out the jobs, pains, and gains. If you don’t have customer interviews, try to get people together to think through jobs, pains, and gains in person. Then, determine which of the jobs matter most to the customers. You can also map functional, social, or emotional jobs to determine whether they are internal or external. [23:57] What is the Value Map? The value map has three parts. Products and Services, the Pain Relievers, and Gain Creators. Everyone can list products and services, but the other two are more difficult. The pain relievers and gain creators focus on what those specific features allow a customer to do or what pain a feature eliminates for them. [27:29] How does Value Proposition Canvas relate to a Minimum Viable Product? You’ll have ideas that feel so natural and so right, but when you try to add them to the Value Proposition Canvas, you’ll see that they don’t meet your customers’ needs at all. It’s important to keep the customer job, pains, and gains in mind, even if you are trying to build a minimum viable product. Finding the jobs that are least served provides a good path toward crea...