3 Product Management Trends, why they matter, and how to instill them

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a product manager. I’m as excited about my day as I was 20+ years ago, perhaps more. The realities of digital transformation (yeah, sorry to use the overused term) and COVID mandate new thinking about how businesses deliver value to their users efficiently and in a differentiated manner.

I’ll start with 3 thoughts that guide my thinking

• The USER is the BUSINESS- This isn’t anything new, but, aligned with the proliferation of delivering services over the internet, active, recurring users are direct reflection of value. Hence, along with financial metrics, recurring active users and usage are common KPIs when considering the worth of a business. Users matter, we should listen to them and craft the product to serve them.
• Business impact (OUTCOMES) are essentially positive changes in USER BEHAVIOR- While CEOs have corporate financial KPIs, every product manager should consider their impact on the business. In product this means positive impact in users and usage, stemming from positive changes in user behavior. Some may increase the value and delight for existing users, some may drive new users to join.
• The PRODUCT team is at the CENTER of the PLANNING and ALIGNMENT of the strategy and implementation- The conclusion of the first two points is that the product drives the business. Therefore the product manager is central to listen and capture differentiated opportunities to lead the market, compose a vision (yes, I believe every single product manager should actively contribute into the company vision) and a roadmap that demonstrates the progression to realize that vision, and align the company around those. The product manager role has never been so central and critical to the success of the company.

In lieu of the title, I’d like to describe 3 main trends in product management, why they matter, where can you learn more. In subsequent posts, I’ll share how those can be realized from a tooling/team/process perspective.

Product-Led Growth (PLG): One of the most important and impactful trends in product management in the last few years. Essentially, considering a persona, and their journey from the beginning of discovery of the tool/service offered, through learning, trying and qualifying the service, and finally usage and purchase recommendation. PLG involves many aspects, such as methods to accelerate discovery of the service: proper website content, vibrant user community, relevant social networks “noise” etc.; friendly sign up/login process, accelerated onboarding and establishing an “Aha” moment; early usage leading to “habit users”; new (usage-based) pricing models that enable the user flexibility and elasticity to fit their needs, and provide proper assurances if such are needed. There are two (IMO) important things to understand about PLG:

1- PLG does NOT compete with direct sales. In fact, taking care of the user has nothing to do with how the user or the company are paying for the service (credit card or PO). PLG is all about the journey of the user from a non customer to a mature, habit user. If anything, PLG and self-serve users are a great way to establish early product fit and revenue BEFORE hiring and scaling a sales team. PLG is about offering a functional, enabling and delightful experience. A successful PLG strategy contribute highly qualified “Product Qualified Leads” (PQL) to the sales organization. No PLG, or a bad one, will contribute to churn. Again, no matter how the user paid.

2- You could find many product leads with a “growth” title. It’s a reflection of how to company recognizes the importance of that strategy. However, like walking and breathing, PLG is a practice every product manager/designer/R&D lead, in every nook of their product, should practice.

Why does it matter?

Because more than ever, users have the freedom to choose their tooling and services (consumer or enterprise). They will choose the tool that satisfies their needs and simplifies their lives. Business are measured these days on the amount of active users and usage. A scaled community of users leveraging the product regularly demonstrates value delivery and hence key company valuation metric.

Source

How should a head of product motivate their team about it?

Product managers learning PLG practices: setting measurable user behavior outcomes, experimenting and refining those, considering financial models that encourage adoption, etc., they will be far more successful than those who do not. PLG mindset represents a meaningful step in one’s career growth.

How to get started?

My recommendation is to start by giving each product manager a task to define a meaningful user behavior change they want to drive, ask them how they will measure the change and what’s current/desired state, how will they experiment around it. Eventually, tie it back to the user maturity journey, how did we improve that and how does it impact the business?

Read more:

• https://openviewpartners.com/blog/category/product-led-growth/
• https://www.amazon.com/Product-Led-Growth-Build-Product-Itself-ebook/dp/B07P6288ZF
• And, of course, endless amount of blogs on the web

Continuous Discovery Habits (CDH): The practice of “talking to users” has been around forever, but, do you remember the days where you had to go through sales/customer success to get a user to talk to? Do you remember the negotiation of “what’s in it for them”? how long did it take you to get to talk to a user, how frequent did you do it, where was the insight stored, shared and connected to a plan? Let’s face it, “informal” is a very nice was to describe how that aspect of the product lifecycle used to work.

CDH places the user at the center of the product lifecycle. Discovering OPPORTUNITIES in the context of our desired OUTCOMES, prioritizing those and delivery of value. A set of users play a continuous role at the PROBLEM DISCOVERY phase, SOLUTION DISCOVERY and DELIVERY. The concept is no more complex than preparing for a race: If you practice all the time, you will get to the finish line. If you talk to users, understand their needs, and validate the solution is what they need, they will use it. Pretty simple actually.

Of course CDH goes into the details of recruiting a user group, creating a direct dialog, how to interview, identify risk, not “lead the witness”, build opportunity-solution trees etc. etc. But this is a practice that really differentiates, as Marty Cagan says, “Most product companies” from the best. And in relation, the very best product managers.

Why does it matter?

Because if you’re building value for users, you should (and now can) interact with them directly & continuously. Not only you need to, they want that. They want your product to solve their problem, and what’s a better way than role up your sleeves and say how you want it to work. It’s simple, users helping shape the product means daily active users and usage. Not talking to users continuously means you won’t get users and usage. Open your dashboard and see for yourself.

How should a head of product motivate their team about it?

Continuous discovery is a fundamental practice and opportunity for every product manager. Adopt the mindset of continuously talking to users and interleaving their input into your planning. User-oriented product managers make the best ones. So CDH should be seen as an enabler and career growth for each product manager and leads.

Here’s another aspect why it’s so important: Users are using/aware of all aspects of the product: Technical, commercial, UX, all of it. Product managers, in contrast, in many cases, come from two backgrounds: from a technical or business background. For many technical folks, becoming a well-rounded product manager typically means strengthening their user interactions, improving their design and discovery skills, becoming aware of the financial aspects of the product etc. Similarly, for business-oriented product managers, becoming intimately aware of the product, and how users use the product (and challenges), is a point to work on. CDH mandates that these things surface and get prioritized, and aren’t pushed to the side. CDH is a direct career growth path for every PM.

How to get started?

Heads of product need to take a current state/desired state of involving users in their teams’ planning. How does this impact new feature adoption. Get familiar with CDH (see below ‘read more’) and think about outcomes and enablement for your team, and how you measure their progression. Present CDH to your team and its merit to the business and their careers, discuss the progression weekly with metrics, and get them to talk and collaborate on what works and what doesn’t. Make CDH a habit, one that you keep optimizing and celebrating.

Read more:

• I would be remiss if I did not mention Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion as my leads and go-to for continuous discovery. They offer enablement, documentation and advice via their slack channel.
• https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309

OUTCOME orientation and EMPOWERMENT: Stemming from everything written above, you have probably concluded how passionate I am about product management. So it will be no surprise to you that, when asked, what resembles a great product manager, I would respond with: A product manager who have CLEAR VIEW on how they can IMPACT THE BUSINESS by ACHIEVING A PRODUCT OUTCOME and are EMPOWERED to realize it. Yes, I am paraphrasing what Marty Cagan teaches in his “Empowered” and “Inspired” books.

Great product managers understand the business context. They set the vision, and derive measurable OUTCOMES, they craft a roadmap with frequent milestones to realize the vision. The product trio is empowered to make decisions and operate to realize those outcomes. For example, the “Empowered Product Team” is staffed to deliver end-to-end functionality to address opportunities prioritized in the continuous discovery (CDH) process.

Why does it matter?

Marty Cagan makes a clear distinction between “Missionaries” and “Mercenaries”. I will take another analogy: your customer will only return to your restaurant if their experience has been nothing short of outstanding. That means that everyone, chef, dish cleaner, host, waitress, will all have excelled in their jobs. And they will only do so if they understand and believe they have the potential AND means to impact the business. That they are meaningful. That they are equal owners of the business.

Nothing does deeper negative impact than a leader dictating a feature. That’s how products fail.

How should a head of product motivate their team about it?

Product leaders need to demonstrate empowerment in practice: continuously cultivate a culture of ownership and leadership in and around their their teams. They should collaborate with the team to set audacious outcomes that really do impact the business and the users, and then enable them (not just get out of the way, but train, mentor, support them) in achieving those. They should celebrate success and anticipate and ALLOW failure (followed by learning and refinement). Heads of product should work with head of R&D to establish empowered product teams and task them with improvement of their area of the product as a business, with regular checks that reflect how work being done is in context of moving the needle. This is another aspect of career growth and continuous improvement that both product managers and leads need to aspire to.

How to get started?

A product lead should start with the vision and outcomes. The team structure should be a direct derivative of the value streams. Set a recurring cadence for planning ceremonies and, within those, emphasize the need to do everything in the context of the outcomes. Then, ask each product trio, what are the outcomes they believe would drive their part of the business. To drive diversity and innovation, each of the product trio, and the head of product, should think about those outcomes separately and only then negotiate and align. Make those outcomes, the subject of a biweekly “product trio” meeting, where you scan the start point, target and current value of the metric you set for that outcome and the derivative team activities that are needed, vs. what’s happening in reality. And then turn that motion into getting the team to innovate around the key differentiated roadmap opportunities they are passionate about. As if it’s their business. Wait. It is theirs.

Read More:

• I would recommend starting by reading “Empowered” and “Inspired”. If these don’t get your mind going, I don’t know what would.
• I would read more about empowerment, outcome-oriented planning from both Teresa Torres and Marty Cagan

These are exciting times for product managers and leads. As the center of innovation, planning and delivery, they impact the business like never before. This craft is complex. Intentional mentoring, focus, time management, alignment, thoughtfulness and empathy are required. But those who are curious and willing to learn, adopting some of the practices and skills mentioned could be the difference that makes you and your team the best at what you do!