The Everyday Innovator Podcast for Product Managers

Choose the right university partners to drive research and innovation Let’s face it, the smartest people don’t all work in your organization. The thought has been shared by many leaders, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and is originally attributed to Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and UNIX contributor. He said, “The smartest people in the world don’t all work for us; most of them work for someone else.” To benefit from the creativity of smart people who are external to your organization, you need a way to find and attract them to contribute their brain power. There are time-tested ways to accomplish this, including traditional open innovation, incubators, and startups. Another approach is a partner program. Ford Motor Company has used this approach for decades. By continuously learning and improving, they are a leader in the approach with answers for others considering a partner program. To explain how their system works and tips for implementing a partner program, Ed Krause joins us. He is the Global Manager External Alliances Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford Motor Company. He has global responsibility for developing cutting edge technology and competitive advantage for Ford by developing relationships and collaborative projects involving universities and partner companies. Anyone interested in open innovation or a more formal partner program will find this discussion valuable. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:26] What types of partnerships do you manage at Ford? My team is responsible for our global R&D alliances with universities, national laboratories, and a few companies. The bulk of the work is with universities. Ford has been working with universities since the 1950s and formed our first strategic alliance with MIT . In 2006, we added Michigan and Northwestern to the program. To date, we’ve given 950 awards, or unrestricted grants, to universities. [4:42] What was the motivation to start the alliance program? Universities in the 1990s looked ahead and forecast a significant decline in government funding. At the same time, internal corporate research labs were also becoming financially difficult and companies were looking for a different model. At Ford, our CEO served on the board with the president of MIT and they decided Ford and MIT would form a new alliance model. We quickly learned that spending money is easy but getting value is more difficult. We’ve evolved the model over time to increase the value to the company. [6:53] What types of projects come out of the university partnerships? When we first came out with our Sync system (a voice-controlled entertainment/calling system), there was concern that it would be distracting and shouldn’t be allowed in vehicles. We had the data, but the regulators didn’t believe us because they thought the data was biased. We worked with the University of Michigan to gather thousands of hours of independent driving data to validate what we knew was the case. Another example is an F-150 trailer backup feature that was proven to be possible at the University of Michigan. We took their idea and applied our production processes to it. [13:12] What are the characteristics of a successful partnership? It has to be a win-win at the alliance level. It’s always a win for the universities because they receive funding and industry-relevant research problems to work on. Ford needs appropriate IP rights to give us the ability to put the work into production. Not every project is successful, but we’ve had enough success to justify growing the alliance program. There’s a huge overlap between what’s academically interesting and what’s relevant to us. We’ve been able to move beyond fundamental research and students are earning their PhDs by doing this work.

Become the product to drive quick launches and lasting success Recently I was helping the product leaders and managers in a large non-profit organization improve their performance. When we discussed the use of MVPs, minimal viable products, one question asked was if the MVP approach applies to services. The answer is yes, and our guest shares an example that led to a new recycling business. The MVP approach, or if you prefer, the MVE for minimal viable experiments, is a significant philosophical shift for some people. It means doing the minimum needed to learn what creates value for a customer–aligned with solving a problem or satisfying a job they want done, before creating a complete product. I think of it as a series of small, fast, and inexpensive experiments that help us learn what a product should be. Our guest is Abdo Riani, serial entrepreneur and founder of StartupCircle, which connects successful entrepreneurs with rising founders to help them move their ideas and businesses forward with actionable and relevant advice.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [4:43] What do you mean by not scaling in the beginning? Doing things that don’t scale means going to market under the condition of the unavailability of the product. When I was a sophomore in college, I wanted to create a venture that rewarded users for eco-friendly actions. I became the one connecting people with the nearest recycling facility and the one who updated their points. It allowed me to go to market quickly and generate $20,000 in pre-sales that provided a foundation for me to learn more about customers and scale up from there. [9:13] Where did the idea for the recycling business come from? I read an article about how no one was innovating in the recycling space apart from hardware. I started ideating about how we could solve the problem of getting more people to recycle. I thought that people would be more motivated to recycle if they could earn rewards from a local business. I also wanted to help local businesses by increasing their customer base. [11:45] How did you validate the approach? The next step was fundraising. I spoke with more than 50 investors over 8 months but was not successful. All the investors wanted proof that the product would work, but I didn’t have money to build the product. That’s when I changed my approach to scalability. I knew I needed one recycling facility, one local business, and one interested user. I found the user on campus and went with them to the recycling facility to experience the transaction with them. I did the same thing with the small business. These experiences allowed me to learn about some things that needed to change before scaling the product. I recruited 10 more users from a local environmental club and did the same thing but with a more automated process. I added more and more users until the recycling company became interested in investing in the product. I was able to continue scaling from there. People were motivated by helping the environment and by the rewards they were receiving. [19:50] What was the recycling situation like when you started? The nearest recycling facility was 2-3 miles away from the area I was targeting, so people needed the motivation to go there. They could put their recycling outside, but there was another option if they wanted to go the extra mile. I found my users by being very active in communities where people were likely to like my product. I hosted events and spoke to groups to build awareness. As I built that awareness, people started asking to fund my solution by prepaying for it. I also brought value to local businesses by promoting them. [24:58] Where there any pivot points along the way where things didn’t work the way you thought they would? Recycling facilities were not interested in small quantities; they made money by part...

Learning from 40 years of innovation experience. The principles of Lean-Driven Innovation lead to more value for customers and faster value capture (e.g., revenue) for organizations. The principles can be applied to any industry, but for our guest, they grew out of the R&D and product development practices at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Our guest is Norbert Majerus, who was the Lean Champion in Innovation at Goodyear, where he worked for nearly 40 years before recently retiring. Now he enjoys sharing his experience with others. He captures much of the practices he learned in his new book, Lean-Driven Innovation.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:50] You were a Lean Champion at Goodyear. What does that involve? I spent 39 years at Goodyear in R&D and innovation. The company gave me an opportunity to take those ideas and develop them into a plan. The last 15 years of my year were in Lean. The challenge was to apply the Lean concepts to R&D. We developed a simple process that works well and I’ve seen it in many companies since. [4:39] Why did you write a book about lean innovation? I’ve had very little formal innovation training. I learned everything by doing the work, making mistakes and learning from them. I’m happy Goodyear gave me the opportunity to share with others so they can learn from those mistakes and hopefully avoid doing the same thing. [6:31] You outline several principles in your book. The first is to focus on the customer need. The biggest innovations over the past 30 years did not come from marketing surveys; they came from engineers or others seeing customers struggle. They match that paint point with a technical solution. Engineers used to be very good at that, but I’m afraid they’ve lost the ability to develop empathy for customer problems. To me, that is a crucial part of innovation. There was a time when we were drowning in customer suggestions, and it just wasn’t a very useful approach to innovation. [9:42] Explore the full design space Many times as engineers, we find ourselves walking a straight line through space instead of exploring the whole design space. Once you know you are working on a specific customer need, you should explore all avenues available to you. Think about how a superhero would fix the problem or how would a company like Google or Amazon tackle the problem. How would you solve the problem if you had no restrictions? If this is done well, you’ll solve the problem you had originally, plus some others that you didn’t know existed at the outset. [14:15] Work in small cycles One way to work is to start with a big business plan only to go to their company for funding and be turned down. Big plans are often associated with a lot of money and high risk. It’s much better to split up the risk and work on a lot of little pieces one step at a time. It becomes an experiment instead of a big project. After you’ve done the experiment, you can do another one and then another one after that and you have an engaged group of leaders to support you. Startups work this way all the time. I encourage companies to make money available for these activities. [18:04] Put the most important question first At one point in my career, I was working on a team trying to create a plastic tire. We spent millions of dollars and built machines, mold, and everything else you needed to make them. We tested it on a Department of Transportation tire test and it failed, which lead Goodyear to pass on further development. We should have done that test as soon as we had our first prototype, but we didn’t.  It was our most important question. Another example: Right before I retired, someone figured out how to recycle tires, but the recycled tires were very expensive. The engineers tried to sell them and found that pe...

Create more loyal customers by designing surveys people actually want to complete. Many product managers and product marketers are using surveys incorrectly. We like surveys because they are relatively quick and inexpensive compared to other tools, such as customer interviews. While they can help us confirm what we think are the needs of customers and provide customer experience information, they are not something most customers look forward to participating in. My guest has a different experience. He creates surveys that not only have insanely high response rates but that actually create more loyal customers. Imagine that–surveys as a tool to make loyal customers. He is Matt Champagne, researcher, university professor, author, serial entrepreneur, and most importantly a survey and feedback expert. He has implemented systems in more than 600 organizations to drastically improve customer retention, learning, and performance. We discuss his 9 Principles of Customer Feedback. Get Matt’s infographic that helps to explain the system. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:15] Why do we survey customers? We all know that we should survey our customers and organizations create surveys all the time. We need to learn from our customers, but 98 percent of surveys are done incorrectly because they’re not structured the right way and are not asking the right questions. Survey tools are made to get people to take more surveys so they don’t create surveys correctly. If you’re the one who created the survey, you rarely see the problems, but when someone else looks at it, they’ll see it right away. [8:07] What’s your framework for collecting customer feedback? My framework is called the 9 Principles of Customer Feedback and it’s based on about 6 million data points over the past 25 years. The principles come from psychology and focus on how to get the highest response rate, the most meaningful results, and the most loyal customers. If you satisfy the principles in your survey, those outcomes will follow. People will take your surveys again and again without getting survey fatigue. [9:58] How do you use surveys to create more loyal customers? Everyone thinks people hate surveys, but it’s the only instrument we have to get into people’s minds to understand what they want and expect. If you design great questions and give people the right rewards for getting involved, people will feel like they have a stake in the organization and that their voice matters. We want our customers to stay and they want to stay, but they move on because we don’t ask them the right questions in the right way at the right time. [12:44] Principle: Timing and frequency We never ask the questions when it matters. We tend to ask surveys at the end of an event, meal, etc. This is called the autopsy approach. Asking the questions while the event is still going on will elicit more meaningful responses because it lets people know that something can be changed based on their feedback. A good server in a restaurant will ask how the meal is going and then make adjustments based on the feedback. Good surveys scale that same behavior. [15:54] Principle: Closing the loop Following up with the people who gave you feedback is so critical, but it’s rarely done. People want to know that their voice was heard, how it made a difference, and how others responded. [18:13] Principle: Internal incentives This means understanding what motivates people to answer your questions. People often think this is a giveaway or something similar. Closing the loop is more of an incentive than any monetary gift or handout. You are giving people something they couldn’t get anywhere else about the product and people...

A simple framework for product managers to increase focus and eliminate distractions from your day. How would you like to get more done this year? That begins by getting more done today and our guest has the four-part framework for making that happen. This is not just another time management approach, but what the creators and authors of the Google Design Sprint found to be the practices to get more done. Our guest is John Zeratsky co-author of Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, He previously wrote the New York Times bestseller Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, which describes the Google Design Spring process invented by Jake Knapp. By the way, Jake is the other co-author of the four-part Make Time framework we are about to discuss in detail. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:51] How did you become interested in time management? As a kid, I would spend hours on end diving into something that interested me and it was the best feeling. A lot of what I do now is trying to get back to that feeling. After I graduated college, I went to work at a startup called Feedburner, which was later acquired by Google. I didn’t have much experience and burned out on productivity, organization, and time management. Jake and I realized that our experience finding a better way might be useful to others in their day-to-day lives. With the book, we wanted to create something that was lightweight but effective and customizable. [10:52] You highlight a four-part framework in the book: Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect. Let’s start with Highlight. The idea behind highlight is to choose one thing that you want to prioritize or protect in your day. Find one medium-sized activity that you can build your day around. It has a powerful effect on your ability to have a good day. If you can make time for the highlight, the rest of the day is gravy. For me, it’s usually something that requires deep work and uninterrupted focus. I like to wake up early and work on it during the first few hours of the day. My co-author is not a morning person and came up with some strategies to work on his highlight in the evening after his kids go to bed. [14:10] Next up is Laser. Tell us about that. This is all about having laser-like focus and removing the distractions that our phones and computers bring. Laser is about reconfiguring those technologies so we can take back the time we spend on our phones or watching TV. If you put those hours together, you wind up with the equivalent of a full-time job that we’re not intentionally doing. We don’t wake up thinking we’ll spend 2-3 hours staring at our phones, it just happens. Jake and I worked on some of those technology products so we know how much effort goes into making them compelling and attention-grabbing as possible. [20:50] Let’s talk about Energize. This is all about building energy for your body and your brain so you can make the most of the things that are important to you. Our perspective is that the modern world encourages our brains and our bodies to be separate, but they are very much connected. When our body feels better, our brain works better and vice versa. We suggest ways that people can approach diet and exercise with this relationship in mind. We recommend finding time for 20 minutes of movement each day. It doesn’t have to be going to the gym; walking is a great activity and something everyone can do. [26:23] The last part of the framework is Reflect. As the name suggests, this is all about taking a few minutes each day to reflect on the day. We suggest a simple series of questions that takes about two minutes: What did you make time for? Which of the tactics in the book did you use and did they work? What can you do differently tomorrow? For example,

Use data to predict customer behavior and design better products. Do you know which customers are most likely to stop using your product in the next month? Or, what actions your best customers take with your product when they start using it? With the right data, product managers not only know the answers to such questions, but they also know what actions to take to keep customers and a whole lot more. This is the area of predictive analytics and our guest is Brian Brinkmann, the VP of Products for a company involved in the revolution of business intelligence tools, leading to greater predictive capabilities. That company is Logi. Brian is the perfect person to learn predictive analytics from because he is also a classic product manager, recognizing the value of customer interactions along with predictive data. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [1:53] What was your path into product management? My first job in electrical engineering was in control systems for power plants, which led to a project designing user interfaces for those control systems. I learned about human-computer interaction and how to involve people in the process. From there, I went back to school for a dual degree MBA and Master of Engineering Management. I knew I wanted to go into product management, but needed some experience in the field. I worked as a strategic consultant and then eventually made my way into marketing and product management. My story is proof that you do not need a specific background to get into product management. If you want to do it, you’ll learn the skills you need to be successful. [8:25] How do analytics figure into your work? Product managers of applications like CRMs and healthcare management platforms know their business very well but often misunderstand how complicated analytics are. They need to get those analytics into the user experience so that the end users can get the data they need. [10:22] What kinds of insights are you looking for in analytics? We are looking to see why things happened and what will happen moving forward. If you can figure out what might happen, you can begin taking actions against it. A financial company wants to flag a fraudulent transaction right away. An iOT company wants to know that a machine failure is coming so they can try to prevent it from happening. It’s also a good way to understand customer acquisition and how to hold on to a customer. It’s much easier to maintain a relationship than it is to start a new one. [13:38] Can you give an example? If you are a $50 million per year business and your churn rate is 6 percent, if you can reduce it by half a percent, you’ll save $500,000. Everyone is excited about artificial intelligence and machine analytics, but we advise people to start by determining what their business problems are and what’s the best way to solve them. Otherwise, you are just using technology for technology’s sake. We also work with healthcare organizations to determine how likely someone is to be a no-show for an appointment based on their profile and past behavior. If someone is not likely to show up, they can send a reminder. Businesses can also use predictive analytics to determine if they are overstaffed or understaffed on a given day. [17:40] How can product managers use predictive analytics to make decisions for their business? The outcomes are as good as the data use you use to train the models. There might be seasonality involved or other factors. We advise people to monitor their models and track to see how well it did compared to its predictive outcome. You always need to be testing your assumptions and make sure the model is working. You have to be mindful that models will work in certain circumstances but not in others. There are people who will take action based on what those models say,

A path to less stressful projects at any scale. If you have ever thought that a project you worked on had too much drama and unnecessary conflict — that the project should have been easier for everyone involved — then this episode is for you. We explore how to have less stressful projects by using Projectopia, our guest’s 8-step method project planning. With this method, he says you can crush your big projects; and you can do it without stress, and with clarity, direction, and efficiency. In addition to our discussion about how to use Projectopia, you can get a free guide… >>> Just click here for the free Projectopia Guide Our guest is Andy Rosic, currently the Innovation Product Manager at Home Depot, mentor to startups, and former founder of software companies.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:26] How did you make the transition from products into projects? I’ve been a product manager for two decades, but products are always projects. Being a startup founder, you need to wear so many hats and everything feels stressful and like it takes too long. I began thinking a lot about how to remove stress and one of the strategies I used was to have fewer things on my mind. I started thinking about projects the same way. I started mapping out the entire project so I could delegate certain parts and forget about them. [5:06] Where did the name Projectopia come from? I was teaching a lot of people the method to my madness and didn’t have something to call it. I got onto the idea of growth hacking and creating growth while removing constraints. He made me realize I needed a catchy name for what I was doing. Projectopia ties into that idea of a stress-free environment that I’m trying to create. [8:12] Can you give us an example of how Projectopia works? I like to use building a website as an example. Your boss comes to you and says he wants you to build a new website for the organization. You begin generating a list of what you really need — a home page, blog, eCommerce, etc. Your brain begins filling in the gaps and, much like going on vacation, you pack too much because you haven’t mapped anything out. [11:25] How can we prevent overpacking on a project? You need to engage the team who is going to be doing this project with you. For a website, you probably have designers, developers, and people to help you with content. Think about the shortest path to a live website and figure out what you need to get there. You can start to lay out those elements and prioritize which items you need first. [14:13] How do you turn this way of thinking into a project? You can be the one to point out that you’ve packed too much and start thinking about what you need on day one to launch your website. You as a leader need to decide what is the target goal and what you need to get there. For example, phase one might be launching a website and phase two might be adding eCommerce or having a great content strategy. You can’t launch a website quickly if you try to do all of those things. Capture them and catalog them to work on later once the site is live. [17:55] Who owns this process? Anyone can be a leader in these situations. If the project manager is not doing a good job, then give it a shot yourself. This is the opportunity to show that you are thinking about the larger group and making sure that everyone is bought into what you are trying to create. Having people come to you at the end with ideas or feature requests creates more stress, which you are trying to avoid in the first place. Get everyone excited around the first goal of launching a website in a week and then come back to their other ideas.

Driving successful innovation at large organizations Could it be that innovation is simple? I did say simple, not easy. The two words are often confused. A completed activity can be viewed as simple when the processes involved are known. No one that has been on innovation projects would say it was easy. The activities and processes that allow us to uncover a customer problem or invent a new technology, develop solutions, and ultimately launch products customers love are challenging, but they are not a mystery. We discuss them on this podcast frequently. Several frameworks exist to help make what is certainly not easy approachable and ultimately simple. Our guest shares a 9-part framework she used as a Fortune100 Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer. With it, you might see how innovation can actually be simple. Our guest is Amy Radin, a nationally recognized thought leader on how to deliver innovation for sustainable, business-changing impact. The framework we’ll discuss is also the topic of her new book, The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company. Amy provided an infographic of her 9-part framework. Click the image below to get the full-size infographic. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:04] Can you give us an overview of your work in innovation? The first chapter of my career was doing direct marketing for American Express, which led to a role leading the digital transformation team at Citi. I saw that what I did as a marketer in using data to deliver personalized products and services to customers seemed pretty relevant to corporate innovation. The environment at Citi was very conservative; I was recruited to figure out what the value of digital was to the business and how we could leverage it. The CEO asked me to make the company more innovative, which made me realize that there is a discipline called innovation and I set up a skunkworks on my team. [4:48] Are there any of those skunkworks projects that might now be Citi products we know? In 2004, we observed a trend in transit systems that wanted to bring contactless payments to avoid lines and move people through the system quickly. We struck a three-way partnership between Citi, MasterCard, and the New York Metro Transit Authority to do a pilot on one of the subway lines in Manhattan. All of our interests aligned to make the pilot happened. We implemented this before iPhones came out so we used RFID tags on keychains. The work we did on that project helped develop RFID technology that’s used today for mobile payments. [6:25] How does Design Thinking fit into your approach? I have never been a formal student of design thinking, but I’ve learned over the years that my philosophy is very much aligned with it because I focus on defining who the user is and what the problems is on their terms. I think pretty much anything is technologically possible, but you need to have the right people in the right room to champion an idea. You also need to overcome policy, process, and governance that was not built to accommodate innovation. Big companies are all about continuity and that’s not compatible with innovation. We are naturally risk-averse and that impacts all areas of our lives and how we think about change. [13:30] The model you outline in the book has nine parts. The first one is Discover. Great innovations come from a starting point of understanding your users and what problem they are experiencing. You need to solve the problem at a rational level and at an emotional level — listen with your ears and with your eyes. I saw this firsthand when I got to go into people’s homes and observe their banking hab...

Bottom line: product management is all about the customer Do you lead a product team or are you part of a team that should improve performance? I’ve been helping product teams and groups of product managers accomplish that — get higher performance. When I ask them why they need to improve performance, I typically hear one of four answers, with the most common being to create more of a customer focus. I also wanted to hear from product VPs and Directors that I haven’t worked with yet. So, I contacted several and received answers from 91 product leaders. You’ll find the results not only interesting but also valuable, as you will hear how other product professionals think about improving their teams and what is most important to your performance. For example, should you focus on revenue or customer value? To help me share the information, I am joined by our guest from episode 174, Colleen Knuff, a Senior Director of Product Management. But this time she is interviewing me, taking the role of host. In addition to the reasons product leaders give for improving team performance, we also discussed: * why this podcast is named The Everyday Innovator, * where I developed my passion for helping product managers and teams improve their performance, and * the value of personality assessments. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:24] Why did you name the podcast The Everyday Innovator? There are a lot of us who are wired to identify a problem and create a solution for it. We all want to build great products that customers love and have more influence in their organization. This notion sums up the everyday innovator mindset — people who look at the world from a problem-solving perspective and want to build great things. Those people are Everyday Innovators and I wanted to make a podcast for them. [4:54] How did you become so passionate about product management and leadership? I studied electrical engineering in college and joined a small system engineering company after graduation. I was the fourth person hired in the company, which meant I wore a lot of hats. We started creating prototypes for customers. This was the perfect job for me. A pivotal point came when I was asked to demonstrate another company’s software product prototype at a special event in Washington, D.C. It was an incredible experience — really doing user observations before I had any understanding of what ethnographic research was. I found out what they needed the product to do. The demonstration was a success and in a short time I was leading a product development team with a few million dollar budget. It was an amazing experience but it was followed with other product experiences where I thought I was following similar processes, and not all the products were as successful.  I got a little obsessed about that inconsistency, which led me to earn a Ph.D. in innovation so I could study the problem more deeply. That team that came about from the D.C. demonstration became a truly high-performing product team. It was amazing. All of us didn’t realize just how amazing it was until it ended. And it ending was incredibly sad. Being part of a high performing team that is developing products customers love is an extraordinary experience and wanting that for everyone involved in product is what fuels my passion and why I have created training and experiences to enable product managers and product teams to also be extraordinary. [11:20] How are you continuing to pursue those questions of innovation and problem solving? I’ve been working with groups of product managers and also product teams in different companies to help them improve their performance. It is a system I developed called the Rapid Product Mastery Experience, or the RPM Experience for short. I started asking some of the leaders in the companies ...

Breaking down silos and helping everyone feel like their work matters You are in for a delightful and important discussion with our guest today. She was named a Top 100 Leadership Speaker for 2018 and is here to tell us how we can have a happier workplace. Is there anyone who doesn’t want that? Maybe you are the 1 in a million person who says my workplace is happy enough, it provides all the enjoyment and contentment I need. But, for the rest of us, I bet you would… * Appreciate feeling significant in your organization, * Knowing the work you do truly matters, * Being in an environment that feels safe and one where you belong, and * Coming home energized, not worn out after a rough day. We spend more of our waking hours at work than anywhere else. Those hours should be great, even awesome. Let’s find out how to make that happen with Kris Boesch, the CEO of Choose People, a group that helps organizations build extraordinary workplace cultures. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:27] How did your work in this area come about? I was asked to lead a moving company, where the culture was really bad. I didn’t know exactly what good culture was or how to fix the problems at this company, but I knew I had to do something. I decided to focus on the employee experience and making sure that the employees felt good about coming to work. We got to a place where turnover decreased while the company’s bottom line increased. I found that the need for this work existed in all types of industries. [5:40] What are your thoughts on work-life balance? I think the whole idea of work/life balance doesn’t really exist. People work an average of 2,000 hours per year, which is a huge part of life. Work and life always impact each other. If anyone is in an organization where people are “clocking in,” there’s a problem. [7:45] How can we evaluate our current workplace culture? The book contains a culture audit that anyone can take. There’s also a litmus test to help someone get a sense of where a team is. It’s one simple question, “How happy are you about coming to work on a scale of 1-10?” People most commonly respond with 7, which implies that things are good enough; no one hates their job, but no one is clamoring to work at the organization either. If there a lot of responses under 5, that usually indicates a toxic culture. The book is intended for organizations that are a 7. Anything below that requires clean up and repair before you can start building. [16:25] What’s the secret to a better workplace culture? The secret ingredient is emotional intimacy, which in this case means camaraderie. In order to achieve that, everyone on the team must feel they are known, that their contribution matters, and that they are included. When all three things are in place, the culture can move forward and go from a 7 to an 8 or beyond. Everyone also has to see how their work fits into the organization’s mission and the bigger picture. [21:40] What is Interdependency Awareness and how can we create it? Every organization struggles with silos and a disconnect with what’s best for the organization. Interdependency Awareness creates a sense of how everyone’s piece is critical to the organization’s mission. Once that sense of awareness exists, it brings a sense of value to everyone on the team. People will be more engaged in their work if they know that not performing will be letting others down. There’s a sense that everyone is connected in a system to accomplish a mission. [27:38] How can we be better about meeting deadlines? One of the things I see a lot of is the idea of time poverty, the idea that we’re all overwhelmed and have too many things to do. If you give your team permission to say those t...

How product managers combine process and metrics to achieve a successful product launch Do you participate in launch planning, or what may also be called go-to-market planning? In some organizations, product managers are directly involved, but not always, and that is a waste. You’ll hear why in this discussion, along with six elements addressed by a go-to-market strategy: * Defining the target market * Creating a compelling reason for customers to buy * Determining the pricing strategy * Crafting the positioning * Conducting competitive analysis, and * Preparing to launch. Discussing go-to-market strategy is repeat guest, Mike Smart. He is a product management practitioner and founder of Egress Solutions, which helps companies implement product management best practices that build and launch successful products. And, I love his name — Mike Smart! Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:25] Where does go-to-market strategy fit into product lifecycle? The conventional view is that it belongs with sales and marketing and starts post-ideation. It’s often the strategy that gets pushed down the road and not addressed until the product is almost built. We believe it should be part of the product lifecycle as early as possible as you are conducting research and building the persona of your target customer. As you’re meeting with customers, you’re setting the stage for go-to-market strategy. [05:33] What benefits does a go-to-market strategy provide? It defines the ultimate success of the product we’re creating. Strong metrics are the result of a strong go-to-market strategy. It includes the target customer, the motivation to buy, and the strength of the value proposition. It also includes the public-facing launch activities to make sure customers know that there’s a new product on the market. [8:21] Who should be involved in creating a go-to-market strategy? One school of thought says that it should be top-down from the executive level of the company. If the strategy sits at the executive level, it’s easier to engage multiple teams across the organization. The team should include product managers, marketing, sales, and perhaps things like professional services and customer success. Having role clarity is important as well, including knowing where product management stops and starts. A product manager won’t always be running this strategy. I encourage people to follow Amazon’s model of writing a press release for the product’s launch as part of the development process. [14:22] What elements make up a go-to-market strategy? It begins with targeting customers and identifying the problems we’re trying to solve for them. Then, you need to create a compelling reason to buy — why is your product better than everyone else’s? A pricing strategy should be developed at the same time as the prototypes. From there, you should craft the positioning and develop a competitive assessment. The last step is preparing for the actual launch events. This process can change depending on the market and the product sector. It might be different for early adopters vs. late adopters because each group has a different motivation. It might also change for niche markets vs. mass market products or for technology buyers vs. business buyers. The launch theme should drive the competitive strategy in the end. [23:42] Can you give us an example? I am a big fan of grilling and cooking outdoors. Last year, I decided I wanted to fry a turkey. I found a fryer that used infrared technology. Its positioning statement was that you could fry a turkey without the mess that typically comes with the process. That was a very specific pain point for this product to address, and one that was clearly needed in the marketplace.

Rethinking product portfolio management to optimize performance What happens when you or your organization has more than one product to manage? It’s hard enough managing resources to sell and improve one product, but throw another one in the mix and see what happens. Or how about several more products? Managing all those products is a challenge, and frankly, few organizations do it well. They use portfolio management to provide some order to the chaos, but for real order and reasoned decision making, my guest has been teaching people for the last decade to use Dynamic Portfolio Management. His name is Roger Warburton and he is a co-author, along with Steve Kay, of the recent book titled, Dynamic Portfolio Management: The Bargery Fabrics Case. Roger and I have both had the pleasure of teaching at Boston University, full-time for him and part-time for me. His integration of project management, product management, and strategy makes him the right person to learn proper portfolio management from. In the discussion, Roger shares the: * History of portfolio management, * Challenges companies encounter with traditional portfolio management, * Implementation of Dynamic Portfolio Management, and * Road mapping for portfolio management. As product managers take on more responsibility and become product leaders, you’ll need to know how to construct and manage a portfolio and the best approach is Dynamic Portfolio Management. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [3:09] What is portfolio management and how does Dynamic Portfolio Management differ? In the 90s, portfolio management was all about return on investment and picking projects that would provide the biggest profits for the company. This was a terrible way to do things. In the 2000s, portfolio management shifted toward products that would bring the most value to the customer. There was not a formal way to match the portfolio to the company strategy. I came across an academic book on dynamic portfolios that talked about how they changed internally and externally. Dynamic portfolio management addresses those things with a roadmap. You and your customers know what’s coming, but there’s still flexibility to change things based on internal or external factors. [10:01] What are some of the issues companies face with portfolio management? The state of the art in portfolio management is very poor, but there are some simple things you can do quickly to improve. The first thing you need to do is “kill the dogs,” or those projects that are not helping your organization. It’s also important to remember that CEOs are no better at picking projects than anyone else. Setting up a more democratic system of choosing projects empowers middle management. We saw this firsthand at Bargery Fabrics. Two-thirds of the portfolio management team quit because the CEO was not flexible about the projects that were chosen. [15:15] How does Dynamic Portfolio Management work? Internally, you do what’s known as “sensing, seizing, and transforming.” Sensing is talking with customers and observing what’s happening. Seizing relates those findings to your portfolio. Transforming is the active step where you transform the internal portfolio and develop a preliminary roadmap for the internal piece of the portfolio. The external piece involves sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. The external sensing is looking at things like regulation changes and how the company strategy has changed. [23:13] What does a portfolio roadmap look like? It’s in quarterly buckets because you don’t need to be more accurate than that. It lists all of the products and their major milestones each quarter. This includes things like development and user testing. It also includes marketing milestones to help inform the technic...

Using science fiction and storytelling to reshape company culture from the inside out Product managers and leaders can have a dramatic influence on an organization. Our influence extends beyond the revenue generated by the products we help create. We have an uncommon perspective in organizations as our work requires significant cross-functional interactions and knowledge of other functions. The combination of our capabilities and experience means we should be part of transformations in our organizations, improving what is in our sphere of influence from our group to the entire organization. My guest is co-author of the new book, Leading Transformation, was also the Executive Director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, and is now the CEO and co-founder of Uncommon Partners. He is Kyle Nel and he shares some great insights in this discussion, including: * how to envision the future by literally using science fiction, * using story and narrative to influence others, * turning barriers to innovation into allies, and * personal transformation.   Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:18] What was your experience at Lowe’s Innovation Labs? The main question I tried to answer was, how do you get people to understand the future and then do something about it. I needed to prove out the theories I learned in academia as a behavioral economist. The myth of innovation leads large companies like Lowe’s to believe they can’t behave like a startup. My goal was to figure out how they could do that. I started at Lowe’s running international marketing research and eventually worked my way into innovation. [4:56] What were some of the innovations you led at Lowe’s? There was the infamous “Lowebot,” an autonomous robot that speaks multiple languages and then helps you navigate through the store while doing inventory analysis along the way. It didn’t take off in the U.S., but I got emails from people who said they joined the company because they saw what we were doing and wanted to be part of it. [7:15] How do you see the relationship between transformation and innovation? Everything has an experimental design aspect. We ran different versions of the book title and subtitle in front of people and saw that it was a little played out. The book was really about small transformations in a team or department that leads to larger scale change. [10:45] How do you use science fiction to envision the future? Steve Jobs read a lot of science fiction and Elon Musk talks about it at length. We thought we could do it in a systematic way and use it as a way to help people see the future, much in the same way as I use tools to help me with accounting or other things I’m not good at. I’d seen in my academic work that stories are the only way people can understand information and be motivated enough to do something with it. I love science fiction because it’s forward looking and assumptive — much like strategic forecasting. I brought in science fiction writers and turned strategic brainstorming sessions into comic books about the future of the company. Once they got past the newness of it, they were able to envision the future in a concrete, tangible way. [13:16] How does innovation differ at a large organization and a startup? The mindset at a large organization is typically one of mitigation and stabilization, while the mindset at startups is disruption and making the most of change. This mindset is the one big advantage that startups have and there’s an opportunity to bring that way of thinking into larger organizations. I usually start my work with companies by saying that this is their call to adventure. If more people embrace that mindset, the future will become what we want it to be. [19:52] How do you navigate the unknown?

Combining dreams and discipline for successful innovations I am wrapping up a 3-month road trip through the Northeast of the U.S., allowing me to meet many innovators and product managers. I had a few experiences, including visiting Niagara Falls, that rekindled an interest for me in historic innovators, including Nikola Tesla, often thought of as the person behind how electricity is created and distributed. I went looking for a Tesla historian that could help us understand this innovator and what we as modern innovators and product managers can learn from him. My search led me to award-winning author, Bernie Carlson. Bernie wrote Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age and is well recognized for his research on Tesla as well as other historic innovators. He is a professor and the Director of Engineering Business Programs at the University of Virginia. In the interview you’ll hear about Tesla and what we can learn from him, including: * navigating creativity, * understanding illusion and storytelling to sell your ideas, * which modern innovator shared characteristics with Tesla, and * the balance of invention and business skills innovators need. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [6:00] What was Tesla’s motivation? Idea and illusion are both key parts of Tesla’s journey. His father was an Orthodox priest and there’s a notion in that faith that God was present in everything. That drove Tesla to make the best inventions possible. He worked from a top-down mindset, as opposed to the bottom up like Edison and many other inventors. He spent a lot of time thinking until he came up with what he thought was the perfect way to do something, rather than tinkering around until he got something right. [10:05] How did Tesla view Edison’s approach? Tesla regarded as a waste of time looking for a needle in a haystack. Instead, he thought you should spend time thinking about the perfect place to find the needle before you start looking. Today, you still need to have an understanding of the underlying science, technology, or knowledge before you start working on something. An inventor always has a model that’s manifested in the prototypes; the invention is the relationship between the articles and the prototype. [15:17] What role does storytelling play in invention? Stories serve as the way to get people motivated to see your vision and come along with you for the ride. Two essentials of innovation are negotiating with nature to get it to conform to the idea and negotiating with society to get people to buy in to your ideas. Tesla is probably the greatest example of engaging people to get them to believe in his vision. [19:01] How did Tesla become good at convincing people his ideas were valuable? His financial backers at Westinghouse helped him understand how his inventions would add value to stakeholders. They could use his technology to turn electricity from a luxury product to a middle class and then a widely-available product. Tesla’s lively imagination combined with his thoughtful nature made him able to bring others along on his vision. He had the ideas but needed partners in business and engineering to make those ideas come to life. He found those partners at Westinghouse. [23:36] Is there a modern-day innovator you would compare to Tesla? Steve Jobs is an incredible parallel. Tesla had more technical skills, but they both have the ability to imagine the perfect product and then bring people into that vision. Jobs knew what the perfect phone and the perfect computer would look like and got people to think more broadly about the possibilities of personal electronics. [26:12] How did Tesla’s legacy come about? Extravagant inventions require extravagant explanations. Tesla loved to call into newspaper reporters and promise amazing things ...

Empowering product teams to create an agile culture with a customer focus. This podcast is named The Everyday Innovator and I call the people who listen Everyday Innovators. That has meaning. Everyday Innovators see the world a little bit differently. We actively look for problems and unmet needs, recognizing that those are opportunities to create value for customers. Our mental wheels are constantly spinning, thinking about how we can make existing products better and create new products that wow customers. In short, where we find our most energy and satisfaction is creating products that customers love. So, when I saw a new book titled, Deliver Great Products That Customers Love, I knew I had found a kindred Everyday Innovator and I asked him to talk with us. The author of the book is Valerio Zanini. He has created products and led product teams for Fortune 500 companies including Cisco and Capital One, advised several small and medium businesses, and founded a Product Innovation, Design Thinking and Agile coaching practice called 5D Vision. He also has an awesome Italian accent, which you’ll hear in a moment. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:46] Why did you write this book? Great product managers need to be innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs. People with that mentality create great products and customer experiences, even if they don’t have the formal title of product manager. [5:38] What does it mean to build great products? There are common elements in great products. One of them is the customer experience and building a product customers care about. The book lists the three pillars of great products: customer focus, cultural agility, and an empowered team. You need all three of these things to drive innovation. [6:55] How do you develop a customer focus? It comes down to understanding who your customers really are. I’m an adviser to young startups and I hear all the time from businesses who have a product ready to launch and do not know who their customers are. It’s also important to know what problem the product is trying to solve, and whether the customers really care about solving that problem. [11:35] Can you give us an example of putting these principles into action? When I was at Capital One, I was responsible for digital innovation at branches. We did a lot of research with customers and bankers about how we could make their lives easier. We interviewed one woman who said the only reason she went to a branch was to go to an ATM, but she was scared to go to the ATM closest to her at night. That led to Capital One developing an app that allowed people to request the money ahead of time through an app, then walk in and tap their phone on the ATM to pick it up in a matter of seconds. This innovation came directly from the conversation we had with that customer. [14:09] What does agility mean to you? I think about development agility and building products in smaller increments that you validate with customers along the way. More important is having an agile mindset. I often see the difference between doing agile and being agile. I see a lot of teams who go through the motions of agile project management without understanding why they are doing them. I also see leaders who don’t understand this mindset and demand long-term plans from a team working in a more agile environment.  [23:50] How do you empower a team? I was working with a product manager who was very new and kept coming to me with a lot of questions about what he should or shouldn’t do. I told him that he was empowered to make decisions on the product as long as he kept me informed. I immediately saw the light in his eyes and the product took off once he felt ownership of the decision making. If someone else is calling all the shots, progress stops when that person is not available.