Podcasts about produx labs

Meet Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, the dynamic duo behind the groundbreaking book “Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale.” Melissa's expertise spans from founding Produx Labs, a product management training and consulting company, to spearheading product strategies at esteemed companies like Insight Partners, Capital One, Vanguard, and Walmart/Sam's Club. Meanwhile, Denise brings over a decade of product leadership experience at Condé Nast, Cision, and Understood.org to the table. Together, they have driven meaningful outcomes for various businesses through their targeted support in product operations, design, and coaching.  Dive deeper into Melissa and Denise's book as we explore the three principles of product operations, the responsibilities and values that come with a great product leader, and how effective product operations lead to more impactful product outcomes.  Resource Links Check out Melissa and Denise's book,  Product Operations Check out Melissa's book,  Escaping the Build Trap Visit the Produx Labs website Learn more about Melissa on her website Follow Melissa on LinkedIn Learn more about Denise on her website Follow Denise on LinkedIn Follow Holly on Twitter Follow Holly on LinkedIn Visit the Product Science Group website Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses Quotes from Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles: “I see this connection between continuous discovery and a team's capacity for creativity... If you have the time available to you and space has been made to think deeply about what's actually valuable to the people that you're creating things for, I think that puts you in a creative space.” - Denise Tilles “Try to show people what you can do as quickly as possible so they realize the value. The more that you can achieve value for people and help them realize it, the more buy-in you're going to get.” - Melissa Perri “The customer and market insights is really about aggregating all the feedback that we're hearing from our customers, from all different parts of the organization... Where do those live? And how do we make sure that people can read those studies, understand what has been asked of customers, use it to identify problems and put back into their work, and then also, where do they go to help contact customers?” - Melissa Perri  Lab Notes Lab Note 601.1: Product ops ties into each of the Product Science Principles. - Holly Hester-Reilly (31:25)  Lab Note 601.2: Centralizing product operations is worth it. - Holly Hester-Reilly (35:34) Lab Note 601.3: The work of product operations has been around longer than the name. - Holly Hester-Reilly (36:23) Lab Note 601.4: On a small, growing team, hire product ops before research ops.  - Holly Hester-Reilly (38:07) Lab Note 601.5: Organization of your insights goes a long way toward driving evidence-based product decisions.  -Dina Levitan (40:05) Lab Note 601.6: Product Operations may be an opportunity to systematically bring design in earlier in the product discovery and strategy process. - Mark Enache (43:06) View the Transcript and the full episode description on the Product Science Podcast websiteReady to elevate your product leadership game? Dive deep into practical solutions for real-world product challenges. Register now: productsciencegroup.com/services 

Bio Denise Tilles wrote the recently published book Product Operations. Co-authored with Escaping the Build Trap's Melissa Perri, the book is the must-read guide technology leaders have been missing.  With over a decade of product leadership experience, Denise supports companies like Bloomberg, Sam's Club, and athenahealth by strengthening capabilities around: Product Operations, Product Strategy, and establishing a Product Operating Model.     Interview Highlights 01:00 Background and beginnings 04:00 Product Operations: The book 06:30 Product Operations vs Product Management 07:30 The Three Pillars of Product Operations 08:30 Using Product Operations to Scale 10:20 Leading and Lagging Indicators 12:20 Product Operations in Startups  21:10 Generative AI     Social Media ·         www.denisetilles.com ·         Denise Tilles on Twitter X ·         Denise Tilles on LinkedIn ·         Grocket     Books & Resources ·         Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale: Melissa Perri, Denise Tilles ·         Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, Melissa Perri ·         MasterClass with Denise Tilles: Getting Started with Product Operations — Produx Labs ·         Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value, Terese Torres ·         Lenny's podcast: Lenny's Podcast (lennyspodcast.com) ·         Lenny's Newsletter: Lenny's Newsletter | Lenny Rachitsky | Substack (lennysnewsletter.com) ·         Pivot podcast: Vox Media: Podcast Network | Pivot ·         Melissa Perri's podcast: Product Thinking — Produx Labs     Episode Transcript Intro:  Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.   Ula Ojiaku   So I have with me here, Denise Tilles, who is the Founder and CPO of Product Consultancy Grocket. She is also a co-author of the book Product Operations, How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale. Thank you so much, Denise, for making the time for this conversation. I've been looking forward to this.   Denise Tilles   Thank you. Me too.    Ula Ojiaku   Awesome. So who is Denise, so can you tell us how you've evolved to the Denise we are seeing today?   Denise Tilles   Yeah. So, I have been in product management for probably 12 years now, both on the operating side, as an individual contributor, and then as a leader, working with companies like B2B SaaS companies, Cision, and a media company, Condé Nast. And then for the past two-ish years, I've been a product consultant and working with really great companies like Bloomberg and Sam's Club, Walmart, we're helping them with product maturity assessments, product operations in terms of like, does this make sense for a company? How do we stand it up? What is sort of day one look like, you know, day 366 and then so on, sort of building it to scale. And then also co-authoring this book with Melissa Perri, the Product Operations book, and as we talk about the book, folks, I think naturally might say, well, why you, why should you be writing about the book? I have experience with product operations before we really knew that's what it was called, and I mentioned this in the book that I was working at this B2B SaaS and I had just started and my manager, the SVP said, hey, maybe we should get some people to think about managing the data, maybe thinking about understanding what kinds of experiments we should be doing. I'm like, we can do that, well, wow, yes, that sounds amazing. And we were going to hire an individual contributor, we ended up hiring this amazing VP level person, and then she built a small team, and it really was a great compliment to the product, I had a product team of about 10 folks globally and really great compliment, because they understood the product, but they weren't so close to it that they were myopic in terms of seeing what the potential opportunities or challenges were with the data, so they became a great partner and sort of highlighting here's what we're looking at for the month, X shows us maybe there's a challenge with the funnel, maybe we could do some experiments, maybe tests, and anyway, they had uncovered a potential opportunity. It was this sort of add on product and we ended up making a million dollars the first year, it wasn't even sort of like an advertised product, it was kind of just back pocket offering for clients. So after that, I was like, wow, this is great, I love this, and didn't really know that was product operations. Fast forward a couple of years later, I start working with Melissa Perri at her consultancy Produx Labs, she mentions product operations, I'm like, what's that? And she explains it, I'm like, oh, that's what we were doing, cool. And then really started to dig in more about the theoretical aspect and understanding what it could look like to build it at a scale and helping companies at the scale up stage with a venture capital company we were working with, think about what that looks like for them, and does it make sense to implement? So that's when I really got interested and excited about it, sort of having lived it and then seeing the potential opportunity of the sort of force multiplier it could be. So I was working with Melissa and in 2021, I slacked her and I'm like, what do you think, I'm thinking about writing a book about product operations, I don't think anyone's written this yet and I can't believe it. She's like, yeah, great idea. I'm like, would you like to do it with me? And she was like, yes, I'll do it. She hesitated a little bit because I heard her speaking about her first book, Escaping the Build Trap, and she's like, never, nope, done.  But she's like, well, maybe it'll be different writing it with somebody. So I'm like, how long does it take? She goes, I don't know, as long as it needs to take, maybe a year, two and a half years. So we kept each other honest and it was, I don't know any other way of writing a book, but it was really great to have a partner and like, I've hit a wall here, can you pick this up? Or I map this out, like, here, does this make sense to you? And challenges, wins, whatever, just having someone to feed off of was really great. And it was just a lot of fun to do. So it was really a great excitement and relief to have it published in October of 2023.   Ula Ojiaku   Congratulations, that's a massive achievement, and I couldn't help wondering when you were talking about co-authoring the book with Melissa, whether you applied some of the product operations concepts in getting your book done?    Denise Tilles   That's a great question, we had a lot of qualitative inputs. We had peer reviews from folks that were from like a CPO, Chief Product Officer, all the way to an individual contributor, kind of brand new Product Manager, and the questions that they raised were totally different. So it was really great to sort of get those inputs and balance and think about like, who's the archetype we're creating this book for? And I sort of ignore my own advice when I work with product people, like if you try to serve everybody, you serve no one, but we really were trying to think about like, this could be a book that a product person could hand to their CEO. This is the power, here's some great case studies. Or the individual contributor thinking, I've heard about this. What is this? Would this help our company? So we really wanted to, you know, as well as Chief Product Officers, VPs thinking like, I've heard about this, what does that look like? So that was an important aspect.    Ula Ojiaku     Makes perfect sense. Now I know that some of the viewers or listeners would be wondering, then, we might as well cut to the chase, what exactly is Product Operations? Most of us are conversant with the term Product Management, what is Product Operations and how is it, if it is, different from Product Management, please?   Denise Tilles   Yeah, great question. That was one of the most common questions, that was another reason we wanted to write the book, because we just kept getting the same questions like, here's a book. Product Operations just so quickly put is really increasing the speed and accuracy and quality of decision making, right? It's about surrounding your Product Managers with all of the inputs they need to make really, truly informed decisions. It's about supporting them to execute on the things you hired them for - building value, growing revenue, and not necessarily writing SQL scripts, because at the end of the year, it's like, well, I wrote 10 of those. Great, but you didn't deliver X product, who won, so that's a big piece of it. And the way that we think about Product Operations, it's really three pillars. So business and data insights, which is the quantitative, right? Customer and market insights, the qualitative. And then the third one is the operating model, sort of process and practices, and we like to think of it that way and sort of broke the book up like that as well, to sort of like focus on that, each section and at the end of each pillar, it's like three things to get you started today. If there was like three things to do, and one other aspect of it is that we think about how to implement it, and that's a question that we get a lot. And as we mentioned at the beginning of the book, don't try to do all three pillars, figure out where the biggest challenge and opportunities are, start there and build out. Some companies I've worked with have just stuck with one of those pillars and that's good enough for them. It really looks different everywhere. This is just what it could look like.    Ula Ojiaku   No, that makes sense, and I know that in your book you also talked about, really how Product Operations can help with solving many of the scaling issues companies face right now, because it seems like if we're to go into the agile world, there are some purists or fundamentalists who feel like, oh, it's everything is agile, you know, forget about the money and everything, you just apply agile and everything is all right. But at the end of the day, if you're a for profit business or even if you're not, you have customers, and customers define the value and the only way you stay afloat is you're delivering the value, not that you're following a framework. So could you talk a bit more about how Product Operations can help with companies with, for example, connecting financial metrics to the delivery?    Denise Tilles   That's great. It's really about having all of those inputs available so Product Managers can make the informed decisions, and a lot of companies we have talked to and interviewed with, they tend to look at more of the product metrics, engagement, usage, time spent, but not necessarily the financial and that's a huge miss, right? And that's one area we really hammer home in the book, is making sure that you look at all data and not just your product. You want to make sure you're looking at that, but the financials typically are lagging indicators, but so important, right? And if you're doing all this great stuff and seeing engagement, but the revenue is going down, who cares, right? So if you have all of those together, it's a powerful sort of breadcrumb to understand your product health and sort of the leverage you're pulling and whether you're, you know, doing any harm or hopefully doing good. So yeah, that would be one key takeaway.  Ula Ojiaku  You mentioned financials, for example, revenue and all that, it's a lagging metric, and there is this innovation, accounting body of knowledge that talks about using leading indicators. With the multiple organisations and teams that you've worked with, are you able to, off the top of your head, share examples, maybe give us an example of where a financial metric is tied to hopefully a leading indicator so that you can see, based on the data you're getting right now, to be able to predict how likely we are to hit the financial targets?  Denise Tilles Contract sign can certainly be sort of a leading right indicator, so you're not recognising that revenue yet, but at least it's commitment. Pipeline sometimes can be at least a good indicator. If you've got a nice, robust pipeline and you're comparing it year over year, that's your baseline, that is another indicator. So there's a number of them there, contract value, yield, how much they're purchasing. So there's a lot of indicators, especially with yield. It's like if they were buying seven different product lines and spending, let's say 20 million dollars, I'm making that up, let's say this year they're doing only five product lines, but they're spending 25. What does that mean? Why did they drop those? Where are they spending more money? So there's so much in there that you can be analysing and helping inform what you're doing as a product person.  Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Denise. And how would you, because in your story earlier on in this conversation, you mentioned you had your team, your product team of about 10 people globally, and someone at a VP level was brought in and seemed to be providing that complimentary set of services. Now, in your book, you give the readers ideas of how they might want to start off, depending on what is their bottleneck, these are my words, not yours, about how to start implementing Product Operations if they don't have that. Now, imagine I'm in a large complex organisation, we have Product Managers. How would you advise the leader of that organisation to go about structuring this?  Denise Tilles Right. That's a great question, and earlier you asked a really good question that I didn't get to, which I'd like to talk about now that will lead into that. You asked what the difference is between Product Managers and Product Operations folks. The difference is Product Managers make the decisions, Product Operations enables those decisions. It's as simple as that. It's the enablement. If you have buy in, and one of my clients at Sam's Club, amazingly the CPO was like, here's what Product Operations is, here's the value it can bring my team of hundreds of Product Managers. The CEO was like, cool, sounds great, let's do it. It's rarely that easy. And like, let's build a team out of the gate, it's rarely that easy. A lot of times I'll see companies where there's someone interested and they might do a little bit in their quote unquote spare time and then maybe speak to their manager and say, hey, I'm really interested in this enablement piece, could I divide my current role, from maybe 50% products, 50% product or, and then try to get the quick wins to sort of prove the value. And then does it look like this person moves into that role full time? That's how Christine Itwaru from Pendo, she was at Pendo and started Product Operations there, she was a Product Manager, but saw the pains and started trying to solve it for her team, but thought, oh, this could be really interesting to solve for the whole company, I think I want to do that. So she built an entire team, but made the case for that, so that's one way to do it. You can think about making the case for an entire team, partial, existing resource, or maybe starting with a team of one, deciding what's above the line in terms of what's included that this person can include, what's below the line that they're not going to be able to do, and being very intentional about that, and then starting to build out the capability and showing the value hopefully where they could bring on more people if needed.  Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that. So to go back to the three pillars that you mentioned, there is the data and insights, customer and market insights, and the process and governance. Now of the three pillars, which one would you say is fundamental? Are they like a three legged stool?  Denise Tilles I mean, they all sort of work together, but if you can only cover one of them, great. If you only had the need for one of them, great, and companies really differ. In my experience it was like, oh, everyone really is challenged in the data and the business and data insights. Not always. I teach a masterclass for Produx Labs and it's a small group, like 25 people, and before we do, it's a four hour course that we offer quarterly, live on zoom, thinking about how we want to do that and it's really about thinking there's a said value, is this really where we want to go? And a lot of companies don't have that challenge. They may have more capability needs with the qualitative, and that's an area I see that kind of gets ignored or they're like, oh, we have a UX research team, but it doesn't have to originate with Product Operations, it's just about harnessing it and making sure that the Product Managers understand how to access it, how to apply it, and maybe even creating an insights database, could be something that UX research has, great, let's make sure that the Product Managers are aware of that. And the process piece, we've seen sort of hybrid structures where we've got a couple of dedicated people within the quantitative and qualitative, the business insights and customer market insights, and then more of a horizontal across the teams for the more process. So that was an organisational strategy that Blake Samic employed at Uber and Stripe when he set those teams up, thinking about more tactical support where needed, and then more of a horizontal type of program. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. So another thing I'd like to know, because looking at the title of the book, the second half says How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale. So does it mean that if I'm a startup, I shouldn't be bothering myself with Product Operations? Denise Tilles Not necessarily. There's one company I can think of that is probably in a series A, maybe a B, and they have a Product Operations person. So you can decide if you've got the resourcing for it, that you dedicate one person, but typically we see Product Operations more with the sort of scale up in enterprise levels. Ula Ojiaku Okay, because typically a Product Manager has a mishmash of all roles and different hats, it's like you're developing the roadmap, you're speaking with the customers, you're making sure that the implementation is going on track, but it seems like it's more about teasing out the operations part and the enablement part and leaving them to focus on the pure product. I'm just trying to get my head around the concept because it's a really interesting thing. Denise Tilles Yeah, we make the point in the book that Product Managers are being asked to do evermore, like be strategic, be tactical, focus on delivery, make sure that you're a great partner with cross functional, apply data, oh, you don't have data, well do it, make sure you learn SQL to pull out the data. So there's just so many things, and you think about it, There's something's going to slip, right? So it ends up being, we have to deliver, but are we delivering right things? Are we delivering as much value as we could be doing? And that's typically where the drop off is - we're delivering, but is it the right type of work to really move the needle? I mean, that's sort of what Escaping The Build Trap talks about, Melissa's first book, but Product Operations helps make sure that we are focusing on the right things and delivering the right things. Ula Ojiaku So what does it look like when Product Operations is operating, in your and Melissa's opinion, as it should be? What could the organisation look like? What would you describe as a day in the life of a well-oiled Product Operations machine? Denise Tilles Oh, that's a good question. I mean, ideally, if I could have anything I wanted, I'd have a few folks thinking about that sort of hybrid model, right? So sort of a horizontal across all of the different teams and verticals, someone thinking about what are the methods, what sort of the systems design we need, not just for the sake of it, but making things easier. This was a challenge that I see a lot where companies and Product Managers spend so much time talking about doing the work rather than doing the work. How do we get rid of that? How can we clear that out, so everyone's aligned, and is there a template we're using for roadmaps, that's always a challenge, great, here we go, people are not usually that wound up about how it should look, just tell me what you want and I'll go, and there's a lot of sort of cycles burned and wasted on things like that. So it's just about helping people understand the rules of engagement and can get going with doing work of value versus talking about it. And then I think in terms of the hybrid and having more dedicated folks, I would love to see maybe a person more focused on data analysis, ideally with each VP, maybe, and I've seen that, or supporting as much as they can, and also that person being able to sort of harness in the qualitative as well to make sure that the Product Managers have a full view of that. So that would be where I would start, but if you can start with a team of one, get a few quick wins and then build out, I think that's what you could get to, but in terms of starting out, I think it would be a team of one understanding where the opportunities are, building out a roadmap, proving those out, and then sort of making yourself redundant in areas that could be automated, moving on to higher value work and so on and so on. Ula Ojiaku So you know that right now AI seems to have come to the forefront of the news with OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT and lots of courses there. So, when you mentioned automating those things that can be automated, it kind of triggered this question. So what are your thoughts on how generative AI could help with making Product Operations smoother? Denise Tilles Yeah. I would think around comms, right? So if we've got release notes that, perhaps Product Operations has put into more, what's in it for me as a salesperson, that's great, the GR521 release, but what does that mean to me? So let's assume that Product Operations has sort of put that into the ‘so what' for the entire organisation, let's say they do this three times a month, you know, maybe you'd be able to use ChatGPT and keep sort of feeding those in and being able to create a digest that could come out and be updated each, however you want, or someone could request that on demand, that would be one way of doing it, in implementing AI. It's interesting you mentioned OpenAI because one of the people we talked to is leading Product Operations at OpenAI, Blake Samic, who introduced Stripe and Uber. So they believe in Product Operations, and in spite of them thinking about building these wonderful tools for all of us, and people think, oh, they're going to replace Product Managers, or, it's not, it's more of a supplement and an enablement type of tool. I haven't seen a lot to really think, oh, wow, that's absolutely revolutionary yet, doesn't mean that's not the case, but I think in terms of what I'm seeing right now, it's still people thinking about manually creating those baselines and then automating data, not necessarily through AI. Any thoughts on your part, where that might sort of play in with AI? Ula Ojiaku So on the Product Management side, I can see that you can use it as your enthusiastic chief kind of researcher, guide, or someone you're bouncing ideas off to kind of produce a first draft of maybe the vision and all that. From an Operations perspective, you would be the experts here, but I'm thinking again, if it's about the processes, then are there things that are repetitive? You mentioned the comms, you know, as it's coming up, is there a way of pulling together all the information sources and knowing how previous ones were, kind of putting it in a template and a format and pushing it out at regular intervals, but that might need some sort of tooling that could help bring it all together without replacing the humans, if that makes sense. So if there's a tooling for that, from an operational perspective, you're knowing, okay, this is the time you need this sort of data and you pull it all together and you help with producing a first view of what it might mean, but then it helps with the conversation, and when it's time for reporting and all that, you just push it out to the right people. So maybe there's a room to get some sort of tool set that kind of interfaces with, yeah, that's my thoughts. I wasn't prepared for this either, but we're just, you kind of sharing opinions. Denise Tilles I know, it's kind of an exciting blue sky moment, right? And I'm all for automating and replacing tasks that can be done just as well and then moving yourself into more strategic things that can't be done by AI or the tool. Ula Ojiaku Exactly, for now it's more of a good assistant, but I don't think humans are going to be replaced anytime soon, and there will still be that need to review the output. I was on a webinar on a Drucker Forum and Marshall Goldsmith is a well known Executive Coach, and he's developing an AI version of himself, kind of feeding it with all his works, the books, the articles, and all that, so that if you ask it a question, it's likely to respond the way he should. So this thing was asked, okay, who is Marshall Goldsmith married to, and it produced the name of someone else. I think she was like, his marriage would have been jeopardised. So you know, you feed it, but it's still hallucinates. So in addition to your Product Operations book, which I would highly, highly recommend to the listeners, please go get your version. The links to the book would be in our show notes. So what other books would you recommend to people? I know that there aren't that many Product Operations books, but what other books would you say have influenced your practice? Denise Tilles Yeah, definitely Escaping the Build Trap, this almost is a continuance of that because Melissa sort of alludes to Product Operations in there, but you know, here we're really going in deep on that. I listen to more podcasts than read. I probably should be reading more, but I love Teresa Torres's Continuous Discovery Habits, that's a great one. I did that as a book club with a client, but I just listen to a lot of podcasts. So Lenny's, Pivot I love, which is an American one that's more about tech and business in general. My husband is not in product or tech or any software or anything, and he loves it, so it's really appealing to a wide audience. I listen to a lot of comedy and as well and the New York times, and Melissa Perri's podcast as well. So those would be my recommendations. And Lenny has a great newsletter too, there's a free version and a paid, the folks that do the paid say they love it so I'm thinking of investing this year. Ula Ojiaku I like that word investing. And would you have any ask of the audience as we wind down? Denise Tilles Oh, I love that, just find out what Product Operations is, and does that make sense for your organisation? Is it something that you might be interested in as sort of a segue from your current role? You don't see a lot of people having years and years of Product Operations roles, so now is kind of a great time to think about. Do I want to get into this? And folks that I think really succeed in this type of position are typically Product Managers. They've done the job. They have that empathy, but I've seen really great sort of segues from customer support. There's that empathy aspect again, right, because in the end, Product Operations is about sort of being the PM for the PMs, but people that are Data Analysts, so that I think is important to think about, what does it mean to me? Do I understand it first? What does it mean to me? Would that have any impact on my company? And what would that look like? Where are we having challenges now and knowing what I've learned about Product Operations from this podcast or the book or whatever you've learned, could it make a difference? And we have notes in the book about how to make the case to your CEO or Manager and typical objections you might hear and how you might counter them. So we wanted to make it as tactical and realistic as possible, because there's a number of books out there in Product Management that are just sort of high level and theoretical and very idealistic, and I think people feel badly when they can't measure up to it or actually function that way. So we wanted to say, here are the challenges people have had, we're going to give it to you straight, here's where they've had wins, you can learn from that. So the idea was to have case studies with real companies and real artifacts that we've included in the book, people love seeing other companies, artifacts, so case studies, sort of a fictitious through line with a company that we made up, and sort of highlighting the typical challenges we see. And then the base, core content about Product Operations. So it's sort of three layers, and we've been really pleased with the feedback we've gotten that people are like, this was me, did you hear me thinking, how is this, but really wanting to make sure that we were truly being realistic about what you can expect and hopefully the benefits that you'll see too. So the challenges and the opportunities. Ula Ojiaku Sounds awesome, and there might be some listeners or viewers who will be thinking this sounds great, I'm excited, I've already ordered the book, I've read the book, and I think I'll need more help. So how can the audience get in touch with you if they wanted to? Denise Tilles Yeah, you can go to denisetilles.com and we'll have a link for that, you can shoot me a note and I'm happy to sort of hear what you're thinking about, challenges. I get emails a lot and sometimes we'll just have a couple of emails back and forth and that's it, or we'll talk about what it would look like to create more support for you. So I do coaching as well with Product Operations leaders, I'm kind of phasing that out, but occasionally I will take on clients, but it's more about Product Operations, how to stand that up, an assessment of whether it even makes sense to your company, assessment of, we'll look at, do you have people there right now that can actually do the work, but where do you have the opportunities and the challenges, and sometimes I'll speak to companies like, oh, it's all about data, and I'll get in there and talk to them like, well, you've got some challenges here, here and here too. Like, oh, great, and sometimes having just that objective viewpoint really helps sort of shine the light on challenges. Ula Ojiaku This has been fantastic, Denise. So, any final words for the audience? Denise Tilles Yeah, hopefully this discussion has peaked your curiosity, and if you're interested you can get a digital version of the book, or people love printed versions as well. If you're not sure you want to commit to that, do some Googling and see what is out there and how people are leveraging Product Operations today. One area, and comments I get a lot, and questions from people, is well, people are tightening their belts, reducing staff, there was probably a lot of over-hiring in software companies, especially during covid, and I have seen a couple of times where people are like, well Product Operations is a cost centre at the end of the day, and it is, you have to be proving your value all the time, that gets cut first, but it's kind of short sighted, because that's when you need Product Operations even more, if you're really hunkering down and making sure that every dollar or euro, or whatever your currency is, is being leveraged and maximised, that's where Product Operations can actually help. We've made these bets in terms of our product roadmap, let's check in, are we actually executing on them, or are we not? Do we need to pivot? If you're just delivering and delivering, you have no sense of that, so we may get back to the Build Trap or delivering things that aren't necessarily creating value for your customers. So I get excited when I hear stories about companies that have had layoffs unfortunately but they have kept their Product Operations teams and to me that's a smart way of thinking about maximising reduced resources. Ula Ojiaku Well thank you so much for that Denise. Again, it's been a pleasure having you as my guest on this podcast, I've learnt a lot, thank you Denise. Denise Tilles Thanks so much. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management training organization; author of the seminal PM book The Build Trap; and a former Harvard Business School professor of product management. Denise Tilles is the CPO at Grocket, Melissa's colleague at Produx Labs, and a seasoned product leader with over a decade of experience. Together they authored the new book Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale. In today's episode, they share insights, strategies, and real-world experiences to master all things product ops. We discuss:• What exactly product operations is• The three pillars of the product ops role• The biggest benefits of adding product ops to your organization• Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own• How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops• Examples of companies that have implemented product ops well• Who and how to hire for this role—This entire episode is brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian's new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-operations-melissa-perri-and-denise-tilles/#transcript—Where to find Melissa Perri:• X: https://twitter.com/lissijean• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/• Website: https://produxlabs.com/—Where to find Denise Tilles:• X: https://twitter.com/dtilles• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisetilles/• Website: https://www.denisetilles.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) About our guests, Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles(03:46) How common is the product operations role?(07:41) The benefits of having a product ops person in your organization(09:16) How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops(11:44) The three pillars of the product ops role(15:25) How user research fits in(18:35) Why product ops will be an essential role for product managers to thrive(24:24) Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own(28:58) Project management vs. product ops(29:44) The jobs of a product ops person(37:38) Why the product ops role will never become obsolete(39:31) How many product ops people you need(45:13) First steps in building out a product ops team(47:06) What to look for in your first hire(51:11) Key skills needed for a product ops person(57:29) Who product ops should report to(59:50) An example of rolling out product ops at Athena Health(1:09:35) Lightning round—Referenced:• Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale: https://www.productoperations.com/• Produx Labs: https://produxlabs.com• How to create a winning product strategy | Melissa Perri: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-create-a-winning-product-strategy-melissa-perri/• Blake Samic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakesamic/• Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value: https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Build-Trap-Effective-Management/dp/149197379X• Athena Health: https://www.athenahealth.com/• Pendo: https://www.pendo.io/• PopSQL: https://popsql.com/• Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/understanding-the-role-of-product-ops-christine-itwaru-pendo/• Doodle: https://doodle.com/en/• Stephanie Leue on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-leue/• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira• Dovetail: https://dovetail.com/• Looker: https://cloud.google.com/looker/• Brian Bhuta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbhuta/• How to sell your ideas and rise within your company | Casey Winters, Eventbrite: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-sell-your-ideas-and-rise-within-your-company-casey-winters-eventbrite/• Thinking beyond frameworks | Casey Winters (Pinterest, Eventbrite, Airbnb, Tinder, Canva, Reddit, Grubhub): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey-winters-pinterest-eventbrite-airbnb-tinder-canva-reddit-grubhub/• Shared services model: https://www.gartner.com/en/finance/insights/shared-services-model• Shintaro Matsui on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smatsui/• Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/• Jen Cardello on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jencardello/• Tim Davenport on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-davenport-28249b9/• Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral: https://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Genius-Rivalry-Delusion-Billion-Dollar/dp/0593299752• The Art of Action: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Action-10th-Anniversary/dp/1529376963• Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value: https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309• Deutschland89 on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/deutschland-89-a4cf05f7-b4f2-44c7-84a1-4034671944b9• The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81414665• Love Is Blind on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80996601• The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80189221• Dragonboat: https://dragonboat.io/solution/product-operations/• Vistaly: https://www.vistaly.com/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

This episode is a very special bonus one for Season 3. We chat to Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles about their highly anticipated and newly launched Product Ops book! Melissa is the CEO of Produx Labs, a Product Management training organisation, and the author of “Escaping the Build Trap.” Denise has over a decade of product leadership experience and works as an independent product consultant advising and coaching product teams across the world. In this episode, we find out more about: - their Product Ops book - the process of writing the book - the top three product challenges organisations face Listen in for some unique insights from the authors of Product Operations: How Successful Organisations ensure winning strategies and effectively scale. And if YOU would like to be a guest on Season 4 of POP, please get in touch and subscribe at productopspod.com

In this episode of Unlearn Podcast, host Barry O'Reilly and two experienced tech executives, Melissa Perri and Gibson Biddle, meet for a Personal Board of Directors meeting. Melissa Perri is the founder and CEO of Produx Labs, a product management consultancy, and author of Escaping the Build Trap. She is also a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Gibson Biddle is a former Chief Product Officer at Netflix and renowned product leader and speaker. Using the CAMPS Model (community, autonomy, mastery, purpose, scale), they share personal insights on the importance of building relationships, continuous learning, work-life balance, and feedback. Throughout the episode, they provide practical tips and advice for personal and professional growth, including valuable lessons and takeaways for listeners seeking to succeed in their own careers and personal lives. Building a Community People who surround themselves with a strong network of friends, colleagues, and mentors tend to be more successful in their personal and professional lives. Your community can also provide emotional support and accountability, which are important for achieving goals and personal growth. Gibson shares that he has been engaged with the community of product leaders all over the world but feels like he hasn't done enough to mechanize it. He admits that his community score is his lowest. He acknowledges that Lenny Bruchitski is a great role model for building a community. Gibson likes to teach through talks and workshops; he is still very much a one-person company, which limits his leverage in creating a community. [Listen from 6:20] Retiring Gracefully Barry asks Gibson what flexibility would look like for him now that he is retiring. Gibson responds that he has optimized for flexibility by deciding what he chooses to do or not do every week. For him, autonomy and flexibility are almost the same. Talking to people who are presently or soon-to-be retired has also been helpful in providing insights, he tells Barry. His passion for speaking at events and workshops is what keeps him energized, and he plans to continue doing this even in retirement. “I get energy from my talks and workshops. It helps me age gracefully, stay current,” he remarks. “...You have to have a purpose,” Gibson stresses. “Even in retirement, you have to have goals. You have to be learning new stuff.” He explains how he learned to let go of his ego and focus on creating value instead of money. He rates himself on mastery, purpose and scale and shares his rationale for the scores. [Listen from 9:00] Find the complete show notes at BarryO'Reilly.com Resources: Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Website | Product Institute | Produx Labs Gibson Biddle on LinkedIn | Twitter | Website   Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

In this episode, we speak with Melissa Perri, Founder & CEO of Produx Labs, joining us to discuss "The Case for Product Ops at the Executive Level." Melissa is a leading expert in the field of product management and product operations, and she will be sharing her insights on the vital role that product ops plays in driving business success at the highest levels of an organization. Get ready to learn from Melissa as she shares her experiences and knowledge on the importance of product ops at the executive level. Melissa Perri is a product management expert, board advisor, professor, and the author of “Escaping the Build Trap.” As a consultant, she worked with some of the largest companies in the world to transform their product organizations. Through her online schools Product Institute and CPO Accelerator she helped thousands of product managers and leaders level up their skills. In 2019, she was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/product-ops-people/message

In this episode, we speak with Melissa Perri, Founder & CEO of Produx Labs, joining us to discuss "The Case for Product Ops at the Executive Level." Melissa is a leading expert in the field of product management and product operations, and she will be sharing her insights on the vital role that product ops plays in driving business success at the highest levels of an organization. Get ready to learn from Melissa as she shares her experiences and knowledge on the importance of product ops at the executive level. Melissa Perri is a product management expert, board advisor, professor, and the author of “Escaping the Build Trap.” As a consultant, she worked with some of the largest companies in the world to transform their product organizations. Through her online schools Product Institute and CPO Accelerator she helped thousands of product managers and leaders level up their skills. In 2019, she was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/product-ops-people/message

Storytelling is a very underrated skill in product management. In this episode from our Business Storyteller Summit 2020, we speak with Melissa Perri, CEO of Produx Labs, a Product Management consultancy, about how product leaders can use storytelling to get buy-in from their product teams and customers. Melissa believes the key to creating great products is growing great product leaders. Committed to that mission, she created the online school Product Institute, where she has shared her scientific approach to Product Management with over 3,500 students. In 2019, she was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program. As a consultant, Melissa works with executives worldwide to set up their product organizations, advise on product strategy, and grow product leaders into Chief Product Officers. On top of that, Melissa Perri is also the author of “Escaping the Build Trap”. Find out more about Melissa on her website. Stay connected with Melissa on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Author of Escaping the Build Trap Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake96 My guest for Episode #96 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Melissa Perri. She is the author of the book Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value. Melissa does many things, including hosting the podcast Product Thinking with Melissa Perri. She is Founder & CEO of Produx Labs. Melissa created the online school Product Institute, where she has shared her scientific approach to Product Management with over 3500 students. She also started a program called the CPO Accelerator. In 2019, Melissa was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program. Melissa is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, having addressed audiences in over 35 countries. She has a B.S. in Operations Research and Information Engineering from Cornell University. In today's episode, Melissa shares her “favorite mistake” story related to working for a software company, where they produced a big requirements document and then built software that, basically, nobody wanted to use. People SAY they'll use it, but really?? Other topics and questions: How do we know if it's a great startup idea? The Highest Paid Person's Opinion? Risk of creating smaller batches but not being open to experiments not working out *MVP – minimum viable product Delegating the things you're really good at Didn't listen to gut over advice, warring with herself for years “Experiment theatre” What is “The Build Trap”? As a consultant, have to be careful not naming names when presenting on stage or doing podcasts… everyone's on a journey Product management mistakes? Is the problem the product managers or the company? Find Melissa onTwitter LinkedIn --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/favorite-mistake/support

"Last year, before COVID, something happened during one of the all-hands weeks. And it was incredibly awkward." What happens when a co-worker takes an unexpected trip to your hometown... halfway across the country? We talk with product leader, author of "The Build Trap," and founder of Produx Labs, Melissa Perri about this perplexing situation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management consultancy, and the author of “Escaping the Build Trap.” She believes the key to creating great products is growing great product leaders. We talked about: Misunderstanding value Why product management is mostly about leadership The difference between change agents and product managers. Which are you? Her strategic deployment framework how I’m trying to escape the build trap And most importantly, what to do instead of trying to come in, insult everyone, and change the product culture of a company over night. Yeah…exactly what I’m thinking. More about Melissa: The book: Escaping the Build TrapMelissa’s websiteOn Twitter: @lissijeanProduct InstituteCPO Accelerator Get on the email list at helpingsells.substack.com

Mais um episódio bônus! Agora com a Melissa Perri, que é autora do livro Escaping the Build Trap, CEO do Produx Labs, além de dar aula de product management no MBA de Harvard. Falamos rapidamente sobre seu livro, cultura de produto, o papel de agilidade em empresas menos projetizadas e mais produtizadas, depois ela fez uma projeção do que espera para os próximos anos em product management, liderança, diversidade e concluímos com várias recomendações de livros que ela leu recentemente. (As respostas estão em inglês, então você pode reduzir a velocidade do podcast caso prefira. O vídeo da entrevista está disponível no nosso canal do Youtube https://bityli.com/mGnlJ) Dicas da Melissa: https://linktr.ee/produtopelomundo Agradecimento especial para as três Product Managers que enviaram ótimas perguntas pra gente: Bruna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brugome/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brugome/) Heloisa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heloisapiccirilli/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heloisapiccirilli/) Vitoria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitorialakiss/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitorialakiss/) O podcast Produto pelo mundo é uma produção da mnemônica, com apresentação de Guilherme Seabra e edição de Pedro Moleiro. Não deixe de seguir nossa página no LinkedIn para acompanhar outros conteúdos e mandar suas sugestões: https://www.linkedin.com/company/produtopelomundo/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/produtopelomundo/)

Bad managers are the #1 reason people leave companies. I am sure you have heard this before and usually, it's true. If you're a manager, and even if you're not, you are going to want to pay attention to this episode. Tami shares her secrets to developing and maintaining Happy Teams, and what you can do if you are not a manager but still want a Happy Team. Happier teams lead to more successful teams, and therefore spending time on your team is valuable for your company. Building legos to develop your team's vision, team trivia nights, and regular meetings all contribute to collaboration and a better work environment for your team. Enjoy and Subscribe! Continue the conversation by Joining the tabGeeks slack community: no sponsors and no assholery allowed at tabGeeks.com/Slack or on twitter by following me @MrJNowlin and Tami @TamiReiss Learn more about tabGeeks: The IT Support Conference at www.tabgeeks.com/tg20 Our conference is coming up in April with a focus on all the things you need to know in SMB IT. Join us!

Melissa Perri is the author of Escaping the Build Trap and founder of Produx Labs, a product management consulting company that helps organizations transform their processes from top to bottom. This week on the Product Science Podcast, we talk about how product and tech can work together to maximize synergy, how to avoid the traps that lie in wait for growth-stage and enterprise companies, and how Melissa's unique background helped her succeed in product. Read the show notes for this episode to learn more.

Melissa Perri is a Product Management coach and consultant, and founder & CEO of Produx Labs.   She has trained organizations and teams on Product Management best practices and has spoken at more than 30 conferences in 14 different countries.  Melissa is also author of “Escaping the Build Trap” as well as launching her own school, Product Institute, in 2016. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Melissa Perri.  She is the CEO of Produx Labs, a Product Management consultancy, training, and coaching firm. In 2016, she started the Product Institute, which is a 10-week online course, which anyone can take. She also developed and taught the product management section for generalassemb.ly. Over the years, she has spoken at numerous conferences, including Mind the Product, QCon and Lean UX NYC. In 2018, her book “Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value” was published. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.09) – So Melissa, can I ask you to expand on that brief intro and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Melissa starts out by explaining that she works pretty much on a daily basis with the C suite of growth stage companies, mostly CEOs, Chief Product Officers, and CTOs. Her primary role is to help them to work out how to scale their organizations. It is a very fast paced environment, with new people are joining them every day. So, they need to standardize their procedures as much as possible. Melissa’s company, Produx Labs, also has a partnership with Insight Partners, a venture capitalist company. The rest of the time Melissa works with larger organizations helping them to transform the way they work. Her company works with the executive management team then moves on to training their product managers. This gives her the chance to get involved in solving interesting problems at all levels. (2.37) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Melissa’s advice is to always go somewhere you can find someone to teach you. Joining Google as an intern is much better than taking on the role of product manager at a startup. If you work for a well-established firm, they will be in a position to take you under their wing and teach you. (3.23) – So, do you have any specific advice for anybody who may be looking to get into product management? Getting into the field is still tricky. Right now, there is no clear path. If you have been working with an organization for a while you will likely be offered the role. Or a startup will be desperate to fill the position, so will hire you even if you have relatively little experience. Until now, that has been the fastest way into that particular role. Moving forwards, Melissa and a number of her colleagues, are trying to change that situation. They are working on setting up an apprenticeship path or associate pm model. But, right now, her recommendation is to find and follow one of the great product leaders. Choose someone you really admire, reach out to them and learn from them. The other route is to work in an adjacent field, for example, user research or UX. Once you are established, make it known that you want to learn more about the product side of things and take it from there. (4.35) - In terms of the evolution that's going on around product delivery, is the area of product management growing as well? Yes, it is probably one of the most in-demand jobs there is, at the moment. Yet, it is still hard to figure out how to break into this very well paid field of technology. (5.20) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. A few years ago, Melissa became the product manager for a marketing platform. She had some experience and had just started to teach others about the field. So, she was pretty confident she knew the right way of doing things. Unfortunately, her CEO did not see things her way. Like most founders, the CEO wanted things done their way. At the time, Melissa did not really have the skills to explain things in a way that would enable her to “bring them along on the journey”. She just butted heads with everyone and got upset when nobody appeared to be listening to the customers. It was a pretty awful experience. But, after 6 months she started to learn how to change her approach. Today, she always tries to see things from the other person’s perspective and adjust her approach accordingly. These days, she works hard to take people with her rather than try to push them down a certain path. She sells to them instead of using brute force. (7.49) – What was your best career moment? For Melissa that was when she had an epiphany moment, fairly early in her career. At the time she was working in a traditional work environment. The CEO would come up with an idea and ask the development team to build it, which, naturally is exactly what they would do. Nobody would stop and ask if that is really what the customer wanted. At the time, Melissa was learning about how to experiment with users as a way to better understand what they really wanted. The firm she was working for agreed to try some of these experiments. It proved to be a very good move indeed. For the first time, the CEO and the rest of the team had hard data that proved what the end customer wanted and what they did not. The CEO recognized the true value of doing things this way. Even though it meant his decisions were being questioned and challenged. It was these experiments that set Melissa on the successful product management career path she is now following. She was also able to position herself as a leader within the organization. Having access to the data made it much easier to have a frank and open discussion and make the right decisions. Often, the data made the argument for Melissa. (10.53) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that the technology sector is becoming more dynamic is something Melissa welcomes and finds exciting. New roles are emerging. The creation of UX and UI managers, data analysts and engineers is making a huge difference to how effective developers and product managers can be. These changes are also enabling more people to get involved in the technology field. (11.50) – Are there any particular technologies that interest you or any particular direction that technology is going in? Melissa is particularly interested in the way ethics are starting to play a role in how products are developed. In the past, everyone’s time and energy went into solving the technical problems with very little consideration being given to the social ramifications of what they were doing. That is starting to change. (12.59) – What drew you to a career in IT? Melissa remembers her dad bringing home a magazine with Bill Gates on the front. It was then that her dad first encouraged her to become a computer programmer. She was very young, but it struck a cord. Her uncle worked for Microsoft and she knew she enjoyed playing with computers, so she was actually quite keen to follow her father’s advice. Melissa ended up studying to become an engineer. A lot of her friend’s got involved in the investment banking and financial side. But, she was always fascinated by the technical side of things and wanted to build the products rather than use them. (14.34) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? When she graduated from college she sat in front of a panel and was asked what phase of her career she was on. Was she ready to learn or earn? The panel pointed out that she still did not know that much, so suggested that she might be better off taking positions that would help her to build up her knowledge quickly, at least at that stage of her career. It was very good advice. Even today she makes sure that she is learning continuously. She pushes herself to go in directions that push here to try and learn new things. (15.45) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Melissa left college and immediately started working for a major bank in a developer role. It was a very slow paced environment, so she learned very little. She did not have a mentor either. If she were to start her career again she would not dismiss the idea of getting a job where she could have a mentor, or maybe working for a startup. A role that would have pushed her and provided her with an outlet for the energy and enthusiasm every new developer has. (17.16) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Melissa is trying to learn more about domains she is not yet familiar with. For example, last year, she got involved in learning about pricing and packaging. She is also trying to get a seat on a company board. (18.14) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Executive presence is Melissa’s number on non-technical skill. If you want to get into leadership you need to work on your executive presence from day one. You need to be a good presenter and sway people with your ideas and data. It is very important to adapt your style to suit your audience, so you can reach them. (19.37) – Phil asks Melissa to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Once again, Melissa echoes her early advice, which is to go somewhere you can learn. BEST MOMENTS: (2.51) MELISSA – "Always go somewhere where you can learn from somebody who is already there." (4.38) MELISSA – "Product management is a growing field. It’s also one of the highest paid fields in the technology industry." (7.19) MELISSA – “Always try to approach it from the perspective of the other person." (14.52) MELISSA – "Are you ready to earn? Or are you ready to learn? Which phase of your career are you on? " (18.37) MELISSA – "If you want to get into leadership, the thing that you really need to hone and work on, from day one, is executive presence." CONTACT MELISSA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/lissijean LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/ Website: https://melissaperri.com/

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Products Labs and Author of Escaping the Build Trap: How effective product management creates value. She believes that as companies scale, they lose track of what makes them successful and they just “ship.” Companies forget to bring products back to the overall strategy and talk with their customers. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Melissa about getting out of the build trap and having a customer-centric culture.  Companies in the Build Trap - Software startup - Growing and trying to exit. Look for product managers early. Can get out of build trap.  - Enterprises - Haven’t scaled through software. Brings in others to be product managers. A new discipline. Struggles with build trap.  As companies scale, they are close to the customer. As they execute, they forget to talk to the customer. Athena Health developed a portal for user research with its customers.  Escaping the Build Trap Takeaways - Explains how to think about Product Management - Step-by-Step processes - Helps people understand what Product Management is and how to set it up.  - Helps managers implement a system. Product Trends - More people understand discipline - Silicon Valley thought - You own software, streamline, talk to customers, and turn ideas into business models - Agile school of thought - Product owner vs. product managers - Similar roles Product Manager Role - Has authority on how to build, and sometimes on what to build. - Teaches product managers to question why. Can the team build it in a better way? Push back. Show why it should be different. For More Information: For more information on product management or to connect with Melissa, see http://www.produxlabs.com, https://melissaperri.com or on https://twitter.com/lissijean. You can find her book, Escaping the Build Trap on Amazon. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 119 – Voltage Control’s Douglas Ferguson on Inside Innovation, Ep. 99 – Ryan Jacoby with Machine & Author of Making Progress, and Ep. 90 – Teresa Torres with Product Talk. Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs and Author of Escaping the Build Trap: How effective product management creates value. She believes that as companies scale, they lose track of what makes them successful and they just “ship.” Companies forget to bring products back to the overall strategy and talk with their customers. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Melissa about getting out of the build trap and having a customer-centric culture.  Companies in the Build Trap - Software startup - Growing and trying to exit. Look for product managers early. Can get out of build trap.  - Enterprises - Haven’t scaled through software. Brings in others to be product managers. A new discipline. Struggles with build trap.  As companies scale, they are close to the customer. As they execute, they forget to talk to the customer. Athena Health developed a portal for user research with its customers.  Escaping the Build Trap Takeaways - Explains how to think about Product Management - Step-by-Step processes - Helps people understand what Product Management is and how to set it up.  - Helps managers implement a system. Product Trends - More people understand discipline - Silicon Valley thought - You own software, streamline, talk to customers, and turn ideas into business models - Agile school of thought - Product owner vs. product managers - Similar roles Product Manager Role - Has authority on how to build, and sometimes on what to build. - Teaches product managers to question why. Can the team build it in a better way? Push back. Show why it should be different. For More Information: For more information on product management or to connect with Melissa, see http://www.produxlabs.com, https://melissaperri.com or on https://twitter.com/lissijean. You can find her book, Escaping the Build Trap on Amazon. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 119 – Voltage Control’s Douglas Ferguson on Inside Innovation, Ep. 99 – Ryan Jacoby with Machine & Author of Making Progress, and Ep. 90 – Teresa Torres with Product Talk. Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Tommi Forström is the CPO-in-residence of Produx Labs. This week on the Product Science Podcast, we talk about how product leadership can make a difference in organizations big and small. What can business leaders do to make a large organization feel small? We look at lessons that Tommi has learned along the way, and what they can mean for you. Read the show notes for this episode to learn more.

It’s episode two of Product to Product‘s second season, a podcast for / by product people! This season we continue to explore the human side of product. Up next to share her real-world, practical stories of navigating the human-related aspects of the product space is Melissa Perri, CEO and founder of Product Institute and Produx Labs. As a product consultant and founder of a product school, Melissa has trained over 2,000 PMs across her career. And her mission has always been clear-cut: teach people how to effectively think like a product manager. Seeing as product thinking is a unique skill in itself, our CEO, Latif Nanji, sits down with Melissa to investigate what it means to think (and not think) like a PM, what fuels product thinking and how aspiring / existing PMs can learn this abstract skillset. You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs and the creator of the online product management school ProductInstitute.com. Her mission is to help make Product Managers and their organizations awesome. She talked to us today about how she manages both the CEO relationship and her relationships with the rest of the team to create clear communication across all disciplines, an essential skill for product managers. She also shares lessons she’s learned as a PM consultant from working with companies large and small.  There are common mistakes and pitfalls that we would all like to avoid and Melissa shares a few of them with us today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Success Factors, I speak with 4 product makers – Jeff Gothelf, the Co-founder of Neo Innovation, Melissa Perri who is the CEO of Produx Labs, Paul Yokota, Director of PM at Animoto and Sarah Doody, a user experience designer & consultant. They share their success secrets and about leading with curiosity. […]The post DYT 100 : Leading with Curiosity & other Success Secrets | Medley appeared first on .

In this Focus Forty episode, I speak with Melissa Perri, the CEO of Produx Labs and Product Institute, to talk about success metrics, goals, mistakes Agile / Scrum teams make and the future of products and product management. Who is Melissa Perri? Melissa Perri is the founder and CEO of Produx Labs and Product Institute. […]The post DYT 070 : Success Metrics, Goals & Future of Products | Melissa Perri appeared first on .

In this Focus Forty episode, I speak with Melissa Perri, the CEO of Produx Labs and Product Institute, to talk about her success and the Product Mindset. She talks about the Experimental Mindset and much more. Who is Melissa Perri? Melissa Perri is the founder and CEO of Produx Labs and Product Institute. Melissa coaches […]The post DYT 069 : The Experimental Mindset & Product Management | Melissa Perri appeared first on .

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this podcast, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to Melissa Perri, a UX and Product Management expert and founder of Produx Labs. Why listen to this podcast: - Put value first – it’s not about building more stuff but making sure we build the right thing for the right people - Product ownership is about optimising value for the organisation - Managers need to understand their role in product management - Identify outcomes and define pirate metrics for success - Empower teams to achieve the outcomes, not deliver features Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/melissa-perri 3m:45s Management should communicate the metrics and goals to the product owner and let them work with the delivery team(s) to figure out how to achieve them 4m:20s Product owners told to make decisions but not actually empowered to do so 4m:35s Focus on training the managers on what they need to do to effectively support product ownership and how to communicate clear boundaries and goals 5m:20s A product strategy is not a plan 5m:55s Common approach is for managers to define the features and roadmap instead of identifying and communicating the goals, and trust the teams to figure out the best way to achieve the goals Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/melissa-perri You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. http://bit.ly/2cMnjfW

Melissa Perri is passionate about creating products that users will really love and also creating great teams with sustainable processes and a clear understanding of the end user. Melissa wants to go "Beyond 'Pretty'" in her AATC2016 conference talk, where she aims to change how people think about UX design. People tend to think that design is "very nebulous and fluffy, it's just making things pretty, but it's actually a very systematic and scientific approach to getting people to use your products." Sometimes that means taking a step back and using a holistic approach to addressing user needs and concerns that can't easily be fixed piecemeal. Melissa Perri is a product manager, UX designer and speaker based in New York City. As CEO of ProdUX Labs, Melissa works on strategy and training for product management and UX teams around the world.  SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse hosts. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series engages with industry thought leaders at Agile events across the country to bring valuable content to subscribers anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe at YouTube, iTunes or SolutionsIQ.com. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook