Scandinavian Product Podcast

My guest today is Melissa Perri.Melissa is the author of the bestselling book "Escaping the Build Trap" and recently co-authored “Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale”.She runs a successful CPO Accelerator, is a former professor at Harvard Business School, serves on several Boards, and is the Founder of Product Institute.In this conversation, we explore:* The role of Product Ops* The main misconceptions with Product Ops* The 3 key pillars of Product Ops* How do you get started and how to scale the team* How Product Ops support Product Teams and Product Leaders* Product Ops as an enabling teams and how to measure its success* The most important skills in a CPO* What most CPOs struggle with and why* And more!—Where to find Melissa Perri:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/• Product Institute Website—💪 Companies I think you should know about:UX Signals - Don’t let your busy schedule stop you from talking to users.Automatically recruit interviews and user tests with people who are using your product. Talk to them while their user experience is still fresh in their mind.Used by big companies like DNB Bank, Vipps MobilePay, NAV, and many more.Tell them Afonso sent you, and get 50% off your trial.Know more here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Stay tuned by subscribing for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/My guest today is Ryan Singer.Ryan is the author of Shape Up, an excellent guide to help teams and companies work in a better way to ship work that matters - consistently over time.Ryan's work is incredibly important to understand. Whether you adopt Shape Up or not, there are so many golden nuggets in how Ryan sees the world of how teams should work.In our conversation, we covered:* Why do Scrum and other agile frameworks often fail to shape valuable work* Why framing the work before shaping it is key* Who should shape the work* How to use time constraints and its importance* How to navigate building something new while maintaining* The Future of Product Management* And much more! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Janna Bastow.Janna is the Co-founder of Mind the Product - the world’s largest product community - Founder & CEO at ProdPad, and the inventor of the widely adopted roadmap framework “Now, Next, Later”There’s so much Janna and I could have talked about but we focused on what great roadmaps look like, and the future of product management.We discussed:* The story behind how Now Next Later was invented, from idea to widely spread roadmap framework* Different ways to frame your roadmap based on your context* Using roadmaps, written narratives, and OKRs together* Roadmapping experiments* Designing roadmaps in ways that enable you to revisit what you've done and measure your outcomes* Roadmaps best practices* Why all companies will eventually die and what we can do about it* The Future of Product Management* How will AI impact both the role of Product and the products we build* And more This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Subscribe for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/My guest today is Daniel Elizalde.Daniel has trained more than 1500 people in product management, including folks from top tech companies like Tesla, Microsoft, and more.He's been working in Product for over 25 years, in so many different industries - and is the author of the book The B2B Innovators Map.This conversation was a deep dive into Product Management applied to B2B products, covering:* The importance of mapping out your industry in B2B* Why your first 10 customers in B2B equals product market fit* How to find your first 10 paying customers in B2B* Building a discovery network with potential customers* Experiment roadmaps vs product roadmaps* Relevant experiments and discovery techniques in B2B* Understanding why customers should be prioritized over users in most B2B cases* The importance of understanding how big the problem you're solving is and how it's related to willingness to pay* Testing viability in B2B* Main mistakes people make when transitioning from B2C to B2B..Daniel is currently teaching a new course: Mastering B2B Product Innovation.Whether you are building new enterprise software or B2B IoT solutions, this course may be what you’re looking for to know you are leading your team in the right direction. Make sure you check it out! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is someone special to me: Bruce McCarthy.Bruce has probably seen and helped more companies with product roadmaps than anyone in the world.He's the author of the best-selling book "Product Roadmaps Relaunched" and has just launched his new book Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders.Bruce and I met in Madrid a couple of years ago. Our first 1:1 was over breakfast, where we talked about different things - including the new book he was writing at the time.I knew immediately that it would be a very relevant book for many folks...  And as Lenny Rachitsky puts it now in his review, this book is "Your guide to building exceptional stakeholder relationships".This episode is a mini-masterclass on how to manage stakeholders and how to foster alignment in your organization.We discussed:* Why OKRs and Roadmaps are great tools to drive alignment - and how to do them well* Real case examples and lessons learned on how to align stakeholders* The importance of having collective outcomes and cross-functional collaboration* Practical tips and habits for succeeding with stakeholder management* Mental models, frameworks, and practices for effective decision making* Why org charts tell us very little about who makes decisions* And more! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is one of my favorite product people out there: Petra WillePetra is the author of one the best books for product leaders you can find "Strong Product People", she's the founder of an amazing product conference "Product at Heart", and one of the few product coaches featured in Marty Cagan's new book Transformed.Petra is such a great human being, and I am a big fan of her work.We covered a lot and, even though I am clearly biased, every product leader and manager should listen to this.We discussed:* Common struggles of product leaders and how to address them* Why many product leaders struggle with time management and understanding their role* Why product leaders need a framework tailored to their context and that works for them, to develop their people* What you need to know to get started with developing strong product people* The benefits of coaching and tools product leaders can use to help their people grow* Why reading good books and contextualizing their lessons is important* Navigating the "Instagramification" of the product industry (as John Cutler is putting it)* Building strong Communities of Practice and their benefitsWe even have a little surprise for you: we did some role-playing of a coaching conversation, so you can actually hear Petra in action and what great coaching is all about! Quite unique :) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Manuel Pais.Manuel is the co-author of the masterpiece book "Team Topologies: organizing business and technology teams for fast flow".He's recognized by TechBeacon as a DevOps thought leader, and is today an independent consultant and trainer, focused on team interactions, delivery practices and accelerating flow.We covered a lot, including some questions and comments from Lyse and Shibsted (read the full case here):* Different types of teams and interaction modes, and why it's important to define them in your org* Differences between "streams" and "products", and the importance of having stream-aligned teams able to discover and deliver as independently as possible* Why team topologies should be seen as an ongoing model, with a mindset of experimentation, sensing, and responding (avoiding the "big reorg" antipattern)* Conway's law and why it matters* Navigating infrastructure changes and team topologies* How to identify your streams using independence service heuristics* How Shibsted organized itself in independent verticals and why value-stream thinking is important to achieve faster flow* Product Ops teams as Enabling Teams* Implementing and scaling enabling teams (with an example of data science teams)* Common antipatterns when adopting team topologiesI love Manuel and Mathew's work, and see it as one of the most important contributions to the tech industry in the past few years.I strongly recommend checking out the Shibsted case in combination with this episode, available at the Scandinavian Product Newsletter.I had the pleasure to sit down with Jostein and Hatice and hear more in detail about their use of Team Topologies and how it shaped their ongoing transformation as well as many of their lessons learned.Relevant links from the episode:Main website: http://teamtopologies.com/Tools & templates (includes ISH mentioned in the episode): https://github.com/teamtopologiesAcademy (where you can find the Effective Enabling Teams course mentioned in the episode): https://academy.teamtopologies.com/Teamperature (a breakthrough product for assessing and managing team cognitive load): http://teamperature.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is one of my favorite product thinkers: John CutlerJohn is an absolute legend in the product community, and one thing I love about John is his dedication to sharing the messiness and contextual nuances in the world of building products.John has worked in Product with some of the most exciting tech companies around the globe and is the author of one of the most-read Product newsletters in the world: The Beautiful Mess.Everyone wants to work like the "best" product organizations. But what does "best" even mean? The "best" according to what, precisely? And how important is it to contextualize this advice? What role does culture play in subscribing to these principles, and implementing them?As I expected, John went deep on some of these things:* What does it mean to work in the "best" organizations* The nuances of categorizing an organization as the "best" and the importance of context* Reflections on implementing the principles of the product operating model and how messy it can get given different contexts* The importance of start starting, and being good at continuous improvement* Some patterns and antipatterns of high-performing teams and organizations* Foundational steps and reflections on prioritization* Approaching setting Strategy from scratch This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is the one and only Bob Moesta. Have you heard about Jobs to be Done theory? Bob was the one creating it together with Clayton Christensen - who's for many the Father of Disruptive Innovation.Bob is the Founder and CEO of the Re-wired Group. He has worked on & helped launch more than 3,500 new products so far, is a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, and started his career by being a mentee of Dr Deming himself - the father of the Toyota Production System.He’s also the author of several bestselling books, including Learning to Build.Bob is an absolute legend and I am so grateful he took the time to join me in this insightful conversation. We covered:* Why 10-12 interviews are enough to uncover patterns* Jobs to be Done as a way to understand people’s lives* Why JTBD is not a framework to understand the customers’ functional “jobs” today, but their context and outcomes (the “progress” they want to make)* Why Bob doesn’t use interview guides* Changing how you approach competitive analysis and market sizing by seeing the world through a Jobs to be Done lenses* Why JTBD is such a powerful way to align Product/Design/Engineering, with Marketing and Sales* How to approach prioritization using interrelationship diagrams* How to visualize your user research using the Forces of Progress This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Niko Noll. Niko is a software engineer turned product manager turned product discovery coach. He has learned Product at scale - shipping value to 18 million monthly active users - and spends most of his time coaching teams and being a founder at Juttu, a tool that helps product teams talk to users every week.Niko is very dedicated and passionate about helping product teams discover value sooner - and so it was a bit of a no-brainer for us to get together and talk about all this discovery.In our chat, we covered: * The ingredients to get started with continuous discovery * The pros and cons of product trios* The dynamics of trios and bringing user research onboard* Practical tips to foster collaboration within product trios* Treating a product trio like a team of co-founders* Testing assumptions rather than features* Creating an environment to foster continuous discovery habits* And more This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com