Podcast appearances and mentions of Teresa Torres

Welcome to the podcast featuring Hope Gurion, an esteemed product leadership coach. She is recommended by Marty Cagan in his book, Transformed, has moderated product leadership councils with Phyl Terry's Collaborative Gain, and works with Teresa Torres in training teams on Continuous Discovery Habits. In this episode, Hope delves into her extensive background in product management, sharing insights from over 25 years in the tech industry, her roles as Chief Product Officer, and SVP of Product. She discusses her transition from consulting to coaching, offering valuable guidance on becoming outcome-oriented and enhancing team effectiveness. Hope covers the challenges of finding the right company fit, the nuances between training and coaching, and key strategies for cross-functional collaboration. Tune in for actionable advice on elevating your product management career.00:00 Introduction and Welcome00:39 Hope Gurion's Background01:54 Transition to Coaching03:37 Challenges in Product Leadership04:55 Coaching and Training Approach07:25 Importance of Discovery in Product Management09:47 Balancing Training and Coaching15:57 Selecting the Right Coach18:51 Defining Success in Product Leadership21:33 Peer-Based Coaching vs. One-on-One Coaching28:23 Transformation in Organizations39:57 Podcast Origin Story and Conclusion

In this episode, we got some straight talk from Teresa Torres, learning how she incorporates her masters in Learning & Development from Northwestern into her design of product learning experiences. Teresa shares invaluable insights about when blogs and podcasts might be enough for your growth—and when training courses may really be what's needed to take you to the next level. Do you know if you have blind spots? Or are you navigating some unique and tricky contexts where a coach can help? This far-ranging episode explores all these concepts with the founder of Product Talk and author of 'Continuous Discovery Habits'. Teresa discusses the fundamental differences between coaching and training and highlights the importance of deliberate practice in skill development. She offers practical advice on advocating for discovery practices within organizations and provides tips for product leaders to enhance their teams' capabilities. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of product development and improve their practice through structured learning.00:00 Introduction to Skill Building and Coaching00:35 Sponsored Segment: SuperInterviews01:26 Welcome01:32 Guest Introduction: Teresa Torres02:36 The Journey from Coaching to Training05:06 Understanding the Difference Between Coaching and Training09:57 The Role of Deliberate Practice in Skill Building14:54 The Importance of Community and Peer Coaching21:57 Understanding Business Outcomes22:23 The Challenge of Opportunity Solution Trees23:22 Effective Discovery Practices24:57 Choosing the Right Trainer or Coach27:29 Reflective Questions for Product Teams32:50 Advocating for Discovery in Organizations36:42 The Role of Product Leadership Coaching40:31 Aligning Sales and Product Teams45:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

-

What separates successful products from those that flop? In this insightful episode, Evie Brockwell and Michael Palmer sit down with Teresa Torres, a leading expert in product discovery, to uncover the secrets behind building products that truly resonate.They dive into:

Als Product Owner ist es essenziell, sich kontinuierlich weiterzuentwickeln und die richtigen Werkzeuge für die tägliche Arbeit zu nutzen. In der neuesten Episode der Produktwerker geht es genau darum: Welche Methoden für Product Owner sind wirklich relevant? Eine der wichtigsten Grundlagen ist die Produktvision. Hier hilft das Product Vision Canvas bzw. das Product Vision Board (von Roman Pichler), um ein gemeinsames Verständnis im Team und mit Stakeholdern zu schaffen. Ob mit dem Framework von Roman Pichler oder dem Positioning Statement von Geoffrey Moore – entscheidend ist, dass die Produktvision klar und lebendig bleibt. Eng verknüpft mit der Produktvision ist das Thema Roadmapping. Klassische, feature-getriebene Roadmaps sind längst überholt. Stattdessen setzen erfahrene Product Owner auf Outcome-orientierte Roadmaps, etwa in Form der Now-Next-Later-Roadmap. Dabei geht es nicht darum, starre Zeitpläne einzuhalten, sondern den Fokus auf die gewünschten Wirkungen zu legen. Für eine sinnvolle Planung ist außerdem Story Mapping unverzichtbar. Diese Methode hilft, eine holistische Sicht auf das Produkt zu behalten, Features sinnvoll zu priorisieren und das Team in die richtige Richtung zu steuern. Jeff Patton hat mit dem User Story Mapping eine Praxis entwickelt, die das Verständnis für Wirkungsschnitte und Priorisierung stärkt. Ein weiteres wertvolles Tool im Werkzeugkasten eines Product Owners ist der Opportunity Solution Tree (OST), bekannt aus Teresa Torres' Buch Continuous Discovery Habits. Der OST ermöglicht es, Business-Ziele mit Kundenbedürfnissen zu verknüpfen und den besten Weg zur Lösung abzuleiten. Etwas älter, aber genauso wirksam ist das Impact Mapping von Gojko Adzic – ein strukturierter Ansatz, um zu visualisieren, welche Akteure ihr Verhalten ändern müssen, damit das Produkt erfolgreich wird. In der täglichen Arbeit von Product Ownern spielen Annahmen eine große Rolle. Doch oft sind diese weder hinterfragt noch belegt. Hier kommt das Assumption Mapping ins Spiel. Mit dieser Methode von David J. Bland lassen sich Annahmen systematisch priorisieren und durch gezielte Experimente validieren. Auch das Arbeiten mit User-Feedback gehört zu den essenziellen Methoden für Product Owner. Hier hilft der Interview-Snapshot aus Teresa Torres' Discovery-Ansatz, um strukturierte Erkenntnisse aus Nutzerinterviews zu ziehen. In Kombination mit dem Value Proposition Canvas von Alexander Osterwalder lassen sich die relevanten Pain Points und Gains der Nutzer noch klarer herausarbeiten. Natürlich darf auch das Thema User Stories nicht fehlen. Diese Technik ermöglicht eine nutzerzentrierte Formulierung von Anforderungen. Doch User Stories sind nur so gut wie ihre Akzeptanzkriterien und die Fähigkeit, sie sinnvoll zu schneiden. Deshalb ist es entscheidend, nicht nur das Schreiben, sondern auch das Splitting von User Stories zu beherrschen. Ein weiterer Bereich, der oft unterschätzt wird, ist das Stakeholder-Management. Ohne eine gezielte Strategie kann die Vielzahl an Stakeholdern schnell zur Herausforderung werden. Das Power-Interest-Grid hilft dabei, die richtigen Prioritäten zu setzen und Stakeholder effektiv einzubinden. Daneben sehen wir noch eine elfte Methode, quasi als "Bonus-Thema", das in den letzten Jahren immer wichtiger wird: AI-Prompting. Die Fähigkeit, mit Tools wie ChatGPT oder Perplexity effizient zu arbeiten, kann für Product Owner einen enormen Vorteil bringen – sei es für die Generierung von Ideen, die Analyse von Feedback oder die Strukturierung von Informationen. AI wird zunehmend zum Wingman für Product Owner und sollte daher als fester Bestandteil des Methodensets verstanden werden. Diese zehn Methoden für Product Owner sind nicht nur theoretische Konzepte, sondern praxisbewährte Werkzeuge, die den Alltag eines POs erleichtern und das Produktmanagement auf ein neues Level heben. Welche dieser Methoden setzt du bereits ein? Und welche fehlt deiner Meinung nach in dieser Liste?

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc and Ben sat down with Teresa Torres, author of Continuous Discovery Habits, to explore the role of AI in modern product discovery. Teresa shared why customer empathy remains irreplaceable, the common pitfalls teams face when misusing AI in research, and practical strategies for integrating AI effectively—without losing sight of the human touch.She also offered her insights on how AI can empower product teams to build skills, enhance customer interviews, and streamline discovery workflows, all while staying firmly rooted in authentic customer understanding. If you're passionate about truly knowing your customers and using AI as a tool—not a crutch—this episode is brimming with valuable takeaways!All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox

Rolando Sánchez, director de YAO y el maestro Willi Vergara de Radio nacional y los 100 años de la matrona Teresa Torres pilar importante de la comunidad taganguera.La más reciente producción del grupo YAO le rinde un especial homenaje con su tema – que adicionalmente le da nombre al álbum- Sierra fresca. Y lo celebran con ella en Taganga.

Today's episode is particularly special.A 2-hour masterclass on discovery that every designer, product manager, founder, and product leader should hearWith bestselling authors Teresa Torres (Product Discovery Habits) and Petra Wille (Strong Product People) - two of my biggest references.My god, this was fun...!Is it the first long-format episode on discovery with 2 industry legends? Possibly...Will there be advanced lessons, golden practical nuggets, and plenty of spicy takes?Oh yes...The only thing I can say is: you're in for a treat :)Petra, Teresa, and I covered:* How to get support from your leadership to do great discovery* Main mistakes to avoid when doing discovery and what to do instead* How to frame business and product outcomes* How to set great strategic context and close the loop between discovery and strategy* Why user research is not the same as product discovery* The danger with the double diamond* How to translate discovery into a story CEOs want to hear* Beyond discovering products: business modeling* How to use KPI trees* Deep dive into Opportunity Solution Trees and main pitfalls* And so so much more_Show notes* Teresa's book: Continuous Discovery Habits* Teresa's blog and website* Teresa's LinkedIn profile* Petra's LinkedIn profile* Petra's website* Petra's books* Strong Product People* Strong Product Communities* Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy, Bad Strategy – mentioned by Teresa in the context of defining strategy and diagnosing market conditions.* Seven Powers, the foundation of Business strategy* Petra's article on KPI trees* Clayton Christensen's Deliberate vs. Emergent Strategy* Bob Moesta's Jobs to Be Done and interview methods* Gino Wickman's book Traction* Rich Mironov's blog Product Bytes* Carlo Mahfouz episode and website* Moment Prisons article, recommended to me by John Cutler a while back_

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc and Ben sat down with Alex Hanthorn (Drift, TripleByte, Nielsen) to explore the evolving world of user research. From scrappy research methods in early-stage startups to the more formalized processes at large tech companies, we delve into the challenges and opportunities of understanding user motivations. Alex shares insights from his experiences, including his time working with companies from Taco Bell, and discusses the art of balancing intuition with data. This episode is packed with actionable advice for founders, product managers, and anyone looking to improve their approach to user research.All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox

Bosky Mukherjee interviews Teresa Torres, author of “Continuous Discovery Habits.” They dive into the benefits of growing outside of a leadership role, why collaboration is queen and the benefits of building faster feedback loops.

Pooja Gupta: From Confusion to Clarity, Aligning Agile Team Efforts with Business Goals Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Pooja defines success for Scrum Masters through the lens of business outcomes. She stresses the importance of having clarity on business goals and helping teams align their work with these goals. Drawing from her experiences, Pooja discusses how the absence of a clear direction often leads to confusion and lack of focus. She also shares practical tips, including the importance of continuous discovery and refinement processes, and points to valuable resources like the Shape-Up methodology (also available in print from Basecamp) and Teresa Torres' work on continuous discovery.  Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Team-Designed Retrospective In this episode, Pooja shares her experiment of letting the team take over the facilitation of their retrospectives, leading to deeper engagement and ownership of the process. She reflects on the benefits of rotating the facilitator role and how this approach can foster a more invested and self-sufficient team. Pooja also shares resources like Chris Stone's work and the book "Retrospective Anti-patterns" - by Aino Corry, a previous guest on the podcast -  to help teams enhance their retrospective practices. How can empowering your team in retrospectives lead to better outcomes? Listen in to find out!   [IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he's learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!  About Pooja Gupta Pooja is an Agile Coach at Visma Solutions and Agile Community Lead for Visma Group. With a passion for "limitless learning" and "selfless teaching," she brings empathy and a people-centric approach to her work and everyday life. Based in Helsinki for 9 years, she finds balance through yoga, meditation, and family life. You can link with Pooja Gupta on LinkedIn.

NotiMundo Estelar - María Teresa Torres, Consejo De La Judicatura Anula Parcialmente El Concurso.. by FM Mundo 98.1

We reviewed all the 20 episodes from Season 5, and shared some much needed look back and key highlights. While the learnings are an abundant treasure trove, we handpicked a few and categorized them into 4 sections:  Dystopian aspects of current socio-technological trends with Sangeet Paul Choudary, James Currier, John Robb  and Jeremiah Owyang Visions that resist the dominance of powerful technological forces with Alex Komoroske, Kelly Sarabyn and Scott Brinker, Jesse Walden , Jason Fried and Arvind Gupta Doctrine and organizing for a multiplicity of teams and products with Craig Strong, Teresa Torres, Charles Betz, Susanne Kaiser and Cliff Berg Visionary perspectives that think beyond the rules and push boundaries with Yolanda Martin, João Rosa and Trond Hjorteland, Indy Johar, Milica Begovic and Giulio Quaggiotto, Mark Lambertz and Amber Case   This wrap-up is a quick look back into what happened all season, and will give you a peek what to expect for the next one. We hope that these episodes have brought you value in re-imagining ecosystems as you know it, and trust that you will continue to support us in the seasons to come.   Topics /chapters (00:00) Season 5 Wrap-Up - Intro (00:43) Dystopian aspects of current socio-technological trends (05:11) Visions that resist the dominance of powerful technological forces (10:52) Doctrine and organizing for a multiplicity of teams and products (15:41) Visionary perspectives that think beyond the rules and push boundaries (22:50) What's Next: Embrace a Boundaryless Future   Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/season5-wrap-up/   Get in touch with Boundaryless: Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_ Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo   Music Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music #Podcast #WrapUp #Platform #Ecosystem

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!   

Welcome to Growthmates — the place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Amplitude, Canva, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Subscribe to get all episodes right to your inbox on katesyuma.substack.com.Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).This time I had a chat with 2 fantastic leaders from SurveyMonkey — Brad, currently Director of Product, and Erica, who was a VP of Design and Research and recently started a new role at Intuit. Both Erica and Brad spent more than 7 years in the company, and we explored the evolution of Growth at SurveyMonkey over these years, and discussed significant chapters in the company's growth journey, including their legendary transition to a product-led growth model.My favorite part of the conversation was when Brad and Erica shared their expectations of ideal partnerships with each other, and how to build and maintain that partnership at a huge scale over the years.If you find this show valuable, please share it with one of your colleagues or friends — it gives huge support to continue creating it. To receive all episodes right in your inbox — subscribe to katesyuma.substack.com This episode is supported by Appcues — the platform that helps you design, deploy, and test captivating onboarding experiences.Appcues created the Product Adoption Academy to help you level up your product adoption for free. Check out the template that I created to help companies uncover meaningful improvements. Find an example of Dropbox Onboarding inside and apply it to review any growth flows: appcues.com/growthmatesKey highlights from this episode:* Optimization of Key Touchpoints: SurveyMonkey's significant growth was driven by the optimization of survey end pages and the homepage, which were critical in enhancing user engagement and conversion rates.* Product-Led Growth Transition: The company successfully transitioned to a product-led growth model, focusing on refining trial experiences, optimizing pricing structures, and improving conversion flows to better meet user needs and drive growth. Brad shared the evolution of Growth at SurveyMonkey since the time he joined and learned from . * Integral Role of Design and Research: Design and research functions were crucial in providing insights that drove the company's strategic decisions, fueling innovation and idea generation essential for growth.* Collaboration Between Product and Design Teams: Erica and Brad openly shared expectations towards each other on the episode — listen to this part! * Cultural Emphasis on Collaboration: we discussed the importance of incorporating collaborative practices like design rituals, which include peer critiques and shared design systems, to maintain alignment and visibility across teams.Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).Follow Growthmates updates on:* Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery): https://katesyuma.substack.com/podcast* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates_/Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/* Newsletter: katesyuma.substack.com* X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syumaWhere to find our guests:* Bradley Belford, Director of Product at SurveyMonkey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-belford/* Erica Weiss Tjader, ex-SurveyMonkey VP of Research and Design: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericatjader/What we've covered in this episode:[02:14] Welcoming Erica & Brad[06:02] SurveyMonkey Growth Chapters and Pivotal Moments[08:11] Transition to Product-Led Growth[10:15] Every Team as a Growth Team[17:19] Role of Design and Research in Strategic Moments[28:59] Product and Design Collaboration at Scale[37:10] Aligning User and Business Outcomes[43:41] Fostering Relationships Between Product and Design Functions[47:36] Balancing Deadlines and Iteration in Growth Initiatives[50:18] The Importance of Collaboration and Design Rituals[51:28] Resources and Key TakeawaysResources Referenced:* "Inspired: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Tech-Products-Customers/dp/1119387507 * "Continuous Discovery Habits" by Teresa Torres: https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309* "Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products" by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.com/Empowered-Ordinary-Extraordinary-Products-Silicon/dp/111969129X* UX Collective Community: — a platform for product designers and UX practitioners to share insights, articles, and resources (I also published 2 articles on their Medium).If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to share it with your colleagues and like-minded friends. For sponsorship and other inquiries reach out to ekaterinasyuma@gmail.com.Subscribe to get more episodes right in your inbox: katesyuma.substack.comThanks for reading Kate's Syuma Newsletter & Growthmates! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit katesyuma.substack.com

Teresa Torres, author of Continuous Discovery Habits, joins to share lessons from her popular and acclaimed book. We talk about the benefits of constantly talking to customers, why it can be worth seeking delight rather than strictly building products in terms of problems, how to avoid choosing perverse outcomes and metrics, and how to get the truth from customers – despite their aspirational overconfidence. ProductTalk.org Teresa on LinkedIn Have feedback for the show? Send us an email or reach out on Twitter. It Shipped That Way is brought to you by Steamclock Software.

Hope Gurion is a seasoned product coach and one of Marty Cagan's recommendations from his new book, "Transformed". Hope also works closely with Teresa Torres, teaching continuous discovery, as well as working directly with incoming product leaders to help them make an impact in their organisations. We spoke all about knowing your customers, gathering evidence, and whether continuous discovery is really a threat to user researchers. Episode highlights:   1. Product coaching is more than just being there to ask good questions When working with incoming product leaders, potentially without a product background at all, it's important to have a coach who has product experience who can help you identify your weaknesses, assess the state of play and provide actionable advice. Ultimately, it's important to empower the coachee. 2. It's really hard to make decisions if you have no idea who your customers are It's important to define who your target customer is and what are their key attributes. This could be demographics, firmographics or whatever characteristics you need to know who you most need to learn from to calibrate your decisions as a product team. But, too many product teams end up resorting to proxies in other functions who "know the customers". 3. Many leaders are overconfident, but evidence is everything Some people are just naturally confident about everything and can react badly if their ideas are challenged. But, as product people, we absolutely need to look beyond innate confidence and work out what informed the perspective. Which customers are we basing it on? Can I speak to some of those customers? It's not about trashing people's ideas but moving forward with confidence. 4. It's important to get comfortable with making bets and understanding the difference between one-way and two-way-door decisions Sometimes teams get stuck into cycles of trying to do "perfect research", possibly because they're afraid that they're only going to get one shot at it. This means that they end up not making any moves at all, and everyone ends up getting frustrated at the amount of time product teams take to do anything. 5. Continuous discovery is about removing as many blind spots as possible and probably isn't responsible for mass user research lay-offs All teams have an imperfect understanding of their product, the pain points associated with their product and their customers. Continuous discovery helps address this by removing blind spots but doesn't aim for perfection - simply evidence about how to make your next move. Is it contributing to user researcher lay-offs? It feels difficult to argue this when it feels like the majority of companies don't do any user research in the first place. User researchers and continuous discovery can co-exist. Contact Hope You can catch up with Hope at Fearless Product or follow her on LinkedIn. Related episodes you should like: Data-Informed Decision Making and the Three Cs of Product Management (Roger Snyder, VP of Products & Services @ 280 Group) Adventures in Product Management (Dan Olsen, Author "The Lean Product Playbook") Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres, Author "Continuous Discovery Habits") Build High Growth Products by Following the Product Science Success Path (Holly Hester-Reilly, Founder @ H2R Product Science) Selling Product Thinking by Influencing Companies at the Right Time (Anthony Marter, Product Coach) Putting Customers at the Heart of your Product Decisions (Hubert Palan, Founder @ Productboard) Servitising Product Management & Setting Up Product Teams For Success (Jas Shah, Product Consultant) Build What Matters with Vision-Led Product Management (Rajesh Nerlikar, Author "Build What Matters")

BONUS: The Agile-Product Continuum: Phillip Starke's Blueprint for Coaching Excellence This episode was triggered by Phillip Starke's blog post titled “Why agile coaches should strive to be product coaches”. You can read that blog post here, and listen in this episode to Phillip's perspective and why he reached those conclusions.  Agile to Product Coaching Transformation "Agile Coaches are already product coaches in essence, they just need to realize and embrace it fully." Phillip reflects on why agile coaches should also consider themselves product coaches. He argues for a unified approach to coaching that encompasses both agile and product development principles. A Pivot Towards Product-Centric Coaching "I had a turning point when I realized, despite our success, how much more impactful we could have been with a stronger focus on user interaction and discovery." Phillip shares his experience transitioning from an agile-focused to a product-centric coaching approach, highlighting a project where greater emphasis on user discovery would have led to even more significant outcomes. Enhancing Product Development Through User Engagement "Talking to users directly is eye-opening. Watching real users interact with your product not only breaks down assumptions but also greatly motivates the team." Phillip delves into the core of his coaching philosophy, which centers on the importance of direct user engagement for insightful product development, emphasizing how real user interactions can dramatically inform and motivate the development process. The Hurdles to Product Coaching Evolution "The leap to product coaching is often hindered by a lack of experience and a narrow focus on feature delivery within organizations." In this segment, Phillip discusses the barriers that prevent agile coaches from evolving into product coaches, including a lack of holistic product development experience and organizational tendencies to prioritize feature delivery over comprehensive product strategies. Missing Links: Skills and Practices for Agile Coaches "Getting close to your users is key. Regular interactions and adopting a mindset of continuous discovery can significantly shift how we approach product development." Phillip outlines the skills and practices that agile coaches often lack, emphasizing the importance of user interaction and a continuous discovery mindset for effective product coaching. In this segment, we refer to the book Continuous Discovery by Teresa Torres.   Marty Cagan's Principles for Success: A Closer Look "Successful teams address risks early, build collaboratively, and focus on solving problems, not just adding features." Phillip highlights the principles for successful teams as outlined by Marty Cagan, stressing the alignment between these principles and the goals of both agile and product coaching. Deeper Insights and Common Oversights "A common pitfall is designing first without involving engineering early on. To truly focus on problems, we need to run experiments and learn from them as early as possible." In this segment, we discuss some common oversights in agile coaching, particularly the separation of design and engineering, and Phillip advocates for early experimentation to address problems efficiently. Actionable Steps Towards Becoming a Product Coach "Start small but think big. Engage with users regularly, increase deployment frequency, and aim for outcomes over outputs to begin transforming into a true product coach." Phillip offers practical, actionable steps for agile coaches to start their transition towards becoming product coaches, focusing on user engagement and outcome-oriented development.   Future of Agile Coaching: Evolution and Challenges "Agile coaches must broaden their focus from delivery to a holistic product development approach, embracing continuous learning and adaptation." What is the future of Agile coaching? Phillip discusses the future evolution of agile coaching, emphasizing the need for coaches to adopt a broader perspective that includes all aspects of product development. Imagining the Ultimate Product Development Process "Imagine a world where product development is driven by continuous experimentation, where collaboration is seamless, and decisions are quickly validated through user feedback." Phillip envisions an ideal product development process characterized by continuous experimentation, seamless collaboration, and rapid validation, encouraging listeners to adopt these practices to enhance their development efforts. In this segment, we refer to the BONUS episodes on experimentation.    About Phillip Starke Phillip is a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and Product Owner who blends technology and team dynamics to deliver valuable products. He writes about product development on his newsletter, The Backlog. With a background in mechanical engineering and experience in the automotive, software, and data analytics industries, he now freelances to enhance team success in product development. You can link with Phillip Starke on LinkedIn.  

Thanks to Teresa Torres from Product Talk for coming on to the Fireside PM pod to talk about #productdiscovery! We had a great convo and I found the notion of show not telling and the importance of making lots of little improvements versus arguing for wholesale transformation to be pretty compelling.  https://www.producttalk.org/  

In this Insights Unlocked episode, Teresa Torres talks about the importance of customer input earlier in the product development lifecycle to better dial in product market fit and reduce wasted costs.

Today on the show, we have Teresa Torres, an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach.In this episode, Teresa shares her insights on using continuous discovery as a crucial tool for achieving product-market fit and effectively reducing churn. She explains how her approach helps product teams make informed decisions by integrating continuous customer feedback into their daily processes.We then discussed the impact of continuous discovery on product development, showcasing Teresa's strategies for aligning product offerings more closely with customer needs. We wrapped up by exploring practical steps for implementing continuous discovery practices to enhance customer retention and drive product success.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly at Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Mentioned Resources:Product Talk OrgContinuous Discovery Habits bookRiversideAwkward Silences

Neste episódio a Teresa Torres recorda-nos como o yoga é para todos!! Partilha connosco como chega aos lugares que podemos julgar improváveis e o impacto que tem em específico no contexto desportivo e para atletas de elite em particular. A Teresa é fisioterapeuta e professora de yoga num clube multidesportivo portugês desde 2013 e vem-nos falar sobre o projecto que começou a desenvolver em 2020, em plena pandemia, quando decidiu começar a dar aulas de yoga por vídeochamada a jogadores e atletas. É perceptível na sua voz e entusiasmo que desde então ama o que faz e a perspectiva é que este programa continue a crescer. Obrigada Teresa pelo teu contributo e presença no Magia é Respirar :)

Welcome back to Insights Unlocked. Our next season kicks off in a few weeks with some incredible guests such as Judd Antin, Jennifer Romano, Teresa Torres, and Pablo Stanley among others.  In this episode, we look back to our conversation in Episode 17 with Christian Idiodi, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group. We ask him about how teams and individuals should think about innovation within their organizations.  Enjoy the episode.

Are you constantly on the lookout for insights that can amplify your product management expertise? This latest episode of the Schmidt List podcast is a treasure trove of wisdom you won't want to miss!Host Kurt Schmidt sits down with the exceptionally talented Jason Scherschigt, the head of product at Solution Design Group, for a profound conversation about the ever-evolving world of product management.Here's a sneak peek of what you'll uncover in this episode:

Rich has been doing enterprise/B2B product management since 1988, worked at 6 Silicon Valley startups, and has been an interim CPO or leadership coach for more than 200 large and small tech companies. He wrote "The Art of Product Management" and was the Founder of Product Camp. Rich has taught at top business schools worldwide, at conferences, and chaired the first product manager/product owner tracks at the annual Agile Conference. This episode dives into key topics: **Early days of the Internet **Life-Changing Moment **Explaining the Role of the PM **Addressing Roadmpa Amnesia **Prioritizing on Business Objectives **Dealing with Sales Requests **Product Led Organizations **Building Products that Generate Revenue **Driving Business Strategy **The Iterative Process of Strategy Development **Understanding the Company Business Strategy **Making Hard Decisions Recommended Resources: **What Do Product Leaders Do?** https://www.mironov.com/whatleadersdo/ **Business Cases Are Stories About Money** https://www.mironov.com/moneystories/ **Four Laws Of Software Economics** https://www.mironov.com/4laws1/ **Building and Scaling a Product Team (video)** https://www.mironov.com/prodanon/ Highlighted books: Continuous Discover, Teresa Torres, Outcomes vs Output, Josh Seiden, Managing the Unmanageable, Ron Lichty Anything from Jared Spool or Steve Blank or Holly Hester-Reilly Where to find Rich Mironov: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov/ Dragonboat Website: https://www.mironov.com/ Where to find us: Website: https://productized.co/ Newsletter: http://bit.ly/3aMvWn2 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/produ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/productized.co/ Where to find Margarida: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarida-cosme-pereira/

Benjamín Prado, Remedios Sánchez, Omar Fonollosa o Carmen Ruiz son algunos de los protagonistas de “Barbitania”, Certamen literario de Barbastro, que pasan por La Cadiera. Ahondamos en los orígenes de la música popular con el libro “El tren de la música” de Teresa Torres y seguimos 9 recorriendo la actividad cultural del día en Aragón.

Serie Los del podio II. Cap 12 (último). Ana Teresa Torres

In this replay of episode 29, Bosky Mukherjee interviews Teresa Torres, author of “Continuous Discovery Habits.” They dive into the benefits of growing outside of a leadership role, why collaboration is queen and the benefits of building faster feedback loops.

In this podcast episode, Tina talks with Teresa Torres, a notable Product Management Coach. Teresa discusses the Continuous Discovery Framework, addressing the skepticism she's faced from the research community. She emphasizes customer-centric methods and the necessity for product teams to conduct efficient research. Key topics include research democratization, researcher roles in product development, and balancing diverse customer insights.

We are elated to host Teresa Torres, the renowned product discovery coach behind Product Talk, on our podcast. Drawing from her vast experience, from her collaborations with industry giants like Spotify and Tesco, but also with small, nimble startup teams we discuss about implementing continuous discovery inside organizations, across teams, driven by business outcomes. Together, we explore the intricacies, challenges, and opportunities of coordinating in complex product landscapes and what it means for organizations navigating these rough waters. Teresa's insights are simple, yet profound and that makes this episode a must listen! As the mind behind Product Talk, there's arguably a handful who understand the intricacies of continuous discovery better than Teresa Torres does. Her straightforward style and work has set benchmarks in the industry of product design and development. In our conversation, we venture beyond the usual. We discuss the science of maintaining coherence in a portfolio of products, what it means to ideate within the constraints of an organization, and what are some artifacts and visualization tools that can help product development. She also shares her thoughts on the delicate balance of power, as the scales tip in the age of personal technology, highlighting what GenAI and NoCode could mean for the future of the product.  With her foundational education from Stanford University and Northwestern University, combined with her hands-on experience, Teresa brings a unique blend of academic rigor and practical insights to the table.  Give this episode a listen, and you are sure to walk away with points to ponder.   Key Highlights

Hope Gurion is a seasoned professional with a background in product management, business development, and coaching within the tech industry. As the founder of Fearless Product, she plays a pivotal role in advising and supporting product leaders and teams. Hope's career traces back to the early stages of the internet, where she contributed to shaping digital experiences. She held positions at AOL, Jobster, CareerBuilder, and Beachbody, and she brings a wealth of experience in dealing with various challenges in product development, business growth, and leadership. In this episode of the Unlearn Podcast, Hope joins Barry O'Reilly to discuss her career journey, emphasizing the importance of persistence, adaptability, and shared vision within product teams.The Reach of Shared VisionHope reflects on her experience at AOL, particularly in AOL Shopping. Despite creating a detailed Product Requirements Document (PRD), the disconnect between her vision and the final designs revealed the necessity for shared understanding among team members. This disconnect eventually led to a breakdown in trust. Hope emphasizes that everyone should comprehend the business context and constraints. “It was just a learning moment for me in terms of, do you really have [a] shared vision?” she tells Barry. “Does everybody on the team really understand the business context of what we're trying to do?” This situation was common in the early 2000s tech landscape, Barry says. “There's still plenty of companies living in that world of siloed teams, lack of cross-functional groups.”Jack of Many TradesHope shares a key moment from her professional evolution, recounting a significant turning point when Matt Ferguson, the CEO of CareerBuilder, offered her a position. Hope initially turned down the role due to personal reasons, but Matt persisted, expressing a genuine belief in her potential and leaving the door open for future collaboration. This persistence became a catalyst for Hope's subsequent transition to CareerBuilder. It demonstrates how a leader's perseverance can reshape an individual's career trajectory. Hope's career evolution also highlights her adaptability. She navigated various roles, from AOL to CareerBuilder. Her eagerness to find ways to grow the business and diversify revenue streams led to her role as Chief Product Officer.From Chief to CoachHope's transition from being a leader in various companies to becoming a coach and advisor wasn't a predetermined career move, she shares. Barry prompts Hope to reflect on this shift, asking about the triggers and the unlearning process required. Hope's career shift was triggered by certain constraints she experienced in her role as CPO. At CareerBuilder, she faced the challenge of training and developing individuals from diverse backgrounds into product-related roles due to certain constraints. This experience became foundational for her belief in the coachability and trainability of product leader roles. Her coaching venture was a result of requests for interim consulting, leading to her collaboration with Teresa Torres. Reflecting on her coaching transition, Hope shares, “Knowing what types of skills I think are coachable and trainable, and knowing that was something that I got a lot of satisfaction doing and had seen a lot of different scenarios [of], is what gave me confidence that I could do this to a certain segment of people."Looking AheadHope advises listeners to focus on fundamental questions such as understanding the customer, evaluating alternatives, and articulating the unique value proposition, emphasizing the importance of alignment and shared understanding within product teams to drive forward progression.ResourcesHope Gurion on LinkedIn | X(Twitter)Fearless Product

“Winning products come from the deep understanding of the user's needs combined with an equally deep understanding of what's just now possible.”  Marty CaganDeep understanding of user needs? That's where Product Discovery comes in. Enjoy this episode where Teresa and I talk about product discovery: why, how, what, and more.If you want to reach out to Teresa, you can find here on Twitter and LinkedInFurthermore, you can find Teresa's Blog post on Product Discovery here. 

For the final episode of Season 3 of POP, we'll be listening to the brilliant, Teresa Torres! Teresa is a well known product discovery coach and the author of Continuous Discovery Habits, which has sold over 80k copies! On this episode we discuss product challenges related to discovery such as: 1) access to customers 2) knowing which habit to do when 3) the importance of individual agency within organisations. Listen in for some unique insights from a product discovery coach who is passionate about moving from theory to reality when it comes to implementing discovery habits at scale! Resources mentioned: The Lean Startup - Eric Reis Continuous Discovery Habits - Teresa Torres Product Talk blog Teresa's Talk from Product at Heart Conference - Bringing Discovery Habits to Every Org This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

Brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian's new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams—Oji Udezue is Chief Product Officer at Typeform and has held leadership roles at Twitter (Head of Product for Creation and Conversation), Calendly (CPO), and Atlassian (Head of Product for communication tools). He is well-known for bringing a product-led-growth (PLG) mindset to the companies he joins. Additionally, Oji mentors startups, is a Managing Partner at the Kernel Fund, and writes online about product management. In this episode, we discuss:• Oji's “Where to Fish to Land a Unicorn” and “Zone of Benefit” frameworks• Why you need to find the “sharpest” problem• How to operationalize continuous customer discovery• Tips on optimizing onboarding flows• Freemium vs. gated offerings in PLG• Tactical strategies for making your product more viral• The concept of “forest time” and how it can provide clarity in your work—Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today's transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.—Where to find Oji Udezue:• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ojiudezue• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ojiudezue/• Substack: https://substack.com/@ojiudezue—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Oji's background(03:38) Oji's “Where to Fish to Land a Unicorn” framework(05:26) Workflow quadrants(09:30) How product people can push frequency (12:28) Oji's “Zone of Benefit” framework(14:49) How to find your ICPs(15:33) ICPs at Twitter(20:20) Oji's philosophy on frameworks(22:31) Oji's upcoming book(24:34) An explanation of “sharp problems”(28:31) Signs your problem is “sharp enough”(31:17) Discovery vs. continuous conversations(35:08) Customer listening(38:31) Onboarding fundamentals(43:49) Activated user milestones(45:47) The power of network effects(50:15) An explanation of virality and how to increase it(56:32) How to use “forest time” to zoom out and see problems in a new way(1:00:53) Lessons from Oji's time at Bridgewater Associates(1:05:07) Why R&D teams need a larger system beyond Agile and design(1:06:57) Lightning round—Referenced:• Where to fish to land a unicorn: https://ojiudezue.medium.com/where-to-fish-to-land-a-unicorn-in-b2b-saas-9bc93c96152c• Coda: https://coda.io/• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/• Finding high-frequency customers (use cases): https://ojiudezue.medium.com/finding-high-frequency-customers-use-cases-53773a753bb5• Evernote: https://evernote.com/• Industry PM conference: https://www.industryconference.com/• Typeform: https://www.typeform.com/• Build better products with continuous product discovery | Teresa Torres: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/build-better-products-with-continuous-product-discovery-teresa-torres/• Pendo: https://www.pendo.io/• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/• Dan Hockenmaier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/danhockenmaier• Seth Godin's blog: https://seths.blog/• A key ritual: Forest time: https://ojiudezue.substack.com/p/a-key-ritual-forest-time• Principles: https://www.principles.com/• Dot Collector: https://principlesus.com/dot-collector-real-time-feedback/• The Halo Effect: . . . and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers: https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions-Managers/dp/1476784035/• Dune: https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Penguin-Galaxy-Frank-Herbert/dp/0143111582• Foundation: https://www.amazon.com/Foundation-3-Book-Boxed-Set-Empire/dp/0593499573• Foundation on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/foundation/umc.cmc.5983fipzqbicvrve6jdfep4x3• Unlox: https://unlox.it/—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

Find out how to do continuous product discovery with Teresa Torres who has taught over 12,000 people how to sustainably infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. You will find out why product should not be just a job title, but a mindset that the entire C-suite needs to share. Listen to find out: - What is an outcome-orientated mindset? Do we need OKRs?✅ - How to build a continuous feedback loop with customers

In this episode, Wes chats with Teresa Torres about her book, "Continuous Discovery Habits." Teresa is an expert in product discovery and has crafted a practical guide on continuously uncovering customer needs, pain points, and opportunities to build successful products. Wes and Teresa explore the key concepts of continuous discovery and the importance of forming product trios for effective collaboration. The podcast covers essential habits and strategies to kickstart a successful continuous discovery process, ensuring teams remain focused on achieving desired product outcomes.  Key Takeaways: [2:06] Wes and Teresa speak about the core habits for success.   [5:06] Teresa discusses the idea of the product trio, comprised of a product manager, designer, and software engineer, emphasizing the benefits of cross-functional collaboration and decision-making. [8:02] Teresa highlights the importance of context and organization structure in kickstarting continuous discovery habits, depending on roles and team dynamics. [17:09] They speak about user research and the main questions you need to ask in your customer interviews.   [28:26] How they approach product launches. [31:54] Why using story drawings to provide structure is important to her process. About Teresa Teresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach. She teaches a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that helps product teams infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. She's coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries. She has taught over 12,000 product people discovery skills through the Product Talk Academy and is the author of Continuous Discovery Habits. Links: LinkedIn

Sign up for Data Mesh Understanding's free roundtable and introduction programs here: https://landing.datameshunderstanding.com/Please Rate and Review us on your podcast app of choice!If you want to be a guest or give feedback (suggestions for topics, comments, etc.), please see hereEpisode list and links to all available episode transcripts here.Provided as a free resource by Data Mesh Understanding / Scott Hirleman. Get in touch with Scott on LinkedIn if you want to chat data mesh.Transcript for this episode (link) provided by Starburst. See their Data Mesh Summit recordings here and their great data mesh resource center here. You can download their Data Mesh for Dummies e-book (info gated) here.Frannie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frannie-farnaz-h-a7a11014/Post on the Product Trio concept by Teresa Torres: https://www.producttalk.org/2021/05/product-trio/In this episode, Scott interviewed Frannie Helforoush, Technical Product Manager/Data Product Manager at RBC Global Asset Management. To be clear, she was only representing her own views on the episode.Some key takeaways/thoughts from Frannie's point of view:There is a difference between the product mindset and creating/maintaining data products but both are very important to exchanging value through data. We should be looking to apply the product mindset to all aspects of our data work, not just how it applies to data products specifically.To do data product management well, you should look to software product management practices and recontextualize those to data. Many map well but some don't. It's not a copy paste, think through what should be applied to data differently.The data product manager needs to serve as the bridge between data producers and consumers, making sure consumer requirements are satisfied much like with a software product manager where they are the bridge between software engineering and software users.If product management is the intersection of business, tech, and user experience (UX), how should we think about that for data product management? Tech and business are easy but there isn't a user interface (UI) so think of UX in terms of data fluency, access, and documentation.Relatedly, documentation around data products is more important than...

Episode Introduction: 0:00Cold Open: 00:37[song] Disconnected: 5:14Main Title: 8:34My Wasted Life Lead-In: 9:02[song] My Wasted LifeMean Lead-In: 16:31[song] Mean: 20:31The Great Indie-Rock Swindle Lead-In: 23:45[song] The Great Indie-Rock Swindle: 30:09Ready for War Lead-In:   34:39[song] Ready for War: 36:27Episode Summation:  40:31END: 41:51 

This is the third series of Agile Framework Fight night. This fight night was hosted in Seattle by Beyond Agile. Like the first Agile Framework Fight Night, we brought together another winning panel of experts to represent the frameworks of DA, Fast Agile, LeSS, and SaFE. Agile Framework Fight Night, the SECOND SERIES happened at Beyond Agile, transmitted from Seattle. You can find Beyond Agile at Meetup.com here: https://www.meetup.com/BeyondAgile/ The expert panelists are: Ricardo “Dad of Doom” Garcia from Team DA This “Dad of Doom” has over 30 years of industry experience and has implemented and managed numerous software projects using Agile Practices for Fortune 500 companies. His work has been featured in white papers, cover stories in magazines, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and Agile expert panels. He is the organizer behind Seattle Disciplined Agile Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-Disciplined-Agile-Meetup/ Ron Quartel AKA "Crocodile Ron-dee" Software Crafter, Disruptor, Pioneer and Intrapreneuer. On a mission to unleash the human spirit in the workplace. Founder of FAST Agile. https://www.fastagile.io Viktor "the Simplifier" Grgic Viktor is an Agile Coach, software developer and Certified LeSS trainer with 17 years of experience in delivering enterprise systems and Agile adoptions. He worked first 15 years in The Netherlands, and since 2013 in Hong Kong. https://less.works/profiles/viktor-grgic Barry Smith, the Nexus Knight Is a member of Unify's Lean-Agile practice, and committed to helping product teams to enjoy a better way of working and delivering exceptional value to their customers. His over 25+ years of working in technology has shown him that innovation can be fostered anywhere, from startups to Fortune 500 firms. Lancer “Unkind” Kind, moderating “Unkind” lives in Kirkland, and loves nothing more than writing micro tested software. For the last five years he has delivered consulting services in China, India, as well as the USA. He's a publishing author of science fiction and Agile Noir, a project management business novel. He's podcasting at Agile Thoughts, 敏捷理念 (the Chinese edition of Agile Thoughts), and SciFi Thoughts. His Agile at scale business novel is “continuously delivered” via Lean Pub at: https://leanpub.com/AgileGrande Here is a link to this Beyond Agile event in Meetup which contains comments about the fight night: https://www.meetup.com/beyondagile/events/286465281/ You can listen to the first and second Bouts of Agile Framework Fight Night series here: https://agilenoir.biz/en/agilethoughts/agile-framework-fight-night/ Chat record from Bout 3 of Agile Framework Fight Night Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:04 PM) I know Niels Pflaeging. Would you like me to ask him if he'd like to speak to this group? Aki Namioka to Everyone (10:05 PM) Where is Niels Pflaeging located? Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:06 PM) Germany Ricardo to Everyone (10:08 PM) For Jobs at Costco pls send me an email at ricardo.garcia@costco.com shama to Everyone (10:08 PM) Ron Lichty to Everyone (10:10 PM) Enterprise Agile Global Community: Dennis Stevens: Agile for Execs: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89071064881?pwd=a1NoY2ptN3BudGd1OGNINXNtQ0ZYQT09 Josh Novajosky to Everyone (10:11 PM) Amazing shirt Ron Barry L Smith to Everyone (10:18 PM) “LeSS”, of course, refers to “Lightweight Similarity to Scrum" - really, they copied all their good ideas from Nexus. Ron Lichty to Everyone (10:24 PM) I thought I heard Paige Watson describe the FAST meeting as five PdMs bringing in the five priorities for the cycle? Is a “nexus” essentially what others are calling a "tribe”? Barry L Smith to Everyone (10:27 PM) Yes, similar to tribe or ART (Agile Release Train) - the group of teams that are collaborating in developing & delivering a Product Backlog. Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:29 PM) Seems like HUGE enterprises would have HUGE concerns (problems) to resolve for the people of the world and inside the organization. Silpa to Everyone (10:31 PM) Our scrum team is of 16 members. We formed mini scrum teams of 4 in each team with 1 PO, 1 SM, making sure we have a process expert supporting each mini scrum team. Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:31 PM) The crafting of experiments to see if hardware/software or other kinds of “works” is what runs through an organization. Which of the Frameworks are predicated on the assumption that software products are the resolution of these concerns? Barry L Smith to Everyone (10:32 PM) Jon, are you essentially asking, “Is experimentation a core element of your framework”? Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:32 PM) yes Me to Aki Namioka (Direct Message) (10:33 PM) What is our "finish" time? One hour or? Jon Jorgensen to Everyone (10:33 PM) And “What kind of professionals are involved in the experiment?” Barry L Smith to Everyone (10:34 PM)

Brought to you by Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life | Dovetail—Bring your customer into every decision | Writer—Generative AI for the enterprise—Christina Wodtke is an author, Stanford University professor, and speaker who teaches strategies for building high-performing teams. She's also the author of Radical Focus, which some consider the de facto guide to OKRs. In today's episode, we dive into OKRs and how they can be used to help your team achieve better results. Christina shares her expertise on crafting OKRs, how she uses them in her personal life, and common mistakes you should avoid when you sit down to write your own. She discusses effective goal setting and outlines a systematic approach to achieving key results. Finally, Christina gives some specific tips on how to improve your storytelling and drawing skills and explains why it's smart to set ambitious goals.Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-okrs-christina-wodtke-stanford/Where to find Christina Wodtke:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cwodtke• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinawodtke/• Website: https://eleganthack.com/Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/Referenced:• Yahoo's peanut butter memo: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116379821933826657• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756/• Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Focus-Achieving-Important-Objectives/dp/0996006087• Pencil Me In: https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-Me-Christina-Wodtke-ebook/dp/B075Z8J35G?• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Napkin-Expanded-Problems-Pictures/dp/1591842697/ref=sr_1_1• The Minto Pyramid Principle: https://www.barbaraminto.com/• Lane Shackleton's guest post on Lenny's Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-coda-builds-product• The Product Trio by Teresa Torres: https://www.producttalk.org/2021/05/product-trio/• Ken Norton's website: https://www.bringthedonuts.com/about/• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth: https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Organization-Psychological-Workplace-Innovation/dp/1119477247• The Overstory: https://www.amazon.com/Overstory-Novel-Richard-Powers/dp/039335668X/• Cloud Atlas: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Atlas-Novel-David-Mitchell/dp/0375507256• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/• The Team That Managed Itself: A Story of Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/Team-that-Managed-Itself-Leadership-ebook/dp/B07ZG5Y689In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Christina's background(04:54) How Christina uses OKRs to manage her personal life(07:42) The purpose of OKRs(16:15) Mission, vision, roadmaps, and OKRs(20:57) How strategy ties in(22:39) Why OKRs should be kept simple, and the ideal way to express key results(23:45) The importance of customer satisfaction and why you need a qualitative researcher(24:58) Common mistakes people make when writing OKRs(26:14) An example of writing OKRs for an online magazine about interior design(29:28) The importance of repetition(33:17) The 5 whys(36:40) Why you should start OKRs with your best multi-disciplinary team(38:44) Christina's book, Radical Focus(40:26) The importance of storytelling and drawing (even badly!)(43:21) Tips to become a better storyteller(44:29) Using the Minto method for storytelling(46:02) The cadence of OKRs and the importance of celebrations(51:09) A different kind of approval process to get OKRs done more efficiently(53:01) Why the focus on learning is more important than grading(54:29) Why you should set ambitious goals(57:47) Where to start(1:00:48) The overemphasis of UX in product management education and the importance of business sense(1:03:01) Advice for people seeking a career in product management(1:05:44) Lightning roundProduction and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

In this episode, we're joined by Teresa Torres, an internationally recognized author, speaker, and coach. With a focus on continuous discovery, Teresa has coached hundreds of product teams of all sizes and industries in a structured approach to infusing customer input into their daily product decisions. Her expertise has helped product teams move away from simply focusing on Agile execution and how they build products towards a more holistic approach to development that places an equal focus on making sure what they build delivers value to the customer and the business. Teresa's expertise has helped product teams move away from simply focusing on Agile execution and how they build products towards a more holistic approach to product development where teams place an equal focus on making sure what they build delivers value to the customer and the business.  We dive deep into the key concepts of Teresa's book, Continuous Discovery Habits, in which she introduces a framework for product teams to think about customer discovery. We explore the importance of an outcome mindset, getting good at interviewing to discover unmet customer needs, pain points, and desires, and assumption testing to help evaluate solutions. Episode Highlights: How product teams can learn to focus on executing on the right things, not just executing in the right way The most vital habits that teams should employ for continuous discovery Why following Teresa's collaborative “product trio” model, where a Product Manager, Design Lead, and Tech Lead all work closely together from the start, leads to far less waste than the traditional product development model and process   How embracing the creative tension of bringing multiple disciplines together yields better results than the top-down style of decision-making prevalent in many organizations The 2 different kinds of product instrumentation — optimization and value creation — and examples of both Which companies are positive examples of continuous discovery in action (hint: not many!)   Resources: Learn more at ProductTalk.org Follow Teresa on Twitter: @ttorres Connect with Teresa on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/teresatorres Read: Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres   Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com  

John Cutler writes the popular and beloved product newsletter The Beautiful Mess. For many years, he was a Product Evangelist at Amplitude, which led him to meeting and working with a large number of product teams around the world. Through this role, he gained unique insight into how the best product teams operate. In today's episode, John reflects on leaving his role at Amplitude, and explains the attributes that the top 1% of product teams share. We also go deep into some of his favorite frameworks and discuss the best way to apply these frameworks to your work. We also unpack skills like product sense and product mindset, and what he's planning in his new role at Toast.—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing-product-teams-john-cutler-amplitude-the-beautiful-mess/#transcript—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app: http://merge.dev/lenny• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny—Where to find John Cutler:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/johncutlefish• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpcutler/• Newsletter: https://cutlefish.substack.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Referenced:• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/• The North Star Playbook: https://info.amplitude.com/north-star-playbook• Craig Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigmdaniel/• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595• AppFolio: https://www.appfolio.com/• High Leverage Product Evangelism: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/high-leverage-product-evangelism• Satya Nadella on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/• The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-Breaking-Invisible-Boundaries/dp/1610392507• Innovation Labs: https://innovationlabs.com/• BEES: https://mybeesapp.com/• Marty Cagan on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan#details• Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility: https://www.amazon.com/Sooner-Safer-Happier-Patterns-Antipatterns/dp/1942788916• Teresa Torres on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresatorres/• Andrew Huberman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hubermanlab/?hl=en• TBM 49/52: Pyramid of Leadership Self/Other Awareness: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-4952-pyramid-of-leadership-selfother• ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/chat• How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business: https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business-ebook/dp/B00INUYS2U• Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339• User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product: https://www.amazon.com/User-Story-Mapping-Discover-Product/dp/B08TZGKKF2• Build with Maggie Crowley podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-with-maggie-crowley/id1445050691• One Knight in Product podcast: https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/index.html#page-top• Sunny Bunnies on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81286920• Booba on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81011059• Toast: https://pos.toasttab.com/• Drift: https://www.drift.com/John's list of high-performing people worth following:• Dr. Cat Hicks (@grimalkina) https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcathicks/ • Stephanie Leue https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-leue/• Amy Edmondson (@AmyCEdmondson) https://www.linkedin.com/in/amedmondson/• Dominica DeGrandis (@dominicad) https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicadeg/• Courtney Kissler https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-kissler-0930681/• Christina Wodtke (@cwodtke) https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinawodtke/• Matthew Skelton https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewskelton/• Heidi Helfand (@heidihelfand): https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihelfand/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) What is a product evangelist? John's unique role at Amplitude(05:50) John's reflections and feelings on leaving Amplitude(17:28) What John's doing next(18:52) John's newsletter: The Beautiful Mess(27:49) What do the top 1% of product teams have in common?(40:08) Different ways companies are successful, and why anyone can improve(45:55) Investing in people vs. investing in processes(48:49) The importance of culture and values(49:59) Global company cultures: the individualist vs. the collectivist  (55:55) Why it's hard to make changes in large companies(58:49) How to view frameworks(1:01:02) The spectrum of performance in big and small companies(1:05:27) Examples of high-performing people who work outside of Silicon Valley(1:09:02) The skill of product management(1:11:35) The value of learning a bit about everything(1:13:46) Why do people often underestimate the loops available at their company(1:16:20) Chronic vs. acute issues at companies(1:18:07) Unpacking the skills behind product sense and product mindset(1:20:44) A place for people without the traditional meritocracy mindset(1:22:38) John's writing process and what he plans on writing about next(1:27:52) How to use ChatGPT for learning and levity(1:31:56) Lightning Round—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Join us as our host, George Kamel, sits down with John Felkins, the executive director of Elite for EntreLeadership. John shares some of the worst ideas he's had and executed along with what he learned from them. Later, George talks with Teresa Torres, an internationally acclaimed author, a speaker and a product-discovery coach. She explains how talking to your customers will make sure you never run out of great ideas. You'll learn: •      How to turn your failure into success •      How to consistently make products that sell •      The key to knowing what your customers actually want •      How to talk to your customers the right way Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Give us your feedback by leaving a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or emailing entrepodcast@ramseysolutions.com •      Learn more about EntreLeadership Elite: https://bit.ly/3Vn82ne •      Get your tickets to EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/3Uw3PMQ •      Teresa Torres' website: https://bit.ly/3FjQhzu •      Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres: https://bit.ly/3iiqEG7 •      Listen to The Rachel Cruze Show: https://bit.ly/3OU4TbX Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere with the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

You will hear from C. Todd Lombardo, author of several books including Product Roadmaps Relaunched; Silicon Valley Product Group's Christian Idiodi; Product School's Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Harvard Business School's Julia B. Austin, Radhika Dutt, author of Radical Product Thinking; Teresa Torres, author of Continuous Discover Habits, Ignition's Karthik Suresh, and IDEO's Iain Roberts. How the role of product management evolving How the product leader's role has changed Key skills product managers need to be successful 3 fundamental characteristics that makes a great product manager What makes a great product team Three pillars of radical product thinking What is continuous discovery Why customer feedback is critically important to your success Key elements for a successful product launch How do you include execs in a design sprint How do you know when you have good product market fit The seven diseases of  of product strategy & development The future of product

In this episode, we curated 13 clips from past episodes of the Human Insight Podcast to give you insights on being a better product leader. You will hear from C. Todd Lombardo, author of several books including Product Roadmaps Relaunched; Silicon Valley Product Group's Christian Idiodi; Product School's Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Harvard Business School's Julia B. Austin, Radhika Dutt, author of Radical Product Thinking; Teresa Torres, author of Continuous Discover Habits, Ignition's Karthik Suresh, and IDEO's Iain Roberts.How the role of product management evolvingHow the product leader's role has changedKey skills product managers need to be successful3 fundamental characteristics that makes a great product managerWhat makes a great product teamThree pillars of radical product thinkingWhat is continuous discoveryWhy customer feedback is critically important to your successKey elements for a successful product launchHow do you include execs in a design sprintHow do you know when you have good product market fitThe seven diseases of  of product strategy & developmentThe future of productFollow us on LinkedIn or Twitter Co-host Janelle Estes | @janelle_estes Co-host Andy MacMillan | @apmacmillan Producer Nathan Isaacs | @isaacsnd UserTesting | @usertesting Have an episode suggestion or guest recommendation? Share on social with the tag #HumanInsights Get a free video of a real person reviewing your website

Bosky Mukherjee interviews Teresa Torres, author of “Continuous Discovery Habits.” They dive into the benefits of growing outside of a leadership role, why collaboration is queen and the benefits of building faster feedback loops.

1. Business outcomes Those are metrics related to the organization's goals like: increase revenue lower operating costs grow market share grow profit margin reduce churn rate Business outcomes allow the company's stakeholders to track the company's progress (e.g., “profit margin grows by 5%”). Business outcomes are lagging indicators. On top of that, product teams typically cannot influence them directly, so they need to be translated into product outcomes. 2. Product outcomes At the product level, we may decide that a way to decrease the churn rate (impact a business outcome) is to increase customer engagement, measured, for example, as the total number of hours customers watch videos every month. As Joshua Seiden noticed in Outcomes over Output, these outcomes are always associated with a change in human behavior. He defined outcomes as “a change in human behavior that drives business results.” An example of the product outcome may be the following metric change: “every month, customers spend, on average, 30 minutes more watching videos.” Both business and product outcomes outlined above align with Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres. 3. Customer outcomes Customers do not care about the Output (features). The three types of customer outcomes, as defined in the Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush, are: Functional outcomes. The core tasks the customer wants to get done. For a car, it's traveling from point A to B. Emotional outcomes. How do customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of using your product? Is it safety, freedom, joy, taking care of the environment, or adrenaline? Social outcomes. How do customers want to be perceived by others by using your product? What does Tesla tell others about your status or values?

There are many key elements of product discovery and although there is a focus on the customer problem, we should also focus on the opportunity space to explore and unlock value by working collaboratively to test the viability of opportunities using a number of different discovery techniques.In this episode I am joined by Teresa Torres, internationally acclaimed author, speaker and coach. Teresa and I will explore how to approach continuous product discovery in order to help you embed this thinking into your product management practices, enabling you to achieve product success by creating value for your customer and for your business.

Teresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach. She teaches a structured and sustainable system for continuous discovery that helps product teams infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. She’s coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries. She has taught over 11,000 product people discovery skills through the Product Talk Academy, hundreds through her coaching practice, and is the author of Continuous Discovery Habits.—Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:• Persona: https://withpersona.com/lenny• Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny• Stytch: https://stytch.com/—In this episode, we cover:[3:37] How Teresa is in the top 5 people in the world who’s helped the most PMs.[5:25] What is the opportunity solution tree framework?[8:19] What’s an example of an opportunity solution tree, for Netflix?[14:17] Why do we usually approach opportunity finding wrong?[18:10] What should you do if your company is a feature factory?[21:00] What is continuous discovery, and why is it so important?[23:13] What do you do if your leaders tell you there’s no time for user research?[25:55] How can you automate weekly conversations customers?[29:04] How do you stay unbiased as a PM about a potential solution?[31:23] Should a PM have more say over other functions?[35:33] What are Teresa’s 2-3 best tips for how to interview customers?[39:57] What’s the most common mistake people make while interviewing customers?[40:25] How does discovery change as your company grows?[43:27] When should you do user research and when should you run an experiment?—Where to find Teresa:• Product Talk: https://www.producttalk.org/• Opportunity solution tree: https://www.producttalk.org/opportunity-solution-tree/• Continuous Discovery Habits: https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresatorres/• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ttorres Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. The Great Product Owner: Helping teams succeed, a key task for the PO As Luís puts it: “We underestimate how hard it is to be a PO”, which is one more reason to be happy when we get to work with an example Product Owner. We should be highlighting, and talking a lot more about how to become a great PO, because it is so difficult! Luís shares how this PO worked with the team to tackle their biggest challenge: long time to release. The PO understood that, and helped the team remove work from each release for the team to be able to release in time.  In this segment, we talk about the Opportunity Solution tree by Teresa Torres (check this podcast episode with Teresa), which borrows from a Theory Of Constraints tool: the current reality tree. The Bad Product Owner: The PO that was afraid to own the problems to be solved When we look at Product Owner related anti-patterns, we should be aware that many of those are usually “systemic”, in other words, they usually originate from other areas of the company. In this segment, we talk about the PO's that are afraid to own the problems the product is supposed to solve. They stick only to the backlog of stories, and miss the big picture. The second, critical, anti-pattern we discuss is forgetting about “outcomes”, and instead focusing on functionality. Luís suggests that we should help PO's focus on goals first, so that outcomes are not forgotten. Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We've put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO's collaborate. About Luís Santos Silva Luís is not your typical Agile Coach as he doesn't have an IT background. He worked his way from a contact center up to Lean and Agile Coach and is now a Agile Coach team lead at OutSystems. You can link with Luís Santos Silva on LinkedIn.