Dear Melissa: Answering Questions About Product Teams, Scaling Pitfalls, and Product-Led Companies

Melissa Perri is joined by Christina Pawlikowski, a teaching fellow at Harvard and co-founder of Causal, to help demystify machine learning and AI on this episode of Product Thinking. Christina discusses language models, the different types of machine learning, how they can be used to solve problems, and the importance of good data and ethical considerations when using machine learning algorithms. Christina Pawlikowski is a teaching fellow at Harvard University and co-founder of Causal, a company that helps businesses make better decisions with causal inference.  You’ll hear Melissa and Christina talk about: How machine learning is essentially creating an algorithm or a model that can make good predictions based on data. There are three types of machine learning: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning. Good training data is crucial for machine learning algorithms to be effective. When considering using machine learning, it's important to ask questions about things like how complex the decision that needs to be made is, whether the model has to produce a definitive answer, how high the stakes are, and how quickly the answer needs to come back. Ethical considerations are important when feeding data into a machine-learning model, especially when making decisions with high stakes. GPT-3 and Chat GPT are examples of language models that use neural nets to generate predictions about what word or sentence comes next based on probabilities. The accuracy of a machine learning model is only as good as the quality of the data that is fed into it. When incorporating ML into a product, it's important to plan for scenarios where the model is wrong and to consider ethical considerations such as false positives and false negatives. Data scientists play a crucial role in assembling and cleaning training data, building and testing the model, and deploying it in production. The process may involve collaboration with machine learning engineers or other teams. The cadence of working on machine learning is different from working on traditional UX-focused teams, with more downtime and exploratory time upfront. Slack time is important for data scientists and machine learning engineers to keep up with new techniques, write papers, and attend conferences. Artificial general intelligence is probably further off than we think, and AI alignment is an important field to prevent any negative outcomes. Resources: Christina Pawlikowski on LinkedIn | Twitter  Casual Labs

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how to do a product strategy audit, offering professional services to one-off clients, and how to choose whether to stay on at the company in a new capacity. Q: What steps, processes and resources would you recommend for conducting a product strategy audit? I'm considering a new role in product strategy, and I think the best place to start is a comprehensive review of the current strategy to the extent that it exists and how our product plans align with it.  A: That is the best place to do a product strategy audit, but you have to hit it from two sides. This is what I do when I go in to do a product strategy audit. Q: One of our clients requires a custom SSO integration with a good amount of complexity. The client is expecting us to deliver it as professional services. They are paying for it, so they want a clear Gantt chart project plan and a project manager that can deliver on time, on scope, and on budget. I don't have technical project managers on my team, only product managers who are more discovery oriented and are used to building products, not as a service. I don't have enough professional service work to hire a project manager to be fully dedicated to this kind of work. …Any tips on how to handle this situation in the short term? While we can't hire someone specific for this role, how should we share roles and responsibilities between product tech and customer service? A: I feel like there's some underlying problems that I'm picking out of this that are not just related to roles and responsibilities. Here’s how I would deal with this issue. Q: I'm a team lead in a three person business intelligence team for a small company. We're currently undergoing a merger into a much larger enterprise with over 8000 staff. I'm seeing indicators that the product people in the larger enterprise have little interest involving me in product discovery and strategy, which areas of the previous environment that I really enjoyed. One stated they judge me as one of their technical people, which I interpret as they don't see a place for me in product discovery and direction. I believe I need to decide if I want to be a purely technical resource or find another job where I'm more welcome at the product discovery and strategy table. Are you able to give me any advice on navigating this situation?  A: I'm slightly mad that all of these product managers are completely dismissing you, and you are a fantastic resource. This is crazy. So here's the thing. Business intelligence is a critical skill. They might not understand what you actually do. So let's start with that… Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator

What challenges do product managers face in highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance? In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, Melissa Perri speaks with Colin Anawaty about his journey to co-founding First Dollar and the challenges of navigating a highly regulated industry. Colin shares his insights on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), the benefits of utilizing them, and why he thinks they should be more widely available to all Americans. He also discusses the importance of personal and career growth within startups, and the value of providing clear career paths to employees. He describes how First Dollar evolved into a platform, and how their focus on addressing healthcare inequities and tying together healthcare and finance can lead to incentivizing better outcomes for all.  Colin Anawaty is the Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, a health wallet platform that provides its services to plan administrators to help consumers utilize their health benefits more easily and effectively. Colin has over six years of experience in healthcare and previously worked in the prepaid industry. Before joining First Dollar, Colin worked at athenahealth, where he and Melissa first met. Colin is a product management expert with a strong focus on healthcare and finance and has a passion for helping people make the most of their healthcare benefits. Here are some ideas you’ll hear Colin and Melissa discuss: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are a type of account created by the US government to make healthcare more affordable through pre-tax contributions. Unlike other benefits, such as FSAs and HRAs, HSAs can be kept even after leaving employment and can be invested for future use. Colin believes that HSAs should be more widely available to all Americans. The healthcare and finance industries are complex and highly regulated, and it can be challenging for product managers to become subject matter experts in both areas. Colin and his team learned about the industries by using resources such as industry experts and advisory boards, and they also hired people who had a mix of product management experience and expertise in either healthcare or finance. When hiring product managers for a startup, Colin looks for people who have the drive to learn and grow, and who have taken courses in product management. It's important to align product managers with the product lines they oversee and to focus on problem discovery and working with customers. Product managers need to be curious and open to learning about new things, especially when dealing with complexity. Formal training, subject matter experts, and nonprofit organizations can all help product managers get up to speed on regulations and compliance. Embedding security ops and compliance into the culture of a company can make it less scary and more manageable for everyone involved. Creating a consumer advisory board or incorporating customer engagement into terms of service can help companies navigate legal and compliance issues when trying to work directly with end users. Big companies prioritize change management and stability, while startups prioritize velocity and rapid iteration to achieve product-market fit. First Dollar started with a mission to help people shop for care but pivoted to become a platform for HSAs and FSAs. Resources: Colin Anawaty on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram  First Dollar

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa Perri answers subscribers’ questions about how product managers and product owners should work together, product management trend predictions and what the future of product might look like, and what to do when your CEO is misdirecting blame toward product management.  Q: You've been involved in product management for a while, and I would love to see where you feel the evolution of product management is headed. A: I think it's really hard to talk about where PM is going because it's still not fully functioning in many companies yet…I'll tell you some of the trends that I am seeing, though.  Q: My organization is scaling, and now we have product managers and product owners. How should we work together? A: You know that I’m not a fan of the split of product managers and product owners- here’s why. Q: Our CEO is putting the blame on product management because not as much as we want is being delivered. How can we change the perception that product management is the cause without throwing our devs under the bus?  A: We're going to start from a place of everybody is trying their best. You need to educate the CEO about what the problems are, and you need to do that as a united front. Here’s how to do that.  Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator

Melissa Perri welcomes Jared Spool to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Jared and Melissa talk about how user experience as a discipline has grown over the years, the challenges that come with it, and how to improve UX for both product leaders and customers. Jared is the co-founder, co-CEO, and Maker of Awesomeness at Center Centre - UIE, where he and his team “uncover what it takes to drive organizations to deliver the best-designed products and services.” Throughout his career, Jared has worked in the White House and has been instrumental in establishing digital organizations and shaping the future of UX. His extensive experience and expertise in the field have earned him a reputation as a thought leader in the UX community. Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Jared explore: Jared talks about how he got started in his UX career. The biggest issue product management currently faces with user experience, according to Jared, is that user experience is both seen and treated as a service. This kind of approach to user experience work does not produce good quality products or results. Product management and leadership has to make sure the products aren't only being built right, but that they're being built for the right purpose and solution.  The core basis of UX strategy is utilizing all the skills, resources, knowledge and experience available to help an organization achieve its goals. "[Strategy] involves having ways to measure, so it has some metrics capability. It involves understanding how to make sure we're solving the right problems, so it gets involved in the roadmap. You need to have a vision of where you're trying to get to. That vision has to be compelling so that everybody gets excited about that vision," Jared emphasizes.  What differentiates a product strategy from a UX strategy is product strategy is about the progression of the product and UX strategy is about the progression of the user experience. Product leaders need to understand the importance of having a UX department in their company. UX brings long-term value to companies. Melissa talks about the most successful product organizations having their management teams partner with UX. Understanding your customer user experience will do wonders for improving the quality of your product output. Jared explains that his school for UX designers teaches all the relevant UX concepts, as well as how to work with product managers and organizations. Smaller teams allow for UX designers to be able to share their thoughts more openly and freely, and brainstorm more. The product leader must create an environment that allows designers to brainstorm solutions to challenges without feeling like they are walking on eggshells. Melissa and Jared talk about the challenges that come with company mergers that do not take into account user experience. Companies spend millions of dollars on mergers but have no idea how the product will look at the end of that merger or what the user experience will be.  The more you can improve your user's experience, the more valuable they will see you and the more they will want to do business with you.  Resources Jared Spool | LinkedIn Leaders of Awesomeness

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to pivot from product management to a career as an independent product consultant, how to handle coaching roadblocks when working with new product owners, and the ins and outs of book publishing.  Q: My question is around how to pivot my career into an independent product manager, for example, a freelancer consultant or coach or a combination of any of those…Since you became an independent product consultant, what would be your guidance based on your experience and considering the current market conditions? A: I didn't set out to be an independent product consultant, it kind of happened, and I just kept going with it. Here’s how I would approach it if that’s the direction you want to pursue, and some questions to ask yourself to set yourself up for success.   Q: When coaching product owners, I bring a variety and volume of techniques to add tools to their toolbox for product thinking. How and why do the product owners tend to stick with what they know and not shift towards building new experiences as much as they could or should?  A: If you bring [new product owners] a bunch of tools, it might be overwhelming. It's really easy to overwhelm people with a lot of different techniques while they're still trying to figure out what their job is. My first approach is to help them explain what their job is and what the purpose is. Listen in to learn what to do next. Q: I want to write a book. Do I self-publish it, or do I go with a publisher? A: Book writing is incredibly hard, but if you do want to write a book, I encourage you to do it. It was the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Here’s what to know about both publishing options, so you can make the right choice for you. Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator

Welcome to another episode of the Product Thinking podcast. This week, host Melissa Perri is joined by Patrick Campbell, CEO of Profitwell. They discuss all things pricing, diving deep into the psychology behind pricing models and how to choose a pricing strategy. Patrick talks about the biggest mistakes businesses make when pricing, when and how often you should be raising your prices, how to align your price changes with your value metrics and communicate those changes to customers, and more.  You’ll hear Melissa and Patrick talk about: Patrick's team developed a financial analytics product and decided to give it away for free in order to get more data and improve their algorithms. 37,000 companies have used it in the past seven years. Patrick's company was acquired by Paddle for $200 million in May 2022, with a mission to grow subscription companies automatically. Pricing is a core competency for a business and should not be treated as a quick task to be done and moved on from. It is the very essence of a business as it represents the value of a product or service and how it is perceived by customers. Businesses should experiment with monetization once per quarter and raise prices once per year. Raising prices too often can lead to customer churn. However, this eventually normalizes as ‘fence-sitting’ customers leave. Make sure your price increase is justified by the value you provide to the customer. Align your pricing with a value metric, such as revenue. Packaging and pricing go hand in hand and can be thought of in terms of charging different prices for different pieces of value of the product. Sustaining a social media platform like Twitter is difficult, and it can be hard to monetize. Adobe's move from selling Photoshop for $1,000 to a subscription model of $32 a month was an "eye-opening" change that allowed for more investment in the product. It's important to get the finance team aligned with the move to a subscription model, as costs will initially go up and revenue will initially go down. Pricing is a whole company problem, not just a product problem. Resources Patrick Campbell Website | Email | LinkedIn ProfitWell

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about whether or not adding a business owner into a product team is the right call, how much detail product managers should provide to their engineering teams, and if there’s a right time to join a startup as a product manager.  Q: I've been asked to include a business owner from outside technology in the teams. I'm worried that this will slow decision making and reduce our time to market. How should I tackle this? A: Unfortunately, this happens a lot, especially in large traditional companies and ones that are going through transformations. They've got this old mentality of the tech team being separate and responsible for infrastructure, and the business side doing the “real work.” Here’s how I would handle this issue. Q: What do you think is a realistic level of detail for a PM to provide their engineering team?  A: It’s all about balance. There needs to be a balance between how much information you need and what your cultural capacity is to meet the expectations of the information provided. Listen in to find out how to achieve that balance. Q: Is there a good timing for joining a startup? A: This company clearly didn't know what they wanted out of a head of product. It sounded like they may have wanted a lackey, somebody to do the lower-level stuff. There is a point in a startup where it is too early for a Head of Product. Tune in to learn why. Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com | CPO Accelerator

In this week’s episode, Melissa Perri and Christina Wodtke, author of Radical Focus, get into all things OKRs. Christina shares how she discovered the power of OKRs, why she sees OKRs as a “vitamin, not a medicine,” why OKRs aren’t synonymous with product strategy, what it looks like to apply key results in the wrong way, how to use OKRs to create “super employees,” and so much more.  Here are some key points Christina and Melissa talk about: Christina talks about her professional background and what led her to write the first and second editions of her book, Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results. Christina believes that OKRs are ideally set and implemented at a team level, but they not a safety net that provides your team with product strategy. Christina highlights the differences between an OKR, product strategy, and business strategy and how they work together in the business ecosystem. An excellent product strategy and good annual OKRs can help execute an ambitious five-year plan. Christina and Melissa explore the really difficult question, “When do we stop?” and talk about how checking back in with your OKRs quarter after quarter can help answer it.  Resources: Christina Wodtke on LinkedIn | Twitter  Radical Focus

In this week’s episode, Melissa Perri invites April Dunford, author of the best-selling book Obviously Awesome, How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It on the podcast. April has 25 years of experience leading marketing, product, and sales teams and now runs her consulting firm, helping companies of all shapes and sizes, including Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games, nail their positioning.  Here are some key points April and Melissa talk about: April talks about her academic and professional background and what led her to write her book on product positioning, Obviously Awesome. According to April, product positioning is how your product is the best in the world at delivering some value that a well-defined set of target customers cares about. “Positioning is really about taking a customer that doesn't know too much about our [product] and orienting them towards it,” she tells Melissa. April describes an example of good positioning that a company can execute and how to assess if your product’s positioning is weak or strong. One of the key concepts in product positioning is looking at your product from the perspective of the consumer to determine what makes your product unique. It is best to build your product according to a positioning thesis based on information about your competitors and consumers. However, the thesis is usually wrong, so use your initial launch to improve it. The essence of product marketing is product positioning. Producing positioning can only succeed when the market managers work harmoniously with the product managers and sales team, to truly understand the products' place in the market. If we don't have an actionable segmentation, it doesn't matter if we have product market fit.  April shares her expertise on what product teams and marketing teams should be doing to truly understand and leverage their product positioning. Resources April Dunford on the web | Twitter