Conference notes: 7 things I learned at the Product Leader Summit
I had the opportunity to attend the Spero Ventures Product Leader Summit — a conference specifically for product leaders. Invite only conference (I had to submit an application to get in) — but the curation, and small audience meant that the talks and conversations could be focussed on higher order topics. Easily my favorite product conference.
I always try to jot down key takeaways from conferences for the benefit of my teams — sharing them here in case it helps.
Product leadership is product stewardship — and means being responsible for how people use your product (Shripriya Mahesh). With the backdrop of the current “tech-lash”, a very timely talk and topic. People use products in ways that are different from the creators’ original intention. Interesting anecdote around the origins of the frisbee — which originally was the container for pies from the “Frisbee Pie Company” until people discovered that it could be used as a flying disc. Shripriya urged product managers to think about these alternate and worst case scenarios up front — and put controls in place. In my view — this is one of the many places where having a diverse team helps. People with different backgrounds and contexts can come at a problem from multiple angles and can think through worst-case scenarios more comprehensively. Not surprising that tech’s main issues of the day are inextricably linked.
Consumer mindset can be a differentiator for enterprise products (Aaron Levy — CEO Box): Not a new insight — given “consumerization of IT” and the success that companies like Slack have had in the enterprise by driving adoption amongst end users (and not just the technology buyer), but refreshing to see this idea being reinforced. This is also something I have been thinking about a lot as I built internal products today at Capital One (from fraud investigators, or data scientists) — how might we apply the tools / frameworks of consumer product development (e.g. design thinking, jobs to be done, service design, product instrumentation / analytics etc.) to this problem. Fascinating topic and great to see successful companies being built on this seemingly simple yet powerful hypothesis.
Fear f**ks with judgment (Ev Williams — Blogger, Twitter, Medium) on how to think about situations when you fear that you are going down the wrong path. Ev spoke about some important pivot points in his career e.g. a potential pivot of Blogger towards enterprise (that never happened), the famous story of the Twitter API (which he called one of the most misunderstood stories in the valley) and Medium’s pivot towards consumer subscriptions. Ev spoke about these being momentous decisions — which were tests of his judgement and core mission. Ultimately, his belief is that great companies require risks and taking leaps of faith in the absence of perfect data — otherwise you risk surrendering to incrementalism and mediocrity.
Narrative writing upfront forces clarity of thought (Kintan Brahmbhatt, Amazon): Useful interactive working session on the Amazon product process; we walked through a real live example of the famous Press Release/FAQ = 6 pager document. I strive to do this up-front thinking with my team — I think there is some merit to a templatized / prescriptive approach to product documentation. Forces you to think about topics that wouldn’t naturally come to mind (e.g. the “what could go wrong” topic from above). Also allows you to share problems /vision /goals /go to market plans/risk mitigation approaches with stakeholders.
Culture doesn’t explain it — (Marty Cagan). Successful companies like Apple, Google, Amazon etc. have very different cultures, so culture alone doesn’t explain their success. The talk focussed on how empowered teams are necessary to achieve great things — with ordinary people. The last bit — around how ordinary people can achieve great things in the right environment was a good validation of my belief that developing people is as (if not more) important as hiring “rockstars”. The talk had a bunch of helpful nuggets. E.g. the role of product leaders (product vision, product strategy, product principles, product priorities and product evangelism), the role of management (staffing, coaching and objectives). The final litmus test around whether your teams are truly empowered was thought provoking. The litmus test is:
- The team is staffed with competent people with character, covering the necessary range of skills
- The team is assigned problems to solve, and they are able to decide the best way to solve those problems
- The team is accountable for solving the customer or business problem (outcome)
Marty has written about this talk here
Great review of strategic frameworks (Gibson Biddle) — as well as examples of how these helped him at various companies like Netflix and Chegg.
- GLE: Get big, Lead, Expand — encourages long-term thinking in a phased approach. For example — at Netflix, this strategy was “Get big on DVD, Lead Streaming, Expand worldwide”
- GEM: Growth, Engagement, Monetization — helps to align everyone, enables clear x-functional prioritization
- DHM: Delight customers in Hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways — which is also Gib’s definition of product management. what makes things hard to copy? Economies of scale, network effects, brand, unique technology
Power of prototyping to establish principles (Erin Teague, Google): Awesome talk on building for emerging platforms (VR in this case). She spoke about how early prototypes for VR experiences — some of which made her physically sick, helped the team establish product principles. Important concept — as I think too often, product principles are established too early, and end up being like motherhood and apple pie i.e too obvious, and hard to argue with. Great product principles in my mind are those that take a stance on some tension that exists in the product development process.
Miscellaneous:
Stand-out quotes:
- “Job #1 as a PM — don’t let there be a better solution to the problem you’re trying to solve” — Aaron Levy
- “When you don’t have product-market fit — don’t polish” — Ev Williams
- “Fear f**ks with judgement” — Ev Williams
- “Be insanely clear about your principles — what you will not compromise on. Don’t need strategy fully figured out but can say yes or no based on those principles” — Aaron Levy
- “Leadership is about recognizing that there is greatness in everyone and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge” — Coach Bill Cambell (part of Marty Cagan’s talk)
Books recommended by various speakers :
- Made to stick: Chip Heath
- The no-asshole rule: Robert Sutton
- Creative Selection: Ken Kocienda (see my review here)
- Project Aristotle: Google’s research on successful teams
Communication tools: There was an interesting workshop on communication for product managers. Some interesting apps discussed e.g. Vocal warm-up, Like So (helps to eliminate filler words), Voice vibes (automated analysis and feedback on topics like vocal variety, pace etc.)
A big thank you to the organizers (Ha Nguyen, Gibson Biddle, Dan Olsen, Sarah Bernard and Ashita Achutan) for pulling together such an impressive group of people. Looking forward to next year!
All views, opinions and statements are my own.
