One Knight in Product

Standing up for User Research... and User Researchers (with Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")

Debbie Levitt is a long-time UX and CX consultant who wants us all to get better at putting our users at the centre of the conversation, rather than paying lip service. She's the author of a few books, including "Customers Know You Suck" and runs a thriving community of UX professionals. Some of the stories from that community have concerned her, alongside the general perceived decline of the strategic role of UX, and she recently came out all guns blazing against continuous discovery, PM-led research, and one particular author who champions it. We spoke about the role of UX and CX in organisations, what's happening to user researchers, and whether PMs are really to blame for it.
Episode highlights:
 
1. User Experience and Customer Experience used to be the same thing, and they can be again
In these digital days, it seems like most people think UX people are just there in the corner to colour in people's ideas, but UX should be a strategic role that enables user and customer-focused decision-making and makes sure we always balance our business's needs with those of our users.
2. We prize and prioritise speed over quality - we just have to get it done
We've been moving fast and breaking things for long enough now to realise how often it doesn't work. User research feels unconscionably slow to some people, but it doesn't have to be slow, and doing good user research (whoever does it) is an investment in trying to get things right.
3. No matter how much product managers feel they're disempowered, they're still the Golden Children of the company
Back in the old days, product managers were hiding in the corner with the UX people, as agilists and engineers rode through the company calling all the shots. Now the UX people are hiding with the engineers whilst the PM makes all of the decisions. There's a power imbalance, and it's not a true "trio".
4. User researchers are getting laid off, some of the jobs are gone for good and, at least in some cases, this is because leaders think they can just hand the work off to PMs
It's not fair or reasonable to lay all of this at the doors of PM thought leaders championing certain approaches. There are plenty of UX thought leaders who champion them too. But, people are getting laid off and at least some of them are blaming PM-led product discovery as the root cause.
5. We should be able to look at books and take what works from them, but apply critical thinking and ensure that we don't follow any message blindly
Most books have something useful in them, and all approaches can work in some contexts. Debbie has her approach, others have their approaches, and there's no one "right way". But, it's important to make sure that approaches can be challenged, expanded upon, and that the approaches and techniques are described clearly and without room for interpretation.
Check out "Customers Know You Suck"
"Customers Know You Suck is the how-to manual for customer-centric product-market fit. Its highly actionable models, maps, and processes empower everyone to improve the Customer Experience (CX). Learn how to investigate, diagnose, and act on what's blocking teams. Gather the evidence and data that better inform decisions, leading to increased satisfaction, conversion, and loyalty. Use our governance model for implementing and monitoring the progress, success, and failure of internal process changes and experiments."
Check it out on Amazon or pay what you want.
Check out how to use a Knowledge Quadrant
Debbie is a fan of doing good discovery, naturally. Here's a video of an approach she recommends called the Knowledge Quadrant: Workshop: Discovery Phase - Knowledge Quadrant
Contact Debbie
You can catch up with Debbie on LinkedIn or check out Delta CX.
Related episodes you should like:
Using Solution Tests to Make Sure You're Building Products Users Want (Jim Morris, Founder @ Product Discovery Group)
Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres, Author "Continuous Discovery Habits")
We're All Responsible For Accessible Product Design (Holly Schroeder, Senior UX Researcher & Accessibility Advocate)
Making Sure You Make an Impact through User Research (Steve Portigal, User Research Consultant & Author "Interviewing Users")
Product Leadership Principles for Tumultuous Times (Giff Constable, Author "Talking with Humans" & "Testing with Humans")
How to Deploy Empathy to Truly Understand User Needs (Michele Hansen, Author "Deploy Empathy")
Chinese Startup Culture & Putting the Minimum into MVP (Carlos Lastres, Creative & Marketing Director @ Kaiyan Medical)
Building a Culture of Continuous Discovery (Cindy Alvarez, Author "Lean Customer Development")

Building Great Companies through Community-Led Growth (with Lloyed Lobo, Author "From Grassroots to Greatness")

Lloyed Lobo got his first understanding of the power of community when visiting his grandparents in the Mumbai slums, and watching people come together in his childhood during the Gulf War. He has since turned this into an entrepreneurial superpower and used community-building to catapult his bootstrapped startup into the big time. He's since written a book about all of this stuff called "From Grassroots to Greatness: 13 Rules to Build Iconic Brands with Community-Led Growth". We spoke about the book and many of the topics within.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Community is a company strategy, not a marketing strategy
It's not enough to just sit there and layer "community" on top of your existing marketing and expect it to pay back instantly. It has to be part of your company's DNA, something that your customers and your employees can be inspired and motivated by. Attribution is hard, but the results will come.
2. You need to show up for your community or they won't show up for you
You cannot take your community for granted. You need to provide them with constant, consistent value with no immediate expectation of reward. They will keep coming for the value, and you are engineering serendipity for future conversations.
3. Don't be afraid to have the sales conversations
That said, if you don't ask, you don't get. You cannot be afraid of trying to offer paid value to your community, even if it feels uncomfortable to ask. If you are providing value then people will be happy to talk to you. Not everyone will become a customer, but some will. Use the reciprocity bias to your advantage.
4. There is power in finding your niche and sticking to it
Don't try to go too wide chasing vanity metrics. You will get more value out of a smaller community of people who share your exact passions than out of a generic sea of people who couldn't care less. Make sure you identify your people, show up for them, and own your white space.
5. Community can be as much of a moat as technology or industry expertise
There are more communities and products to solve problems for communities than ever before but, if you have the right community, you can use it to your advantage. Having an engaged, passionate community can help prevent your company from becoming a commodity.
Check out "From Grassroots to Greatness"
"In a world where traditional marketing is losing its edge and products are struggling to stand out, a thriving community is your biggest asset. Recognizing that true success lies not in products or technologies, but in the power of people, author Lloyed Lobo explores the intricate art of harnessing the community's strength as your ultimate acquisition channel, brand differentiator, feedback source, retention lever, and catalyst for transformative change."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Lloyed
You can catch up with Lloyed on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Harnessing Generative AI to Reimagine the Future of Product Management (with Shyvee Shi, Product Lead @ LinkedIn & Author "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI")

Shyvee Shi is a Product Lead at LinkedIn, a community-builder, content creator and educator. She's been making waves through her online courses but she's now co-authored a book, "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI", which aims to help all of us survive and thrive in the new normal of AI-powered products. We talked about some of the themes from the book, and why it was important for her to write it.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Now is the time for product managers to get into generative AI
Whether you're experimenting with putting it in your own products or using it to turbocharge your product management duties, you need to check out generative AI if you want to stay ahead of the curve. It's not going to replace product managers any time soon, but it can help us dream bigger.
2. If your competitors can use AI to serve your customers better than you, your business could disappear overnight
75% of CEOs are terrified that generative AI will kill their business. It's like the Kodak story on steroids, and it's not even about tankers getting outmanoeuvred by speedboats anymore. Big companies are also getting in on the game and you need to have a response.
3. PMs have a responsibility to concentrate on the problem, not the technology
It's as important as ever for product managers to focus on solving real user problems, no matter what the tech. We can't just slap ChatGPT onto everything and call it a success. Generative AI can help us and our customers in new and interesting ways but we must concentrate on solving their real problems.
4. It can be hard to craft a workable go-to-market plan for AI products
This could be down to falling in love with the technology, struggles with pricing or quality, lack of explainability or poor understanding of your customers' most important jobs to be done. Make sure you're intentional about your go-to-market plan to avoid failure.
5. It can be hard to create moats when using generative AI solutions
So many of these solutions are built on the same back-end, and there are de facto default LLMs. In some cases, startups building on top of things like ChatGPT end up disappearing overnight because OpenAI has developed a new feature of its own. It is possible to create moats through proprietary data, excellent UX and good old-fashioned verticalisation. Make sure you create a moat!
Buy "Reimagined"
"Did you know that incorporating AI into products is now a pivotal strategy for businesses worldwide? According to a 2023 study from Accenture, a staggering 75% of C-suite executives agree that failure to integrate AI effectively in the next five years could lead to business obsolescence. "Reimagined: Building Products with Generative AI" is your essential guide in this transformative journey. It's not just about understanding AI and Generative AI technologies; it's about strategically harnessing them to drive innovation, team efficiency, and market success.
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Shyvee
You can catch up with Shyvee on LinkedIn or check out Product Management Reimagined.

Enabling Strategic Product Decisions through Product Operations and Portfolio Management (with Becky Flint, CEO of Dragonboat)

Becky Flint started her career at Paypal and helped build out their portfolio management and product operations functions before product ops was a thing. She's since moved through a variety of startups and larger companies before forming her own firm, Dragonboat, through which she hopes to provide tools to help companies manage product portfolios at scale.
 
Episode highlights:
 
1. Even if you have one product, you might still have a portfolio
People tend to think about a product portfolio, they think about a massive web of products, but even one-product companies may have multiple product managers working on different aspects of the product and these may well still need to be traded off against each other.
2. It's not enough to make strategic decisions, you need to be able to explain them
We're always told to create visions, strategies and roadmaps, but you need to be able to lay these out for a variety of stakeholders and explain them in ways that resonate with them.
3. As soon as you have product management, you have product operations
You may not have a Product Ops team, but someone is doing the product ops work. When you have a small team, maybe you can handle the work but, eventually, you'll need a team to ensure the product teams deliver.
4. All product operations professionals should be comfortable with portfolio management
Going further, product ops professionals who aren't comfortable with managing a portfolio shouldn't be in the job. Product ops people aren't babysitters for the product management team, they're senior, strategic partners.
5. ROI isn't enough to make good strategic decisions for your portfolio
Sometimes, you might not make big, strategic bets with unclear payoffs if you only use financial ROI metrics. You may also make bad resourcing decisions if you don't consider which teams are available when, and not taking account of bundles of value when making trade-offs.
Contact Becky
You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn. You can also check out Dragonboat. Alongside their SaaS software, they also have a bunch of available resources.

Nailing your Brand Marketing by Embracing your Zone of Genius (with Orly Zeewy, Brand Strategy Consultant & Author ”Ready, Launch, Brand”)

Orly Zeewy is an experienced marketer who "makes the fuzzy clear". She's passionate about helping startup founders get their branding right, and enabling them to identify their own "zones of genius" where they win. She does this through her consultancy, Zeewy Brands, as well as her book, "Ready, Launch, Brand". We spoke all about the ins and outs of branding, and why startup founders need to rethink marketing.
A message from this episode's sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Succeeding in B2B Product Management, a cohort-based, live course that Saeed Khan and I are launching on Maven in January. If you're a B2B product manager struggling to make an impact, a B2B product leader looking to promote healthy product practices, or a B2B founder looking to get your teams to be true business partners, check the course out here. You can use discount code OKIP to get $100 off the price of admission.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Branding is not just a fancy logo and a cool company name
The true definition of a brand is that it is the sum of all experiences that customers have with an organisation over time. Brands don't live in the minds of the company, or its founders. They live in the minds of their customers.
2. Marketing is not just a widget, it's a fundamental cost of running your business, and results take time
Some startup founders either don't bother with marketing at all, or they give up as soon as the first thing they try doesn't work. But, you need to start early and invest for the long term. There are so many brands competing for mindshare and you need to make sure that you remain part of that in an attention-poor market.
3. Your company website is your front door, and you need to explain clearly why people should care about you
It can be pretty common for companies to either ignore their website entirely or try to cram as much information as possible on there and overwhelm potential customers. Your website is likely to be the first touchpoint that a potential customer has with your brand, and you need to clearly and concisely explain why they should care about you.
4. Not everyone has done this work upfront, but it's important to meet people where they are
Yes, it's easier to intercept avoidable problems before they occur, but there are plenty of good conversations you can have whatever the situation within the company. It's never too late to try to make a difference, and you can find that the entire company will get energised and rally to the cause once you've put the work in to define what the cause really is.
5. People, and organisations, have Zones of Genius and they should focus and stay in their lane
It can be really common for founders and solopreneurs to try to solve every problem for everyone because they're interested in everything and they think that it will increase their chances of success. But, if you can find the thing you're uniquely good at and focus your efforts there then you have a much higher chance of sticking in someone's mind and being their go-to solution for that specific problem.
Buy "Ready, Launch, Brand"
"You may be familiar with the Silicon Valley expression about the iterative approach to software development, "We’re learning to fly the plane while we’re building it." If so, think of a startup―with all its moving parts, phases, and personalities―as flying a plane, while you’re building it, booking passengers, marketing the airline, interviewing co-pilots, and serving coffee. In this book, Orly Zeewy navigates the turbulence and provides a flight plan so you know when you’ve landed in the right airport."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Orly
You can catch up with Orly on LinkedIn or visit Zeewy Brands.

Making Sure You Make an Impact through User Research (with Steve Portigal, User Research Consultant & Author ”Interviewing Users”)

Steve Portigal is an experienced user researcher and author of two books, "Interviewing Users" and "Doorbells Danger, and Dead Batteries". Steve is a passionate advocate for the value of user research, and ensuring that people can find out compelling insights from their users. He's recently re-released a 10th-anniversary edition of "Interviewing Users", and we spoke about some themes from the book and how to make an impact with user research.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Some people are still wary of user research, or think they don't need it, but it remains as important as ever
It can be tempting for founders to think they know exactly what they need, rely on feedback from customer-facing teams, or not speak to anyone until they've already built the thing they want to build. Feedback from sales teams and founders is an incredibly important vector, but should only be the start of the discussion never the end.
2. Continuous discovery and point-in-time research both have a place in a researcher's armoury
There are methodological constraints to continuous research, alongside the difficulty of finding the time and buy-in to do it but, on the other hand, it can be incredibly impactful to have rapid research tightly coupled to the product team. On the other hand, well-planned up-front research can still help you to find truly disruptive insights for your company. Do both!
3. We all have cognitive biases - we should accept that and be honest with ourselves about their effects
People look at the word "bias" and worry about the negative connotations, but "bias" just represents how our brains are wired. Cognitive biases will affect how we interview people, and we should do our best to counteract their effect and improve on getting better (even if we're not perfect).
4. The best research has a tangible impact rather than being research for research's sake
It can be a heavy burden to bear if all of your well-planned and well-executed research ends up having no effect on decision-making at all. It's important not to get downhearted, and work out ways to build actionable, accessible repositories to enable your stakeholders to make the best decisions possible.
5. There are a lot of similarities between good user research and improv
We don't need to be able to create 45-minute plays off the cuff, and knowing when to stick to our interview plans and when to deviate from the script, enables us to get to the real generative insights that we need from our users and find out what we don't know we don't know.
Buy "Interviewing Users (2nd edition)"
"Interviewing people is a skill that most professionals who do research assume they already possess. But not everyone knows how to ask questions well. Expert researcher Steve Portigal updates his classic Interviewing Users to provide fresh guidance on interviewing techniques, as well as new content. This edition includes a new foreword by Jamika D. Burge and features two new chapters: one about analysis and synthesis and sharing research results, and another about ensuring that your user research efforts will have an impact on your organization. There are seven new short essays (we call them sidebars) from guest contributors. Plus, you’ll find updated examples, stories, and tips for leading interviews, and new sections about bias, remote research, ResearchOps, planning research, and research logistics. You’ll move from simply gathering data to uncovering powerful insights about people."
My listeners can get 20% off with promo code KNIGHT on the Rosenfeld Media website. This code is valid until 21st December, 2023. Alternatively, check it out on Amazon.
Contact Steve
You can catch up with Steve on LinkedIn or visit Portigal.com.

Helping Superhero Startup Founders Stay Away from their Kryptonite (with Richard Blundell, Founder @ Vencha & Co-author ”The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders”)

Richard Blundell is a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor who helps B2B startups win by getting them uncomfortably narrow and solving critical problems. He also believes that startup founders are heroes, and recently published a book trying to help them avoid common mistakes and have the best chance of putting a dent in the universe. We discussed his approach, and what on Earth he's got against product managers.
A message from this episode's sponsor - SuperProduct
This episode is sponsored by SuperProduct. Have you ever wished you could simplify competitive research, and reduce time commitment and effort but still get extraordinary insights? Well, have I got news for you! You can try SuperProduct's new course which teaches you how to unlock the potential of AI-powered insights about your competitors and about your market. This course demystifies AI and teaches you how to be the mega prompt maestro that will transform ChatGPT into your personal research assistant. Check the course out here, and make sure to use code KNIGHT to support this podcast.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Your best chance to win in B2B is to get "uncomfortably narrow" and solve a visceral problem
Startup founders often start off spraying and praying, hoping to get any traction at all and start to build their revenue. This is understandable, but generally a mistake. It's important to start off way more narrow than feels comfortable and have a really solid plan to get your next 25 customers. Everything else can follow.
2. It's easy to get misaligned and lose sight of your core value proposition
Even when organisations start off with a solid value proposition, this can change over time. But, in any case, one of the main problems with startups slowing down (or failing to scale up) is often not a lack of sales ability, but a lack of fundamental GTM narrative. You need to fix it upstream.
3. Startup founders are heroes...
Startup founders put everything on the line to bring a sometimes impossible-seeming vision to fruition. It's easy to criticise them when things are going wrong, but no one has invested more time and effort into their startup than them.
4. ... but even heroes have weaknesses
It's important for founders to be self-reflective and understand their own weak spots. In some cases, this is the first leadership position they've ever held. In other cases, they'll have glaring gaps based on their own past experience. It's OK to have gaps! But, it's important to be honest about the gaps and get the right people to help you.
5. Your first hire at a B2B startup shouldn't be a Head of Sales (or a Product Manager!)
It's tempting to get a seasoned seller into the business to get the numbers in but, actually, there's an even more crucial role that you need to hire first. Listen to the episode to find out who, but it's not a product manager - this can come later after you've got a foothold in the market and the founder can no longer scale.
Buy "The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders"
"There are few people we admire more than the Founders and Leaders of software companies who have the courage, determination and, some might say, sheer madness to put their livelihoods and reputation on the line, to leave their own ‘dent in the universe’. It's a day to day, up at dawn, pride swallowing siege to lead such a business. And we know this for a fact because we’ve walked in your shoes many times. Over the last 25 years, we’ve been involved in the start-up, scale up and exit of several successful technology businesses, that between them have realized close to billion dollars of shareholder value. But along the way we've also had more than our fair share of disappointments and have the mental scars and bruising to prove it. We’ve made mistakes and fallen in what felt like bottomless pits. But fascinatingly enough, we learned as much from the ones that didn’t work, as we did from the successes. It’s these lessons which we thought we'd share in this book."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Richard
You can catch up with Richard on LinkedIn or visit Vencha.

Making our Product Teams Stronger through Building Communities of Practice (with Petra Wille, Author ”Strong Product People” and ”Strong Product Communities”)

Petra Wille is a product leadership coach and the author of "Strong Product People" and "Strong Product Communities". Petra is passionate about helping product teams excel and found that some of the best companies she's worked with use "Communities of Practice" to support product manager growth. We spoke all about this, and how people can get started.
A message from this episode's sponsor - SuperProduct
This episode is sponsored by SuperProduct. Have you ever wished you could simplify competitive research, reduce time commitment and effort but still get extraordinary insights? Well, have I got news for you! You can try SuperProduct's new course which teaches you how to unlock the potential of AI-powered insights about your competitors and about your market. This course demystifies AI and teaches you how to be the mega prompt maestro that will transform ChatGPT into your personal research assistant. Check the course out here, and make sure to use code KNIGHT to support this podcast.
Episode highlights:
 
1. Product managers forming communities of practice leads to great outcomes.
Organisations where product teams form bottoms-up communities of practice are more up to date in their knowledge and thinking, work more closely together and break down silos. Forming these communities makes better product work easier.
2. No two communities of practice are the same (but they're all valuable)
Sometimes, it's just a peer learning group. Sometimes, it's a book club. Sometimes it's just a bunch of people going to conferences together. Sometimes it's just a way to share updates with each other. The precise format of a community, and the rituals it observes, are less important than that it exists.
3. You need to get a rhythm going earlier to build the muscle memory of a community
It's easy to see community engagement as something that will atrophy over time, and this is possible, but it's relatively straightforward to build an early rhythm to bed in practices and build muscle memory to make sure that the community sticks.
4. The best way to get started is to focus on human-to-human connections, not canvasses, for your minimum viable community
It's important to focus your community on solving real problems that the team has, rather than the philosophical concept of "learning", which is valuable, but not tangible enough. Find things that matter, and get people together around those things.
5. Even if you're in a small company, there are still communities there for you.
You might think that communities of practice are just for bigger companies and, to some extent, they are. However, there are always communities out there that will help you; either communities of people with a specific interest or just general meetup communities where you can chat with peers.
Buy "Strong Product Communities"
"STRONG Product Communities is a comprehensive guide that empowers product people, product leaders, HR, and Learning & Development professionals to develop and nurture successful product Communities of Practice (CoP). The book offers valuable insights gathered from survey data, interviews with CoP leaders, and the author’s hands-on experience."
Check it out on Amazon.
Buy "Strong Product People"
"Are you a product leader looking for advice on how to be certain that every product manager on your team lives up to their full potential? Do you want to make sure your product people are competent, empowered, and inspired, and would you like to know how you can best help them on this journey? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then this book is for you!"
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact Petra
You can connect with Petra on LinkedIn. You can also check out Strong Product People, or Petra's coaching website.