One Knight in Product

Cleaning Up After Professional Services & Becoming Truly Product Led (with Paul Ortchanian, Founder @ Bain Public)

An interview with Paul Ortchanian. Paul worked for many years in Silicon Valley before moving back to Montreal. He got bored of working for a services firm there and decided to take his SV experience into his own startup, Bain Public, aiming to foster Product Hygiene in Canadian firms and beyond.
We talk about a lot, including:
How a lack of product thinking in Montreal and experience in Silicon Valley led him to create a consultancy to fix it
How his great experience in Silicon Valley and imbibing the product culture there was an advantage
The challenge of "Moses syndrome" from CEOs who think they're the second coming because they have secured funding
The trouble with traditional startup mentors not coming from digital backgrounds
How and why they invented the SOAP methodology to help Product Managers understand what they should be working on and when
Some of the troubles that mixed mode product / service companies have
How to arm yourself against short term thinking and sales-led feature development
The importance of using data to justify your product decisions
The importance of being able to handle rejection and people saying no
How to take control of the discussion with sales & marketing and not just blame them
And much more!
Bain Public
If you want to find out more about Paul's company, you can check out the Bain Public website and find out more about the SOAP methodology.
Contact Paul
You can connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

Building Data Driven Products & Dodging Unsolicited Advice (with Emily Reid, Product Manager @ FCT)

An interview with Emily Reid. Emily is a Product Manager for FCT, a Canadian insurance company, as well as consulting for AgeRate, a healthtech startup. Emily is passionate about demystifying data and is leading FCT's charge towards being a data-driven, API-enabled company.
We talk about a lot, including:
The most important question - is it "this data" or "these data"?
The pros & cons of working for a big, established firm and the imperative to move to a more agile mindset
Why she moved from banking into product management, and the misogynistic attitudes she was trying to get away from
How she skilled up in product management hard skills, as well as data science fundamentals
The importance of embracing not being the smartest person in the room
How a background in biotech at uni helped her really explain complicated concepts
The importance of picking good product metrics & why you need stats knowledge to be an effective PM
How data science isn't the be all and end all, how to factor failure into the process, and why we might see a new breed of data science specialist product managers
Why unsolicited internet advice is never welcome and people should just stop
How she has been judged and patronised as a young, up and coming, blonde woman in technology
And much more!

Driving Digital Transformation & Products for Product Managers (with Moshe Mikanovsky, Senior PM @ Procom)

An interview with Moshe Mikanovsky. Moshe is a Senior Product Manager for Procom, a Canadian-based recruitment company, as well as a blogger and budding podcaster.
We speak about a lot, including:
His journey from developing software for the Israel Defence Force to Product Management, how agile the army was, and what it taught him
The difference in working cultures between Israel, the USA and Canada, and how he has navigated them
His side hustle as a product consultant for a "social media for content creators"
His passion for transforming companies, and bringing in agile processes & practices
What do do when Agile transformation doesn't work and how to keep it relevant
The importance of building his personal brand, and his plans for a new podcast focused on "Products for Product Managers"
His plans to pay it forward by writing blogs, appearing on webinars, and sharing his expertise with others
And much more!

Aligning your Positioning & the Myth of Product Market Fit (with April Dunford, Positioning Consultant & Author "Obviously Awesome")

An interview with April Dunford. April is a Positioning Consultant and author of 2019's "Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It".
We speak about a lot, including:
The origin of "Obviously Awesome", why she self published and how publishers don't like "doing" books
How taking over a failing product and repositioning made it a success, and showed her the power of good positioning for the exact same product
How conferences and publishers reacted in horror at the concept of positioning content, and how it's swung back into fashion these days
The shocking story of what happened when she asked a real author for advice and what they said about her book
The problem with "fill in the blanks" positioning statements and why they won't help, and might harm
The importance of positioning against your actual competition and not just your direct competitors
Why Product Market Fit doesn't exist, isn't operationally useful, and is a VC pipe dream
The importance of creating a market point of view story to help land your positioning and drive alignment across the organisation
How you can use the POV story to help people buy your offering over that of your competitors
And much more!

Design Thinking & Finding the Time for Design Sprints (with Yoav Farbey, Senior Product Manager @ PARK NOW)

An interview with Yoav Farbey. Yoav is a Senior Product Manager at PARK NOW, an international company aiming to find you parking spaces and ensure you don't have to fumble around for spare change when you get one. Yoav has travelled from Computer Science to foundership, Product Analyst, Product Consultant and now leading teams and pushing design thinking.
We talk about a lot, including:
The age old battle about whether "Product Owner" should be a job title of its own, and how it differs from being Product Management
Starting his own startup because engineering wasn't for him, how it went and why he called it quits
Getting into Product Analytics as a first step, how it helped him be better Product Manager
What it was like working for a consultancy, and how he managed to keep engaged when the client relationship is so transitory
Using design sprints in the wild, getting engagement and how to get buy in and demonstrate their value
What to do when you can't get a design sprint going, and how to use the best aspects in shorter sessions
How to help large corporations make products effectively and communicate efficiently
How SAFe isn't all that bad really (the humanity!)
And much more!

Building Your Product Muscles & Developing Strong Product Teams (with Petra Wille, Product Coach and Author "Strong Product People")

An interview with Petra Wille. Petra is a Product Leadership Coach and author of the new book "Strong Product People - A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers".
We speak about a lot, including:
How a desire to affect change at scale moved her away from individual coaching to coaching Product Leaders
How she happened upon Product Management by being the best communicator on the development team
How a desire for a practical Product Leadership playbook led her to write her own
The importance of setting expectations and making incremental progress and not always aiming for perfect
The challenges of selling good Product thinking to senior management and some approaches to do it
The challenge of getting good management experience and becoming a good people manager without focused coaching
Some of the challenges facing women Product Leaders and if it's getting better or worse
Whether it's necessary to have a background in development to be an effective PM, or if it's even desirable
When to stick at a Product job and try to make it better, and when it's time to leave
The importance of making time for people development amongst all of the urgent day-to-day work
And much more!

Practical Product Management & Demonstrating Product Thinking (with Büşra Coşkuner, Product Consultant & Coach)

An interview with Büşra Coşkuner. Büşra is a Product Consultant & Coach who works with organisations and individuals to embed Product Management principles.
We speak about a lot, including:
Practical Product Management - you can't learn all of the frameworks
How her experience in Berlin helped but also hindered her move to a different working culture in Switzerland
The challenge of the acronym "MVP" and how no two people think it means the same thing
Companies where leaders don't have product thinking or worse still think they have product thinking
The importance of demonstrating product thinking not just talking about it and being idealistic
How important No Code solutions are for the Product community and what they unlock for busy Product teams
The challenges of being a woman in tech and seeing things in retrospect, and her trepidation of being a working mum
And much more!

The Need for Diverse Perspectives in Product Development (with Candice Poon, Program Manager @ Microsoft)

An interview with Candice Poon. Candice is a Program Manager at Microsoft (which is really a Product Manager at any other company) working on Microsoft Edge. Candice recently caused a stir on Twitter when she tweeted about her experience being prevented from signing up to Clubhouse because of her name. 
We speak about a lot, including:
What it's like working for Microsoft and ensuring Internet Explorer stays in its coffin
Whether being called a Program Manager is confusing and whether she still gets invited to Product Manager parties
How she felt being blocked from signing up to Clubhouse and whether it's happened before
How Clubhouse responded and whether the response was satisfactory
Some of the reasons why people have blind spots when developing  products and what we should do to fix them
How Microsoft are promoting diversity & what's left to do 
The importance of mixing tech and non-tech skills to further diversify your experience
And much more!