How to create a successful Product Team
Written by: Hayley Hinsley
Imagine having an amazing product idea but nobody to build it. Would you know where to start? How would you create a successful Product Team where everybody is new to each other and to the company?
Hiring is hard and I won’t dare go into it as part of this article because quite simply, I am not the best person to give advice on hiring. There are far more qualified and experienced people who could easily detail the best hiring processes and how to find the gems you need.
Instead, my aim within this article is to explain the three key areas that will help you to cultivate your team and work with them to become more efficient, effective and empowered.
The most important factor that can really make or break a Product Team is the product vision. Does everybody know what it is? Does everybody believe in it? If you’ve answered no to either (or both) of these questions then you’re in trouble and need to focus on improving team communication and knowledge in this area.
The team knowing your idea for the product is great but it’s not enough. You need to make sure that the whole business understands the reason behind creating the product. Anybody working in any department should be able to tell you what problem the business is solving, who they’re solving it for and why it’s important.
Remember though there is a clear difference between the product vision and the product itself. The vision is the motivation behind building the solution (the product). For example, Nike’s product vision is to:
“bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world*
*if you have a body, you are an athlete”
Their products are created to achieve this in a sustainable and future proofed manner. They cater for a wide range of people in a wide range of places and stages in their lives. A great example of a product supporting their vision is that in 2021 they launched a new maternity sports bra which allows mum’s to easily breastfeed whilst training (probably not at the same time though). This not only shows empathy in understanding a problem their customers had but it also inspires their customers to see what’s possible when using their product!
It’s really key that people not only understand your product vision, but that they also believe in it. Nobody is going to be passionate about their job if they don’t buy into what they’re helping create so don’t hire a technophobe to develop a new AI system…
Of course a four person row boat is far easier to steer than a 200 person cruise ship but it can be done with clear communication and an agreed direction!
The second most important thing in my opinion to create and maintain a successful Product Team is to make sure everybody understands their value within the team. All team members should feel appreciated and know that their work matters.
It shouldn’t be uncommon for you to praise your team when they do excellent work, whether it’s completing a huge data migration without any hiccups or presenting a demo to the company — tell them how well they did! I think some people can forget that whilst an excellent level of work is of course expected in any role, that doesn’t mean that it should go unsung.
When people feel valued, they feel empowered and are more likely to put themselves forward for taking on new projects or more responsibilities. Trust your team and their abilities, give them ownership of a task and let them be creative with it! Projects are of course a joint effort and we don’t want to create silo’s but by giving people the confidence and freedom to lead it will help them (and also the business) to grow.
An often overlooked part of valuing somebody is respecting their time and attention. Make sure you know what their working hours are, minimise any interruptions they suffer from where possible and limit meetings with them to only those necessary. This isn’t to say you should never message or talk to somebody, but it’s making sure that you don’t expect replies straight away to non-urgent Slack messages and not getting annoyed at calendar invitations being declined.
The third and final tip I can give you is to make sure that you base your teams processes on their needs and preferences. Just because 8am meetings, the “To Do — In Progress — Done” JIRA workflow and Friday retrospectives worked at your previous company doesn’t mean they’ll work here.
When starting off with a brand new team, we obviously all have to start somewhere and there is usually safety in the knowledge of our tried and tested processes or methods. This is completely acceptable and I fully encourage you to do it when starting from scratch but do not get stuck in doing these things just through habit, make sure they actually are working well for everybody.
Ensure you regularly check-in with everybody if the processes in place are serving them correctly or if they’re just giving them pain. Here are a few examples of times when you might need to shake things up a little:
- Is somebody always late for the 8:30 standup because they’re having to rush back from the school run? Ask everyone if they’d mind working around this and move standup to 9 instead because lets be honest, we don’t need to add any extra stress to the school run…
- Do retrospectives feel a bit flat and are people running out of things to say each time? Switch up the format you use, focus on one topic rather than the whole sprint, or maybe get rid of whatever board you use altogether and just have a general chat about the sprint instead
- Is anybody using the “design review” status in JIRA or do all tickets bypass this and go straight to “code review” instead? Find out why people aren’t using it, if there’s simply no need anymore now you’re further into the product build then remove it from the workflow
The important thing here is to ask for feedback regularly on the processes you have in place, listen to what people have to say and don’t be offended if changes are requested. As your team grows, whether in size or maturity, your processes should adapt to fit with that. What worked at the beginning when you were a team of two sitting in a room together won’t work when you’re a team of 12 all remotely dialling into meetings.
Within a team there will often be times of compromise and growing pains too but as long as everybody is open to trying new approaches and gives it time to bed in then you’ll keep growing together!
To summarise, here are my top ideas for how to ensure you grow and maintain a successful Product Team:
- Ensure everybody knows and believes in the product vision and it’s continued purpose
- Value your team: give people praise, trust and respect
- Regularly review and adapt processes to fit your team needs and do what’s right for them now
Do you agree with what I think makes a Product Team successful? I’d love to know your thoughts on what I could add to this list and how we can continue growing our team!
