Embracing Change to Innovate in Product Management (with Greg Coticchia, CEO @ Sopheon)

Greg Coticchia is the CEO of Sopheon, an innovation management platform aiming to help companies innovate at scale. Greg has been in product management since the 80s and seen it all, and also helped Carnegie Mellon University create the first degree programme in product management. He's passionate about all things innovation and believes that we all need to get comfortable with managing change. He also shared some insights from his many years in product management.

A message from this episode's sponsor - One Knight Consulting

This episode is sponsored by One Knight Consulting. Yes, yes, that's me. As you probably know, I've moved into freelance coaching and consulting for B2B product companies. I want to help your company, your team and your... well, you, get better at product management. If you want to chat to me about what I can do for you, why not head over to book a call with me and we can discuss your needs and how I can help.

Episode highlights:

1. You don't need a degree to be a product manager

Greg worked with Carnegie Mellon University to create a degree in product management, but it's important to realise that any learning is the start of a journey... you need to get punched in the face by a real job a few times.

2. Having big early successes is a double-edged sword

It's common for PMs to learn from failure, but it's possible to go too far the other way and treat early success as The One Way to future success. You need to remain humble and never stop learning & adapting.

3. The hardest organisation to get to change is a successful organisation.

It's easy to use Kodak or Blockbuster as cautionary tales but these were successful organisations making a boatload of money. They needed to embrace change, but it's not surprising that they didn't.

4. The best way for big companies to innovate is to make small companies

Big companies are inherently resistant to change. If they want to stay ahead, they need to create or acquire small companies without baggage and leave them to it rather than try to make them fit in.

5. Innovation is about more than just shiny new tech

It's easy to get excited about new tech, but we should get equally excited about repositioning existing products or building new business models to serve novel segments. Everything should always be focused on the users!