The company Marquetly provides online training for marketers through digital classes on their platform. They were growing quickly but running into issues.
The CEO Chris hired the author to train their product managers. However, after working with them, the author realized the problems went deeper than just the individual product managers.
The issues were related to process, strategy, and organizational factors that were preventing Marquetly from hitting their goals. Things like how product management was structured, their approach to decision making, and broader company policies/culture.
Simply training the product managers wouldn't be enough - the entire company needed to change how they approached product development to support good product management practices and decision making based on outcomes, not just outputs.
The author tells Chris that in addition to hiring more experienced product managers, Marquetly will need to address these deeper issues at the process, strategy, and organizational level to truly escape what they call the "build trap" of focusing on features over value and outcomes.
So in summary, the author diagnosed that Marquetly's problems extended beyond individual team members, and that the company would need to undergo a more holistic transformation to fully support good product management and decision making.
Marquetly was experiencing declining revenue growth after a period of rapid hiring and expansion into new markets.
They hired many junior product managers without experience and put marketing people in these roles to work with developers.
The VP of product Karen was under pressure to deliver many new features for enterprise clients without proper strategic planning.
Sales and leadership were frustrated with a lack of roadmaps and features to sell. Product managers cited demands from leadership for features as the problem.
The author assessed the skills of the product managers but realized after a few months that more experienced hiring was needed as the junior people could not be sufficiently mentored. Leadership resisted this.
Projects were too large in scope for the available resources and deadlines were set before strategic planning. Product managers prioritized shipping over proper process under pressure.
Features were rushed out but failed to add value, broke the product, and were not adopted by users. Revenue declined further.
The organization lacked alignment on goals, had too many priorities spread thinly, and incentivized shipping over problem solving.
The author concluded they were trapped in a "build trap" where focus was on delivering features rather than achieving business outcomes. Significant organizational change was needed to shift to a more product-led approach.
Companies get stuck in the "build trap" when they measure value by how many features/outputs they produce rather than the outcomes and solving customer problems. Kodak and Microsoft fell into this trap.
To escape the build trap, the entire organization needs to be optimized for continually creating value for both the business and customers through outcomes, not just outputs.
There is a value exchange system between customers/users and companies, but both sides face constraints that can limit value creation if not properly managed.
Companies often focus too much on outputs like number of releases and velocity rather than measuring outcomes and ensuring the features solve customer problems.
The right strategies, structures, processes, policies, culture and incentives are needed throughout the organization to continually learn customer needs and develop the right solutions to maximize value in the exchange system. Simply releasing many features is not enough.
Tegic thinking requires shifting from a project-based development cycle to aligning individual projects with an overarching product strategy.
Many companies operate using project management frameworks but confuse this with product management.
Products deliver repeatable value to users without needing new work each time, through things like software, goods, etc. Services require human labor to deliver value.
Projects have a defined scope and timeline, while products need ongoing nurturing and feature development to reach maturity.
Product management is important to move from a project to a product mindset and organize for product-driven growth.
Companies should be "product-led" rather than sales-led, visionary-led, or technology-led to avoid being trapped in endless development cycles.
Being product-led means optimizing products as the primary driver of business goals and outcomes through strategic prioritization of effective projects.
Shifting the company mindset is more challenging than technical changes, but frameworks in the book can help implement a product-led approach.
Product managers play a key role in companies by translating customer and business needs into products that solve problems and achieve goals.
However, product management is often not properly taught or supported in companies. Many PMs learn on the job through writing detailed specifications or ensuring timely development, but are not taught strategic thinking.
Under the traditional "waterfall" process, PMs gather requirements from stakeholders, write specs, and hand off to designers and developers. Customers rarely provide input until the end.
While Agile aims to improve collaboration and speed, it often ignores effective product management practices. PMs still operate with a waterfall mindset in many Agile organizations.
There are common "bad PM archetypes" where PMs go through the motions without strategic thinking, resulting in useless features. Companies need to properly define, teach, and evaluate the PM role to attract the right talent.
In summary, the piece discusses how product management is often misunderstood or improperly supported in companies, leading to bad practices, and argues that strategic thinking should be a core part of the PM role.
Here are the key characteristics of a great product manager according to the passage:
Understands many sides of the company - the market, how the business works, the company vision/goals, and deep empathy for users.
Is not actually a "manager" - does not have direct authority over the team. Must influence and convince rather than dictate.
Owns the "why" not the "what" - communicates the strategic direction and goal, not dictating exactly what to build.
Works with the cross-functional team to develop and validate ideas, then ensures the product achieves customer/user/business goals.
Champions and communicates the product vision.
Takes a strategic and experimental approach to determining what to build, continuously identifying unknowns.
Connects functional areas of the company (marketing, engineering, business etc.) to ensure alignment on product goals and strategy.
Has a holistic view of all elements - user needs, technical constraints, business goals, market opportunities etc. to guide product decisions.
In summary, a great product manager focuses on strategy, goal-setting, communication and influencing skills rather than direct management or project coordination. They consider all relevant factors to strategically guide the product in the right direction.
Here is a summary of the key points:
Product managers take input from various sources like customer research, market research, business goals, experiments, and data analysis to understand user needs and business objectives.
They analyze this information to create a product vision that solves customer problems while furthering the company's goals.
They approach their work with humility and a scientific mindset, knowing they don't have all the answers and need to validate assumptions through learning. Their goal is to reduce risk.
Good product managers interface with various teams like engineering, design, and business to harness collective knowledge rather than having a "lone wolf" mentality.
They work with teams like UX designers to understand user needs and flows, and engineers to determine feasibility and timelines.
Product management balances user experience, business factors, requirements, value propositions, and technical aspects to fit the product into the overall organizational picture.
Companies should avoid solely looking for technical or market experts, as product managers need balanced knowledge across domains rather than deep expertise in one area.
A great product manager listens to inputs, makes difficult trade-off decisions based on user and business needs, and focuses on solving the right problems through empirical learning and iteration.
Here's a summary of the key points:
Desired result: Successfully complete the digital mortgage application process and increase completion rates.
Success looks like: More customers completing their applications online instead of dropping out partway through the process. Higher approval and closing rates.
Risk if no one applies digitally: The project fails if customers don't want to or are unable to complete applications online. Revenue and approvals could decline.
Mitigating risk: Talk to customers to understand friction points and identify the right problems to solve. Experiment with solutions before full rollout. Monitor metrics like conversion rates to catch issues early.
Defining clear goals and success metrics upfront is important so the PM has a way to measure progress and determine if adjustments are needed. Allowing the PM to talk to customers and iterate on solutions based on learning reduces risk of building the wrong thing. Overall support from the organization and stakeholders helps set the PM up for success.
The summary focuses on identifying the desired outcome, what success looks like, key risks, and how the PM can mitigate risks by talking to customers, defining goals, and being given the flexibility to learn and iterate by the organization.
Product managers focus on both strategic and tactical work. As companies scale, roles become more defined with some taking on more strategic oversight while others focus more tactically on execution.
Associate product managers are entry-level roles for gaining experience in product management. Companies should establish programs to train and develop junior product managers.
Product managers work directly with teams on delivering features and optimizing products. They balance strategic vision with operational execution.
Senior product managers take on larger scope and more complex products as individual contributors. They concentrate on product problems without direct reports.
Directors of product take on people management responsibilities as the number of product managers reporting up increases with company/product portfolio growth. They provide oversight and guidance to multiple product teams.
VP of product and CPO roles take on even broader strategic responsibilities for all product portfolio work and business/market alignment at very large companies. The career path progresses from tactical hands-on work to broader strategic guidance and leadership.
Companies typically organize product teams around value streams, features, or technical components.
Organizing teams around technical components can lead teams to prioritize maintaining existing components over more strategic work.
Organizing around specific features runs the risk of teams focusing on developing more features in their area rather than strategic goals.
Small companies can effectively organize around goals rather than features or components. TransferWise is cited as organizing its ~12 teams around strategic goals like retention, new currencies, and acquisitions.
Organizing around goals allows the teams to work across products to accomplish their goal, while still being judged on outcomes. It requires intense coordination across teams but allows the company to have fewer teams overall.
The key is balancing coverage/scope of teams with strategic goals. Over time, teams organized around features or components can lose sight of goals in favor of ongoing work in their area.
So in summary, the passage recommends organizing teams around strategic goals rather than just features or components to keep teams focused on what matters most for the business. Coordination is important but this approach allows optimizing teams for outcomes.
MS (Microsoft) makes its product teams ruthlessly prioritize the most important initiatives and avoids useless work. This ensures focus on what really matters.
Having separate but redundant teams for each product part creates knowledge sharing across the company. If someone leaves, their knowledge doesn't leave with them. And if one team is busy, another can fix issues without delay.
While this extreme structure works well for TransferWise, it may not scale as companies take on more products. Value streams are a better way to organize larger companies.
A value stream is the full process of delivering value to customers, from understanding needs to delivering the product or service.
Companies should organize teams around optimizing the customer value stream to get value to customers faster. This may involve reorganizing teams by customer touchpoints rather than internal components.
While apps and features are pieces of value delivery, the true product is the overall value, like insurance coverage. Teams need structure to support the full customer value, not just internal parts.
Netflix realized early on that streaming over the Internet would be key to its future success in providing convenient movie viewing experiences for customers.
It began investing 1-2% of revenue each year in downloading capabilities to prepare for video-on-demand. The company's name "Netflix" reflected its vision of becoming the platform for internet video, not just DVD rentals.
In the early 2000s, streaming technology was not viable yet as internet speeds were too slow. Netflix developed a strategy to first build its DVD business, then lead in streaming as technology improved, and eventually expand globally.
It launched an unsuccessful hardware streaming device called Project Griffin in 2007 but realized partnering was better than competing in hardware. Griffin was spun off as Roku, and Netflix partnered with Microsoft to bring its streaming app to Xbox instead.
Netflix learned the importance of maintaining focus on its core mission rather than distractions. Success came from improving the everyday customer experience of conveniently delivering entertainment.
So in summary, Netflix had a clear strategic vision of leading internet video and preparing infrastructure for the future of streaming as technology allowed, even when it couldn't fully execute on streaming yet due to bandwidth limitations. It prioritized its core mission over distractions.
The passage discusses three strategic gaps that commonly occur when companies approach strategy as a plan rather than a framework:
The Knowledge Gap - When management demands more detailed plans and information to feel certain, rather than focusing on communicating strategic goals and intent. This often stems from a lack of alignment.
The Alignment Gap - When what people are doing and what management wants them to do are not aligned. This can happen when leadership passes down specific feature requests rather than aligning teams around overall business goals.
The Effects Gap - When the actual results do not match what was expected from the planned actions. Tightening controls will not help close this gap - teams need freedom to adjust based on data and feedback to achieve the intended outcomes.
The author argues that treating strategy as a detailed plan leads to these gaps. Instead, strategy should be an ongoing framework that provides strategic intent and allows teams flexibility to adjust based on learning. Leadership should focus on alignment around goals rather than demanding specific plans or controls. This approach helps organizations escape the "build trap" of building features without validation.
The company Marquetly was stuck in reactive mode and prioritizing work based on loud customer requests rather than strategic goals.
The new CPO Jen identified a lack of alignment on strategy and goals. Product managers didn't know why they were working on things, and leadership gave different answers on priorities.
The company realized it needed to change and create a proper strategic framework to align product development with its vision and goals.
A good strategic framework has two parts - the operational framework to keep day-to-day activities moving, and the strategic framework to realize the vision through products in the market.
Many companies confuse these and treat strategy as just a yearly planning cycle, lacking long-term focus and follow through.
Companies should continuously evaluate where to take action and fund decisions, not tie everything to an annual cycle.
A better approach is viewing major initiatives as "bets" like Spotify does, giving autonomy for experimentation rather than mandates, to embrace uncertainty and allow for course correction.
With a strong strategic framework, product development and management can be synchronized to the company's vision and goals.
Any product development strategy should involve a cyclical process of information sharing throughout the organization to ensure alignment. Strategies at different levels inform the activities of product teams, and the work produced by teams in turn informs the company direction.
Key aspects of this process include:
Communicating strategies up, down, and across the organization at an appropriate level for each part of the business. This provides direction and constraints to guide decision-making.
Teams executing work and producing data that feeds back up to evaluate strategies and inform future company direction through a process of continuous learning and improvement.
Maintaining alignment by continual two-way communication of strategies and learning throughout the organization. This keeps all parts of the business working towards common objectives.
The goal is to establish a structure where strategies, work, and information flow dynamically to keep the company continuously adapting and ensure everyone understands their role in achieving shared goals.
Here is a summary of the key points:
A company's vision statement should combine its mission (what it does) and vision (why it does it and how it wins) into a short, memorable statement.
Effective vision statements, like Warby Parker's and Bank of America's, articulate the company's purpose and value proposition clearly.
In addition to a vision statement, companies need strategic intents - 2-3 concrete, outcome-oriented goals for the next 1-3 years to focus the organization on achieving the vision.
Strategic intents should focus on major business priorities like entering new markets, creating new revenue streams, or doubling down in existing areas to drive growth.
Marquetly lacked clear strategic intents and focus, so the leadership team developed two new strategic intents: expand into the enterprise market and double growth from individual users.
Product initiatives then translate the strategic intents into concrete problems the product will solve to help achieve the business goals. For Netflix, enabling streaming on any device supported its strategic intent to lead the streaming market.
With a clear vision, strategic intents, and aligned product initiatives, the whole company can rally around major goals and priorities to drive the business forward.
Netflix originally faced the problem that subscribers could only watch content on their laptop, with no option to watch elsewhere or with others. This limited the experience.
Netflix formulated a product initiative user story to tackle this problem: "As a Netflix subscriber, I want to be able to watch Netflix anywhere, with anyone, comfortably." This guided their exploration of solutions.
Netflix explored various options or "bets" to solve this problem, such as developing the Roku player, partnering with Xbox, and creating apps for other devices. These options were aligned with their product initiative.
Product initiatives set the direction for product teams to explore options that solve user problems and meet company goals. The PM ensures options align with existing product visions.
Sometimes exploring options leads to new products. The product and portfolio visions keep teams focused on the most important problems and solutions.
The team at Marquetly was having a debate about how to drive more revenue from individual users. They realized they did not fully understand the problems they were trying to solve.
The team broke down the goal into three potential ways to increase revenue: acquire new users, retain existing users better, and create new revenue streams for existing users. They separated into groups to analyze data related to acquisition and retention.
The acquisition team found that the main issue was low conversion from visitors to paid signups. They started using a tool called Qualaroo to survey people leaving the site, discovering many wanted classes on new marketing methods or help transitioning careers, which were not offered.
The retention team found only 40% of users stayed after 6 months. Surveying former users, they learned most left due to a lack of interesting content options, which were often the same standard classes available elsewhere.
The teacher team discovered creators had trouble making new courses due to a difficult platform and not knowing what students wanted. This connected to the issues identified by visitors and former students.
The team proposed two initiatives: increase content in key interest areas to boost acquisition and retention, and create skills assessments to increase acquisition. Options were explored to achieve these, like easier course creation and feedback for teachers.
The product team at Marquetly was exploring ways to increase course variety on their platform to improve user retention and acquisition. Their research showed many users wanted more content options.
The team proposed an initiative to Jen, their VP, to double acquisition and increase retention from 40% to 70% by adding more courses. They estimated this could increase annual revenue by $8 million, helping meet their goal.
Jen approved moving forward with exploration. The team investigating how to get more teachers creating courses, as existing teachers only made one on average.
Product manager Christa met with her team to explore obstacles preventing additional course creation. Their research found the teacher experience was very time consuming and flawed, taking on average 61 days to publish one course. They identified opportunities to streamline the process and add new features to encourage more courses from teachers.
Christa's team gathered data on the problem and potential metrics to track success, such as increased course publication rates and number of second courses created per teacher. They were setting themselves up to propose solutions after understanding the problem more fully.
The team originally proposed an option to increase the rate of published courses to 50% and increase the number of second courses created by teachers to 30%.
Karen liked the direction but wanted them to provide more details on what exactly they would build or do to achieve those numbers.
The team then started a problem exploration process using the Product Kata technique to better understand the obstacles.
Their goal is to increase published courses to 50% and second courses to 30%. Currently, published courses are only at 25% and second courses are just 10%.
To tackle the obstacles, they realized they need to better understand the problems teachers face when creating courses.
Matt suggested doing 20 one-hour user research sessions watching teachers create courses. This would help identify the key problems in two weeks to help inform their solution.
So in summary, the team outlined initial metrics but needed to dive deeper into the problems through user research before defining their solution to have a better chance of achieving those metrics. The Product Kata helped structure their problem exploration.
Here is a summary of the key points:
Marquetly conducted problem-based user research by interviewing teachers and having them share their screens to understand their workflow and pain points. This helped identify the main problems to focus on.
Some of the key pain points identified were transferring content from other systems, importing content to launch courses faster, and wanting audio-only course options to save time on videos.
The interviews revealed teachers do much of their content creation outside the system, so they wanted an easier way to quickly enter it all in.
Analyzing the interviews, the team hypothesized that by helping teachers more easily get lesson content into the system, they could increase the rate of published courses and number of second courses created.
It's important to understand the root cause of problems through user research, rather than jumping to solutions. Features should solve clear problems, not be added for their own sake.
Companies can get attached to solution ideas before validating the underlying problem with users. This wastes time and resources if the solution isn't solving a real need.
In another example, a company rushed an app without understanding user needs, when interviews revealed users did not want to connect with strangers for mentorship in the way the app proposed. User validation is critical.
Many women were finding mentors through referrals from trusted sources like friends, alumni networks, work meetups, rather than random connections from apps.
A company tried building an app to connect women with mentors but quickly realized through customer interviews that their solution was invalid and they didn't fully understand the problem.
After doing proper problem research of interviewing some women about their mentorship and networking challenges, the team realized the key problem was creating online course content, specifically creating and editing videos, not just getting content into their system as they had initially thought.
An experiment of helping teachers input course content revealed teachers were sending unedited video files and separate audio, showing their difficulty was with video creation, not just the system interface.
Surveys found video creation was a major pain point, with teachers spending 2 months editing videos and others giving up courses due to the video challenges. The company needed to refocus on solving the real problem of supporting online video creation.
The team at Marquetly ran an initial concierge experiment to help teachers with video editing for their online courses. They learned that video editing took up a huge amount of teachers' time and was hindering course development.
In the experiment, the team manually took on editing videos for 10 teachers over two weeks. They found that most teachers didn't understand how to create effective instructional videos. The team realized they needed to provide guidance on video creation best practices.
The experiment was successful in that 12 out of the 14 teachers whose videos were edited ended up publishing their courses within 3 weeks. However, the concierge approach did not scale well beyond helping a small number of teachers manually.
This validated the problem of video editing hindering course development, but showed the need for an automated solution. The team then worked to define the key components and user needs for such a solution based on their learnings from the concierge experiment. They continued iterating and testing ideas to develop a scalable product.
The founder of an e-commerce shoe company validated demand by listing a simple inventory of shoes for sale online without a full shopping site built out. Customers could place orders, which the founder would then fulfill manually. This "Wizard of Oz" method proved there was demand without a large upfront investment.
At an e-commerce company, the head of operations had an idea to sell recurring subscription products like vitamins and supplements. To test it without a major development effort, they duplicated qualifying products with "subscription" in the title and had customer service manually fulfill recurring orders. This experiment showed subscriptions could increase revenue enough to justify developing the feature fully.
Concept testing involves demonstrating solution concepts through low-fidelity prototypes, videos, etc. to gather feedback without a full build. This helps validate solutions in an innovative, low-cost way. Dropbox used concept testing to secure funding by showing investors a mock demo video of their file sync solution.
Not all problems require robust experimentation - some fixes are straightforward once the problem is understood. Prototyping is usually sufficient to test specific user flows or features. Complex industries can still experiment through prototyping, testing components, etc. to reduce risk and learn before full development.
The passage talks about how GiveVision, a company that makes smartglasses to help sight-impaired people, approached product development. Rather than spend years developing hardware without user feedback, they used creativity and experimentation to mitigate risk and learn quickly.
Specifically, they researched users to identify top problems like reading signs. Unable to iterate software in their glasses, they programmed an Android phone and 3D printed "glasses" to simulate the product. This allowed testing software recognition features without long hardware cycles. Users provided valuable feedback that informed the real glasses' development.
The key lessons are that experimentation reduces risk by getting faster user feedback, and every product has unknowns that require creative solutions. Internal tools also need this approach, as the passage discusses through one company's experience improving internal platforms based on employee needs.
Overall, the passage advocates emulating GiveVision's experiments and rapid learning process. This allows addressing unknowns efficiently in any industry by getting user input early to develop the right solutions.
Here is a summary of the key points:
Marquetly's teachers were struggling to publish courses due to the long time spent on video editing (80 hours on average). This was limiting growth.
Experiments showed providing video editing software helped increased publish rates from 25% to 75%.
The team proposed acquiring a video editing software company in Budapest to develop this capability internally.
They integrated the software, tested prototypes, gathered feedback and launched an initial version.
Success metrics were 75% teacher adoption, 60%+ publish rate, and under 1 month to create a course.
Adoption was slightly lower than hoped after 1 month, so they followed up to understand barriers to adoption.
Iterating based on feedback and data, they continued improving the tool until achieving their goals of 75% publish rate, happier teachers and more second courses.
The case study demonstrates how experimenting, gaining user insights and iterating helped evolve the initial vision into a successful scalable solution.
The passage describes a project between Cornell University and Kodak Research Labs in 2007-2008 to develop a new product for people in their early 20s.
An innovation team from Cornell proposed integrating camera technology into phones after seeing the potential of the recently launched iPhone. However, Kodak was still focused on combining cameras and the internet on a separate device.
This failed to recognize the disruption that smartphones with good cameras could cause to Kodak's traditional camera business. Within a few years, the ubiquity of smartphone cameras did significantly disrupt Kodak's business, contributing to its eventual decline.
The example illustrates how an organization that does not plan for or recognize technological innovation and disruption can fall behind competitors. Kodak missed the opportunity to get involved in smartphone photography early on.
So in summary, the passage uses Kodak's experience to show how product-led organizations need to anticipate innovation and changing customer needs in order to avoid being disrupted by new technologies. Failing to do so can have serious consequences, as occurred with Kodak's decline.
The company Marquetly was struggling and stuck in the "build trap" - focused on building features without understanding customers.
They implemented a transition to becoming a product-led organization, focusing on product management processes, understanding customers, and driving toward strategic outcomes.
After a year of transition, positive results were being seen. The company met launch and growth targets for new video editing software and online course offerings.
The CEO and leadership team were impressed with the progress and business results. They recognized the benefits of focusing on outcomes over just shipping features.
Some challenges remained to fully transform the organization, such as setting more frequent review meetings to increase transparency into progress and outcomes.
The summary emphasizes that truly transforming an organization requires leadership buy-in to focus on outcomes over features, and implementing changes to communicate and measure progress in outcome-oriented ways. Ongoing work was still needed but the company was well on its way after making the transition.
Effective communication across all levels of an organization is important so that leadership can understand progress and feel less need to micromanage teams.
Regular review meetings at different intervals (e.g. quarterly, monthly) help communicate progress on goals, initiatives and releases to different audiences like executives and product teams.
Roadmaps should be 'living' documents that explain strategy, development stages and goals, not rigid schedules. They need to be tailored for internal teams vs sales communication.
As companies scale, managing communication, processes and reporting becomes challenging. A product operations team can help streamline these activities so product teams can focus on building.
The key points are about establishing regular communication cadences tailored to different audiences, using roadmaps to transparently explain strategy and progress, and how a product operations team can help coordinate these efforts as a company grows.
Rewards and incentives need to be evaluated to ensure they motivate the right behaviors, like achieving outcomes rather than just delivering features. Tying bonuses only to shipping code encourages people to rush features without ensuring quality or customer value.
Product managers may want to build the right thing but feel pressure to deliver items on scorecards or roadmaps to get bonuses, even if it's not the best solution. They need support from leadership to change incentives.
Sales teams are often incentivized mainly by commissions, which can lead them to overpromise roadmaps or target the wrong customers to hit numbers, at the cost of retention. Their incentives should also consider retention.
Culture needs to allow enough safety to fail and learn through exploration. Teams won't innovate or try new things if there is no room to experiment without knowing the answers upfront. Leadership must provide trust and hold back criticisms during experimentation.
Both rewards and culture impact whether teams feel empowered to pursue outcomes, learn continuously, and challenge the status quo through experimentation instead of just delivering features.
The key outcomes were that companies started celebrating failures as opportunities to learn, rather than only focusing on successes. Learning was seen as the core goal of product-led organizations.
It is better to fail in smaller, earlier ways to learn what will succeed rather than failing in a large, public way after spending significant time and resources. Problem and solution exploration helps reduce risks of failing in the market.
Even spectacular failures can be recovered from if the company responds well. Netflix tried and failed with Qwikster but recovered by apologizing, focusing on customers, and continued innovating without fear of failure.
Companies need a culture where it is safe to fail in order to encourage innovation. Product managers won't take risks without that safety.
Budgeting for outcomes rather than outputs is important. Funding should be tied to hitting milestones and learning, not just spending allocated funds. Approaching it like a venture capitalist with staged funding helps reduce risks and failures.
Establishing boundaries for experiments helps make the first failures less scary. Coming back with learnings from small, controlled tests builds trust to continue innovating.
The company, Marquetly, adopted a more product-led approach by focusing on outcomes over outputs and tying all budgeting and investments to getting products to the next stage.
This required breaking out of annual budgeting cycles. Instead, funds were allocated to the product portfolio as a whole and product reviews determined what should be funded based on likelihood of outcomes.
Not all investments started small - initial investments could be larger depending on the opportunity and available data. But the goal was to fuel investments until the next stage was reached.
Marquetly also embraced a customer-centric culture, deeply understanding customers through activities like farm visits. This helped them create great products.
It took years for Marquetly to fully escape the "build trap" of focusing on outputs. Leadership change and patience was required.
Prioritizing strategy on a rolling basis and funding validated initiatives allowed Marquetly to achieve its goals and eventually be acquired, demonstrating the success of the product-led approach.
The questions evaluate whether a company is truly product-led or stuck in the "build trap" of building things for the sake of checking boxes rather than solving user problems.
Key signs that a company may be product-led include product managers coming up with ideas rather than having ideas handed down from above, regularly killing products that aren't working, empowering product managers to talk to customers, having clear and outcome-focused goals, and focusing on solving user problems rather than just shipping solutions.
Respect for product managers as leaders who guide the company's direction, rather than just coordinating projects, is also a sign of being product-led.
Asking product managers these questions during interviews helps evaluate if a company will empower them to truly focus on the user and achieve business goals through their products.
Here is a summary of the key points from the passages:
The Improvement Kata is a framework used by Toyota for continuous improvement. It involves problem solving through plan-do-check-act cycles.
Disney had revenues of $165 billion in 2017, while Dollar Shave Club and Information Physics discussed innovation frameworks.
Features can lead to fatigue if added without consideration for users. Product metrics and Pirate Metrics were discussed for measuring outcomes rather than outputs.
Examples included the experiences of Netflix splitting off its DVD business and focusing on customers, while Kodak struggled with innovation as technology changed.
Continuous experimentation was emphasized, along with techniques like A/B testing, concept testing, and concierge experiments. Care needs to be taken with experimentation levels and organizational support.
Context was provided on product management approaches, bad archetypes to avoid, and characteristics of effective product managers. Their role in driving outcomes and becoming product-led organizations was highlighted.
Strategies, strategic intents, and developing the right framework to avoid gaps were discussed. Product vision and roadmaps were also addressed.
The book provides a comprehensive overview of the product manager role and best practices for structuring teams, developing strategy, managing the product process, and building an organization centered around customer-focused product leadership. It advocates for a data-driven and experimentally-minded approach.