Product Narrative as Asana official OKR partner
I am so happy and thrilled by the recent inclusion of Product Narrative in Asana’s list of 10 official OKR partners.
My team and I were hi-fiving, virtually! Yay.
This triggered me to reflect a little bit: perhaps, after all, we were not so bad in handling the following 4 themes. 😇
What themes?
From 2018 when we started Product Narrative to now, there are 4 recurring topics that often came up. On some challenging days, they successfully instilled some doubts in me. Other times, they served as sources of inspiration and personal drive.
Nonetheless, I found friendship, mentorship, and kind support as I went through each of these items.
Different challenges. Different times. Different people. All painted the natural and beautiful colors to the following back story of this little company, Product Narrative.
1. Value proposition category
Now we are comfortable to say Product Narrative as an employer communication company that helps organizations engage with their employees through OKR and clear company narratives.
During the initial months, I was not really sure about the proper language to explain what Product Narrative is. However, I was sure about 2 things. The first is internal communication (to employees) is as crucial as the external communication counterpart (e.g. to customers, investors, the general public, etc.). The second is OKR, as I had been benefiting from it while working in the Valley.
The two, for the lack of better terms, convictions were shared by my own experience working in companies that lacked either one or both.
One of the things I did was communicating what we would do, and the reasons behind it, to friends and professional communities. We got a few responses, and these 2 short responses from a product community stood out:
“It looks like fun work that you’re doing and definitely much closer along the make meaningful work journey.”
…
“And I hope & pray this will be super successful as we badly need this!”
Thank you for those words, Huishan Lim and Mohammed Pitolwala. They allowed me to keep going and believe a bit more in myself.
I put my heads down and kept working.
A couple of months after those encouraging comments, a few leaders in Midtrans resonated with what we believed in. They gave us space to put in our best work. We got our first client.
2. Company size
We work on the system, whereas they work in the system.
“How big is your company?”
(I sometimes wish they’d ask “how small is your company?”)
I understood where they’re coming from. It’s a valid perspective. It may be difficult to imagine how a company of this size (i.e. less than the number of fingers on my left hand) could possibly serve an established company, with a large number of teams, well?
I believe the company matters in a certain context. But, the skill and dedication of the people matter more.
In fact, in our line of work, it is always about the partnership with the internal parties. Behind the scene, we enable them with tools, confidence, and knowledge to carry on with the OKR adoption program. We work on the system, whereas they work in the system. Our team size is (and, should) not be comparable to theirs.
A few meeting opportunities were turned down because of our company size profile. During those months in 2019, I kept remembering a story one of my best friends shared a few years ago. It’s about her own experience, as a Head of Investor Relations, witnessing a 3-people company that saved a 5000-people organization from going into financial hardship.
Thank you for your story, Erlin Budiman. It allowed me to keep going and believe a bit more in myself.
We stayed small and lean until now. Our model seemed to work so far.
I am also thankful that, during this difficult time, we’re doing more than alright.
3. Pricing of our services
All of us in the service industry might relate to this item: pricing.
There had been occasions where our learning program fee was considered too expensive.
I wasn’t sure how the comparison was done. Too expensive typically requires being compared with something similar in nature. Nonetheless, it allowed me to step back and reflect.
I believe adopting OKR at scale requires commitment and group discipline by the people inside the organization to make it work. It sincerely needs time and a real environment to practice.
Sending a few of your team members for a 2-day training — regardless of how fancy the certificate of completion they’d collect at the end — doesn’t cut it. It may help those individuals to know what OKR is, but knowing is not the same as doing.
I believe our OKR adoption program must allow the participants (including the leaders) to gain experience and confidence in the doing, not only the knowing. We designed our program with that in mind.
The following email from the Finance lead, Midtrans, one of our client organizations, reconfirmed the old adage I often heard.
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
He wrote to me:
(copied verbatim)
“Initially, I was kinda skeptical (but I do get skeptical on almost all things), but time surely has shown how much impact you and the team at Product Narrative brought to us until this very moment: all the effort and time spent for Midtrans, shadowing each leader and providing insights as to what part they can do better. By now, from Finance’s viewpoint, I can proudly say that it’s money well spent (do pat yourself on the back, as I rarely say this to vendors).”
Thank you for your feedback, Ridwan Bagawi. It allowed me to keep going and believe a bit more in myself.
4. Our definition of “impact”
I am always fascinated by well-written books about leadership and management. What are the chances to see more case studies of leadership from the region (Asia) being mentioned or recognized on the global stage?
In the world of OKR, wouldn’t it be awesome if the future revisions of “Measure What Matters” also celebrate the successes of OKR adoption in companies in Indonesia or its neighboring countries?
I believe the chance is high as I witnessed these beautiful minds in the client organizations we served.
One example is my friend’s recent presentation “Building Situational Product Roadmap with OKR” for Tech in Asia. His product team in Vidio assimilated what they experienced with OKR* into their approach in building product roadmap. A novel yet practical idea for the product practitioners (300+ people in the audience) to adapt.
*The Product team in Vidio only took 6 weeks of using OKR to start experiencing a higher level of alignment. In 2020, the whole organization decided to adopt OKR as their common language of execution.
Thank you for sharing your learning, Hadikusuma Wahab. It allowed me to keep going and believe a bit more in myself.
For us, this is an impact.
While wrapping up this writeup, it became so clear to me Product Narrative had not really been done by us. I didn’t mean it as an anticlimactic. Yes, my team and I are the public-facing faces of Product Narrative. But, it was built by many people who lent their hands to us.
It is here because of those supportive words from many, including the ones not mentioned in this writing. Those words matter. They kept us toiling, standing up after we fell those many times, and moving forward.
One of my mentors said,
“To build something meaningful, do it with others. Don’t go alone.”
Thank you Djemi Suhenda. It is a slice of wisdom I was so lucky to listen to.
He continued,
“Organization and work is just a path. The learnings throughout the journey would be far more important — to what extent it brings you closer to the True Source.”
(I listened to that piece too.)
Thank you all.
Kind words matter. They allowed us to keep going and believe a bit more in ourselves.
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