In today's rapidly evolving B2B SaaS business model, the selling paradigm has significantly transformed, with product-led sales taking center stage. The shift from primarily Sales-Led Growth (SLG) to an increased emphasis on Product-Led Growth (PLG) while keeping the best of both worlds represents a fundamental change in demand generation strategy. The most effective approach, as demonstrated by successful startups that scaled rapidly beyond $50M ARR, is a hybrid model that synergistically combines SLG's and PLG's strengths to create a product-led sales motion.

In this blog post, I share professional insights I gained from the development of PLG strategies that co-exist with SLG at prominent organizations such as Turnitin, Bitrise, and insightsoftware. I examine the key benefits and challenges of implementing product-led sales, address the necessary cultural adjustments, and highlight the importance of collaborative efforts across sales, marketing, product, and engineering teams. This discussion also emphasizes how PLG can complement and enhance SLG strategies, thereby creating a more comprehensive land and expanding growth motion in the competitive landscape of B2B SaaS. This post aims to provide a thorough understanding of this integrated approach, which merges PLG and SLG into product-led sales to drive business success.

Why is PLG so hard?

A successful implementation of PLG presents a series of significant challenges. At the heart of these challenges is the necessity for robust, multi-disciplinary collaboration. Departments such as Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Design, and Research must not only align their strategies and operations but also work cohesively towards a common goal of building a compelling user journey where the product demonstrates value through the adoption of core functionality, eventually enabling the user to reach the stage of activation and purchase. Suppose not all of these departments can participate or may not even exist in your organization. In that case, roles will have to be assigned to existing team members who are not experts in those domains, hindering progress as they need to become more familiar and capable. This requirement for interdisciplinary integration sets a high bar for a successful PLG implementation, not to mention the investment required in time and therefore cost to make PLG work when other priorities are in daily demand.

Once the interdisciplinary team is assembled and committed, the next hurdle in the creation of PLG and integration with SLG is the cultural shift that it requires. Traditional SLG models typically focus on sales teams driving customer acquisition and revenue, whereas PLG demands a product-centric approach where the product does the initial selling. This shift requires a fundamental change in organizational mindset and operational dynamics. It's not uncommon that sales leadership views PLG as either competitive (especially when compensation models are not set up right) or a source of leads that should be nurtured by sales reps before users have a chance to adopt the product and recognize value. Overcoming this cultural barrier involves reorienting the entire organization's focus towards product-led strategies and ensuring that all teams understand and embrace the value of this approach.

The cultural shift for PLG also needs to take place in marketing. Lead generation will now include a significant, if not majority, effort to get the user to try the product. Growth loops, if established effectively, will empower users to be advocates and spread the product to their colleagues and friends. These marketing activities complement or enhance the virality of the product and are squarely targeted at the end practitioner, who frequently is not the target audience for SLG. The desire to chase a larger deal size with direct selling means the audience is further up the chain with bigger projects and larger scope, not a user or team that may start small and only spend thousands if not hundreds of dollars per year.

Another significant challenge is the need for more alignment of goals between departments. In a PLG motion, the product is designed to sell itself, requiring product teams to be deeply attuned to user needs and experiences. Conversely, sales teams might prioritize immediate revenue generation with executive stakeholders. This divergence can lead to conflicting strategies and priorities, which occurred at all the companies I worked at. The most profound was the product team building a bottom-up user-based adoption model at the team level while sales were selling top-down and expected Enterprise-level functionality. There was a lot of frustration when this became apparent, and the sales team had to be reorganized, which impacted many good people. To address this, organizations must establish clear, unified objectives that reconcile product development aims with sales and marketing strategies, ensuring that all teams work towards a cohesive goal.

Resource allocation also poses a considerable challenge. PLG initiatives often require substantial investment in initial product development, user experience, and analytics capabilities to enable the product and supporting functions to be self-service. This can lead to reallocating resources that traditionally might have been directed toward feature development for sales-led deals.

When PLG becomes effective, sales and marketing should become more efficient and, therefore, lower cost, further sparking the debate about how much budget should be allocated to those departments. Organizations must balance their investments and ensure that resources are allocated efficiently to effectively support PLG and SLG strategies.

Furthermore, PLG implementation demands rapid exploratory iterations, such as A/B testing, to continuously refine the product based on user feedback and behavior. This approach requires a flexible and agile operational model, which can be a significant departure from the more linear and structured processes standard in many organizations. Companies need to foster a culture of agility and experimentation to adopt these iterative methods, where rapid testing and data-driven decision-making are the norms. Rapid testing can shock some organizations that operate in a more linear and methodical model. It's common to have multiple experiments and, therefore, changes to the product weekly. When organizations ship monthly or even quarterly to their customers, daily changes require a massive overhaul of processes.

To overcome these challenges, organizations should focus on fostering a culture that values cross-functional collaboration and continuous learning. Setting clear, aligned objectives across all departments, ensuring transparent communication, and developing a shared understanding of the PLG strategy are essential. Additionally, investing in training and development programs can help teams acquire the necessary skills and mindset to thrive in a PLG-focused environment. By addressing these challenges head-on, companies can unlock the full potential of PLG, driving growth and success in the competitive landscape of B2B SaaS.

Understanding the user's PLG journey

Understanding the nuances of a user's PLG journey is essential to optimizing the activities for the best conversion and creating growth loops that accelerate business results. The PLG journey is markedly distinct from the traditional Sales-Led Growth approach. For PLG, automation and analytics play a significant role, and knowing what to automate and optimize starts with understanding the user's journey.

In PLG, the user's journey centers around the user's registration, onboarding, and interaction with the product. The emphasis is on the product driving user engagement and conversion to a paying customer. Product engagement contrasts with the SLG model, where the sales team primarily guides potential customers through the sales funnel, often involving more complex negotiations and a broader set of stakeholders, like Enterprise procurement staff. The PLG journey is inherently scalable, as it leverages the product to engage and convert users, while SLG can provide a more personalized approach, especially for complex, high-value sales.

Documenting the user journey in a PLG model is crucial. It provides insights into how users interact with the product, what features they find valuable, and when they will likely convert. At Turnitin and Bitrise, user research, qualitative and quantitative, was the foundation for understanding the user journey. This documentation is instrumental in understanding users' pathway from initial engagement to realizing the product's value and where further optimization will improve the conversations to purchase. We used tools like Hotjar to create engagement heat maps and capture user behavior, while products like Amplitude revealed engagement with specific features.

A critical concept in the PLG journey is 'activation,' where user behaviors within the product indicate that the user has realized its value. This realization is often observable through specific actions or engagement levels with the product, signaling that the user has experienced the product's key benefit. This point of value realization is crucial and typically marks the generation of a Product Qualified Lead (PQL). At Bitrise (a mobile DevOps tool), we found through analysis that a user building their mobile app more than six times successfully was likely to complete a purchase and, therefore, was an activation signal. The user overcame the hurdles in setting up the Bitrise product and debugging their mobile app successfully, and they were now able to build consistently.

A PQL moment is a great opportunity for the sales team to engage, as the user will be more receptive to a sales call once they have recognized the product's value. The data collected about the user and their engagement with the product so far signals an opportune time to start engaging with the user and provides the background to navigate the conversation. The transition from a PQL to a paying customer often involves guiding the user toward understanding the additional benefits and capabilities unlocked in the paid version of the product, as well as assisting with the required approvals and paperwork in larger organizations.

Both PLG and SLG journeys, as well as the handoff between the two, are essential for a comprehensive growth strategy with Enterprise transactions. PLG excels in creating initial interest and engagement at scale, allowing users to experience the product's value firsthand. In contrast, SLG is invaluable in navigating more complex sales cycles, especially those involving multiple decision-makers in higher-value deals. By understanding and documenting these journeys, companies can effectively tailor their strategies to leverage the strengths of both PLG and SLG, guiding users from initial product engagement to becoming long-term, valuable customers.

Instrumenting the user's PLG journey

Once the user's PLG journey is documented, the next step is to instrument the user journey to optimize the conversion to paid users. This process involves selecting key metrics along a typical user's journey, and visualizing them as a funnel, to identify and enhance underperforming stages.

In the initial stages of developing a user funnel, the selection of metrics is crucial, and keeping them to a small number to showcase success is best. The funnel metrics should include the user's journey to register and implement the product and the key steps leading to activation and purchase. Standard engagement metrics include product setup features. From my experience, that was course setup in Gradescope and connecting a repo in Bitrise. Further usage of crucial features after initial setup such as grading assignments in Gradescope or building a mobile app successfully in Bitrise, are essential signals leading to activation, and eventually conversion to paid. By closely monitoring these metrics, organizations can gain valuable insights into user behavior and readiness to buy, allowing them to make informed decisions for a more personalized and higher touch engagement.

In addition to choosing the right metrics, it is equally important to understand how these metrics can guide strategy adjustments and improvements. For instance, a low activation rate might suggest the need for a more intuitive user experience. The Designer can enhance the UX with guidance for new users utilizing built-in tutorials or out-of-the-box content to jump-start the adoption of the product and demonstrate value (at Bitrise, we offered a demo application that was ready to be built and deployed). Conversely, a high activation rate with a low paid conversion rate might indicate that while users find value with the free product, they need to perceive more value to upgrade to a paid version. Such insights are pivotal in fine-tuning the product experience, what is available for free, and the accompanying sales strategies to convert to paid.

When analyzing these metrics, you can choose between using a snapshot or cohort-based approach to their funnels. A snapshot-based funnel provides a broad view, representing users at various stages of their journey irrespective of when they started. This approach offers a general overview but can sometimes mask specific user behaviors or patterns due to its aggregated nature. On the other hand, a cohort-based funnel analysis provides a more nuanced view. By looking at users who started at the same time, you can understand how specific groups of users progress over time. This method is particularly useful for identifying trends and patterns in user behavior, enabling companies to tailor their strategies to specific user segments. For example, a cohort analysis might reveal that users who engage with a particular feature in the first week are more likely to convert to a paid plan. Such insights are invaluable for targeted interventions, whether pop-up messages to guide the user, email messages with best practices, or sales stepping in to guide the user towards value realization (the "aha" moment).

Optimizing user engagement

Once you understand and instrument the user journey, the next step is optimizing user engagement for improved conversion rates. This process demands a meticulous focus on user experience design, personalized content, and leveraging customer feedback to create a compelling and tailored user journey.

The user journey starts with the website landing page that guides the user to register for the product, and the subsequent onboarding to start product usage. Each click should be carefully evaluated for drop-off. How many users abandoned their progress in the cohort? Superfluous steps or excessive form fields that detract users from signing up should be removed. At Bitrise, we eliminated all unnecessary friction. For example, we used to have an account confirmation step where an email was sent with a link to confirm the email address was valid. Who knows when the email would arrive and if spam blockers would prevent it from arriving at all. And the user had to open the email client, which is another friction point. At Bitrise, we realized that letting the user seamlessly continue would increase the number of users that tried the product, and we solved the email confirmation drop-off by postponing access to the most valuable action in the product, building the app until the user clicked the validation link. This was a simple solution to retain more users in the funnel because they got further into the product to try it out and get committed to using it.

In the realm of PLG, the product is the primary vehicle for user engagement. The emphasis is on designing an intuitive user experience that naturally guides the user to discover the product's value. At Turnitin, our Gradescope product had in-product guidance, including interactive tutorials and contextual tips that helped users understand and utilize key features effectively. At both Turnitin and Bitrise, we used off-product engagement strategies, like targeted email nurture sequences at key points in the user's journey. These sequences were carefully crafted to align with the user's stage in the product adoption process. They provided relevant information such as how-to help and tutorials, encouraging the user to deepen their engagement with the product.

Integrating personalized outreach and nurturing into PLG enhances the effectiveness of these efforts. Data and user insights also allow for the tailoring of messaging and interactions. For example, varying communication to resonate with different customer segments. In the case of Gradescope, what appeals to a Computer Science educator differs from that of an English Language educator, and the Marketing team would tailor the outreach to these specific audiences. Email can also be customized based on user behavior to provide bespoke product recommendations or support. For instance, a user frequently using a particular feature might receive content highlighting advanced functionalities or complementary features.

The power of personalized communication lies in its ability to create a more relatable and relevant user experience. When users feel that a product or service understands their unique needs and challenges, they are more likely to engage deeply and move towards conversion. This approach requires a robust data analytics framework to continuously gather and analyze user data, enabling real-time personalization and responsiveness to user needs.

Optimizing user engagement in PLG is about understanding the drop-off in engagement at every stage towards activation and purchase, and creating a user-centric experience that is both intuitive and personalized to drive the "aha" moment in the product. It involves a combination of thoughtful user experience design, data-driven personalization, and continuous engagement strategies. Focusing on these elements can significantly enhance user engagement, leading to improved conversion rates and sustained growth.

Product Qualified Leads

In a seamless integration of PLG and SLG, one of the critical transitions is the passing of leads, often categorized as Product Qualified Leads (PQLs). This process is integral for users deeply engaged with the product or larger Enterprise deals that require a nuanced, sales-driven approach.

The process of identifying PQLs is rooted in closely monitoring usage and adoption signals within the PLG model. The criteria for lead qualification must be clearly defined and agreed upon by both product and sales teams to ensure quality leads are passed to the sales team with the highest potential for conversion.. These signals might include a high level of engagement with the product, usage of certain key features, or reaching specific milestones that indicate a deepened reliance on and understanding of the product. In particular, if you establish strategic paywall boundaries in the product tied to key usage levers, such as Bitrise settling a limit on the number of builds that can be run monthly, the user will be incentivized to purchase the product or scale down their adoption if they are not ready to commit. Once the signals are identified, a PQL is generated and passed to the sales team for more personalized, direct engagement.

The handover process from PLG to SLG is a critical juncture and should be automated in the systems where sales teams work. Salesforce was the tool of choice everywhere I worked, and having the PQL's part of the standard selling process helped with prioritization and timely follow-up. Typically, the PQL includes comprehensive information about the lead's product usage and preferences.

Freemium and Trials

In the context of PLG, there are different models to try the product, such as Freemium, Trial, and Reverse-Trial, all varying in their ways to attract, engage, and ultimately convert users into paying customers. Each of these models has its unique nuances and strategic applications.

Freemium Model:

The Freemium model often attracts a broad user base by offering core functionality at no cost. The critical challenge in this model lies in striking a delicate balance. On one hand, it's essential to provide sufficient value in the free version to engage and attract users. On the other, it's equally important to reserve enough premium features to incentivize upgrades. This balance requires a deep understanding of what users value most in the product and what features are compelling enough to warrant payment. This understanding can be reached through user research, instrumenting product usage, and understanding the competitive alternatives.

For Bitrise, we limited the number of mobile app builds the user would have each month, and only allowed code repositories that were public. As a casual user working on a non-commercial project, the limited credits were enough to get started and understand the value of the product. When usage increased or the application needed to be kept private, the user would be incentivized to purchase a paid subscription.

Another option, applicable for B2B applications, where a department or organization would purchase the solution, is to restrict product adoption to a smaller group of users who would become the champions to advocate for an organizational purchase. For Gradescope, the number of educators with full access to the product was limited. The first five educators at an institution would get full access to Gradescope for free. They would become champions as they adopted the product as part of their grading workflow, and would help to advocate Gradescope to their colleagues who could use their credit card to make a purchase for their course. Also, the PLG team created a dashboard in Salesforce for sellers to have visibility to the champion users, their engagement with the product, and expansion within the account. This dashboard signaled the sales reps via a Product Qualified Lead when to engage and drive a sale at the department level or across the institution.

It is common to adjust the "pay wall" over time. The best way to do that is to withhold new features from the Freemium edition and only add them to the paid product. That said, watch carefully your competition and alternatives. If the competitive landscape is changing, you can enhance your Freemium product by including features that you were formerly charging for. A less popular approach, as you don't get to do this often without upsetting your users, is removing features from Freemium that have turned out to be valuable and should have been originally part of the paid version. Or maybe you were aiming to jump-start the adoption in the market by giving away most of the features with very few limiters, and you need to adjust now that you have a broader adoption of the product. If you are going to charge for capabilities that were free (or perceived as free) before, make sure to signal to the users well in advance that this change is coming so that they can identify budget and purchase the full product if they need all the capabilities or adjust their habits and use of the product to fit within the new Freemium constraints.

The key is to ensure that the free version serves as a sufficient gateway to showcase the product's potential while the premium version clearly demarcates enhanced value that aligns with the user's or company's needs.

Trial Model:

Trial periods offer a different approach, where users are given full access to the product for a limited time (e.g., 14 or 30 days). This model can be adopted with either a PLG, SLG, or hybrid motion and hinges on creating urgency to experience the full suite of features. Typically a product that is really easy to adopt in case of PLG, or supported by a technical team member in SLG, the user is encouraged to evaluate the product in their environment to recognize its value. For insightsofware, the Simba product Trial consists of downloading a driver to connect to a data source, which can be set up in minutes. Technically straightforward, and the 21 day Trial gives enough time to recognize the value of the driver by experimenting with different data repositories.

Designing a Trial experience that leads to conversion is a nuanced process, as some products are quick to value, others require time for the user to recognize full value, and other products may require a significant implementation. Especially for the latter, it's essential to ensure that users are adequately supported and guided in setup and through the product's capabilities, with clearly defined success criteria, to avoid repeat Trial extensions and precious time from supporting team members.

Reverse-Trial Model:

The Reverse-Trial offers a unique approach that combines the best of Freemium and Trial. Users initially start with access to the full feature set of the product. After the Trial period, the product automatically converts to a Freemium version with a limited feature set. This model can be particularly effective as it allows users to experience the product's full capabilities, creating a sense of value and dependence on the advanced features. When the premium features are then restricted, users are more likely to consider upgrading to regain the full functionality, or will contact the sales team for more time, signaling their interest to find the right product for their use case. Reinforced by frequent communication and assistance by the sales team, customers with intent to buy can be converted effectively.

The caveat with the Reverse-Trial Model is that it can get expensive if many users need assistance. Identifying the most likely candidates to buy by understanding intent through captured data and product behavior can help to focus the limited staff on the right users evaluating the product. Sometimes this can be as simple as profiling the company the user works for - the larger the buyer, the more complex the sales cycle and required sales engagement.

In each of these models – Freemium, Trial, and Reverse-Trial – the key to success lies in understanding and responding to user behavior and preferences. By carefully designing these experiences and leveraging data to inform decisions, companies can significantly enhance their ability to convert users into paying customers, driving growth and profitability in a competitive market.

Growth Loops

The Growth Loop concept is gaining prominence for its ability to exponentially drive adoption and sales. This model transcends traditional linear growth strategies, where one user registers for the Trial and ultimately one user buys the product, focusing instead on creating self-sustaining mechanisms that fuel continuous growth.

Growth Loops are essentially cyclical processes where an action taken by a user within the product generates further actions by new users, leading to organic and accelerated user growth. This approach is especially effective in scaling Freemium models, as it encourages wider product adoption with little marketing involvement.

One example of a Growth Loop is when a user's actions generate product output with significant value, which is promoted to a broader audience. Snyk includes a great example of a growth loop for software developers. When a developer checks in code, the Snyk application scans it for security risks, and documents it in GitHub as part of the code review process. Other developers reviewing the code will see the output of the code scans, with links to read about the potential vulnerabilities to address. In turn, they will download their own copy of Snyk and check their code as well. This act of sharing, brings new users to the product. These new users, in turn, experience the product's value and continue the cycle of referrals. Here, the product's value proposition becomes a catalyst for exponential organic growth, with each satisfied user amplifying the product's reach and user base. Once there is significant adoption, a Product Qualified Lead can be generated so that the sales team can pursue a larger department or even organization-level opportunity.

Collaboration features can be another powerful Growth Loop. For instance, a project management tool that requires team collaboration naturally encourages users to invite their colleagues to join the platform. As more team members use the product, its value increases, promoting further adoption within the organization. This kind of loop, where the product's functionality necessitates and fosters collaboration, transforms each user into a conduit for growth, achieving a 1->n expansion in adoption. Popular products like Slack, Airtable, Smartsheet, and Notion expanded their market adoption with this method.

These examples underscore the essence of Growth Loops - they leverage the product's core features and user satisfaction to drive expansion. Unlike traditional marketing efforts, which often require sustained external inputs for growth, Growth Loops create an internal engine where the product and its users are the primary drivers of expansion.

Implementing Growth Loops requires a deep understanding of the product's value proposition and the user's journey. It involves identifying key actions that users take within the product that can trigger further adoption. For instance, identifying features or actions within the product that users are most likely to share or that require collaboration can inform where to focus efforts to stimulate these loops.

Growth Loops represent a transformative approach to driving product adoption and sales. By focusing on creating self-sustaining Growth Loops, even if it's just one Growth Loop, companies can achieve exponential growth, particularly in Freemium models. This strategy not only enhances user acquisition but also fosters a deeper engagement with the product, leading to long-term sustainability and success in the market.

Conclusion

Product-led sales integrating PLG and SLG represent a forward-thinking strategy in the B2B SaaS landscape that does not force one growth model over another and can fit well into organizations with small and large deal sizes. This integrated model leverages the strengths of both approaches – the scalable, user-centric nature of PLG, and the personalized, relationship-focused aspects of SLG.

However, the journey to implementing this hybrid model is not without its challenges. It requires a cultural shift within organizations, a realignment of goals across departments, and a strategic approach to resource allocation. The ability to navigate these challenges successfully hinges on strong multi-disciplinary collaboration and a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation. My experiences at Turnitin, Bitrise, and insightsoftware underscored the importance of buy-in, collaboration, and willingness to invest long-term.

In the future, we can expect to see more nuanced applications of Product-Led Growth, tailored to specific market demands and customer behaviors. The ongoing evolution in data analytics and customer relationship management technologies will further empower companies to refine their PLG and SLG strategies, and the synergy between the two, making them more effective and impactful. Integrating PLG and SLG is a continuous journey marked by learning, innovation, and growth – may your journey redefine the benchmarks of success in the SaaS industry.

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Introduction:

Two decades in product management have taught me a lot. Not surprisingly, product management is a tough job, but simultaneously, it's the most rewarding and influential role in a company. In young startups, founders hold this responsibility, which forms the foundation of the company's existence. They define the customer problems to solve and establish the company's direction, sometimes pivoting multiple times to identify a commercially viable, compelling problem. Once the product achieves consistent and repeatable sales (online or through a sales rep with specific instructions), it has reached product-market fit, marking the perfect time to introduce and formalize product management. This transition moves the day-to-day responsibilities from the founders to the product managers, freeing up bandwidth for the founders to scale the company (while they remain intimately involved in the product vision and strategy).

So, what essential skills have I developed over the last two decades that define product management? I would summarize my top 10 learnings as follows:

1. Strategic Thinking and Roadmapping

It's essential for product managers to envision the future of the product and to develop a strategic roadmap that encapsulates innovation that achieves strategic impact and business outcomes. This involves thorough market segmentation and competitive analysis to understand the market trends, the competitive landscape, and product opportunities. It's not just about managing the present activities but also about anticipating and shaping the future direction and setting long-term goals to achieve them. Product managers must also ensure alignment with the company's overall strategy and objectives​​.

2. Customer-Centric Approach

A deep understanding of the customer's needs and pain points is crucial. Product managers should be adept at customer research, empathizing with users, and translating customer feedback into actionable product features. Customer empathy and persona development are essential to understand customer needs and to guide product development​​. Rallying the organization to capture the voice of the customer will enable the product manager to hear a steady stream of customer feedback and leverage this insight to adjust the roadmap for maximum customer value continuously. Usage analytics also plays an important role, helping the product manager hone in on the features for the most impact.

3. Cross-Functional Leadership, Communication and Collaboration Skills

Product managers often work with many cross-functional team members without direct authority over them. The supporting team members can come from any company department, such as engineering, design, sales, marketing, customer success, and support, especially in larger organizations with dozens, if not hundreds, of people. Effective leadership, clear communication, and strong collaboration are essential to building consensus among diverse teams and stakeholders​​. Aligning and motivating the broader team towards common goals is critical. This includes articulating the product vision and strategy, negotiating with stakeholders, and ensuring everyone is on the same page on objectives, progress, and outcomes.

Another aspect that should be discussed more by the product management community is the need to manage stakeholders and influence the people you work with. A product manager often has to rally and align teams on a project, which may only be popular with some of the parties involved. If engineering insists on solving that long-standing tech debt, yet there is an existential threat, such as AI disrupting your product position, the attention must be skewed to the urgent problem. Only some people may share your perspective on AI being the immediate threat now.

For people managers, team leadership is another critical aspect. Managing and mentoring team members and fostering a culture of learning and growth is foundational for scaling the product organization and keeping up with the constantly evolving environment.

4. Data-Driven Decision Making

I have always found that data underpins my decisions, and it helps to remove the bias of opinions from the decision-making process. The skills to work in systems with customer and business data allow the product manager to generate actionable insight for effective decisions and predict future market trends that inform product strategy. Product managers should also be comfortable with metrics, analytics, and the use of data in guiding product development, measuring performance, and making informed decisions to improve the quality, velocity, and value of product releases. After launch, product usage data is especially important to keep the pulse on product adoption and to validate that newly released features have the desired user impact.

5. Prioritization and Time Management

With a continuous stream of work that never seems to end, I found that prioritization and time management might very well be the most challenging aspect of product management. To complicate matters, the product manager always has to work with what seems like limited resources. And the market is relentlessly evolving, which necessitates aggressive timelines.

Deciding what to work on today and what to build for tomorrow is critical. I have found that product managers should prioritize their tasks and development features based on urgency, impact, and feasibility, balancing short-term wins with long-term strategy. I have adopted the Eisenhower Matrix as a tool that categorizes tasks into four quadrants based on their urgency and importance. Urgent and important tasks are prioritized for immediate action, while important but not urgent tasks are scheduled for later. Urgent but not important tasks are delegated, and those neither urgent nor important are eliminated or minimized.

6. Technical Acumen

I frequently receive the question of how technical the product manager should be. While not necessarily needing to be experts in coding, product managers should have a solid understanding of the technological aspects of their product, unless the product itself is highly technical. Basic technical acumen helps in communicating effectively with engineering teams and understanding the technical challenges and possibilities. In contrast, deeper technical knowledge is essential when the product is technical in nature and serves personas such as software engineers (all the API-based products like Stripe, Twilio, etc., or even cyber security). My transition into product management from a solutions engineering role hinged on my ability to intimately understand the product and the technical user, which was essential to understanding how the product solved the user's needs and to anticipate the user's future challenges.

7. Product Execution and Launch

All of the above doesn't matter if the product is not built and launched on time, with quality, while solving the customer's problem meaningfully. Product managers gather and define clear product requirements, ensuring they align with customer needs and strategic goals. Then meticulously oversee the development sprints to ensure technical milestones are met, the product meets the envisioned specifications, and is launched on time with the appropriate marketing and sales channels activities for maximum impact.

8. Adaptability and Resilience

The market and product landscape is constantly changing, and product managers must be adaptable, willing to pivot when necessary, and resilient in the face of setbacks or failures. Adaptability includes dealing with changing managers, incomplete information, new cross-functional team members, needing more context, or the competitor releasing a game-changing feature or product. Problem-solving skills are essential for responding to changes and adjusting strategies as needed. Complex situations arise frequently, whether technical (a feature will not work as desired due to technical limitations) or people have conflicts (multiple parties may not get along or pull their weight, leading to frustration.) Pushing through these tough times to find resolution and keep the delivery on track is an essential skill set.

9. Business and Financial Acumen

Understanding the business model, market dynamics, and financial aspects, including revenue models and cost structures, is fundamental for making decisions that align with the company's financial goals. Business acumen is also a desirable skill that enables the product manager to rationalize business cases for new features or products, balancing profitability, strategic fit, and feasibility​​.

In my career, I frequently found myself revising pricing or even the whole product strategy. Setting the pricing and defining the complete product offering, including core features, support, and services,​​ will often make or break the product, and none is a constant in a dynamic market.

As if the list was not long enough, business outcome ownership is also one of the essential foundations for a product manager to drive meaningful business impact, measuring success through product profitability and market performance. The journey of building and launching a product does not end with the sale; it continues with adoption and usage, which are essential for understanding how the product is performing in the market.

10. Creativity and Innovation

Lastly, product managers must foster an environment of creativity and innovation, encouraging new ideas and thinking outside the box to solve problems and create value. This includes collaboration to design and assess the quality of user experiences, ensuring they meet customer needs and ultimately solve the pain points. Innovation consists of not only products and features, but also business models, routes to markets, strategic partnerships, and other forms of business strategy. For example, having Google search included with all Apple devices by default was one of the ways that Google ensured their online advertising remained dominant.

I also found hackathons or similar innovation events effective at identifying new product opportunities. Ideas can come from anywhere, not just customers and product managers. Anyone working with customers, such as sales, support, customer success, professional services, and partners, can identify innovative ideas based on their experience with the product and customer use cases. Have a process to capture and curate the ideas periodically from all these stakeholders for maximum roadmap impact.

Conclusion:

The role of a product manager is multifaceted and dynamic, blending strategic vision with a deep understanding of customers, market trends, and data insights. I have shared that key skills like product execution, customer focus, time management, data fluency, and influential leadership are crucial. The competencies required span from tactical to strategic, requiring product managers to not only focus on day-to-day product development but also to drive long-term business outcomes and innovation. By mastering these skills, product managers can effectively navigate the complex landscape of product development, ensuring their products meet market needs and contribute significantly to their company's success. As product management continues to evolve, even in the context of the AI revolution, these skills will remain vital in shaping the future of products and businesses.

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This job hunting post is a guide for all those seeking employment in a challenging market. May you swiftly find your next opportunity.

If you've recently lost your job, take time to decompress first. Avoid rushing into another position immediately. You've earned a break after operating at full capacity for an extended period of time. Once you embark on your new challenge, there won't be an opportunity for a break. I experienced a hiatus between jobs after a non-stop 24-year career, the last 18 years as a product leader. Taking this break was eye opening—it allowed me to pursue my passions and consider turning them into a viable career.

In job searching, I've learned to treat myself as a "product" and apply strategies similar to those used by startups to generate awareness and market myself (highlighting the value proposition and differentiating factors). As a product management leader, I appreciate this approach and have successfully used it to pinpoint the right job opportunities. For instance, I positioned myself as specializing in B2B SaaS workflow-based productivity tools with three core value propositions:

1. Implementing Product-Led Growth (PLG): Introducing strategies to enhance product acquisition, monetization, and retention.

2. Reinvigorating the Voice of the Customer: Addressing the disconnect in customer feedback during product development to boost adoption and loyalty.

3. Driving Rapid Strategic Growth: Advancing business growth through frequent, strategically aligned product releases focusing on customer impact.

I also emphasized domain expertise to refine further my audience targeting. For example, I frequently targeted companies building solutions for developers to align with my background in Developer Tooling. In the 2023 job market, many employers prioritized a strong domain fit, and my shorter engagements in Cyber Security and EdTech didn't quite match up to those with deep expertise in these fields.

One candidate I encountered aptly noted that employers are more inclined to seek Skills than raw Talent in today’s market.

The following checklist may appear extensive, and it is—because job hunting is a full-time job. I allocated 50% of my time to the job search. The remainder I invested in up-skilling, engaging in business projects, and giving back to the community, activities that included:

• Mentoring SaaS startup founders, from Seed to Series A stages, to help them navigate a challenging tech market.

• Imparting my job-hunting expertise to over 40 job seekers in online Zoom sessions.

• Honing my design and coding skills and studying machine learning to stay abreast of the latest trends.

• Participating in the Hogan Lovells 2023 M&A Boot Camp to enhance my suitability for executive roles.

• Attending industry events such as TechCrunch Disrupt and Figma Config 2023.

• Starting a formal blog, Quantified Product, and an online agency, Next Outcome.

• Establishing an LLC for my son's e-commerce business, ensuring proper business operations for dropshipping.

Prepare for the job search:

[ ] Read the book Never Search Alone

[ ] For a structured job search approach, consider The 2-Hour Job Search and The Job Closer by Steve Dalton

• Although Steve Dalton's examples often target college graduates, they also apply to mid-career and senior professionals. His books stand out for their systematic methods, which may resonate differently with each reader. These methods gave me clear directions when I was at a standstill and advocated for a rapid approach to networking—a central theme in Steve’s strategy.

Don't search alone

[ ] Join a Job Search Council to support you during the search or a community like Rands Leadership Slack. Both are free to join.

• Engage with a support group for motivation and encouragement, and to widen your network. Adopt Phyl Terry's Never Search Alone method by becoming part of a Job Search Council. This service is complimentary, and the team will pair you with fellow job seekers who have similar career ambitions and backgrounds. Within this group, you will follow a structured process that includes gathering feedback from past supervisors and colleagues, crafting a "candidate market fit" document, refreshing your LinkedIn profile and resume, and networking to broaden your reach.

• Embrace the startup mindset: be innovative, resourceful, and think unconventionally to open new doors. Read The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman. Despite sometimes seeming like an advertorial for LinkedIn, this short book underscores the importance of adaptability and networking in modern career trajectories.

• The Rands Leadership Slack is another excellent community with a supportive environment where job seekers share advice and interview experiences.

[ ] Speak with your former managers, colleagues, and direct reports. Learn about your strengths and the memorable outcomes that you achieved for the business. This reflection will help you target your job search based on your strengths.

[ ] Draft a one to two-page document outlining your unique value proposition and job aspirations, to update your LinkedIn profile and resume with your strengths and objectives. The document will serve as a baseline for discussions and to clarify your job search intentions.

[ ] Craft a concise tagline that encapsulates what you are seeking. For instance, my tagline guided discussions with recruiters and network contacts toward B2B SaaS:

Seeking a product leadership role (Chief Product Officer / Head of Product) at a high-growth B2B SaaS company with a strong social mission.

[ ] Update your resume with insights gathered about yourself:

• Ensure your full name is included and searchable on LinkedIn.

• State the tenure with month and year (e.g., July 2022 - July 2023).

• Describe each company and its industry concisely to showcase industry experience.

• Specify the tools you utilized to achieve your goals (e.g., "Used tool X to accomplish Y").

• Detail the outcomes and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you impacted at the business with each achievement.

[ ] Update your LinkedIn profile with insights from your self-research

• Craft a compelling headline (located under your photo) that encapsulates your career highlights and what you seek, designed to grab attention and prompt further reading. View my LinkedIn Profile as an example.

• Upload a professional photo (not a family photo or cartoon).

• Prominently showcase your value proposition in the About section.

• For each role, include relevant skills. You may expedite the selection process by clicking “+ Add skill,” typing a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), and selecting all pertinent skills to avoid searching for each one.

• Attach relevant media to each professional role, such as webcasts, podcasts, or blog posts, by linking them directly to the corresponding job entry.

• Standardize your job titles across recent positions. Match the job titles to those currently used by employers. For consistency, if you have been a Product Manager in your last three positions, label them accordingly, even if your employers had variations of the title. A coherent career trajectory can make your resume more appealing.

[ ] Establish your brand with a personal website. For example: About Filip.

• In outreach emails for potential job opportunities, include an “About Me” link in your signature, which had the highest open rate for me, even surpassing LinkedIn. Also, link to your newsletter (e.g., Quantified Product) and Twitter profile (e.g., Filip's Twitter) to demonstrate an extensive social media presence.

• Create an online presence easily with website builders like Wix or choose one of the many free Wordpress hosting providers like Wordpress.com or a more premium hosting provider like Kinsta.  Leverage one of the website themes to speed up the site creation process. If you have some technical chops, you can build your website from scratch with a low-code builder like Webflow, which I have used for my About Filip page and my NextOutcome business website to solicit work.

Filip's Daily Routine:

[ ] Organize your day to maintain discipline and prevent burnout during a 4-hour daily job search.

• To avoid an inefficient day, start with a healthy morning routine and group similar tasks together, such as job applications, which should only take up part of the day.

• My schedule was as follows:

  • Woke up at 5:45 am, prepared for the day, and went to the local gym for a morning workout until 7:30 am.

  • Dedicated time to applying for jobs, blogging, and networking from 8 am to 12 pm.

  • Allocated time for learning and skill development from 12 pm to 2 pm.

  • Worked on my Next Outcome business from 2 pm to 5 pm.

  • Every Friday afternoon, I assisted other job seekers by sharing my workflow in 20-minute meetings and encouraged their job pursuits.

• Maintaining a healthy mindset is crucial, especially on challenging days. I engaged with books on confidence, mental toughness, and discipline, including:

  • The Confident Mind by Nate Zinsser.

  • 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson.

  • The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life by Epictetus.

Job Search Activities:

[ ] Activate your network, as most jobs are discovered through connections.

• Networking is critical in job searching; become proficient at it. Explore Chris Fralic's insights on networking through his blog post: How to Become Insanely Well-Connected.

• Draw inspiration from Steve Jobs on YouTube about asking for help. Fear of failure can impede progress.

• As previously mentioned, The 2-Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton provides a step-by-step networking strategy for those who need guidance.

[ ] Attend meetups, conferences, and join platforms like Lunchclub to meet potential job search allies (my meetups led to consulting insights and even CEO interactions, including a consultation with one CEO I met through Lunchclub).

[ ] To warm up your network, post engaging content on LinkedIn AT LEAST WEEKLY—ideally multiple times per week due to limited initial reach. For content ideas, visit my LinkedIn Activities.

• Regularly write blog articles based on interview topics or common industry challenges and share them across your social channels.

• Share your articles after networking conversations by sending follow-up thank-you notes with links. My blog, Quantified Product, is hosted on Substack for easy distribution. Alternatively, consider platforms like Wix, as demonstrated by Dimitris Adamidis on his Rev Ops Venture site.

• BONUS: With frequent posting and a significant follower count, enable “Creator mode” on LinkedIn to amplify your posts and encourage following.

[ ] Set job alerts on primary job boards like LinkedIn.

[ ] When applying, tailor your resume's job experience headline to match the employer's requirements in the job description. The headline customization can significantly improve the chances of your resume being noticed. I also maintained two versions of my resume, one for "Head of Product" and another for "VP of Product", with the former geared more toward a first product leadership hire.

• Whenever I was referred to a hiring manager or recruiting team, I customized my resume further, incorporating language from the job description to bolster my candidacy. However, I reserved this level of tailoring for positions with a personal advocate or for opportunities I was particularly interested in, as it can be time-consuming. I also ensured that my resume contained many keywords from the job description, for which ChatGPT was incredibly useful at pointing out.

• Due to high competition, I avoided "Easy Apply" listings. I applied directly on the company's website instead.

• If ChatGPT isn't part of your toolkit, you can use Jobscan—a tool that can help you identify which aspects of your resume to customize for a better chance of eliciting a response from employers.

[ ] Email hiring managers or company leaders to showcase your employment credentials. This approach often yields better results with smaller companies, but it's worth attempting with larger organizations too.

• Upon finding a desirable job, take the time to research the hiring manager and any pertinent leaders. Engage with them on social media, ensuring your interactions are relevant and thoughtful. For instance, contribute meaningful comments on their recent LinkedIn or Twitter posts. If you engage in conversation, your name will become top of mind within 1-2 weeks of engagement.

• Subsequently, reach out via email to capture their interest—having interacted on social media will increase your chances of receiving a reply. Begin by contacting senior-level individuals, as doing so draws attention and simplifies the process of deducing their contact details. For example, if you're seeking a position in product management, search for the company on LinkedIn, navigate to the 'people' tab, and filter by “product management” to identify VPs and Directors. The company's website often lists its senior team, providing insight into the CEO and leadership structure. When crafting your message to these executives, weave a narrative expressing a willingness to learn about their business or assertively state why you are the ideal candidate, depending on the approach you find most appropriate for the person you are contacting. Mirror the language of the job description in your email's subject line and body to underscore your suitability for the role.

[ ] As the skilled marketer you are, you're undoubtedly tracking who opens your emails and whether they've been forwarded among colleagues—a positive indication of interest. It's normal not to receive a reply on your first attempt; this is a common experience for many, including myself. Depending on your initial email engagement level, plan to follow up periodically, spacing out your emails by a few days to maintain contact without overwhelming the recipient.

• You should be tracking email opens and frequency. I used a product called MixMax. I had the free plan for 100 emails tracked per month - I used Gmail only for job outreach to maximize the 100 tracked emails and Safari for regular emails where the MixMax plugin didn't work.

[ ] Leverage tools to streamline your interactions with recruiters and simplify scheduling:

• Scheduling meetings should be straightforward, eliminating the need for extensive back-and-forth. Use scheduling tools like Calendly when networking, meeting with recruiters, or setting interview times to display your availability transparently. This consideration respects the other party's time and effort in connecting with you.

• Integrate your scheduling tool with a video conferencing platform. I prefer Zoom and have invested in a subscription to facilitate unrestricted group calls when necessary. Google Meet and MS Teams are also viable options. Linking these tools will automate the meeting setup process.

[ ] To truly stand out, consider sending a video message instead of an email when a significant impact is necessary. I use VideoAsk for this purpose.

Your Setup

[ ] Ensure your microphone and video setup are above average; first impressions are critical.

• A strong first impression is essential. The HBR Article, "How to Make a Great First Impression", effectively summarizes its importance. Yet, what is less often addressed in the context of remote interviewing is your computer setup, which equates to your business attire in an in-person interview. It's important to present yourself as well as possible online. Starting a conversation with subpar audio and video quality puts you at a disadvantage, so it's worth investing in a better setup if yours fails to meet the mark.

• The clarity of your audio is paramount. I suggest purchasing a dedicated microphone if your audio quality differs from that of professional YouTubers or podcasters.

  • I recommend the Shure MV7 microphone with a boom arm.

  • I use the Shure SM7B microphone, which requires an audio interface with XLR input, such as the RME Babyface Pro FS. This setup is more complex and costly, so I recommend it only if you aim for professional-level audio for projects like podcasting or film production.

• Avoid using a fake background in your video. In a class on online meetings, I learned that a virtual background can subconsciously signal to others that you might be concealing something, undermining your authenticity. Whenever I encounter someone using a virtual background, I instinctively wonder if they are hiding something. If you have a dedicated space for your meetings, creatively decorate your real background.

• Be mindful of overly bright backgrounds, such as windows or lamps, as they can cause your face to appear dark when the camera auto-adjusts for the bright light.

• If your room's lighting is poor, consider purchasing an affordable LED light to illuminate your face. A light is beneficial because most built-in computer cameras perform poorly in low light, resulting in a dark and grainy image. A dedicated light source is a cost-effective alternative to investing in an expensive camera to improve lighting conditions.

Learning opportunities

[ ] Continue to enhance your knowledge within your field of expertise while job hunting, staying abreast of current trends to inform your discussions.

• Engage with literature, including books on personal development and those specific to your domain. For me, it was Python programming and AI.

• Participate in meetups and conferences. For instance, I have attended events focused on product management, engineering, and AI, including Config2023 by Figma and TechCrunch Disrupt.

• Join online webinars. I've participated in venture capital webinars to gain insights into the startup ecosystem and understand current needs within the startup space.

• Enroll in courses to update and expand your skill set. I have completed product management, AI, and mergers and acquisitions courses to ensure my skills remain current.

Job Interviews:

[ ] Recalling and articulating your accomplishments in a compelling way can be challenging, especially if you've been out of work for some time. Detail 3-5 projects you've worked on in recent years, which you also included in your resume. Document every detail you can recall so you can review and refresh your memory before an interview, allowing you to draw on these projects as examples. For further information, visit the blog post The "How" Part: Walk Down Memory Lane.

Framework to help you recollect project details

• The strategic driving factors for the project - unlocking TAM, opening new markets, improving COGS, driving user success, other?

• How you got involved - did you come up with the project? Get tapped on the shoulder? Pick it up when it was a flaming hot mess?

• Who was involved - leaders, stakeholders, customers, core team members?

• Success criteria - how was success defined? This is a great time to establish how impossibly complex the project was (which sets you up to be the hero in your stories)

• Why it was complex - new tech? huge scope? tight timeline? massive team? powerful stakeholders? major financial impact?

• What you did to drive success - specific actions you took.

• Issues that came up - people, tech, implementation, partners, infra, etc.

• Conflict that arose - executive sponsors, team members, your boss?

• The ultimate result - this should include final outcomes for the stated success criteria as well as longer-term success and strategic / business impac t.

• What you learned - what you learned along the way.

• How you have grown - how did you become a better professional and how did you implement these learnings since then.

[ ] For certain positions, presenting a playbook to the hiring manager can be advantageous—for instance, an account executive's 90-day ramp-up plan. While sharing detailed plans in the initial stages may not be feasible due to unknown challenges, I advise you to do so after several interviews have provided you with strategic insights and a better understanding of the role. For example, I compiled a product strategy following discussions with a hiring manager, which entailed over a dozen hours of research. This effort proved worthwhile, as evidenced by the hiring manager reviewing the document 13 times, including four times on the eve of their final meeting with the leadership team to decide on the hiring.

[ ] Master the STAR framework to answer behavioral interview questions effectively. Aim to showcase every facet of your success, from a high-level strategic perspective on the project to detailed, hands-on execution that proves your capability. For a more in-depth explanation, refer to the blog post Learn the Behavioral Frameworks and Never Again Sweat an Interview Question.

STAR Framework

S: Situation - what was happening at the time (context) 

T: Tasks - what you were responsible for 

A: Action - what you did to solve the problem and deliver outcomes

R: Result - the impact of your actions

Bonus time permitting:

• Share what you learned

• Share how you’ve adopted your approach for future projects

Make thank you notes a habit

[ ] I make it a habit to send a thank-you note after every interview. If you're uncertain about the email address, don't hesitate to request it at the end of the interview—I usually do. The thank-you note should be customized to reflect the conversation, including references to topics discussed. As previously mentioned, I monitor my emails with MixMax to gauge engagement. Typically, interviewers open my email multiple times.

Example thank you note from my interviews

Frequently, I raise the topic of books in an interview with the titles that align to the conversation to create engagement and value for the interviewer. If it’s product management practices, for example, I share that I’ve read and follow best practices similar to Marty Cagan’s, which were outlined in his books Inspired and Empowered. This is how my email looks like as an example:

Thank you for taking time to meet with me. I enjoyed our conversation and it was great to connect virtually. Per our conversation, besides my blogs, you can get a sense of my product leadership philosophy in the following books, which I use to mentor the team:

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan

• This book is mandatory product management reading for my team. It's a comprehensive book on what good product management looks like including roadmaps, objectives, product discovery, planning, ideation, prototyping, and much more. As it doesn't get enough into the "how to", I subscribe the team to the Reforge program to develop product management skills.

Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products by Marty Cagan

• This book is great product leadership reading. Coaching, staffing, product vision/strategy, collaboration, team topology, and setting objectives. All fundamentals of a great product leader.

Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products That Create Customer Value and Business Value by Teresa Torres

• When I joined my last employer, I noticed that product/design/engineering was relying too heavily on product usage data and didn't speak to / do research with actual customers. This is how I grew up in product management - speaking with customers and finding patterns to identify opportunities/pains to solve. The book outlines a nice technique for mapping opportunity space, prioritizing opportunities, and discovering the solutions as a team (product manager, designer, and tech lead).

I look forward to continuing our conversation,

Preparing for Your New Job:

• Before taking on the new role, my first step was to thank everyone in my network who supported me in my job search with an email or message on LinkedIn. I described my journey in finding the role and what I would do at the job. It's essential to recognize your network's contribution in helping you find a job and continue to stay in touch.

• Learn how to navigate your first 90 days effectively by reading The First 90 Days.

• Enroll in Victor Cho’s complimentary career development course to become more efficient at work and advance your career: Victor Cho’s Course.

Additional Resources:

• Learn how to excel in any first-round interview with guidance from coach Erika: How to Pass Any First Round Interview.

• Consider exploring the transformative career change journey with Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career by Herminia Ibarra.

• Read Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans to discover how design thinking can help you create a fulfilling career and life.

• Discover who can help you land your next job according to LinkedIn data: LinkedIn Data on Job Assistance.

• Draw inspiration on achieving success from Sam Altman: How To Be Successful - Sam Altman.

• Explore a productivity hack involving ditching to-do lists for calendar scheduling with insights from Sam Corcos on The Tim Ferriss Show: Calendar Scheduling System.

• Learn how to efficiently use Gmail with this guide to achieving inbox zero: Inbox Zero Setup for Gmail.

• I utilize the Things 3 app on my Mac to keep track of follow-ups: Things 3 App.

 Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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As a product leader for two decades, I have explored a wealth of advice from books, blogs, podcasts, and many self-proclaimed online "experts."  Yes, that includes daily LinkedIn and Twitter advice and a deluge of AI "top 10" lists.  Reflecting upon this vast ocean of information and my practical trials, I have discovered that much of it falls short of actionable insight due to its situational nature. In this post, I aim to guide you on framing your product delivery process and the applicability of AI within this context. 

Visualize the Process 

Your starting point should always be understanding your product delivery process better. Leave the AI hype aside for a moment.  You will frequently discover that internet advice does not resonate because it lacks the context of your distinct circumstances and challenges.  I was always the first to try new things, and disappointed so many times by the lack of promised impact. 

I like to compare the product delivery process to a machine that requires regular maintenance, tuning, and enhancements.  To do that, one must understand how the machine works in the first place.  I use storyboarding to identify each integral step, and for each step, I aim to measure the efficacy to spotlight bottlenecks and areas for optimization.  Ideally, there is process documentation for each step to ensure consistency of execution and a baseline for improvement. 

To help you jump-start the visualization process, I created the framework below as a blueprint. While the specifics may differ based on your unique context (feel free to add and subtract as appropriate), it's paramount to approach your product delivery as a machine with opportunity for improvement. Scrutinize each step, revisit its processes, and discern areas that warrant modification, replacement, or removal based on feedback and the business objectives you are trying to achieve. Once the visualization is complete, you can systematically prioritize enhancements to make the desired improvements. 

Prioritize What to Improve 

Even a simple prioritization framework, such as the Eisenhower Matrix, will be instrumental in helping you to identify the top priorities.  As a refresher, the Eisenhower Matrix divides tasks into four categories based on urgency and importance (see diagram below).  By categorizing tasks in this manner, you can determine the most effective order to address the improvements to your process, focusing first on the urgent and important tasks and eliminating or delegating less critical ones.  Pro tip: the first task may very well be documenting the process for each step to understand the work and to create consistency of execution.  You will have difficulty improving each step if performed differently each time. 

Get Everyone's Buy-in 

I must acknowledge that management will likely have preconceived notions about what is not working. They might suggest that releases aren't frequent enough, protracted, or lack customer-centricity. Yet, these beliefs often stem from personal observations or second-hand accounts—mostly subjective opinions lacking empirical backing.  Given this, my advice is to visualize and equip your steps with measurable metrics if you haven't already. Metrics will help you replace subjective opinions with tangible data and offer a means to track improvement progress and demonstrate actual results. 

A word of caution: don't get sidetracked by the allure of the "next great idea" proclaimed by social media.  Instead, harness your focus from the beginning in alignment with your improvement objectives. While there's a chance you might stumble upon a perfect solution tailored to your context, preemptive focus ensures your team isn't overwhelmed with a barrage of new ideas that may not work.  Once you have prioritized what needs to get done, you will do your usual research to find the optimal solution, and at that point, exploring suggestions with a focus on the problem will make sense. 

To ensure buy-in, collaborate with your peers and management. Share your discoveries, prioritize jointly, and systematically execute improvements to refine the product delivery steps.  Too often, I have found great proposals shot down because they lacked broader buy-in.  Socialization may not be your favorite activity if you have a predisposition to get things done. Still, the reality is that what you view as most important may not be aligned with the greater organization or company goals.  The buy-in will ensure everyone will care about the priorities and therefore support you in making changes, which frequently will depend on your colleagues. 

Leveraging AI 

The methodologies for implementing or refining the product delivery steps have undergone a paradigm shift in recent years. The dawn of AI has ushered in an era where processes are faster, more impactful, and less labor-intensive. AI-based product features also necessitate changing the development processes to seamlessly integrate machine learning functionality into the end product. 

Before providing AI-specific improvement examples (that you may pick from *after* you have prioritized what needs to get done), let me touch upon ChatGPT or LLMs in general.  AI chatbots are a game changer for individual productivity.  I use ChatGPT daily, and I believe it would be unwise to ignore this technology while creating and delivering roadmaps.  Here are specific examples of how I utilize ChatGPT: 

• Process improvement.  ChatGPT will vet a process and suggest edits, frequently enhancing the process with sensible steps culled from hundreds, if not thousands, of books and articles on the subject.  There is no way you will be as thorough, even if you bring everyone on the team into the room, though it should always be a +1 and not a replacement for your colleagues – they will quickly dismiss your excellent processes if they are not bought into them. 

• Frameworks.  ChatGPT will enhance and even create frameworks that represent industry best practices.  Do you need a better user story template?  A persona document example?  A strategy blueprint?  Even feed your existing documents into ChatGPT, which will suggest logical improvements.  Add context and objective, and ChatGPT will produce an even better response.  Agree on the documents you create with ChatGPT and make them a standard part of the process. 

• Summarization and discovery.  ChatGPT with Advanced Data Analysis can take in documents, articles, meeting notes, discussions, blogs, etc. Let ChatGPT extract the essence of these documents, create summaries, and propose agendas.  You can even have a conversation with ChatGPT about the content you have uploaded, cutting down the time it takes you to understand the information. 

Note: you may have to talk with your employer about uploading data to ChatGPT.  Check first and advocate for the Enterprise version that respects the privacy of data uploaded to the system. 

Below, I propose improvements to your processes, including more effective product delivery steps and required activities to build AI-enabled products.  As noted earlier, prioritization comes first.  Only pursue these after you have prioritized what is important next. 

Product Delivery Lifecycle Enhanced by AI: 

Customer Research: 

• Feedback Analysis:  AI can assist in sentiment analysis, transcribing, and categorizing customer interviews or focus group responses. 

• Predictive Insights: Use AI to anticipate customer needs based on historical interactions. 

External Sourcing of Ideas: 

• Trend Analysis: AI can help analyze vast amounts of customer feedback from various sources to spot product issues and opportunities. 

• Social Media Sentiment Mining: Extract and analyze public opinion on related topics/products from social platforms.  

Internal Sourcing of Ideas: 

• Data-driven Decisions: Use internal data to fuel ML models, aiding in decision-making based on user behavior, feature usage, etc. 

• Collaborative Filtering: Suggesting new product ideas or improvements by analyzing similarities in feedback or requests from different departments or teams. 

Feedback & Iteration: 

• Feedback Analysis: Break down free-text feedback into actionable insights.  

• Predictive Churn Analysis: Identify which users might abandon the product based on interactions with new features. 

 
Product Delivery Lifecycle With AI Feature Development: 

Preparation & Validation: 

• Prototyping: For AI features, prototyping might involve creating initial models or algorithms and validating their accuracy. 

• Data Considerations: It’s essential to detect and alert for potential biases in training data. 

Delivery: 

• Development: AI/ML model development, training, and validation become core tasks. 

• QA & Deployment: Testing for AI-driven features involves ensuring model accuracy, fairness, and bias checks. 

Internal & External Launch: 

• Training: Specialized training sessions might be required to help users understand AI-driven features. 

• Accuracy: Gather feedback specifically on AI functionalities to understand if predictions or suggestions align with user expectations. 

Feedback & Iteration: 

• Continual Monitoring: For AI features, monitoring also includes checking the model's production accuracy and performance over time. 

• Iterative Improvements: This might involve retraining models with new data or tweaking algorithms based on feedback. 

Support & Maintenance: 

• Ongoing Support: Addressing queries or concerns related to AI-driven features. For example, why a specific prediction was made. 

• Model Maintenance: Regularly update, retrain, and test ML models to maintain or improve accuracy. 

Conclusion 

By visualizing, measuring, and continuously refining your product delivery processes and embracing AI's transformative capabilities, you set your team and product up for success in this dynamic digital era. Despite the deluge of advice available, it's vital to filter this information through the lens of your unique business approach and priorities. Stay focused, and make sure your enhancements are rooted in actionable insights with real-world relevance. 

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Effective collaboration & communication is essential for achieving daily work by a Product Delivery Team, which can consist of many individuals, including a product manager, designer, researcher, data analyst, tech lead, architect, tester, and multiple developers (front end, back end, etc.). Sometimes, an individual can hold multiple roles, and who carries a role can vary depending on each person’s capabilities. Collaboration should look as follows:

1. Clear roles, responsibilities, and reporting lines:  each team member has a clear role(s), and the responsibilities are written down (in a team wiki, for example). RACI model can be consulted for clarity. In most cases, a RACI is too heavy for broad adoption, and I recommend consulting the framework and judiciously adopting it where it makes sense. Reporting lines should be clear, with no “dual/dotted” reporting lines that create ambiguity.

2. Open communication between delivery team members and extended stakeholders:  use a tool like Slack or MS Teams for daily communication within the team (eg, status updates, what was achieved by each individual that day), with clearly separated channels to minimize noise between teams/zones. Less frequent summary updates should be shared with extended stakeholders in their appropriate channels.

3. Regular syncs:  whether a delivery team meets daily for a stand-up, a functional team (eg, product managers or engineers) meets weekly, or a department meets monthly, there needs to be an avenue to share progress, discuss issues, and make decisions on a regular basis. I recommend establishing a cadence (like a heartbeat) with clear attendance and topic requirements for each meeting.

4. Collaboration and Tools:  leverage existing tools such as JIRA, Google Docs, Confluence, Miro, and Figma. These tools help teams collaborate in real time and keep everyone on the same page.

5. Cross-functional collaboration:  people from extended teams (eg, marketing, sales, customer success, services, support) should be included in specific projects. Inclusive meetings will promote diverse perspectives and can lead to more innovative solutions.

6. Feedback and learning:  a culture of continuous feedback and learning should be established by regularly reviewing what’s working and what’s not to improve collaboration. This can be done through retrospectives and feedback sessions.

7. Documentation of everything:  to ensure everyone has access to the same information and can work asynchronously, establish a practice to document everything from meeting notes and decisions to design specs and project plans. I’ve had the most success when these artifacts were open to the whole company, which promoted cross-department collaboration.

8. Trust and respect:  a culture of trust and respect is the cornerstone of successful collaboration. Encourage positive interactions, empathy, and understanding among team members to create an enduring culture.

9. Conflict resolution:  conflicts are inevitable in a team setting, so make sure there is a process to ensure disputes are resolved healthily and constructively.

10. Celebration of success:  celebrating success as a team, department, or company not only boosts morale but also strengthens the team bond.

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Regularly assessing channel fit is vital for the success of any growth marketing initiative.  Over time, various elements inevitably change: your target users or ideal customers may develop new priorities, your product features and packaging could evolve, or shifts in market dynamics and competition may demand a fresh approach.

Do you have an up-to-date understanding of your users' relationships with the channels you are targeting?  Is your current channel mix still relevant?  If not, it may be time for a reassessment.

Below is a framework to guide you in evaluating a channel's effectiveness:

1.  Relevance 

Is your target user or ideal customer present in the channel?  What percentage of the audience in the channel aligns with your target demographic?  Can you tailor your campaign to focus specifically on your target user or ideal customer within this channel?

• Example Product: A tool for sales forecasting.

• Example Channel: Advertising on LinkedIn.

A revenue operations manager engages with her community on LinkedIn and is precisely targeted based on her job title, company name, industry, and professional experience.

2.  Context 

Given your understanding of your target user / ideal customer's use cases for your product, do these use cases naturally arise within the channel you're targeting?

• Example Product: An out-of-the-box AI chatbot SDK for mobile developers.

• Example Channel: SEO content focusing on building an AI chatbot using ChatGPT.

While a developer searches online for optimal chatbot implementation methods, she encounters an article detailing how to code a basic AI chatbot using ChatGPT. This article also highlights the existence of an out-of-the-box solution that is feature-rich, secure, and scalable, emphasizing that a pre-built AI chatbot can be implemented in a matter of hours rather than weeks or months.

Tip: For optimal go-to-market strategy, don't forget to ensure alignment on use cases with your product management and sales teams.

3.  Intent 

At what stage of the buying journey is your target user / ideal customer within the channel?  Are they searching for a product to buy now?  Or are they researching to learn more about the problem and potential solutions?

• Example Product (Immediate Intent): Concert tickets.

• Example Channel: Google Ads.

A fan of Taylor Swift is researching when and where the next concert will be performed.  A relevant ad is displayed with the upcoming concert locations to buy the tickets before they sell out.

• Example Product (Research Phase): Machine learning platform.

• Example Channel: AI & Big Data Expo vendor talks and booths.

A data scientist attends the AI & Big Data Expo to learn about the latest tools and techniques to train and operate large-scale machine learning models.  The data scientist listens to a vendor talk on the latest ML Ops practices and checks out various products on the showroom floor to see who has the best approach.

4.  Growth

Model How does your advertising investment scale within the channel?  Is the relationship linear and proportional to your investment, or does it stimulate a growth loop where output feeds back into the input, thereby providing exponential returns?

• Example Product: Cybersecurity code scanning tool.

• Linear Example: Stack Overflow advertising.

A developer is searching on Stack Overflow for a solution to a security coding challenge.  Advertising on Stack Overflow targets security coding questions, leading to ad impressions and engagement.  The relationship is directly proportional; increased spending results in higher levels of engagement within the channel.

• Growth Loop Example: A growth loop is part of the code scanning tool workflow.

A developer initiates a GitHub pull request, allowing peers to review the code before it merges into the main branch.  The results of a security code scan are included in the pull request, identifying potential issues and linking to detailed explanations on the vendor's website.  Developers who review the code recognize the value of the security scan and download the product for use on their workstations.  This cycle encourages broader community engagement with the product, accelerating its adoption.

5.  Metrics

Which metrics will be impacted by this channel?  For example, will asset downloads, product sign-ups, or plan purchases be improved?

If metrics already exist, assess whether they are stable, improving, or declining.  A deterioration in metrics may signal that the channel is losing effectiveness and warrants reconsideration.  For new channels, start with small tests to gauge efficacy before committing to more significant investments.  Regardless, data-driven insights are crucial for each channel to understand ROI and optimize the channel mix.

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The Challenge

In the realm of software development, the problem of siloed teams can often present a significant challenge. Siloes are essentially isolated units within an organization where information and resources are not shared outside the group. These siloes often manifest as separate teams for product management, design, and engineering in software development. While experts in their own field, these teams may lack a comprehensive understanding of the broader project context, leading to misalignments and inefficiencies. The disconnected nature of these siloes can result in a lack of shared vision, conflicting priorities, and a communication breakdown. Ultimately, this disjointed approach can lead to suboptimal product outcomes and an inability to adapt quickly to changing market needs or user requirements.

The absence of a framework like engineering pods, where a product manager, a designer, and a tech lead work together as a cohesive unit, exacerbates these issues. Without this collaborative structure, teams struggle to align their individual objectives with the overarching business goals, and the product strategy may get lost in translation. Moreover, without a strong conduit between the business, design, and technical perspectives, there's a risk of developing features that are either not technically feasible or don't resonate with user needs. Consequently, the product development process may become fraught with delays, cost overruns, and dissatisfied users.

Engineering Pods

The ideal software development process hinges on a well-structured, collaborative environment focusing on user-centric design and technical feasibility. This process can be best realized through the formation of engineering pods, each led by a product manager, a designer, and a tech lead.

Product managers are responsible for driving prioritization, ensuring that the team's efforts are aligned with the product strategy and the company's business objectives. They also act as the main communicators, bridging the gap between business and technical teams and ensuring that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of what's being built and why.

Designers, on the other hand, are tasked with defining the user journeys. They bring an empathetic understanding of the user, creating intuitive interfaces and experiences that meet user needs and expectations. Designers need to work closely with both product managers to ensure alignment with the product vision and tech leads to ensure designs are technically feasible.

Designers need to work closely with both product managers to ensure alignment with the product vision and tech leads to ensure designs are technically feasible.

Tech leads play a critical role in defining the technical feasibility of proposed features and improvements. They ensure that the proposed solutions align with the technical capabilities and constraints of the system and lead their teams in implementing these solutions.

To ensure efficient collaboration between product management and engineering teams throughout this process, I would adopt a narrative format similar to Amazon's 6-page document. This approach involves writing a detailed narrative that describes the proposed feature or product, the problem it solves, how it will benefit the user, and how it aligns with the company's goals. This document serves as a single source of truth, reducing ambiguity and ensuring all teams clearly understand what is to be built.

The narrative is shared with all stakeholders before any coding begins. This allows for a comprehensive review process where all involved parties - product managers, designers, and tech leads - can provide feedback and ask questions. This process can be further extended to include GTM teams to ensure cross-department alignment. The iterative feedback ensures alignment across all teams and allows for early detection and resolution of potential issues.

In Conclusion

Organizing teams into engineering pods and leveraging a narrative-based approach can significantly improve collaboration between product management and engineering teams. This not only helps in creating a better product but also fosters a culture of transparency and mutual respect, where everyone's contribution is recognized and valued.

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Navigating the intricate labyrinth of product development is challenging enough when wearing one hat. Imagine donning two: the strategic, visionary cap of a Product Manager (PM) and the tactical, detail-oriented hat of a Product Owner (PO). As a PM, you're chartered with deep-diving into market trends, customer behaviors, and competitive landscapes, driving your product's long-term vision and strategy. As a PO, you're rolling up your sleeves to collaborate with your agile teams, turning that high-level vision into a reality through actionable tasks and consistent feature delivery.

This dual role can feel like straddling two fast-moving trains, each going in its own direction. On one side, you're exploring the uncharted territories of customer understanding, where more nuanced insights and empathetic interpretations are required. Conversely, you're embedded in the trenches of execution, where the pressure to deliver features consistently and promptly is palpable. While I've seen product individuals embody both roles, especially at early-stage companies where a tight feedback loop from customer to execution works well, this dual role responsibility leads to serious compromises as the business scales.

In this blog, I will share why separate team members should lead PM and PO roles and what the responsibilities are. Separation of duties will release the tension between needing more time with customers to truly understand their needs and the simultaneous demand for focused attention on feature delivery. And most importantly, I'll discuss strategies to make the transition as smooth as possible to ensure product execution continues effectively to drive your business forward.

Why Separate Product Management and Product Owner Roles?

Separating the roles of Product Managers and Product Owners is vital due to the distinct talents and skills each role requires. PMs operate more at a strategic level, focusing on market trends, competitive analysis, business cases, and overall portfolio management. These responsibilities require a strategic mindset, excellent analytical skills, and a deep understanding of the market and customers. On the other hand, POs work more at a tactical level, translating the product strategy and roadmap into detailed requirements, managing the product backlog, and working closely with the engineering team. These tasks require excellent communication skills, detail-oriented thinking, and a deep understanding of the product and the development process.

The time conflicts that arise when one person tries to fulfill both roles further justify the need for separation. PMs and POs have different priorities and commitments that often conflict. For instance, a PM might need to attend a customer meeting to gather feedback or discuss potential partnerships, while at the same time, the PO is required to be present at daily stand-ups or sprint planning sessions with the engineering team. When one person tries to juggle both roles, they inevitably have to make tough decisions about where to invest their time, leading to compromises and missed opportunities.

Moreover, the breadth and depth of responsibilities that fall under both roles are simply too vast for one person to handle effectively. When the same person is responsible for long-term strategy and day-to-day execution, the sheer amount of work and context-switching often leads to some tasks being neglected. Typically, the more urgent tasks of daily execution get prioritized, while equally important strategic tasks, such as planning and market analysis, are put on the back burner. This imbalance can hinder the product's long-term success and the company's strategic objectives. Hence, having separate individuals dedicated to the PM and PO roles allows for a more balanced and effective approach to product development and management.

Most common issues that you should watch out for:

1. Overload and Burnout: The PM and PO roles are both demanding and require different skill sets. A person trying to fill both roles may become overwhelmed by the volume of work and the need to constantly switch between strategic and tactical tasks, leading to stress and potential burnout.

2. Quality of Work: Given the breadth and depth of responsibilities, the quality of work in both areas may suffer. Maintaining a strategic, market-focused view while managing the day-to-day details of product development is challenging.

3. Slow Decision-Making: Having one person in both roles can slow down decision-making, as all decisions must go through this one individual. Single-person decision-making can slow down the development process and make it difficult to respond quickly to changes or new information.

4. Limited Perspective: It can be challenging for one person to fully understand and represent all the various perspectives involved in product development, from the high-level strategic view to the detailed understanding of customer needs and the day-to-day realities of the engineering team.

5. Neglected Responsibilities: In times of high pressure, one set of responsibilities may take precedence over the other. This could lead to neglecting critical tasks, like long-term strategic planning or detailed backlog management, though it's usually the former because the daily engineering interactions are more urgent.

6. Lack of Focus: Being involved in strategic and tactical product development can dilute the focus. It could become challenging to keep track of market trends, competitor activities, and customer needs while also managing the day-to-day operations of the engineering team.

All these potential issues underline the importance of separating the PM and PO roles in larger organizations or contexts where there is significant work in both the strategic and tactical domains. However, it's important to note that in some contexts, especially smaller organizations or simpler products, having a single person in both roles can work well.

Who has which responsibilities?

Product Manager Responsibilities:

1. Business case rationalization: The Product Manager needs to justify the business case for each product or feature. This involves evaluating the product's potential profitability, strategic fit, and feasibility. Tracking success can be done by reviewing how well the actual product or feature performance aligns with the initial business case projections.

2. Portfolio management: This involves overseeing all the products and add-ons within the scope of the PM's responsibilities for a company's portfolio, ensuring they align with the company's overall strategy and objectives. The performance of the product portfolio can measure success in terms of meeting revenue, adoption, and market share goals.

3. Market segmentation: The Product Manager is responsible for identifying and understanding key market segments for the product. This involves detailed market research and customer profiling, including selecting a beachhead market to drive the initial success of a product or feature.. Success can be tracked through market share growth in identified segments.

4. Competitive analysis: The Product Manager must keep a close eye on competitors, understanding their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. Success can be tracked through maintaining or increasing market position relative to competitors.

5. Pricing strategy: The Product Manager sets the pricing strategy to balance profitability with competitive positioning and customer value perception. Success can be measured by the product's profitability and its price positioning within the market.

6. Whole product strategy: This involves defining the complete product offering, including core features, support, services, and other components necessary to deliver customer value. Success can be measured by customer satisfaction and product usage metrics.

7. Forecasting: The Product Manager must predict future sales and market trends to guide product strategy. Success can be tracked by comparing forecasted figures with actual results.

8. End-of-life strategy: This involves deciding when and how to retire a product, considering factors like declining sales, high support costs, or strategic fit. Success can be tracked by the smoothness of the transition for customers and the impact on the company's reputation.

9. Defining and communicating the product vision and roadmap: The Product Manager sets the long-term vision for the product and maps out the path to achieve it. Success can be measured by how well the product development aligns with the roadmap and how much the vision resonates with customers and stakeholders.

10. Persona development: The Product Manager creates detailed personas to represent key customer groups, guiding product development. Success can be tracked by how well the product meets the needs of these user personas and satisfies the extended team, such as buyer and procurement, if they are separate people.

11. Identifying customer needs and defining requirements: The Product Manager identifies the user pains and jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), translating these needs into product requirements. Success can be measured by customer satisfaction and product usage metrics.

12. Positioning the product in the market: The Product Manager defines how the product is positioned relative to competitors, typically working with Product Marketing hand in hand to create a differentiated story. Success can be tracked through market share and how customers perceive the product.

Product Owner Responsibilities:

1. Translating product vision and roadmap into detailed user stories: The Product Owner takes the product vision, roadmap, and requirements from the Product Manager and translates them into detailed user stories for the engineering team. Success can be measured by the clarity of user stories and the development team's ability to implement them without extensive clarifications and resulting delays.

2. Ensuring user stories are ready for development and correctly implemented (Definition of Ready and Done): The Product Owner ensures that user stories are fully fleshed out, understood, and ready to be worked on by the engineering team and fully implemented as intended. Success can be measured by the number of user stories returned or requiring clarification during a sprint.

3. Backlog grooming and elaboration: The Product Owner prioritizes and maintains the product backlog, ensuring it reflects the current priorities and themes. Success can be tracked by the engineering team's ability to consistently work on high-priority items and the absence of critical last-minute additions to the backlog.

4. Sprint and Release Planning: The Product Owner works with the engineering team to plan what work will be done in each sprint and to coordinate product releases with extended stakeholders such as marketing, sales, support, and customer success. The number of completed user stories per sprint and successful on-time releases can measure success.

5. Participating in daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and showcases: The Product Owner actively participates in these meetings to ensure alignment between the engineering team and the product roadmap. Success can be tracked by the team's alignment with the product roadmap and ability to deliver on sprint goals.

6. 24/7 availability to support the sprint team: The Product Owner needs to be available to answer questions, make decisions, and remove obstacles for the engineering team. Success can be measured by the team's perception of the Product Owner's availability and helpfulness, as well as the velocity at which the team can work.

7. Managing defects and ensuring they are addressed: The Product Owner tracks and prioritizes defects, ensuring they are addressed in a timely manner. Success can be tracked by the number of outstanding defects and the time it takes to resolve them.

8. Acting as a customer advocate within the engineering team: The Product Owner must ensure that the customer's voice is heard within the engineering team, guiding the product development and tackling tactical feature improvements. Customer satisfaction scores and product usage metrics can measure success.

Consider personality and talents before splitting the PM/PO roles.

The personality characteristics and talents that make for a good Product Manager or Product Owner largely overlap, as both roles require individuals who can work well with others, make decisions, and lead without formal authority. However, some characteristics should stand out as strengths for each role.

Product Manager Personality Characteristics and Talents:

1. Visionary: PMs need to be able to envision the future of their product and create a strategic roadmap to reach that future state. They need to be innovative and forward-thinking.

2. Decisive: PMs often have to make difficult decisions about the direction of their product. They need to be comfortable making these decisions, even when there is uncertainty or incomplete information.

3. Empathetic: PMs need to deeply understand their customers' needs and perspectives. This requires empathy and strong listening skills.

4. Analytical: PMs often need to make decisions based on data. They need to be comfortable working with data and interpreting it to make informed decisions.

5. Influential: PMs often have to lead through influence rather than authority. They need to be able to persuade others and build consensus.

Product Owner Personality Characteristics and Talents:

1. Detail-oriented: POs need to be able to break down large goals into actionable tasks and ensure that these tasks are completed correctly. This requires strong attention to detail.

2. Collaborative: POs work closely with their engineering team and extended stakeholders. They need to be team players who can work well with others.

3. Communicative: POs need to be able to clearly communicate the needs and goals of the product to their team. They also need to be able to facilitate communication between different stakeholders.

4. Adaptable: POs often work in Agile environments, which require flexibility and adaptability. They need to be able to respond to change and adjust their plans as needed.

5. Problem solver: POs often need to help resolve issues that arise during development. This requires strong problem-solving skills and the ability to think on their feet.

This is not an exhaustive list, and each characteristic's importance can vary depending on the specific context of the role. It's also important to note that while these traits can be beneficial, they are not absolute requirements. Many successful PMs and POs may exhibit only some of these characteristics but instead might leverage their unique strengths.

Avoiding the risks and challenges when transitioning to dual PM and PO roles.

Transitioning from a dual PM and PO role to separate teams has its share of risks and challenges. However, by acknowledging and planning for these potential obstacles, organizations can navigate the change more effectively and set the stage for successful PM and PO collaboration. Here are the primary areas of concern that need attention:

Resistance to Change

Change is often met with resistance, especially when it involves altering established roles and responsibilities. Team members may be anxious about the shift in their duties, and there could be concerns about the dilution of authority or the uncertainty of new expectations. It's essential to address these concerns proactively, emphasizing the benefits of the change and providing ample support during the transition.

Role Preference

Only some people want to be a PM or a PO. Consider the team members' preferences, not just skills, when making decisions. Otherwise, you risk alienating some team members and having them potentially leave the company if they end up in the wrong role. Some love strategy, and others love being hands-on with the engineering team, which is ok.

Role Clarity and Overlap

The overlapping responsibilities between PMs and POs can lead to confusion about who does what. Clear definitions of each role and specific responsibilities and decision-making authorities can help prevent misunderstandings. It's also crucial to foster a culture of collaboration where PMs and POs work together seamlessly, balancing strategic vision with tactical execution.

Communication Breakdown

With the introduction of new roles and processes, there's a risk that communication could suffer. PMs and POs must establish efficient and open communication channels between each other and other stakeholders to ensure everyone stays aligned with the product vision and roadmap.

Duplication of Effort

During the initial phase of the transition, there might be a temporary duplication of effort as both the PMs and POs get accustomed to their new roles. This period requires patience and continuous refinement of processes to avoid duplication and ensure a smooth division of labor.

Adjusting to New Tools

If new tools are introduced to support the transition, a learning curve could be associated with their adoption. Training sessions, tutorials, and ongoing support can ease this transition and ensure the tools are used effectively to support the newly separated roles.

While these challenges may seem daunting, they are surmountable with careful planning, transparent communication, and a steadfast commitment to improving the product's function. By addressing these risks head-on, organizations can unlock the full potential of separate PM and PO roles, leading to more efficient product development processes, improved feature delivery, and, ultimately, more satisfied customers.

Conclusion: Embracing the Journey Towards Enhanced Product Management

In fast-paced business environments, the need for nimble, effective product management is more critical than ever. While having a single individual wear both the Product Manager and Product Owner hats may work in some contexts, especially at young startups, the division of these roles becomes increasingly beneficial as an organization grows and the complexities of managing product strategy and execution expand.

Transitioning to separate PM and PO roles is not merely about redistributing tasks; it's a strategic shift that can profoundly impact the product's success and the organization's overall performance. The journey involves careful planning, a clear understanding of each role's distinct responsibilities, and a thoughtful approach to managing the inevitable challenges of change. It requires acknowledging that different individuals may have different strengths and that the synergistic collaboration of strategic and tactical minds can drive more robust product development.

Ultimately, separating PM and PO roles is a transformative process that can lead to a more focused strategic vision, improved feature delivery, and products that resonate deeply with customers. 

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I. Introduction

In B2B SaaS, understanding and targeting the right market segment can be the difference between product success and product failure. A key strategy in establishing product success is the Minimum Viable Segment (MVS) concept, also known as the beachhead market. But what exactly is MVS? And why is it so critical to your business's success?

The MVS is the smallest market segment your business can serve while being profitable and sustainable. It's the niche within a larger market that best aligns with your product's unique features and value proposition and where you have the best chance of dominating. Identifying and targeting your MVS should be a deliberate, data-driven process that involves understanding your potential customers, their needs and pain points, and the competitive landscape.

The MVS strategy is about more than just market share. It's about establishing a strong foothold, proving your product's value, and building a foundation for growth. It's about starting small, proving yourself, and then scaling up.

II. The Risks of Ignoring the MVS Approach

But what happens when businesses overlook the importance of defining their MVS? More often than not, it leads to diffused efforts, diluted marketing messages, wasted resources, and a product that doesn't quite meet the needs of any particular group of customers. Without a clearly defined MVS, you will fail to gain traction with any group of customers because you are trying to be everything to everyone and ultimately not impactful enough for anyone.

Three highly visible examples:

1. Segway:

Segway's self-balancing personal transporters were hyped as a revolutionary product that would redefine personal transportation. However, the founder didn't identify a clear MVS. The product was too expensive for the average consumer, and specific use cases, such as security personnel or tour groups, needed to be more substantial to sustain the company. Segway didn't find its beachhead market, ultimately leading to its downfall.

2. Webvan:

Webvan, an online grocery business during the dot-com era, is a classic example of a company not defining a clear MVS. It attempted to serve a massive market right from the start without first focusing on a narrower customer segment. The company invested heavily in infrastructure, expecting demand that never materialized. A more targeted approach, focusing on a specific viable market segment, might have allowed Webvan to gain a firmer footing.

3. Quibi:

Quibi, a short-form video platform, failed to identify an MVS. It aimed to cater to on-the-go consumers who wanted to consume high-quality content on their mobile devices. However, they misjudged the market segment. Consumers were already satisfied with platforms like YouTube for short videos and Netflix for high-quality content. Quibi couldn't find its niche or MVS, leading to its downfall.

Without a clear focus, a company will struggle to communicate its value proposition, resulting in weak marketing messages that fail to resonate with potential customers. It might also find it challenging to prioritize product development efforts and waste resources trying to add features that aren't crucial to its core user base.

Therefore, while it might seem tempting to go after a large, broad market right from the start, doing so often results in lackluster results. Without a well-defined MVS, a company will be spread too thin, struggling to gain traction in any market segment.

III. Achieving Success Through an Effective MVS

In contrast to the pitfalls of ignoring the MVS approach, the benefits of properly defining and targeting an MVS can be transformative. Success within your MVS means more than initial profitability; it creates a strong foundation for future growth, helps refine your product and strategy, and provides a competitive edge.

To appreciate the power of the MVS approach, consider a business that successfully adopted this strategy: Slack, the collaboration software platform.

When Slack first launched (a pivot from a failed gaming startup, Tiny Speck, you can read more in Hiten Shah's blog post "How Slack Became an $16 Billion Business by Making Work Less Boring"), its founders targeted a subset of businesses needing collaboration software. They focused on a specific MVS - cutting-edge technology companies. This segment was small enough for Slack to dominate and be viable because tech companies were willing to try a new solution to improve team communication. Tech companies also had a clear pain point: the need for a central, user-friendly platform for team collaboration that could integrate with other tools they were using.

Focusing on this MVS allowed Slack to tailor its product and messaging to meet the needs of these specific users. They were able to refine their features based on the feedback and usage patterns of their initial 15,000 private beta testers from August 2013 to February 2014. They also benefited from the tight-knit nature of the tech community, where word-of-mouth referrals helped fuel their growth once the product was released (learn more from Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack in his First Round Capital article "From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy".) Once Slack had proven its value and established its dominance within this MVS, they were able to expand into other market segments, eventually becoming the widely used platform it is today.

This example illustrates several key benefits of the MVS strategy:

A. Focused Resources and Efforts

By narrowing down the target market, a business can focus its resources and efforts on serving a specific group of customers. The product can truly meet this particular group's needs rather than a more generic product that may only partially satisfy users. It also enables the business to craft more targeted and effective marketing messages.

In the case of Slack, focusing on tech allowed Slack to tailor their product to the needs of this group. They could prioritize the most valuable features to these users, such as integration with other software tools commonly used by technology companies. Their marketing could also speak directly to this group's pain points and aspirations.

B. Faster Feedback Loop

When a business focuses on a specific MVS, it can more quickly and accurately gauge the effectiveness of its product and strategy. The feedback the company receives will be more consistent and relevant, enabling it to iterate more effectively and improve its product more rapidly.

Slack benefited from this faster feedback loop. By working closely with a specific group of users, they could rapidly release interconnected features that solidified feature market fit. Continuous experimentation with related features also created a shorter feedback loop that helped Slack rapidly and effectively improve its product.

C. Stronger Competitive Position

Dominating a specific MVS can also give a business a stronger competitive position. As the go-to solution for a particular group of customers, it can be challenging for competitors to break into that market, which can provide a strong foundation for future growth.

Once Slack had established itself as the preferred collaboration tool for tech companies, it became difficult for competitors to make inroads into this market. Slack's strong position within its MVS helped protect it from the competition and laid a strong foundation for its expansion.

D. Easier Expansion Into New Markets

Finally, success within an MVS can make it easier for a business to expand into new markets. Once the product has value in the initial market segment, the company can leverage the core value proposition into adjacent markets by making minor adjustments, accelerating success.

After Slack had proven its value and succeeded within the tech community, it leveraged this success to expand into adjacent markets. Slacked pointed to their track record within their initial MVS as proof of their product's value, making it easier to convince new customer segments to try their product.

IV. Establishing a Minimum Viable Segment

As discussed earlier, establishing a Minimum Viable Segment (MVS) is critical in launching a B2B SaaS product. To ensure success in a narrow segment, you need a detailed understanding of your potential customers, their needs and pain points, and the competitive landscape. Let's look at the critical dimensions to consider when defining your MVS:

A. Minimum: Your MVS needs to be small enough for you to dominate but large enough to be viable. This requires an understanding of the size and structure of your potential market. Research tools like market reports and industry databases can provide valuable information. Consider your capacity and resources, particularly your network and potential customers with whom you will be testing ideas. Given your current capabilities and resources, can you effectively serve this market segment?

The 'minimum' in MVS refers to the concept of starting small. This might seem counterintuitive in a world where "the bigger, the better" often prevails. However, in terms of establishing an MVS, the opposite holds true. Identifying a smaller market segment makes your business a significant player more quickly. This increases your ability to understand the market dynamics in-depth, establish strong customer relationships, and gain invaluable product feedback. Furthermore, starting small allows you to minimize competition, giving your product the best chance to stand out.

B. Viable: Viability involves a variety of factors. Does your product provide a solution that this market segment needs? Is this segment willing and able to pay for your product? Viability also involves considering the competition. Do you have a competitive advantage that will allow you to succeed in this market segment?

The 'viable' in MVS pertains to your product's ability to meet this market segment's needs effectively. At its Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage, your product should have enough features and functionalities to solve the customers' key problems in this segment. One way to assess viability is to conduct market research or interviews to understand your potential customers' pain points better. Another approach is to introduce a beta version of your product to a select group of users in this segment and gain feedback, just like Slack did early on in product development.

C. Pain Points: Understanding your potential uses' pain points is crucial. This requires deep research, such as interviews, surveys, and user observation. What problems are your potential users facing? How does your product solve these problems?

Define the MVS around a significant pain point that your product addresses. The goal here is to find a group of users whose problems align most closely with your product's solution. By focusing on the segment where your product can provide the most value, you'll likely gain early adopters who will champion your product.

D. Product Use Case: How will users use your product? This involves understanding your users' workflows and processes. You must understand where your product fits into these workflows and how it can add value.

The product use case should align closely with the pain points of your MVS. This refers to the specific situations where users will find your product valuable. By understanding how users in your MVS use your product, you can tailor your product development, marketing, and customer support efforts to meet their specific needs and circumstances.

E. User Profile: Your user profile includes demographic information and goes beyond that. What is the role of your potential user within their organization? What is their function? What are their priorities and goals? Creating detailed customer personas can help you better understand your potential users and tailor your product and messaging to their needs. Understanding the target person is a critical step that I cover in section VII.

F. Budget: Understanding your potential customers' budgets is also important. How much are they willing and able to spend to solve their problem? This involves not just understanding their financial resources but also their priorities. Where does your product fit within their budget priorities? The budget will also factor into the Return on Investment (ROI) calculation, a key selling point for B2B SaaS products.

G. Channel: Finally, you need to consider how you will reach your potential customers. What channels will you use to market and sell your product? This could include online advertising, content marketing, sales calls, partners, etc. A clear channel strategy can increase your product's visibility within your MVS, driving growth and market penetration.

In addition to these key dimensions, several other factors should be considered when defining your MVS. These include market growth rate, competitive landscape, regulatory environment, and product compatibility. These factors must be considered and weighed against each other to define your MVS.

Establishing a Minimum Viable Segment is not a one-time task. It's an ongoing process that involves:

• Continuously learning about your market and customers.

• Iterating on your product and strategy.

• Adapting to changes in the market landscape.

But with careful research, strategic thinking, and customer focus, you can define a Minimum Viable Segment that will set your B2B SaaS product up for success.

V. Further Segmenting Until Market Opportunity Matches Three Conditions

The journey doesn't stop once you have established your initial MVS. It's essential to continue refining and segmenting your market until it matches three fundamental conditions. This approach, proposed by Bill Aulet in his book "Disciplined Entrepreneurship," can help ensure that your MVS is viable and primed for growth.

A. The customers within the market all buy similar products

This is a sign of a shared understanding of the problem and the kind of solution needed within the market. If customers within your MVS are buying similar products, they'll likely understand and appreciate the value your product provides.

In contrast, if your MVS includes customers buying vastly different products, it may indicate that there isn't a clear, shared problem that your product can address. The more similar the purchasing behavior within your MVS, the more likely your product can successfully meet their needs.

B. The customers within the market have a similar sales cycle and expect products to provide value in similar ways

A shared sales cycle within your MVS can streamline your sales process, making it easier for your salespeople to move from one customer to another with minimal loss of productivity. Additionally, if customers within your MVS expect products to provide value in similar ways, it can simplify your product development and marketing. You can focus on delivering and communicating the specific types of value your customers seek rather than trying to cater to a wide range of value expectations.

C. There is "word of mouth" between customers in the market

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools. If there's a high degree of communication and influence between customers within your MVS, your product's reputation can spread rapidly, accelerating its adoption, just like in the case of Slack.

If there's little communication between customers within your potential MVS, it may be more challenging to gain traction. However, if customers actively share recommendations and experiences, a positive impression of your product can quickly lead to increased market penetration.

By refining and segmenting your MVS until it matches these three conditions, you can maximize your opportunity for growth. Defining your MVS isn't about settling for the first viable segment you identify; it's about finding the segment where your product can provide the most value and achieve the most success.

VI. Industry Leaders Provide Diverse Perspectives on MVS

Understanding the MVS isn't just about defining a process; it's also about engaging with the ongoing discourse and learning from those who've been successful. Several industry leaders and experts have provided their unique perspectives on the concept of MVS, which can add depth and nuance to our understanding.

A. Bill Aulet's Perspective

As discussed previously, Bill Aulet, author of "Disciplined Entrepreneurship," strongly advocates the MVS concept. He emphasizes the importance of selecting a narrow beachhead market segment that aligns with your product's unique features and value proposition. To Aulet, a well-defined MVS forms a solid foundation for a startup to launch and scale its product.

B. Michael Porter's Perspective

Michael Porter, a renowned professor at Harvard Business School, offers valuable insights on market segmentation from a competitive strategy standpoint. While not explicitly focusing on MVS, his work highlights the importance of understanding the competitive forces in a market segment. Porter's Five Forces Framework can be an effective tool for analyzing the competitive dynamics in your MVS and determining how best to position your product. (Joan Magretta does a great job simplifying the concepts in her book "Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy")

C. Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn's Perspective

In "Competition Demystified," Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn discuss the idea of strategic market segmentation, which aligns closely with the concept of MVS. They argue that businesses should seek market segments where they can establish a sustainable competitive advantage. Greenwald and Kahn stress the importance of understanding the economic dynamics of a market segment and the company's relative position within that segment.

D. Alex Hormozi's Perspective

Entrepreneur Alex Hormozi provides a practical perspective on the concept of MVS in his book "$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No". He emphasizes the importance of understanding your customers' needs and crafting a compelling offer that resonates with your target market. To Hormozi, the key to defining an effective MVS lies in the depth of understanding and connection with the customer.

The perspectives of these industry leaders offer a rich tapestry of insights on MVS. From strategic to practical, these insights provide a fuller understanding of the concept if you want to dive deeper into the subject. As you define your MVS, drawing on these diverse perspectives can provide valuable guidance and inspiration.

VII. Considerations for the Target Persona: Detailed Questions to Consider for Defining the Target Persona within the MVS

Understanding the target persona is crucial to defining your Minimum Viable Segment. This involves diving deep into who your ideal customer is — their characteristics, motivations, needs, and behaviors. Questions to consider:

A. Demographic Questions

1. What is the age range of the target persona?

2. What is their gender?

3. What is their educational background?

4. Where do they live (geographically)?

B. Professional Questions

1. What is their job role or title?

2. What industry do they work in?

3. What is the size of the company they work for?

4. What are their professional goals?

C. Behavioral Questions

1. How do they currently solve the problem that your product addresses?

2. What are their primary information sources for professional knowledge?

3. What kind of content do they consume, and on which platforms?

4. How do they make buying decisions related to your product or service?

D. Psychographic Questions

1. What are their key values and beliefs?

2. What motivates them professionally?

3. What are their biggest professional challenges or pain points?

4. What are their fears or concerns related to your product or service?

E. Product-Specific Questions

1. How does your product fit into their daily routine?

2. How often would they use your product?

3. What are the key features or aspects of your product that appeal to them most?

4. What would prevent them from using your product?

You can create a detailed profile of your target persona by answering these questions. This profile will guide product development, marketing, sales, and customer support, ensuring that all aspects of your business align with your target customer's needs and preferences. Remember, the more specific and detailed your understanding of your target persona, the more effectively you can tailor your product and strategy to meet their needs.

VIII. Conclusion: The Power of an Effective MVS

Defining a Minimum Viable Segment (MVS) is more than just a step in the product development process—it's a strategy that can significantly impact your business's trajectory. It guides your product development, marketing strategy, sales approach, and even the company's overall direction.

When executed effectively, establishing an MVS provides clarity, focuses resources, and increases the likelihood of early traction and long-term success. It allows you to understand deeply and serve your chosen market segment better than anyone else. It's the foundation from which you can expand into broader markets.

However, it's important to remember that establishing an MVS is not a one-time event. As your product evolves and market dynamics change, your MVS may also need to change. Constant reassessment and refinement should be part of your strategy.

Ultimately, understanding your Minimum Viable Segment is about understanding your customers — their needs, behaviors, challenges, and how your product can provide value to them. By aligning your product with a well-defined MVS, you put your customers' needs at the forefront, setting the stage for successful product-market fit.

Remember the perspectives shared by industry leaders like Bill Aulet, Michael Porter, Bruce Greenwald, Judd Kahn, and Alex Hormozi. Each offers different insights and considerations when defining your MVS. They highlight the multi-dimensional nature of this process — it's not just about identifying a viable market but also about understanding your product's unique value, considering the competitive landscape, and maintaining a customer-centric focus.

As you embark on establishing your MVS, let this guide serve as a roadmap, helping you navigate through the many dimensions and considerations of this process. It's a challenging endeavor, but the rewards can be significant. With a clearly defined MVS, you're well on your way to creating a product that resonates with customers, stands out in the marketplace, and drives your business's success.

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I. Introduction

In the fiercely competitive software landscape and the quest for further growth, there comes the point where a single product B2B SaaS company must launch more offerings to continue business success. But how can this next venture be guided to match or outshine the initial success? The answer is found in the success of the first product itself and a systematic approach to product development—an incubation practice.

A well-devised incubation practice is more than just a structured product development process. Incubation leverages entrepreneurial concepts and the understanding of proven strengths and insights from the first successful product to expedite the second one's creation, launch, and acceptance. It intertwines the present success to shape future wins, reinforcing the growth loop.

II. The Challenges of Lacking a Robust Incubation Practice

However, navigating this path has its pitfalls. Businesses embarking on their second product journey without a comprehensive incubation practice may find themselves on the brink of multiple risks. The absence of a defined structure and clear strategy might steer the development process into repeat failures. There is also the risk of not understanding the market needs well and losing sight of the product's alignment with the company's core strengths and vision.

Launching a second product also amplifies the stakes. The first success has already set high expectations amongst your customers and stakeholders. Deviating from those standards not only risks the success of the new product but might also shadow the reputation of your first product. Thus, without a robust incubation practice, the journey to the second product could lead to a disarray of resources, a slow crawl toward product-market fit, and potentially a tarnished brand image.

An incubation practice acts as a compass, ensuring that the journey towards the second product stays in tune with your customer needs, market dynamics, and leverages the successful recipe of your first product.

III. The Power of an Existing Successful Product

The challenges may seem intimidating, but there's a significant advantage that businesses launching their second product hold—the existing successful product. It's a testament to your company's potential and a powerful platform that paves the way for the second product's journey.

Your successful first product provides critical insights into the intricacies of your market, the needs and behaviors of your customers, and the effective strategies that led to its success. This wealth of knowledge is an invaluable resource when devising your second product.

Your customers, who already trust and value your first product, will likely be more receptive to your second offering. They form a ready user base you can engage with, gather feedback, and even conduct beta testing. The existing rapport and open channels of communication speed up the iterative process of product development.

You can leverage your first product's success by targeting the same user base with a second complementary product. This strategy is potentially more effective since you're already aware of the users' needs, preferences, and pain points, and you're offering additional value to their experience.

Another strategy could be to retain the core offering of your successful product but introduce relevant changes to target a similar user persona. This strategy requires a thorough understanding of your existing user persona and the potential new persona to ensure that the new product fits well with the unique requirements of the new persona.

Alternatively, moving upmarket with the existing product, tailoring it to larger companies, larger teams, and multiple teams is another effective strategy. An upmarket solution requires a comprehensive understanding of the new market segment's needs, the scalability of your product, and possibly, modifying your business model to fit the new market.

Choosing between these strategies is a challenging task. It calls for detailed customer discovery, thorough market research, and rigorous testing to validate the potential success of the chosen strategy. However, this rigorous preparation can transform your initial success into a powerful springboard for your second product if done right.

IV. The Ideal Incubation Practice for Accelerating Success of Follow-on SaaS Products

An effective incubation practice provides a systematic and strategic approach to product development. It's not just a timeline or a set of milestones; it's a holistic process that encapsulates ideation, validation, market research, prototyping, testing, iterative development, and launch strategy - each fine-tuned based on insights from the first successful product.

At the heart of this practice lies the recognition that your first product's success is a repository of lessons, insights, and proven strategies that can accelerate the market acceptance of the follow-on product. But how does an ideal incubation practice leverage this wealth of knowledge?

The inception of the second product begins with an in-depth analysis of your first product's success. What were the key factors that drove its market acceptance? What value proposition resonated most with your users? Which features received the most praise? How did your product differentiate from competitors? What were the initial challenges, and how were they overcome? These questions not only uncover the strategies that worked but also reveal potential areas of improvement to address in your second product.

The next step is ideation, where you leverage the insights from your successful product to brainstorm ideas for the second one. Do not confine the process to a small group of people or keep it exclusively within the product-engineering domain; instead, the ideation process should promote cross-departmental collaboration. GTM stakeholders, such as sales, customer success, marketing, and services, work with customers and prospects daily and have a perspective that you may be missing in a mostly delivery-focused group. This diversity can spark ideas encompassing various perspectives, increasing the chances of uncovering a truly innovative idea for the second product.

Do not confine the process to a small group of people or keep it exclusively within the product-engineering domain; instead, the ideation process should promote cross-departmental collaboration.

Once you've generated a pool of ideas, initiate the validation phase. During this phase, scrutinize each idea, assessing its potential to meet market needs, align with your company's strengths, and enhance your customers' experience. When an idea successfully navigates through this stage, it demonstrates its proven potential to emulate, or even surpass, the success of your first product.

A critical validation aspect is understanding your target market's needs and dynamics. A market research study can illuminate your target persona's preferences, pain points, usage behavior, and unmet needs. Additionally, it can reveal the competitive landscape, giving you insights into your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, their value propositions, and gaps that your product can fill. If timing or budget is of concern, you can likely leverage in-house talent to take on this project and still get good results.

With a validated idea and a deep understanding of your market, the prototyping phase begins. This phase leverages the tech stack and development strategies that worked for your first product. However, it is also an opportunity to introduce improvements and innovations that can further enhance the product's efficiency, usability, and value.

V. Steps to Achieving the Ideal Incubation Practice

Achieving an ideal incubation practice requires meticulous planning, strategic execution, and continuous monitoring. Let's explore the incubation sequence, including the metrics you should track at each stage.

Idea Generation: As discussed, leveraging insights from your first product forms the backbone of the ideation process. But promoting a culture of innovation that encourages cross-departmental collaboration is equally important. This diversity can lead to innovative ideas that might only emerge in groups. Measure the success of this stage by the number of ideas generated, the diversity of their sources, and the involvement of various departments.

Idea Validation: At this stage, evaluate the potential fit of each idea with your existing user base and overall market needs. Ensure that the proposed product aligns with your company's core strengths and vision. Also, consider how well the product complements your existing portfolio. Measure the success of this stage by the number of validated ideas, the time taken for validation, and the ratio of validated ideas to the total ideas generated.

Market Research: Deepen your understanding of your users and market dynamics through market research. This process involves segmenting your market, profiling your end users, calculating the Total Addressable Market (TAM), and analyzing the competitive landscape. It's critical to ensure that the product addresses the needs of your target market and stands out from the competition. Measure the success of this stage by the accuracy of your TAM calculation, the depth of your user profiles, and the comprehensiveness of your competitive analysis.

Prototyping: You create a tangible representation of your product idea at this stage. Whether it's a basic sketch, a mock in Figma, or a functioning prototype, it's crucial to have something tangible with which your team, stakeholders, and users can interact. Measure the success of this stage by the time taken to create the prototype, the number of iterations needed, and the quality of the feedback received.

Testing and Iteration: With the prototype developed, test it with a select group of users. Your existing customer base proves invaluable at this stage. They provide valuable feedback, help identify potential improvements, and ensure the product is fine-tuned to their needs to maximize value. Gauge success at this stage by the number of iterations based on user feedback, user engagement with the prototype, the number of stakeholders providing input, and changes in user satisfaction levels.

Preparation for Launch: With a refined product, prepare for its launch. A successful launch includes developing a go-to-market strategy, preparing marketing materials, and training your sales team. Ensure that all stakeholders are aligned with the product's value proposition and are ready to represent it consistently. If you involve the GTM team early in the process, they will be bought in and will engage to drive product wins. Measure success in this stage by the readiness of your marketing and sales teams, the effectiveness of your go-to-market strategy, and the overall preparedness for launch.

Launch and Initial User Acquisition: The moment of truth - launching your product and acquiring your first users. Aim for a smooth launch with effective user acquisition strategies. Leverage your existing user base, but also reach out to new prospects. Measure the success of this stage by the number of new users, the rate of user acquisition, user engagement levels, and initial user feedback.

Review and Learn: Reflect on the launch and learn from your successes and failures. This stage is an opportunity to identify areas of improvement for future product launches. Measure success in this stage by meeting launch goals, user feedback, and churn rate.

Iterate and Improve: Finally, don't consider your job done after the launch. Continual refinement and improvement based on ongoing feedback and market changes are necessary to keep your product relevant and valuable. Measure success in this stage by the number of iterations post-launch, changes in user engagement, and churn rate.

Incorporating these steps into your incubation practice helps ensure that your second product isn't just riding on the coattails of your first product's success but is a strong offering in its own right, capable of carving its path in the market.

VI. Launching the Second SaaS B2B Product

Once you've successfully incubated your second product, the crucial phase of launching it arrives. Here, your existing user base, your brand reputation, and the lessons from your first product's launch converge to offer a potent platform for a successful product launch.

To begin with, devise a clear and effective go-to-market strategy. The strategy should articulate your product's unique value proposition, define your target audience, and lay out your marketing and sales plan. The key here is to leverage the trust and loyalty built by your first product while ensuring the unique value of your second product is clearly communicated.

Your existing customers can be the early adopters of your new product. Engage them through personalized communication, offering them early access or special incentives. They can provide valuable initial feedback and testimonials, boosting your marketing efforts.

However, don't confine your marketing efforts to your existing user base. Branch out to new prospects who fit your target user profile but have yet to use your first product. Use the insights gained from your market research to reach out to them effectively.

The product's pricing strategy also plays a pivotal role in its acceptance in the market. The pricing must reflect your product's value while remaining competitive. If your customers will use your first and second products together, consider bundling them at a special price and creating promotions for existing customers to encourage the uptake of the new product.

The success of your launch should be measured not just by the number of initial users but also by their engagement with your product, their satisfaction levels, and the feedback they provide.

VII. Establishing a Repeatable Process for Future Success

Your second product is not a solo venture; it is part of a broader growth trajectory for your company. Therefore, it is crucial to use this opportunity to establish a repeatable process for future product development.

This process begins by reviewing the incubation and launch of your second product. What worked well? What could have been done better? What unexpected challenges arose, and how were they addressed?

This reflective exercise should feed into your incubation practice, refining it further. It not only increases the efficiency and success rate of future product launches but also strengthens your company's strategic vision, making it more resilient to market changes and more responsive to customer needs.

Documentation plays a critical role in ensuring that this process is indeed repeatable. Document each step of the incubation practice, the strategies employed, the challenges faced, the solutions found, and the outcomes achieved. This document guides future product development teams, providing them with a proven roadmap to follow and adapt as necessary.

An incubation document guides future product development teams, providing them with a proven roadmap to follow and adapt as necessary.

Furthermore, encourage a culture of learning and innovation in your organization. This culture fosters an environment where learnings from each product are embraced and fed into future product development, and innovative ideas are encouraged and nurtured.

VIII. Conclusion

Launching a second B2B SaaS product is a formidable task. It is laden with high expectations, intense competition, and the inherent uncertainty of introducing a new product. However, with a robust incubation practice and a strong foundation of a successful first product, navigating this journey is possible.

The journey to your second product is more than achieving another successful launch. It's about leveraging the success of your first product to shape your company's growth strategy. It's about transforming the insights, lessons, and strengths from your first product into a strategic engine that drives the success of your second product and beyond.

By adopting a comprehensive incubation practice, not only can you enhance the chances of your second product's success, but you can also set the stage for a repeatable process for future product development. This approach empowers your company to continually innovate, deliver value to your customers, and grow in an increasingly competitive SaaS landscape.

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In recent months I've been fascinated by strategy and effective execution, looking at the military as an inspiration. As we know it, strategic management is a relatively recent concept, which originated in the 1950's / 1960's. Yet, the military has been honing strategy for thousands of years. An exciting intersection of concepts exists between military strategy and the world of B2B SaaS. Just as a good general would not enter the battlefield without a plan, so too should a SaaS company not approach its market without a strategy. In this article, I will draw parallels between the two domains and provide insights that SaaS leaders can leverage.

Strategic Planning

Like in military strategy, strategic planning in B2B SaaS is about assessing the battlefield – the market – and defining a plan of action. It involves understanding the competitive landscape, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your product, and identifying where your opportunity lies. Much like the military, this requires rigorous analysis and careful planning.

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis can serve as a valuable tool to establish the state of the battlefield. By understanding these elements, SaaS leaders can identify what needs to be emphasized or addressed in their strategy. It's also crucial to review this analysis periodically as markets evolve, just as military strategists would update their plans based on changes in the battlefield.

Customer Centricity

The military has a saying, "know your enemy," and in the world of B2B SaaS, it's "know your customer." Understanding your customers' needs, challenges, and goals is crucial to designing a product that will succeed in the market. And developing a deep understanding of customer personas, use cases, and pain points is critical to ensuring your product aligns with customer requirements.

This process requires open communication channels, much like the intelligence network in a military operation. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) play a pivotal role here as the link between the company and its customers. CSM's capture the voice of the customer, providing crucial feedback to the product development team to meet the customers' needs.

Speed and Agility

Just as military strategists must adapt quickly to changes on the battlefield, so too must SaaS companies. The SaaS market is known for its fast-paced nature; customer expectations evolve rapidly, and competition is fierce. Therefore, agility is vital for any successful B2B SaaS company.

Implementing agile development methodologies can foster speed and flexibility within a SaaS organization. These methodologies enable the rapid iteration of product development cycles, allowing companies to respond to customer feedback quickly and continuously improve their product. A cross-functional team approach can further enhance this agility, fostering collaboration and speeding up decision-making processes.

Resilience and Redundancy

Resilience is a key tenet of any military strategy and has a place in SaaS. In a SaaS context, resilience can refer to the robustness of your service – how well it can withstand issues or disruptions. Resilience involves considerations around data security, system reliability, and disaster recovery.

Redundancy, too, is a valuable principle, ensuring that no single point of failure exists in your system. The military often builds redundancy into communication and supply lines. In SaaS, redundancy can mean having backup systems or failover mechanisms to maintain service continuity.

Expansion and Growth

Just as a successful military campaign seeks to expand control, so does a SaaS company aim for growth. Growth can involve exploring new markets, acquiring new customers, or upselling and cross-selling to existing customers. Like in military strategy, this requires careful planning and effective execution.

CSMs play a crucial role here, identifying opportunities for account expansion and nurturing customer relationships to foster growth. A balanced approach is key. CSMs must maintain their role as trusted advisors, balancing customer advocacy with the potential for account expansion. This might not involve direct selling, but instead, incentivizing and recognizing CSMs for identifying and referring upsell or cross-sell opportunities can be a productive strategy.

Partnerships can also fuel growth. In military terms, forming alliances can strengthen one's position. In the SaaS world, strategic partnerships can extend a company's reach and capabilities, providing opportunities for expansion into new markets or customer segments. Much like military alliances, assign a point person to carefully manage partnerships to ensure the alignment of interests and mutual benefit.

Data-Driven Decision Making

A strong military strategy is backed by solid intelligence. Similarly, data-driven decision-making is crucial in the SaaS world. The ability to gather and analyze data from various sources - product usage data, customer feedback, or market research - can provide valuable insights to inform strategic decisions.

The actions go beyond just capturing data, including setting up systems to aggregate the data, analyzing the data for patterns and insights, and then translating these into actionable strategies. The output would include the following:

• Prioritizing customer pain points effectively.

• Understanding usage patterns to inform product development direction.

• Spotting trends in customer churn to inform retention strategies.

Embracing Innovation

Just as military technology continually evolves, so too does the technology in the SaaS world. Embracing innovation, whether adopting new technologies, experimenting with new business models, or exploring new customer engagement methods, can give a SaaS company a competitive edge.

Innovation doesn't mean chasing every new trend. Instead, it's about fostering a creative culture within the organization, encouraging experimentation, rapid failure, and openness to change. And with a strong focus on customer needs, innovation can enable a SaaS company to evolve and stay ahead of the competition continually.

In Conclusion

The parallels between military strategy and the B2B SaaS world highlight fundamental concepts that can guide SaaS leaders in navigating their market. Just as a successful military campaign requires strategic planning, a deep understanding of the enemy (or, in this case, the customer), agility, resilience, and an eye for expansion, so does a successful SaaS strategy.

Ultimately, the goal is to drive customer success, as this will lead to the business achievements of the SaaS company. By adopting these strategic principles in day-to-day thinking, SaaS leaders can ensure that their companies are well-positioned to compete and succeed in the ever-evolving SaaS battlefield.

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Leading a team on another continent can be a big challenge. As a Bay Area resident in the Pacific time zone, my teams were 8 hours (UK), 9 hours (Europe), or even 10 hours (Israel) ahead of me. That posed numerous challenges, especially mentoring, coaching, and execution. Nothing is more challenging than waking up early in the morning and feeling behind schedule already.

I developed a strategy over the last two decades that will help you overcome the time zone challenge.  I will cover the following best practices in this blog post:

• Establishing clear communication channels

• Scheduling regular meetings

• Using asynchronous communication

• Setting clear expectations and deadlines

• Fostering a culture of trust and autonomy

• Being flexible and adaptable

• Providing support and resources

• Encouraging team bonding

Applying these practices enables you to manage a team many hours away.

Playbook: leading a remote team

Establish clear communication channels:

• Agree on the communication tools your team will use and at what frequency everyone will monitor the messages.

• Implement instant messaging guidelines for synchronous communication. I have used Slack at my last three companies, and MS Teams is also popular. Agree when you monitor/respond to direct messages vs. the various channels. I looked at Slack between meetings.  

• Ask to be tagged by your team. I had difficulty fishing out comments from channels when my team did not tag me explicitly. Have your team pull you into the proper conversation with @ mention or send you a direct link when there is something important to look at, especially in the morning when getting online.

• Establish guidelines for urgent communication. To get my attention urgently, WhatsApp became my favorite tool, as it works over data internationally. That's the only app I would allow to interrupt me during a meeting, and I would take a glance in case something super urgent was coming through. Slack messages would not alert or pop on my phone screen, only WhatsApp to minimize distractions.

• Agree on how your team will use email. For me, it was an end-of-day review. My team would avoid urgent messages via that medium, and I received a Slack ping if there was something critical to check.

Schedule regular meetings:

• Schedule recurring one-on-ones early in the week, preferably before the leadership team meeting, so that you come informed and are perceived on top of things when planning the week with the leadership team. If you can't fit all of the one-on-ones on Monday morning, rotate some one-on-ones on Fridays to keep it fair.

• Organize your team meeting right after the leadership meeting, preferably the following morning. You will have all the necessary decisions to ensure alignment and take action.

• Schedule recurring meetings at times convenient for all team members, considering each person's time zone. Rotate meeting times to accommodate different team members' schedules fairly.

• Implement a weekly office hour to bring your team and extended stakeholders into conversation and alignment.

Use asynchronous communication:

• Encourage team members to share updates, ask questions, and provide feedback asynchronously. For team alignment, have the team share their updates ahead of one-on-ones, what they worked on, and the plan for next week (see my article for more details on one-on-ones:  How does a successful one-on-one meeting look like?).

• For rigorous alignment, you can have the team write a daily end-of-day summary of their work and any challenges they face (10-15 min writeup). The updates will allow you to see any shift in priorities, and you will have time to respond to the challenges before the team member wakes up to work the day.

• Share organizational updates periodically via the established communication mediums, for example, an internal YouTube video, a group email, and a Slack message. All forms of communication should carry the same message, as people consume updates in various formats, and that is the only way to touch most stakeholders. You will likely not over-communicate, so feel free to leverage all these communication forms. My experience has been that I could have done even more, no matter how much I communicated.

• Foster a culture of asynchronous documentation by implementing tools like Notion, Confluence, or Sharepoint. All topics for decision-making and discussion should be in narrative format to facilitate feedback by the team (and extended stakeholders). Meetings can take place to finalize decisions as necessary, but only after the online discussion took place.

• Implement project management software and collaboration platforms such as Asana and Monday to track commitments and progress. You can also use JIRA if you use it with the engineering team.

• Robust tools allow everyone to contribute and stay informed without being dependent on synchronous communication.

Set clear expectations and deadlines: 

• Establish clear objectives, responsibilities, and deadlines for each team member, ensuring everyone understands their role and expectations. This rigor provides a sense of accountability and ensures that work progresses even when team members are offline simultaneously.

• Publish the objectives and responsibilities online to ensure transparency and alignment across the team and key stakeholders. Your group, and even the broader organization, will save time sorting out ownership and accountability. Getting the ownership right takes work and will never be 100% correct, so do not obsess about perfection. Do your best to make ownership as transparent as possible and communicate changes immediately, and you will be rewarded with much more effective decision-making across your organization.

Foster a culture of trust and autonomy:

• Trust your team members to manage their time and complete tasks independently, allowing them to work at their most productive hours. As shared earlier, if you have a mid-high maturity team, they can complete tasks effectively with their approach, and your goal will be to guide them in completing tasks they have little to no experience with.

• Foster a sense of psychological safety, encouraging open communication and expressing unconventional ideas without fear of judgment or criticism. You can create this culture starting with your one-on-ones (see my article for more details on one-on-ones:  How does a successful one-on-one meeting look?).

• Focus on a results-oriented approach, driving outcomes rather than the specific hours worked. Set clear, time-bound goals, and hold your team members accountable for delivering the results.

Be flexible and adaptable:

• Recognize that working across time zones can be challenging, and that team members may have different preferences or limitations. Be open to adjusting schedules, deadlines, and meeting times as needed to accommodate everyone.

• Start early to show your flexibility, and your team will reciprocate by extending their working hours into the evenings.

• Consider focused working days. Free the second half of the week by limiting or eliminating meetings completely to allow the team to execute without interruptions while making yourself available for questions. I have seen remote teams drown in meetings, where they felt compelled to gather to discuss a topic or deliver an update to stay in sync. If you implement proper asynchronous communication techniques, your team will have much more flexibility to get their work done.

Provide support and resources:

• Ensure team members have access to the tools, resources, and training needed to work effectively across time zones. Support may include offering time management training, providing remote work resources, or facilitating access to relevant software and tools. One of my favorite tools for product managers is Reforge, which has practical lessons for basic and advanced product management practices.

• Consider a book club and select topics that come up frequently. For example, cultural differences can introduce friction, leading to time-consuming damage control. Books such as The Culture Map by Erin Meyer can be very effective and shortcut the amount of time you will spend mentoring the team on cultural differences.

Encourage team bonding:

• Create opportunities for team members to connect and build relationships, even if they are not in the same time zone. Bonding could involve virtual team-building activities, informal online gatherings, or sharing personal updates and successes.

• Travel as a new leader (budget permitting) and spend time physically as a team together. There is no substitute for bonding in person. Even if you have to fly a few team members into one location, time together will make a huge impact, and if you are a new leader, your ramp-up will be far more effective. If travel is impossible, block 3-4 hours a few days in a row to get to know each other. Regardless of the format, group meetings will bond the team professionally and personally. 

In conclusion, effectively leading a remote team across significant time zone differences is achievable by implementing a comprehensive set of strategies. Focusing on clear communication channels, regular meetings, asynchronous communication, and setting expectations and deadlines will ensure a smooth workflow while cultivating a culture of trust, autonomy, and adaptability will empower team members to excel in their roles. Periodically evaluate your team's communication and collaboration, and involve team members in refining and enhancing remote work practices. By working together and continuously iterating, you can overcome the challenges of time zone differences and lead a successful, high-performing remote team.

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Managers share with me how essential one-on-ones are, especially for remote teams, yet meetings are rushed, postponed, and often disorganized. The main reason (or excuse?) - managers are too busy and don't have time. Yet, from my experience, the lack of effective one-on-ones leads to manager and employee frustration, with missed deadlines that cost even more time. In this blog post, I will share with you how to conduct effective on-on-ones, leveraging my experience and learnings from my favorite books, such as High Output Management by Andrew Grove and The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Matt Mochary, not to mention magazines such as Harvard Business Review (see articles in issues Nov 2022, Dec 2021, and Aug 2016).

One-on-ones have grown in importance for me because the nature of product management itself has evolved, and keeping aligned with remote team members for effective execution and coaching has become very challenging. As product development became more complex, cross-functional, and iterative, it became increasingly vital for me as a product leader to maintain strong communication with my team. One-on-one meetings now serve for me as a channel for capturing feedback, addressing concerns, aligning on objectives, and fostering personal and professional growth. These meetings have become a cornerstone for my effective remote product leadership, ensuring accountability, coaching, transparency, team cohesion, and group success.

Let's dive right into the one-on-one best practices: 

Who is the one-on-one meeting for?

• The meeting is for your team member, and he/she should set the tone and include the discussion points for the agenda. Only if time permits should you cover your topics at the end.

How often should you meet?

• Weekly would be best. In a fast-paced environment, a lot changes every week to wait 2-3 weeks for the next one-on-one.

• Reserve a weekly time on the calendar to ensure availability, and at the end of each meeting, confirm the next week still works or make an appropriate adjustment together.

• If the meetings are always packed, focus on coaching and transparency, and do accountability biweekly or in a separate meeting.

How long should the meeting be?

• Meetings should be long enough to get into thorny issues. I've found mine to be 60-90 minutes long, and they can always end earlier if need be. Important matters sometimes pop up towards the end, and having a buffer to work with will allow you to cover them adequately.

How do you keep track of the meetings?

• Meeting topics are filled out and shared by the team member ahead of time, giving you, as the manager, the opportunity to review ahead of time.

• Store meetings in a document that the team member and manager can access. It can be a Google Doc, Microsoft Word, or a tool like Small Improvements (and their guide to 1:1 meetings). It's essential that both of you can access the document and keep it as a reference.

To help you start your own effective one-on-one product management meetings, I put together the following agenda template:

(special thanks to Matt Mochary for the content ideas)

One-on-One Meeting Agenda

Meeting Date: [Insert date]

Attendees: [Manager], [Team Member]

Duration: 75 minutes

Location: [Insert location or conference call details]

I. Introduction and Check-in (5 minutes)

• Greet and establish a comfortable atmosphere.

• Briefly discuss any updates or recent events relevant to the meeting.

II. Review Actions from Last Week (10 minutes)

• Discuss actions completed, noting whether they were completed on time (yes/no).

• Address any blockers encountered and improvements planned to avoid similar issues in the future.

• Action 1:

• Action 2:

• Action 3:

III. Team Member's OKR Status (5 minutes)

• Review the team member's OKRs, identifying them as Green (on track), Yellow (off track), or Red (not likely to achieve the objective on time).

• OKR 1:

• OKR 2:

• OKR 3:

IV. Actions for Next Week (10 minutes)

• Discuss the team member's plans to advance their OKRs. The manager provides feedback to ensure the actions are as direct as possible to achieve the desired outcome.

• Plan for OKR 1:

• Plan for OKR 2:

• Plan for OKR 3:

V. KPIs and Pipelines (10 minutes)

• Review KPIs (features/fixes shipped, feature adoption, etc.).

• KPI 1:

• KPI 2:

• KPI 3:

• Discuss pipelines (customer meetings, roadmap, etc.).

• Pipeline 1:

• Pipeline 2:

• Pipeline 3:

VI. Issues and Proposed Solutions (10 minutes)

• Address any issues with peers, department, company, product, personal life, etc. For each issue, discuss the team member's proposed solution or starting point for further discussion.

• Issue 1:

• Issue 2:

• Issue 3:

VII. Feedback on Manager (5 minutes)

• Solicit feedback from the team member on the manager's performance, including what they did well and what could have been done differently.

• NOTE: This is not easy and will often require encouragement. Also, don't solicit feedback if you don't intend to accept or reject it. If you accept, follow up, and if you don't accept, be clear why not.

VIII. Feedback to Team Member (5 minutes)

• Provide feedback to the team member, highlighting well-executed actions and areas for improvement, with specific examples such as: "I wish that you would coordinate the product launch with product marketing earlier to give them time to prepare.

IX. Review and Update OKRs (5 minutes)

• Revisit OKRs for relevancy and ensure any proposed solutions are as efficient and effective as possible.

X. Action Item Tracking and Transparency (5 minutes)

• Capture and track action items using a transparent project management tool (e.g., JIRA, Asana, or Monday).

• Confirm any follow-up needed from both the manager and team member.

XI. Closing and Next Meeting Scheduling (5 minutes)

• Thank the team member for their time and participation in the one-on-one meeting.

• Schedule the next one-on-one meeting, confirming the date, time, and location.

• End the meeting on a positive note, reinforcing the value of open communication and collaboration.

To ensure the one-on-ones are most effective, pay special attention to the following:

1. Establish clear goals and outcomes for the one-on-ones: Define the purpose and objectives, ensuring you and your team members align on what you hope to achieve.

2. Create a supportive environment: Foster a sense of psychological safety, encouraging open communication and expressing unconventional ideas without fear of judgment or criticism.

3. Practice active listening: Engage in active listening to ensure you fully understand your team member's perspective and can respond empathetically and constructively.

4. Emphasize emotional intelligence: Demonstrate empathy, self-awareness, and emotional regulation to create a more meaningful and productive meeting experience.

5. Adapt to individual needs: Tailor your approach to each team member's specific needs and goals, recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective for everyone.

Conclusion

Effective one-on-one meetings have been critical to successful product management for me. By focusing on key elements such as emotional intelligence, active listening, and individualized support, you can create meaningful and productive meeting experiences that drive team performance, foster personal growth, and contribute to overall team success. By continually refining the approach and embracing outside-the-box thinking, a product leader can ensure that the one-on-one meeting can remain a valuable tool for team growth and innovation.

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Introduction

The discipline of product management is rapidly evolving, influenced by technological advances and a constantly changing market environment. A significant emerging trend is the integration of AI (machine learning models) into the product development lifecycle, revolutionizing how products are conceived, designed, developed, and deployed. The growing role of AI represents more than just technological innovation; it's a foundational shift poised to redefine the essence of product management.

In a world where data is the new currency, AI provides the tools to mine insights, automate processes, personalize experiences, and enhance decision-making. It's no longer just an optional add-on but is rapidly becoming a core competency for product managers. In fact, it's becoming increasingly evident that sought-after product management roles will soon require an understanding of AI and the ability to guide cross-functional teams to develop features leveraging AI, rolling them out successfully, predictably, and on time.

In this blog post, I explore the impact of AI on product management, shedding light on how product managers can harness this transformative technology to drive value, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. I also examine the essential AI skills that product managers must develop and the machine learning workflow they need to master to release AI-driven features effectively.

Driving Value through Data-Driven Insights

Product managers can harness AI to analyze vast amounts of data, unlocking insights that drive product design and delivery value. AI algorithms can identify patterns in customer behavior, preferences, and needs, enabling the development of highly targeted and relevant products. By understanding what customers truly want, product managers can confidently innovate, delivering products that resonate closely with the target audience and provide genuine value.

Enhancing Efficiency through Automation

AI can be a powerful tool in optimizing efficiency throughout the product development lifecycle. Product managers can focus on strategic decisions and innovation by automating routine and time-consuming product lifecycle tasks such as churn risk, buying patterns, and usage behavior analysis. AI-driven automation speeds up everyday processes, increases competency to perform more complex tasks, and ensures accuracy and consistency, eliminating human oversight and errors that can lead to delays. This streamlined approach allows for a faster delivery process that responds acutely to market changes and user needs.

Improving Customer Engagement through Personalization

In an era where customers expect personalized experiences, AI allows product managers to analyze individual user behavior and preferences, tailoring experiences and recommendations accordingly. Whether a personalized shopping experience or a customized user interface, AI-driven personalization enhances user engagement and satisfaction, creating loyal customers who feel understood and valued, leading to incremental revenue and lower churn.

Industry leaders across various domains leverage AI-driven personalization to redefine the customer experience. For instance, Spotify uses machine learning algorithms to curate personalized playlists based on listeners' music preferences, enhancing engagement and satisfaction. In the retail sector, Target and Amazon leverage AI to tailor marketing and offers to individual shopping behaviors, driving increased sales and customer loyalty. Financial services firms like JPMorgan Chase utilize AI to provide personalized investment advice, reflecting personal risk tolerance and financial goals. These real-world applications illuminate how product managers can harness AI for personalization, shaping products that resonate deeply with users.

Understanding of AI Technologies and Algorithms

Product managers seeking to leverage AI must fundamentally understand AI technologies, algorithms, and models. While PMs may not require deep technical expertise, a working knowledge of the underlying principles allows for better communication with technical teams and a more informed decision-making process. Knowledge includes understanding the types of algorithms that may be appropriate for specific tasks, the data requirements, and the potential ethical considerations. Strategies such as regular collaboration with AI experts, participating in relevant training or workshops, and staying abreast of the latest trends and research in AI can help in building this foundational understanding.

Data Literacy and Analytics Skills

Data is at the core of AI, and product managers must develop data literacy and analytics skills. This aptitude encompasses understanding data quality, preparation, and analysis, as well as the ability to interpret results produced by AI models. With these skills, product managers can effectively oversee the data pipeline and make informed decisions based on the insights provided by AI. Strategies here can include hands-on experience with data tools, collaboration with data scientists, and investing time learning about statistical methods and data visualization techniques.

Strategic Integration of AI into Product Roadmaps

Strategic integration of AI into product roadmaps requires both foresight and an understanding of how AI can fulfill specific business objectives. Product managers should begin by thoroughly analyzing the current market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscape to identify opportunities where AI can add unique value, such as personalization. Once these opportunities are identified, it's vital to set clear and measurable goals for AI implementation, such as increasing user engagement or reducing operational costs.

Establishing collaboration with technical teams early in the process ensures that the AI capabilities are technically feasible and align with the product's overall architecture, reducing surprise adjustments to the roadmap. Regular checkpoints with cross-functional teams, including marketing, sales, and customer success, help maintain roadmap alignment with broader business goals.

Including AI in the product roadmap should not be a one-time event but an ongoing process, with iterative evaluation and refinement to ensure that AI continues to align with evolving market dynamics and customer expectations. Integrating AI in this manner ensures that it's not just a buzzword but a meaningful tool that drives value, efficiency, and innovation within the product.

Ethical Considerations and Responsible AI Implementation

AI brings unique ethical considerations, and product managers must be adept at navigating these complexities. This involves understanding potential biases in data or algorithms, the impact on privacy, and the broader societal implications of AI-driven decisions. And there is also the thorny question of who takes responsibility, especially in healthcare, where mistakes can have devastating consequences. At a minimum, building responsible AI products requires transparency, fairness, and accountability. 

Strategies for ethical AI implementation may include:

• Creating ethical guidelines.

• Involving diverse stakeholders in decision-making.

• Implementing regular audits and checks to ensure adherence to ethical principles pre and post-release.

AI Workflow

Product managers' involvement in each stage of the AI workflow is multifaceted, bridging technical execution with business strategy, customer needs, and organizational alignment. The PM role requires a deep understanding of the technical complexities and the broader context in which AI solutions are developed and deployed. By steering, aligning, communicating, and facilitating collaboration across stages, PMs are instrumental in ensuring that the AI development process is focused, efficient, and aligned with delivering value to the organization and its customers.

Data Preparation

Product managers are crucial in identifying and understanding the data needs that align with the business problem and overall product goals. By collaborating with stakeholders, PMs can pinpoint the data types essential for building AI models or generating insights, ensuring the data collected is relevant and conducive to achieving the desired outcomes. Data collection requires a clear comprehension of both the strategic business objectives and the technical capabilities, bridging the gap between the two to create a cohesive data plan that serves the larger vision of the product.

Ensuring compliance and ethics in data collection is another vital responsibility for product managers. PMs must be acutely aware of the legal regulations that govern data use in their industry, such as GDPR or HIPAA, and work closely with legal and compliance teams to ensure adherence. Ethical considerations, such as fairness and privacy, must also be at the forefront of the decision-making process. Collaborating with data engineers and data scientists, product managers coordinate the sourcing, cleaning, and integration of data, ensuring that all activities are conducted in line with legal requirements and ethical standards. This alignment ensures that the data preparation stage sets a strong foundation for the subsequent development of AI-driven features, reflecting a commitment to responsible and effective product management.

Exploratory Data Analysis

Guiding the direction of data analysis is the responsibility of product managers. PMs act as the bridge that connects data exploration with overarching business objectives and customer insights. By understanding the strategic goals and technical capabilities, PMs can steer the data analysis toward areas most aligned with the product's vision and user needs. Guidance ensures that the data analysis is not just an isolated technical exercise but a meaningful endeavor that uncovers actionable insights that resonate with the business's mission and the customer's expectations.

Facilitating cross-team collaboration and incorporating stakeholder feedback are also aspects of a PM's role. PMs work closely with data scientists and analysts to ensure alignment across different functions and that the analysis is driven toward extracting relevant insights. PMs also play a crucial role in gathering and integrating feedback from executives, marketing, sales, customer success, support, and others with a vested interest in the product. By ensuring that the right questions are being considered and that the insights derived from the exploratory data analysis are feeding into strategic decisions, PMs help to create a collaborative and insight-driven environment that leverages the power of data to inform and enhance the product strategy.

Feature Engineering

Feature engineering is a phase where product managers actively collaborate with domain experts, data scientists, and engineers to identify and create features (data attributes) that align with the business context and product goals. By working closely with these technical teams, PMs play a pivotal role in defining relevant features and how they should be constructed for effective model training. The collaborative nature of this work enables the creation of features that make technical sense and resonate with the business's broader strategy and objectives.

A PM's role in feature engineering is also simplifying technical concepts and ensuring customer relevance. The PM bridges technical teams and non-technical stakeholders, distilling complex technical details into understandable terms. This facilitation enhances communication and alignment across different parts of the organization. Additionally, PMs are instrumental in ensuring that the features reflect what is valuable and relevant to the target audience. By keeping customer needs and preferences at the center of the decision-making process, PMs ensure that feature engineering is not just a technical exercise but a customer-oriented endeavor that results in a product finely tuned to the market's needs and expectations.

Model Training

In the model training phase of an AI project, the product manager plays a role in setting objectives and success criteria. This involves establishing clear goals, including defining performance metrics, timelines, and resource allocation. The PM collaborates with technical teams to ensure these goals align with the broader product strategy and are attainable within the project's constraints. By doing so, the PM helps guide the model training in a direction congruent with the technical feasibility and the customer objectives, ensuring that the final model will fulfill the intended business purpose.

Coordinating technical teams and overseeing hyperparameter tuning are also responsibilities of the PM during model training. The PM facilitates collaboration between data scientists, machine learning engineers, and other technical teams to drive an efficient and productive model training process. Coordination includes understanding the technical aspects of model training and aligning the tuning process with product goals and constraints, like budget and computational resources. The PM optimizes model training by ensuring seamless communication and alignment among the diverse technical teams, balancing the intricate demands of accuracy, complexity, and efficiency. This alignment and oversight enable the creation of robust, technically sound models strategically aligned with the product's requirements and constraints.

Model Validation

In the model validation stage, the product manager's responsibility begins with defining the validation criteria, which means setting the specific standards and metrics the validation process must meet. These criteria must align with the product requirements and customer expectations, ensuring that the model's performance accurately reflects the business's goals. This meticulous process requires a deep understanding of the product's objectives and how they translate into technical terms, enabling the PM to create meaningful and achievable benchmarks within the product's context.

The PM also plays a role in facilitating iterative improvements by coordinating feedback loops between validation results and model refinement. This iterative process helps drive continuous improvement in the model, tuning it to meet the defined validation criteria better. It requires the PM to foster collaboration between technical teams and stakeholders, gathering insights and facilitating changes that enhance the model's alignment with business objectives. The PM is also instrumental in communicating validation results and articulating complex technical outcomes to various stakeholders clearly and concisely. Communication ensures transparency in the validation process and helps to demonstrate how the model meets the established objectives, strengthening stakeholder confidence and aligning everyone on the progress toward the final product.

Deployment

Deployment is a stage that requires meticulous planning, and the product manager's role in creating a robust deployment plan is central. Coordinating with engineering and infrastructure teams, the PM must establish a comprehensive strategy that includes considerations for scalability and potential rollback scenarios due to negative user feedback and compliance concerns. This plan has to be aligned with the product's goals, considering the technical constraints and market requirements, ensuring a smooth transition from development to production. The PM needs to act as a bridge between various technical teams, fostering collaboration to create a deployment plan that anticipates potential challenges that could arise during the rollout.

Furthermore, a product manager works closely with customer success teams to ensure the deployment aligns with support plans and user needs. This alignment helps craft a deployment strategy that considers technical aspects, including maintainability, and focuses on the end-user experience. Monitoring deployment success is a task where the PM tracks the deployment progress, intervening as necessary to address any issues that may arise. Whether it's unexpected technical difficulties or alignment with customer support strategies, the PM's active monitoring and troubleshooting ensures that the deployment proceeds following the plan, leading to a successful product launch that satisfies both business objectives and customer expectations.

Monitoring

In the monitoring phase, the product manager's foresight in establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) comes to the forefront. These KPIs are benchmarks for evaluating various aspects of the deployed AI model, including its performance, user interactions, and system stability. By defining clear and measurable criteria, the PM provides a structured framework that enables the team to objectively assess the product's success and identify areas for improvement. This extends beyond mere quantitative measurements, including qualitative insights that can provide a deeper understanding of customer satisfaction and user experience.

A PM's leadership fosters cross-functional collaboration during the monitoring stage. The PM can lead actionable interventions or updates that enhance the product by ensuring that insights derived from monitoring are shared across different teams. Actions include engaging with customers to gather continuous feedback and acting as a conduit between customer sentiment and the development team. By incorporating customer feedback into ongoing product evolution, the PM ensures that the product remains aligned with market needs and customer expectations. The systematic integration of monitoring insights into the development process illustrates how a PM can leverage data-driven decisions to create a continuous cycle of improvement and innovation.

Conclusion

In an era of rapid technological innovation, AI integration into the product development process drives unprecedented value, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. From data preparation to continuous monitoring, the application of AI across the product development lifecycle offers a wealth of opportunities to enhance both the process and the end product. However, the evolving nature of this field calls for product managers to develop essential AI skill sets, equipping themselves with the knowledge and strategies required to harness AI's full potential.

The journey through the AI workflow—encompassing stages such as data preparation, exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, model training, validation, deployment, and monitoring—illuminates the multifaceted role of the PM in orchestrating a symphony of collaboration, innovation, and execution. Each stage demands distinct abilities, ranging from understanding business needs to bridging the technical and non-technical divide, setting clear objectives, and ensuring alignment with customer needs.

Product managers aspiring to thrive in this dynamic landscape must adopt an agile mindset and become adept at translating complex AI concepts into actionable insights. The pathway to success lies in recognizing AI as a strategic partner that empowers PMs to craft products that resonate with the market and future trends.

References & Additional Reading:

• Justin Norman, Peter Skomoroch, Mike Loukides, (2021), "Product Management for AI", O'Reilly Media Inc.

• Peter Skomoroch, Mike Loukides, (2020), "What you need to know about product management for AI", O'Reilly Media Inc.

• Peter Skomoroch, (2019), "Product Management for AI crash course", Domino Data Lab

The ChatGPT Code Interpreter can analyze datasets within minutes, empowering product managers to comprehend trends crucial for decision-making. These trends may involve churn risk, buying patterns, and usage behaviors. Previously, the same task would have consumed days or weeks when reliant on a data analyst, especially if they were engaged with multiple competing projects. Now, product managers can self-serve by utilizing the latest analytical tools, including machine learning, even if they possess limited experience in the field of data science.

Let's walk through an example that takes literally 5 minutes to complete.

I'm using a data set representing 4,250 customers subscribing to a phone plan. The data set includes information about each customer using their phone plan and if they have churned. The goal is to understand a customer's profile that churns so that, as a product manager, I can flag these customers to customer success for immediate action and plan roadmap features to lower the churn in the future.

Step 1: Enable Code Interpreter in ChatGPT

Step 2: Upload the data file and ask ChatGPT to describe the data. This will help you familiarize yourself with the data set (handy if your data analyst provided the data).

Note the summary statistics - you get them automatically with the request. Wouldn't it be great if you had a visualization to go with that? Some of us work better with visuals.

Step 3:  Ask ChatGPT to graph the summary statistics.

Now for the most critical task. Are there any patterns in the data that will help us identify why customers churn? We need this insight to stem the churn immediately with manual actions (a partnership with customer success is typically the most effective). In parallel, we'll work to identify features to add to the roadmap to increase customer retention by meeting with customers at risk (and those who churned if they are open to a conversation).

Step 4: Let’s ask ChatGPT to identify a pattern for customers that churned. This is the most impressive aspect of Code Interpreter. You essentially have a Data Science partner to help you with the request, and the summary is pretty compelling about what you should look into next.

We have action items to pursue immediately. And to top it off, we can also ask ChatGPT to share the code used to generate this analysis, so that we can continue working on this analysis later on.

Step 5: Ask ChatGPT to show the code to generate the analysis. Note: I copied the code from ChatGPT into VS Code to capture the complete output.

Very impressive.

In conclusion, you can become a much more effective product manager in minutes if using ChatGPT Code Interpreter to help you analyze customer data sets. Your findings, actions, and speed of results will impress even your most skeptical manager.