The Everyday Innovator Podcast for Product Managers

I am continuing my series on Design Thinking and talking with Michal Herzenstein, who contributed to writing “Optimal Design for Radically New Products” in the PDMA Essentials book titled “Design and Design Thinking”. Michal is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Delaware and she earned her PhD in marketing from the University of Rochester.   Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators Highlights from the discussion include… * Michal defines radically new products as products that allow consumers to do something that they couldn’t have done before. They are products that create a shift in consumption – how consumers respond to and use products. * Product innovation teams that wish to create radically new products can use six processes to help them. Large companies are better off implementing these 6 process in ascending order and focus on communicating the goal of achieving a breakthrough product to the innovating team. Smaller organizations and startups can pick any process that they feel will help them learn more about developing breakthrough ideas. * Communicate the Challenge Goal Toward Radically New Products – Share the expectation of creating a “10x” product. A product that is a magnitude better than what is currently available requires breakthrough product concepts. At the same time, you want to create a culture within the organization, and especially within the product innovation team, that taking risks and failing is part of the learning that is necessary for new products. * Shift Time Frames to Future and Past – To free the mind of the constraints of the present time and open your thinking to new possibilities, examine what could be possible in the future and how that impacts product concepts the team envisions. Science fiction stories are frequently good examples of shifting time frames, such as technology portrayed in Star Trek that is now a reality (e.g., communicator = flip phone). * Promote an Emerging Technology Focus Across the Consumption Chain – Combine existing technologies with any step in the sequence of product consumption to create new solutions to current problems. This helps to generate ideas for radical solutions by using available technologies. * Promote the Use of Analogical Thinking – Describe the true function and goal behind a product by comparing it to a more common item or idea – an analogy. It helps product innovation teams think about how they can import superior qualities from an existing product or service to address a different problem. * Look for Novel Ways to Solve Simple Problems – Pay attention to the simple problems we face on an everyday basis and explore possible solutions to those problems, producing breakthrough ideas. * Leverage More Ideators Via Crowdsourcing – Use crowdsourcing to motivate new ways of thinking. Companies can invite suggestions from outside of the organization to help generate ideas for breakthrough products. Sometimes innovation teams need someone from the outside to stimulate their thinking.   Useful links: * Michal teaches at the University of Delaware   Innovation Quotes “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways it won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison   Listen Now to the Interview   Raw Transcript Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

Tim Bates has been taking things apart, fixing them, and building products since he was a kid. He has also been a product creator, founder, and CEO and more recently, an interim executive for hire serving in innovation, product and senior leadership roles. Another interesting thing about Tim is that he lives in Boulder, Colorado, which is an entrepreneur and startup utopia. It is frequently recognized as one of the best places to found a startup, even rivaling San Francisco with a higher per capita percentage of computer scientists and PhDs.   Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators Highlights from the discussion include… * The agile product owner was originally expected to spend half their time externally in the market with customers and the other half internally with the product team. Very few product managers are able to break free of internal responsibilities to free time for external work. Therefore, companies are trying to find other ways to address both. * Crossing the Chasm is a book by Geoffrey Moore that addresses creating and selling disruptive products. He updated it last year to the third edition and has referred to the new perspective as Crossing the Chasm 2.0. This is a beneficial read for product managers. * One big difference between a startup and an enterprise is in the production of a product. Startups are more experimental while enterprises are more finance focused. Enterprises are less likely to engage in Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). * The make-up of a product from a startup versus a large company is very different because a startup might design the product for a smaller consumer volume while larger companies may be constrained by minimal revenue hurdles. * When a larger company is buying a startup, sometimes they may be buying it for technology reasons that fit into their roadmap of products or they might be viewing it as a disruptive product and they buy it in order to decide what to do with that disruptive product. * When large companies buy startups, the founders often stay with the enterprise as product managers that continue to lead the product work and contribute to future products. * In the book, “Early Exits,” researchers show that founders receive the same amount of money after 4 years or after 14 from inception of the startup. It’s the same amount of money to them because after 14 years, they are more diluted in the company. * Earlier exits are more appealing because you have the opportunity to explore more ideas and projects than you would if you were to spend years trying to grow one idea into a larger organization. * Being an innovation product manager of a larger company has its advantages as it takes some of the administrative functions out of the startup’s responsibility and allows the product manager to be more market and solution focused. * Clayton Christensen, the professor who started the terminology of the “disruptive innovation,” said that if it’s a true disruptive capability, the only model that works is setting it up as an independent business unit and running it in isolation from the existing business. * A key role for an executive for hire is asking questions such as “What are we doing here and how are changes going to affect everything?” * The culture aspect is key and it influences companies more than a lot of people recognize. Culture makes or breaks changes that are needed. * When a large organization purchases a startup, it is important to keep the culture that has developed within the startup as opposed to trying to assimilate it, especially when they have contracted the original staff that worked to build up that startup from the beginning.  

Nathan Rosenberg is the person who executives turn to for advice. He has worked with more than 100 of the 1000 largest companies in the world and has been founder or CEO of 5 companies. As an example of his experience, he provided innovation consulting that led a well-known consumer goods company to add $200M of revenue in year 1 of acting on his advice. He is co-authoring a chapter in PDMA’s “Design and Design Thinking” book titled “Leading for a Corporate Culture of Design Thinking.”   Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators Highlights from the discussion include… * Corporate culture plays a key role in the function of an organization and can determine whether an organization may or may not succeed. * It is important to be aware of your organization’s corporate culture in order to have the ability to change or transform it to make it better serve the organization’s goals. * Four pillars that help organizations enable design thinking: * Leadership Mandate: Design thinking is a source of competitive advantage for companies. Make sure the reigns leading any innovation are strong and well supported. * Dedicated Infrastructure: Visible resources, processes, and structures are needed to help those who have ideas for innovation and don’t know how to move it forward. Keeping a scoreboard or metrics system can help you evaluate whether you’re being productive (or not) with your innovation efforts. * Proprietary Process: The innovation process that a company has for taking an idea and turning it into a product. Innovation has to be a fit for the company and the company has to be a fit for innovations. That is why it is proprietary. The need here is to align with the culture that you have. Not all innovation processes are equal nor do they create equal results for all organizations. * Supportive Culture: The more sense of “touch, taste, feel, and smell” that employees have for their customers, the more that corporate culture is going to be supportive of design thinking. * Nathan describes 4 stages of transforming corporate culture to enable design thinking: * Stage 1: Reveal the already existing culture in your organization and analyze it thoroughly. * Stage 2: Unhook from the existing culture. The company has the ability to let go of things that are not helping the organization as a whole. * Stage 3: Pay attention to the market space and where it is heading. Don’t try to adapt your company to what the market looks like at the present time because the market is always shifting. * Stage 4: Implement the new culture through new processes, systems, and structures. Useful links: * Nathan works for Insigniam. * Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn   Innovation Quotes “Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’”  – W.H. Murray (—from the Scottish Himalayan Expedition, published 1951)   Listen Now to the Interview

I am bringing back my guest from episode 17, which was about creating the ProdBOK – The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge and how Greg Geracie led that effort. I also shared on that episode that he is a co-author of the annual Study of Product Team Performance and the 2015 report is now available. Greg joined me to share the key findings from the study and help all of us better understand team performance and changes that could improve performance of product teams.   Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators Highlights from the discussion include… * To date, a total of 19 factors have been identified to be strongly associated with product team performance. * Product management was directly impacted in three areas – requirement backlog ownership, time spent in the field with customers, and accountability metrics. Only 29% of respondents associate backlog ownership with product managers. Interestingly, customer satisfaction is the most commonly used metric to judge product management performance. Only about 20% of product managers have financial accountability for product. * A correlation was found between product development method and product profitability with agile/scrum being most associated with higher product profitability and waterfall being least associated with profitability. * The product development methods organizations are using breakdown as: 43% blended methodologies (waterfall plus agile), 26% agile/scrum, 14% waterfall, 11% did not know what they were using, 3% kanban, and the rest chose “other.” * 39% of product team members indicated that they deliver value consistently on scope, schedule, and cost (up from 12% in 2012) while 47% reported that they deliver value inconsistently. * 1100-1400 people have participated in the survey each year. People on and associated with product teams complete the survey. This includes product managers, product owners, project and program managers, engineers and development managers, UX professionals, quality assurance professionals, business analysts, and product marketers.  Organizations from small to very large were represented. * 4th year for the annual Product Team Performance report. Twenty factors to date have been associated with highly productive product teams. * 4 new factors were added in this year’s study that are associated with product team  performance. * Strategic decision-making — product teams that develop their capacity for strategic decision-making and following strategic objectives are aligned with higher performance. * Standup frequency – teams that regularly and frequently hold standup meetings are much more likely to be higher performing. * Quick problem recovery – teams that are nimble and can adapt to unforeseen issues quickly are correlated with higher performance. * UX collaboration – active and early participation and product development with user experience professionals leads to more successful product teams.   Useful links: * Product Team Performance Report * Accompanying Infographic * The report is created by Actuation Consulting   Innovation Quotes “Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.” – Elon Musk   Listen Now to the Interview   Thanks! Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators,

The guest for this interview came from the recommendation of a listener. Thank you! Keep the quality recommendations coming. Nir Eyal has been a startup co-founder, a CEO, and now helps product teams build habit-forming products. He is also the author of the book “Hooked,” which tells you how to create products that capture the attention of consumers and create engagement.   Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators Highlights from the discussion include… * Nir’s interest has been in the intersection of human behavior and products that hook customers’ attention. He gained insights from his involvement in gaming and advertisement. Sometimes the techniques these industries used to influence human behavior worked and sometimes they did not. Those involved in the industries did not necessarily understand why certain techniques worked and others did not. He created the “Hooked” model to explain what does work. * The “Hooked” model applies best to products that require repeat engagement. This is clearly appropriate for many software applications (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google) but can also be incorporated in the service aspects of other products. * Even if your product does not require a habit – repeated engagement – there still is much to learn from the study of human behavior and thinking in terms of hooks for building habits. * Any business can benefit from helping customers take the key action you want them to take by making it as easy as possible – decreasing the distance between problem and solution – need and reward. * The 4-step hook model is: * Trigger: a cue to action  that tells the user what to do next (e.g., “You got to see this video!”). A trigger leads to an action. * Action: the simplest behavior done in anticipation of the reward (e.g., clicking on the link to see the video). * Variable Reward: satisfies the customer’s curiosity or need for taking action. Adding a bit of variability creates surprise and enhances anticipation that keeps customers returning (e.g., mailing video updates weekly but varying the day they are mailed). * Investment: for customers to be truly hooked, they must have some investment in the product themselves – some work they perform that helps create attachment to the product (e.g., enhancing or completing their customer profile). * A case study of a habit-forming product YouVersion — the most downloaded Bible app in existence — illustrates the use of the Hooked model: * Trigger: after installing it, the app asks you to start a Bible verse reading plan. Later the plan sends you a notification telling you what to do first. * Action: open the app to be taken to the verse in the reading plan. * Variable Reward: the reward is in the content of the reading plan itself – what you will find or discover by reading the next verse and seeing what is in it for you. Variability is added by sending notifications on an irregular schedule. * Investment: you are shown a progress meter of your advancement through the reading plan and given the opportunity to choose additional reading plans. Your progress influences the notifications you receive, encouraging you based on your pace through the reading plan. * A tweetable phrase from Nir… “Monetization is the result of engagement.”   Useful links: * Nir’s blog with numerous details and examples about the Hooked model. * Nir’s book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.   Innovation Quotes

TEI 029: Reflections on Being a Serial Innovator in a Large Organization–with Steve Pierz at Caterpillar

TEI 028: Creating an Innovation Group in a Large Organization–with VP of Innovation Jeff Honious

TEI 027: If You are a Product Manager, You Need to Know about PDMA–with Charlie Noble

TEI 026: How to Design Meaningful Products by Focusing on User Experience – with Mark Capper

TEI 025: Enabling Future Innovation Leaders

TEI 024: How to Create an Innovation Culture – with Braden Kelley

TEI 023: How Lead Users Guide Product Management at a Golf Training Device Company – with CEO Sam Froggatte

TEI 022: How 3M Triggers Innovation through Organizational Development – with practitioners Kimberly Johnson and A.B. Reynolds

TEI 021: A Skunk Works for Creating Products and also How to Make Product Tradeoffs – with Eric P. Rose

TEI 020: How to Get a Product Management Job – with expert interview coach Gayle Laakmann McDowell