One Knight in Product

OKRs: The Gateway Drug to Agility & Good Product Management (with Jeff Gothelf, Product Management Consultant & Co-author ”Lean UX” )

About the Episode
Jeff Gothelf is a product coach, author, speaker and trainer who is currently trying to get companies to work with outcomes, not outputs. He's written two classic books: Sense & Respond, and Lean UX, as well as a variety of other books covering various aspects of product management and design thinking.
A message from this episode's sponsor - My Mentor Path
This episode is sponsored by My Mentor Path. I'm a passionate advocate for mentoring, and believe it to be one of the highest-leverage activities you can undertake to get ahead in your career. I try to do my part, but am but one man, so I helped set up this FREE mentoring community to try to help out at scale. Sign up now as a mentor, a mentee, or both!
Episode highlights:
 
Lean, Agile & Design Thinking can get along
These came from different places, but the philosophies that underlie all of these ideas are the same: understanding our customers, working in shorter cycles, making decisions based on evidence, and continuously improving.
Managing for outcomes is the hinge that everything else pivots from
There are many principles of good product management, but moving away from output enables focus on the change in behaviour you want to see & have the humility to accept you don't have all the answers upfront
OKRs are the gateway drug to agility and good product management
OKRs are easy to explain, but difficult to implement. Used right, they can empower teams to make measurable impact towards an aspirational goal, without micromanagement or deciding on a fixed plan upfront.
OKRs are for teams, not individuals
OKRs enable teams to focus on impact, changing customer behaviour in a way that matters to their business & knowing whether they've succeeded. Cramming individual task lists into the OKR format doesn't achieve anything.
Change is scary & might not work the first time
Some people start with OKRs by mistake or give it a quarter & then give up. Using OKRs well takes work. If it's not working, make sure you have open & honest retros to understand whether it's fixable & whether you can try again.
Buy "Lean UX"
"Lean UX is synonymous with modern product design and development. By combining human-centric design, agile ways of working, and a strong business sense, designers, product managers, developers, and scrum masters around the world are making Lean UX the leading approach for digital product teams today In the third edition of this award-winning book, authors Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden help you focus on the product experience rather than deliverables."
Check it out on Amazon.
Buy "Lean vs. Agile vs. Design Thinking"
"As companies evolve to adopt, integrate, and leverage software as the defining element of their success in the 21st century, a rash of processes and methodologies are vying for their product teams' attention. In the worst of cases, each discipline on these teams -- product management, design, and software engineering -- learns a different model. This short, tactical book reconciles the perceived differences in Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Agile software development by focusing not on rituals and practices but on the values that underpin all three methods."
Check it out on Amazon.
Check out Jeff's courses
Jeff is running some self-paced courses on OKRs, including in Spanish! Check them out here.
Contact Jeff
You can catch up with Jeff on his website. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

Getting the GIST of Evidence-Guided Product Development (with Itamar Gilad, Product Management coach, speaker and author)

About the Episode
Itamar Gilad is a product coach, consultant and regular content author who's worked at IBM, Microsoft and Google. Nowadays, he's trying to help companies get away from the feature factory and into the world of evidence-based product development with the GIST framework.
A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!
Episode highlights:
 
Big Tech firms aren't exemplars of how to "do product"
We look to these firms for guidance, but they all build products differently & have created processes that work for them. What they do have are principles. We should copy the principles but work the way that works for us.
Prioritisation frameworks have a place but aren't going to create your roadmap
The numbers are guesses but are useful to start conversations & make sure you're asking the right questions. It's important to revisit scores over time to see what's changing as you learn new things.
Confidence is a logarithmic scale
Itamar uses the Confidence Meter to describe the different levels of confidence. This brings to life what you are describing when talking about confidence & shows it's not linear; the best evidence is substantially better than the weakest.
Refocusing on goals gets you away from rigid roadmaps
Itamar uses the GIST framework (Goals/Ideas/Steps/Tasks) to break down opportunities, prioritise for impact & get away from the feature factory. It's important not to kill ideas too quickly, and continuously revisit them.
Product management is about principles
The principles are customer focus, evidence-guided decision-making, adaptive planning & empowering teams. These are the cornerstones of product management. Customer focus is still the most important & everything else can flow from there.
Contact Itamar
You can catch up with Itamar on his website, where you can sign up to his mailing list and get access to his tools. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Practice Makes Perfect: Embracing the Messy Reality of Product Management (with Matt LeMay, Product Management Consultant & Author ”Product Management in Practice”)

Matt LeMay is a product management consultant, coach and author of "Product Management in Practice", a book that aims to demystify product management and give you a practical, tactical guide for every day of your career. The book's recently had a 2nd edition released, and we spoke about some of the themes from the book.
A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!
Episode highlights:
 
1. You should read all the PM books, but question them
Books have to take a position, and they're always going to be simplified versions of reality. It's positive to disagree with what you find in these books, but you can learn something useful from just about any book.
2. It doesn't matter how Agile you are, or what framework you use
Getting into holy wars about frameworks is not constructive. Not everything works in all contexts, and if it doesn't work you're not a "bad" product manager. Concentrate on delivering value the best way you can.
3. Product managers have a CORE set of skills
There's no one standard job description for a product management role, but Matt likes to boil it down to CORE: Communication, Organisation, Research and Execution. Depending on the company, there might be additional important skills.
4. PMs need to make peace with not always being the decision-makers
PMs need to concentrate on enabling good decisions. PMs are not "CEOs of Product" & may not be able to influence senior stakeholders all the time. There may be reasons for decisions outside of their control
5. PMs need to stop being defensive
If you find yourself in a defensive posture, you're already behind. Often, the harder you try, the worse you can make things. Do what you can to affect change, but try to avoid fighting with your leadership & concentrate on helping your users.
Buy "Product Management in Practice"
"Updated for the era of remote and hybrid work, this book provides actionable answers to product management's most persistent and confounding questions, starting with: What exactly am I supposed to do all day?"
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Matt
You can connect with Matt on LinkedIn or visit his website.

Going Global! When and How to Take your Product International (with Chui Chui Tan, International Growth Adviser & Director @ Beyō Global)

Chui Chui Tan is an International Growth Adviser and Culturalisation Strategist who has worked with big brands like Spotify to ensure they have successful market expansions. I spoke to her about some important issues around internationalisation, global market expansion, and some of the pros & cons of different approaches.
A message of support
I recently found out that my former leadership coach has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Tracy helped me through some tough times, and helped me improve in various areas. I'm grateful to her to this day.
Tracy's friends are trying to raise funds so that she can enjoy some final experiences with her family, and leave behind fond memories for after she's gone. If you'd like to donate anything at all, please visit the link here.
Episode highlights:
1. You should start thinking about international growth before you're ready for it
You don't need to overengineer from the start, but you do need to make sure you have flexible building blocks in place so that you're not starting from scratch when you do want to expand.
2. It's not good enough to just translate text - you have to understand the cultural context
Countries aren't defined solely by their languages - they have different currencies, different date formats, and different norms - you can't just do "International Spanish" and be done.
3. There's a framework to help you choose the best markets
You can map potential market size & return on investment against efforts required & ease of entry to help you decide where to prioritise. You'll be working off imperfect information but it's important to think it through.
4. There are two main ways to go into other markets and both have pros and cons
You can sell to local companies with global offices counterparts or you can set up an organisation/partner in other countries. They both have pros and cons and it's important to be intentional.
5. Going into unpromising markets is OK but start small
Sometimes, big whale customers or globally-minded investors will heavily encourage you to get into a market you don't really want to go into. This is OK, but it's important to take an MVP approach rather than go all in.
Contact Chui Chui
You can connect with Chui Chui on LinkedIn or visit Beyō Global's website.

Helping Tech Teams Get Closer to ”The Business” with Effective Conversations (with Douglas Squirrel, Founder @ Squirrel Squared & Co-Author ”Agile Conversations”)

Douglas Squirrel, or Squirrel to his friends, is a long-time tech and agile consultant who claims to have been fired from every CTO job he's ever had. He's here to try to get tech teams closer to "the business", promote constructive tension to make better decisions, and have effective conversations across the organisation. He's also the co-author of a practical playbook on the same topics, "Agile Conversations".
A message from this episode's sponsor - One Knight Consulting
This episode is sponsored by One Knight Consulting. Spoiler alert, that’s me! I started One Knight Consulting because I have seen variations of the same problems plaguing product companies and I’ve seen them again and again. If you’re looking to get an independent diagnosis of your business with actionable next steps, trying to hire product people or coaching the ones you’ve already got, you can book a call with me. We can discuss your needs and how I can help.
Episode highlights:
Tech teams need to get closer to "the business" and care about profit
Companies hire expensive engineers then get them into endless discussions about nothing, and lock them into backlogs. If engineers are given full business context, they can help to change the world.
Leaders need to get used to less control to get more productivty
Teams need to stop planning. It's less like a fire-and-forget rocket ride to a predetermined destination, and more like being on the Enterprise and responding to interesting signals from nearby planets.
We can increase trust with stakeholders with "Test Driven Development for People"
You can structure conversations with sceptical stakeholders like a series of tests and follow a process to build trust outside of the technology organisation. There's a method and it works.
It's important for teams to be accountable, but not to be held accountable
"Accountability" is often used as a stick to hit teams with by untrusting managers looking to maintain control. Teams can work with stakeholders to maintain buy-in and engagement.
Everyone can do something to improve their situation
It's no good complaining about your company or stakeholders, blaming them for everything & having a defeatist attitude. By having constructive conversations, everyone has a chance of affecting the change they want to see.
Buy "Agile Conversations"
"Agile Conversations brings a practical, step-by-step guide to using the human power of conversation to build effective, high-performing teams to achieve truly Agile results. Consultants Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick show readers how to utilize the Five Conversations to help teams build trust, alleviate fear, answer the “whys,” define commitments, and hold everyone accountable. These five conversations give teams everything they need to reach peak performance, and they are exactly what’s missing from too many teams today. "
Check it out on Amazon.
Join the Squirrel Squadron
If you want to join a free community of tech & non-tech execs who are all learning from each other, check out Squirrel Squadron.
Contact Squirrel
You can connect with Squirrel on LinkedIn or visit his website.

The Five Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams (with Saeed Khan, Founder @ Transformation Labs)

Saeed Khan is a product consultant, coach, speaker and founder who wants to give all of us product managers some tough love. In a long career, he's seen the same five dysfunctions across multiple product organisations and wants us to all be honest with ourselves so that we can have a chance to fix them.
I actually interviewed Saeed in one of my first podcast episodes. It has a certain "Simpsons Season 1" quality about it but, if you're curious, feel free to check it out!
A message from this episode's sponsor - One Knight Consulting
This episode is sponsored by One Knight Consulting. Yes, yes, that's me. But listen up. I started One Knight Consulting because I have seen variations of the same problems plaguing growing startups, scale-ups and larger, digitally transforming companies again & again. These problems can cause friction between teams, slow product development, lacklustre sales, and ultimately lead to constrained growth. If you're scaling your product organisation, struggling with cross-team alignment or having trouble executing your product strategy to support your business goals, book a call with me and we can discuss your needs and how I can help.
Episode highlights:
It's important to be honest about the state of product management
It's not about being negative or blaming "bad product managers" for everything. But, there are repeated dysfunctions across a large number of companies and we can't fix them if we ignore them.
Product managers suffer from poor job definitions, which makes it hard to succeed
Bad job specs are a symptom of a deeper truth: Not many people outside product management really understand it, or what "cross-functional" working means at all. We should avoid being "glue".
There are lots of smart product managers out there but they don't all have the skills they need
Product management is the ultimate "school of hard knocks" trade & many people practising it speak only in the theoretical/struggle in different contexts. PMs need good coaching.
"Process" is too often seen as a dirty word. You don't need too much but you need some
There needs to be some level of rigour within PM teams to help set them up for success. Doing everything ad hoc gives you ad hoc results. Don't overegg it, but don't underegg it either.
Our objectives are often unclear, and we need to do our best to connect to the company's goals
We need to be able to define leading measures of success and connect our efforts to actual business success. PMs need to have a far higher level of interest in business outcomes.
Product leadership is often weak & is needed to fix all of the dysfunctions
It's better to have a former PM and coach them into a leader than to have a non-product businessperson brought in. Someone with good pattern recognition who can bring everything together is essential.
Check out the blog article "The 5 Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams"
You can read the article that inspired this interview right here.
Contact Saeed
You can connect with Saeed on Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon or check out Transformation Labs.

OKIP LIVE! Is Product/Market Fit Really Dead, or Just Resting? (with Andrea Saez & Dave Martin, Right To Left)

My good friends Andrea Saez and David Martin recently put a whitepaper out called "Product-Market Fit is Dead", and we decided to have a chat about it. Our original plan was a Twitter Space with audience interaction but it turns out that Twitter Spaces is awful. Undeterred, we did an "as live" session, uncut and unedited, to get as much of the live feel as possible. Check it out!
Contact Dave & Andrea
You can reach out to Andrea on LinkedIn or on Twitter.
You can catch up with Dave on LinkedIn or Twitter
Find out more about Right to Left at their website: https://www.righttoleft.io. You can also grab the white paper "Product-Market Fit is Dead" and browse the rest of their free content.

Learning the Bedrock Skills of Innovators & Entrepreneurs (with Bob Moesta, Co-creator of the Jobs to be Done Framework & Author ”Learning to Build”)

Bob Moesta is the co-creator of the Jobs to be Done Framework, a now-ubiquitous methodology to identify "struggling moments" and understand the driving forces behind customer demand. He worked on this with the legendary Clayton Christensen to take it out the world and followed it up with books about demand-side sales and, now, how to use the principles of the greatest innovators to help you succeed as an entrepreneur.
A message from this episode's sponsor - One Knight Consulting
This episode is sponsored by One Knight Consulting. Yes, yes, that's me. But listen up. I started One Knight Consulting because I have seen variations of the same problems plaguing growing startups, scale-ups and larger, digitally transforming companies again & again. These problems can cause friction between teams, slow product development, lacklustre sales, and ultimately lead to constrained growth. If you're scaling your product organisation, struggling with cross-team alignment or having trouble executing your product strategy to support your business goals, book a call with me and we can discuss your needs and how I can help.
Episode highlights:
Bob is dyslexic, and Jobs to be Done was his hack to understand the world
Bob has trouble reading and writing, and this forced him to admit what he didn't know and find ways to get customer insight that didn't involve reading reports. Jobs to be Done was the result.
Clayton Christensen helped him turn his hack into a framework
Bob's hack became an indispensable framework to identify customer motivation, with applications through sales, product, design... even religion & HR! The importance of uncovering "struggling moments" is universal.
Bob is passionate about mentorship and paying it forward
Bob has had great mentors throughout his life: Clayton Christensen, W. Edwards Deming, Willie Moore & Genichi Taguchi. They poured so much into him, all in different ways, & he feels obliged to pay forward what he learned
In many organisations, there's more energy spent arguing between functions than serving customers
Product, marketing, sales & customer success need to stop shouting at each other and concentrate on helping their customers make progress. We're all on the same side!
All the best innovators in the world have a core set of skills
The 5 bedrock skills of innovation are: Empathetic Perspective, Uncovering Demand, Causal Structures, Prototyping & Trade-offs. To have the best chance of success you must master them all or find people to help.
Buy "Learning to Build"
"This journey of entrepreneurship and innovation shouldn’t be a solo trip. If you’re missing something, struggling to begin, or have reached a plateau, fellow entrepreneur and innovator Bob Moesta knows your next steps because he’s been there himself. Now, in Learning to Build, Bob helps you develop the five fundamental skills every successful innovator practices to be their best. He provides you with the resources you need to learn these skills, grow through experience, and adapt your mindset."
Check it out on Amazon.
Buy "Demand-Side Sales"
"For a lot of us, selling feels icky. Our stomachs tighten at the thought of reciting features and benefits, or pressuring customers into purchasing. It's really not our fault. We weren't taught how to sell, plus we've been sold before, leaving us with a bitter taste. Here's the truth: sales does not have to feel icky for you or your customers. In fact, with the right approach, sales can be an empowering experience for all.."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Bob
You can connect with Bob on Twitter, LinkedIn or check out The Re-Wired Group.