Innovation and Product Discovery, with Martina Skender

Alexandra Baptizmanskaya is one of the top speakers in russian/eastern european agile conference circuit. She has worked with many big and small companies, helping them transform or strenghten their agility practices. She is also an enterpreneur: she cofounded her coaching company, which is now expanding to the northern and centeral European market. You can find Alexandra at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baptizalex/   This episode is brought to you by epekworks.com. - epek is the collaboration software for teams and individuals. It is designed to foster focus, clarity, and goal achievement. Check it out at epekworks.com!  Chapters: 00:00 Intro: Alexandra studied psychology, is a coach, and has her own coaching company  00:45 Agile is about empowered, engaged and passionate teams  04:28 The agile principles in daily life  06:47 The various competencies as an agile coach  10:23 The interplay of coaching, facilitation, and integration in organizational transformation  15:38 What does a committed and high performing team look like, and how to facilitate a movement towards that  23:51 Find rapport with a team fast with short-term assignments  31:27 Dealing with resistance and finding a path to mutual understanding  39:00 Lessons from psychology: Creative collaboration, the coach in a partnership stance, not blame or expert  44:27 The joy of facilitation and making yourself obsolete eventually  50:45 Facilitation leading to a shift in a team's feeling towards each other and work (Balach's examples)  54:15 Facilitation doesn't always lead to perfectly happier teams, sometimes people leave (for good reasons -Alexandra's example)  01:02:10 Learning to say no as an entrepeneur to have space for what you really like  01:12:21 Facilitating facilitators is hard but also fun  01:13:47 Advice: Being yourself is the best way to feel well and find like-minded people  01:19:30 Find Alexandra on Linkedin and Facebook  👉🏼 If you like this episode, follow the podcast and share it with your friends!

Finn Thormeier dropped out of college and flew to NYC with no plans, except documenting his journey on social media, and built an audience of 35,000 followers across platforms (LinkedIn, Instagram & Youtube). His videos and posts on LinkedIn have been viewed over 5 million times since then. On the back of this, he started his first company — Project 33. Listen to the episode to learn more about Project33, Finn's journey as an accidental influencer and then an entrepreneur- the kind of content that works and sells, and what in the world is founder branding when it comes to B2B marketing for startups. Checkout Finn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/ and Project 33 at https://project33.io

Vered Manasse is the founder of the Berlin based Pantarei Approach. Vered has been been teaching somatic therapy/coaching for about 20, and practicing for over 30 years. She is a driven entrepreneur and a writer. In this episode we talked about her journey as a somatic practitioner, the principles behind the Pantarei Approach, business, and what makes for great leadership and team work. Checkout Vered (and Pantarei Approach) at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vered-manasse/ and https://pantareiapproach.com 

Federica Trilli is the founder of the Berlin based That's Hot marketing agency. Federica studied philosophy and business administration, followed by a significant corporate and startup career, and she's weaving all of that into her work in marketing. In this episode we talked about her journey as a founder, the mistakes we all make, getting advice and having a support structure, and a fair bit about content marketing and how it can specially help bootstrapped businesses. Checkout Federica and That's Hot at: linkedin.com/in/federicatrilli and thatshotmarketing.com

Anton Zotin is an independent trainer, coach, mentor, facilitator and change agent. In his own words, Anton loves what he does, and the reason is simple: his passion is to make software development less painful, more efficient and in this way to help people to be a little bit more happy. Anton has worked in a wide variety of companies holding a wide variety of positions: from garage startups to major enterprises; from a manual QA to a C-level position. So he got a unique opportunity to observe how value could be differently delivered or NOT delivered.   ✨ In this episode, Anton shares some of his best experiences coaching various teams, we talk about The Agile manifesto, Enterprise coaching, being an entrepreneur, and why you should not start  an agile transformation. You can reach Anton via his website: https://agileism.com And check out his talk on how not to do an agile transformation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BMnYVZFtD0&t=1s

Martina Skender is a design researcher and innovation strategist who can help you define that infamous MVP. She has coached teams, led Strategic Design, and User Research Labs at Startups like Formo and Lab1886, among many other companies. She is also a lecturer at Innovation Design Management MA at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences and the founder of "Innovator's Toolbox". In this episode Martina shares her experiences and insights on product discovery research, initiating and leading innovation projects. We also talk a bit about how user research has evolved over the years.  Find out more about Martina through her website: https://martinaskender.com

Niklas Hall talks about curiosity and developing an entrepreneurial mindset, creativity, personal growth, leadership, gaming and a little about the future of the world with AI, Robotics, and Virtual Reality. Niklas is a business executive who is passionate about how people and technology interact to run great processes. He has worked in and out of corporates and startups, always with the aim to make things work just a little bit better. He cares about personal growth and learning and believes that diverse minds think create better ideas. He is Co-founder and CEO of Acumex, board member and advisor to multiple startups including VividAI, HyperIsland, StepUp Air. You can reach Niklas at https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklashall/

Our guest today, Clement Kao, is an accomplished Product Manager -shipped 10 multimillion dollar B2B software products (and dozens of smaller ones) over the last five years at multiple startups, the creator of Product Teacher, a prolific writer and thought leader in Product Management -150+ product management best practice articles, and featured speaker many times over.     We talked about what Product Management is all about: solving customer and business problems, managing stakeholders internally and externally, the value of User Research and more..   👉🏼 Check out Clement at https://www.linkedin.com/in/clement-kao/ and https://productteacher.com

How do you organize and lead your team as an Engineering Leader? What are the differences between high performing and under-performing teams? The role of strategy and roadmaps when it comes to product management and engineering... How does Growth Mindset look like in practice? How leaders can use Emotional Intelligence and Positive Psychology to create a better workplace for themselves and their teams? ✨ Our guest Claus Hoefele worked for many years as a software engineer in Japan, Australia, and Germany, as a software engineer and engineering leader. He is currently the Head of Engineering at doctari, where he supports cross-functional teams that match doctors and nurses with the right place to work. Claus has been very interested in Behaviour Change of late, and in particular bringing Tiny Habits to his and his teams' life. Check out Claus at https://www.linkedin.com/in/claushoefele/

Minna Hekanaho, currently the Head of Design at ResearchGate, has worked in digital design for over 20 years ranging from voice design to location-based services and mobile operating systems.  She has built and led design teams at German Autolabs, Here Technologies, Nokia, and Microsoft. In this episode we talk about User Research in theory and practice, working with product management and engineering to turn discovery into great user experience, and how you can bootstrap your own light weight user research at startups. For more about Minna, go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/minna-hekanaho-09a6492/