One Knight in Product

Moving Beyond Survival and Paying Off Your Vision Debt (with Radhika Dutt, author ”Radical Product Thinking”)

A message from our sponsor
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. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days.
About this Episode
An interview with Radhika Dutt. Radhika is a product leader, consultant & author of "Radical Product Thinking". This is actually the third time I've spoken to Radhika about some of the themes from her book, and product vision in general and on this episode we go deep on vision vs survival.
We speak about a lot, including:
How the book's going international these days into various markets, how it's going down there and whether she has plan for world domination
Why she's not making the mistake of some product companies and avoiding getting seduced by expanding market share or increasing revenue by going to international markets unprepared
Why revenue can never be your North Star or part of your vision at all, and how product companies need to learn to prioritise vision against survival
The concept of vision debt where you just build stuff to survive, how much vision debt is healthy and how you're always going to have to pay it back
The importance of storytelling when trying to sell the benefits of a vision-led approach and a lesson from the different strategic approaches Marvel & DC took with their films
The idea of an ethical line in the sand which product people don't want to cross but how easy it is to accidentally cross it, not with one big mistake but many small ones
Why you should examine your personal vision and survival metrics, make sure you stay true to yourself and take an ethical stand where you can
And much more!
 
Buy Radical Product Thinking
"Iteration rules product development, but it isn't enough to produce dramatic results. This book champions Radical Product Thinking, a systematic methodology for building visionary, game-changing products."
 
Visit the book website or check it out on Amazon or Goodreads.
Listen to Radhika's other episodes
We covered some of the broader themes from Radhika's book in our first episode Episode 82 - Curing Product Diseases with a Radical Product Vision or our second episode Episode 92 - Digital Pollution & The Product Hippocratic Oath.
Contact Radhika
You can find Radhika on Twitter or LinkedIn

Inside the Mind the Product Acquisition - Why Now & What’s Next? (with James Mayes, Evangelist @ Pendo & Co-Founder @ Mind the Product)

A message from our sponsor
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. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days.
About this Episode
An interview with James Mayes. James is the co-founder and former CEO of Mind the Product, one of the world's leading product communities. James came on to talk about the recent acquisition of Mind the Product by Pendo, his new role as Product Evangelist for Pendo, and some of the themes he's talking about on his travels.
We talk about a lot, including:
Why the Mind the Product team decided to sell themselves to Pendo in the first place, why they did it now and whether they've maintained editorial independence post-acquisition
Whether there was any concern that they might be doubling up or treading on each others' toes with the two sets of product conferences, podcasts and online communities
His new role as a Product Evangelist, what that means for Mind the Product and for Pendo, and whether he's an evangelist for product management as a whole or for Pendo's solutions
Whether he's the Pendo answer to John Cutler, the prospect of an arms race of content creation and whether James could beat John in an arm wrestle
Whether there's a growing need for product advocacy to help product people be successful & some of the similarities with developer relations teams
His continuing desire to support the growth of product teams and product processes but also the fundamental craft of product management
Some of the thoughts on his mind right now about scaling product teams through technology & the missed opportunities of many attempted digital transformations
And much more!
Contact James
You can email James at james@mindtheproduct.com or connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Developer Relations & Product Management - Friends or Foes? (with Tessa Kriesel, Head of Platform DevRel @ Snap & Wesley Faulkner, Head of Community @ SingleStore)

A message from our sponsor
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. Go to Skiplevel.co and use code OKIP75 to get $75 off the program in the next 30 days.
About this Episode
An interview with Tessa Kriesel & Wesley Faulkner. Tessa & Wesley are passionate advocates for the craft of Developer Relations (DevRel), building communities and supporting users of products aimed at developers.
We talk about a lot, including:
What DevRel is, what they love about it and how there's not one boring DevRel person in the world
Their journeys into DevRel and whether there's a standard career path for people trying to get into the trade
The types of companies that need DevRel teams and how the concept of "developer-first" and "developer plus" products informs when you need to spin up a DevRel team
Where DevRel sits within the organisation, the other functions it intersects with and whether it's really just a part of marketing
Why it matters that business leaders understand the true value of DevRel rather than seeing them as one team to do just about anything that comes up
Whether we need DevRel at all when the vast majority of PMs claim to be technical enough to talk to developers anyway
The ways that DevRel and Product teams can work together, some of the things that DevRel teams need from PMs & what they can give back in return
And much more!
Contact Tessa or Wesley (or both!)
If you want to catch up with Tessa, you can reach out to her on Twitter, on Polywork, at TessaKriesel.com or check out Devocate
If you want to catch up with Wesley, you can reach out to him on Twitter, on Polywork or check out his podcast Community Pulse.

Using Solution Tests to Make Sure You’re Building Products Users Want (with Jim Morris, Founder @ Product Discovery Group)

A message about mentoring
I'm passionate about mentoring & think it is a high leverage activity for product managers as they develop in their careers. I mentored 76 people in Q1 2022 but have realised I don't scale so am working with a buddy to match mentors & mentees. Sign up here to be a mentor, mentee or both!
About this Episode
An interview with Jim Morris. Jim's a product discovery & experimentation coach who wants teams to stop wasting their time with discovery if they're not going to do anything with it. He's currently running Product Discovery Group out in Silicon Valley.
We talk about a lot, including:
The goals of Product Discovery Group, the problems he helps to solve, how he got started as a product discovery coach and that time he hung out with Jeff Bezos
How many companies see funding as the ultimate validation of their idea but forget to talk to their customers and check if the idea is actually viable for the business
Why we need to remember that product discovery is not just there as an artificial stage gate to delay decision making and should always serve the overall business goals
How there are bad product companies with good product managers and good product companies with bad product managers, and how Silicon Valley startups are in the same boat as the rest of us when it comes to good product discovery practices
How we can bed product discovery in with leadership, how to persuade them that there's a different way to lead, and how to skill up product teams that have never done product discovery before
The concept of a Solution Test, the importance of presenting multiple solutions, why you have to get interactive rather than just show stuff, and why you should never concentrate on usability first
How to apply structure to your discovery data collection to make it easier to extract insights from the data and turn them into action
And much more!
Contact Jim
You can reach out to Jim on Twitter, on LinkedIn or check out Product Discovery Group.

Building Life-Centred Products with Collaborative Product Discovery (with Sophia Höfling, Co-founder & Head of Product @ Saiga)

A message about mentoring
I'm passionate about mentoring & think it is a high leverage activity for product managers as they develop in their careers. I mentored 76 people in Q1 2022 but have realised I don't scale so am working with a buddy to match mentors & mentees. Sign up here to be a mentor, mentee or both!
About this Episode
An interview with Sophia Höfling. Sophia is a former Head of Product at Babbel and now co-founder and Head of Product at Saiga, a Berlin-based productivity startup where they're aiming to save people from life admin. Sophia's passionate about life-centred design and collaborative product discovery.
We talk about a lot, including:
The mission behind Saiga and how they have started with a Wizard of Oz product as they try to work out the most important problems to solve
The tricky transition from established product companies to new startup foundership and having to do everything yourself
The concept of life-centred design and why we can't just listen to users but have to consider the holistic impact of our products on all stakeholders
What to do when your customers don't care about the ethical merits of your product but you want to do the right thing anyway
The importance of collaborative, rather than cooperative, product discovery and how to include people from outside the classic product trio in your discovery journey
Whether doing all this discovery slows you down, whether that's OK and the importance of timeboxing discovery efforts to avoid getting caught in an infinite loop
How to get buy-in for product discovery from sceptical leadership and convince them of the benefits of a good discovery flywheel
And much more!
Sophia's on Medium
Check out Sophia's articles on Medium, including
It’s time we move to life-centered product development
The importance of collaboration in product discovery (and how to get it right)
Contact Sophia
If you want to catch up with Sophia, you can reach out to her on LinkedIn.

Using the Power of Community to Grow Your Startup (with Anna Maste, Founder @ Boondockers Welcome & Subscribe Sense)

An interview with Anna Maste. Anna is a software developer turned company co-founder who set up Boondockers Welcome with her mum. Having never owned an RV or had any dealings with the community, Anna engaged with said community via her mum's influencer status and ended up scaling the business and exiting. She's now back with her second company and going for it again in another industry.
We talk about a lot, including:
Explaining what the heck a "boondocker" is to this Brit, the problems they where having that were worth solving, and how they created a mix of Airbnb and Tinder to solve it
Whether starting a company with your mum is the ultimate Mom Test and the pros and cons of working with close family members
How she had no experience with the RV community, but used her RV influencer mum's experience to understand the needs that the community had and how they might solve them
Some of the challenges of creating a digital platform for people that are by definition "off grid" and how the platform grew over time as mobile technology improved
Whether playing the long game and working to build community relationships would have been possible if they'd been forced down the growth at all costs VC route
How their successful exit came about, how they had to pick a company that they could trust to carry on their good name, and whether the community felt it was a betrayal or sell out
How she's started a new company to solve a problem she had in her first company, and how she's going about engaging with a brand new community for the second time
And much more!
Contact Anna
If you want to catch up with Anna, you can reach out to her on Twitter or check out Subscribe Sense.

Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (with Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck)

An interview with Dan Chapman. Dan is a British export to the US where he's busy building internal products to help make smart scientists more successful. Dan's strong on product principles but flexible on the details as he tries to transfer book talk into action for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
We talk about a lot, including:
His work with Merck, how there are actually two Mercks and a summary of the differences between them and why they diverged
The challenges & opportunities of working in product management when your end users are hardcore scientists, and whether this is the one time you actually do need to be an industry expert to be an effective product manager
Whether situations like the Theranos scandal loom large over the medical research industry, and how "move fast & break things" doesn't work when people's lives are on the line
That tricky balancing act where you're trying to be agile and move fast whilst working for a company (and an industry) that values process, predictability & compliance
Whether working for a big multinational means he's defaulted to having to use SAFe and why legacy waterfall companies are attracted to such frameworks
Whether being an introvert in product management is a barrier or a superpower, and how to survive all the meetings & presentations when your natural tendency is not to want to be in the room
Why idealistic product principles only get you so far, how to work out which ones matter, which don't, and why waterfall might actually be the better option sometimes (🤢)
And much more!
Contact Dan
If you want to catch up with Dan, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

Understanding & Interrupting Cognitive Biases in Product Design (with David Dylan Thomas, Author ”Design for Cognitive Bias”)

An interview with David Dylan Thomas. David is a product designer and self-taught expert in cognitive bias. He's now consulting with companies to help them make ethical product design decisions and is the author of "Design for Cognitive Bias", a book that aims to help us all understand the implicit biases that underpin our decision making when we design products.
We talk about a lot, including:
How he got into writing and consulting about cognitive biases in the first place, whether you need to go back to college to learn about this stuff and whether it's intimidating having your work reviewed by academic experts
Why we have cognitive biases, how our brains are constantly lying to us, and how we'd struggle to cope with having to make a trillion decisions a day without them
The importance of taking complicated scientific concepts back to a human level and making sure you can explain things like you would to a five-year-old
How cognitive biases can manifest themselves when we're designing products, the most common biases that we might come across, and why the framing bias is by far the most dangerous bias of all
Why it's sometimes important to insert speed bumps into our products rather than continuously trying to optimise for speedy decision making
Some of the ways to interrupt cognitive biases in product design, including the red team / blue team approach and the Black Mirror test
The importance of participatory design and giving the people most affected by bias the power to decide when something that affects them is actually ready to go
And much more!
Buy "Design For Cognitive Bias"
"We humans are messy, illogical creatures who like to imagine we’re in control—but we blithely let our biases lead us astray. In Design for Cognitive Bias, David Dylan Thomas lays bare the irrational forces that shape our everyday decisions and, inevitably, inform the experiences we craft. "
 
Visit the book website or check it out on Goodreads.
Contact David
If you want to catch up with David, you can reach out to him at https://www.daviddylanthomas.com