Mikal: Hi, this is Mikal.
Sam: And I’m Sam.
Mikal:
I’ve had close to 15 years of experience in the tech industry working as a product manager and supporting design and engineering teams. I’ve had the pleasure of working on 2 billion user franchises on Office and Windows, and shipping products that people love working on Nordstrom.com and Xbox.
Mikal:
I’ve noticed a fundamental issue that’s been happening with product teams I have talked to, in my experience and beyond. Which is a disconnect between the results and the actions that we take every day and the true outcomes of delivering business results and products people love. And that’s why we started the The Product Coach Podcast, to share with you the insights on how more of us can spend every day building breakthrough products.
Sam:
Over the next 13 weeks, we will be discussing the journey to creating breakthrough products, starting with the product team.
Mikal:
Through this, the core arc is how do we build great products? Great products produce great results. And so the first step in that is where we’re focusing these 13 [episodes], which is how to build the product team, which produces that product.
Sam:
So, Mikal, can you tell me a little bit about what is really wrong in this industry right now and how people can make quick, I wouldn’t maybe call them easy, but definitely doable changes on their teams to create a better breakthrough product?
Mikal:
Yeah. I think one of the biggest issues with the industry is that this emphasis on quick. It seems like every time product teams run into a challenge, the first question is, “Okay, what are the quick wins that we can do to change this?” And too often those solutions are neither quick nor truly wins. To build breakthrough products really requires a foundational alignment between the business incentives and the customer outcomes through the product roadmap, and so there’s kind of a bottoms up approach that needs to happen in order to align your company and your team towards building these breakthrough products.
Mikal:
As an example of this, the State of Product Leadership, Pendo and the Product Collective released this annual report on the state of product leadership, and one of the interesting things is just how satisfied product managers are at their job. Everyone for the most part has a pretty high product satisfaction. 89% of them are saying that their companies are product led, but if you look at how would you rate your performance in each of these? The dead last is achieving revenue goals, and the second to last is customer onboarding, and the third is roadmap and prioritization.
Mikal:
Now the question I have is how can we all collectively feel so great about how we’re doing as an industry and how we’re doing in our functions if these three things are the areas that we’re pretty much rating ourselves fundamentally ineffective at?
Sam:
I think that’s a glaring indication of the misfiring between the actions that are actually being done and the evidence of the results.
Mikal:
If this is the state of product management and this is the reality of where we are, a natural question is, well, what could be better and what should we be aspiring to?
Sam:
We’ll discuss all of that and more in next week’s episode.
Sam:
Thank you for listening to The Product Coach. If you would like to hear more, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. While you’re there, please consider leaving a review. It helps us reach new listeners and we’d love to know what you think. To find a transcript of this podcast, visit theproductcoach.com. To learn more about the topics covered, be sure to check the show notes for references and links.
The Product Coach Podcast by Praxis Product Leadership 