The Product Experience

Sep 30/2023

Join our conversation with Atif Faruiqui, Director of Developer Products and Platforms at Pfizer, as he illuminates the path the pharmaceutical colossus took towards a product-focused approach. He takes us behind the scenes of Pfizer's strategic pivot, highlighting the signals that spurred the company's leadership to champion a customer-centric approach. Featured Links: Follow Atif on LinkedIn[...]
We've all heard about the Jobs to Be Done framework - but do you know how to really make the most of it? We went straight to the source - Bob Moesta, who developed the approach alongside Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen - to really get into the approach.In this episode, we cover: How to get[...]
If you’re starting a new role in product at whatever level, it can sometimes be difficult to get started, especially if you’re chucked in the deep end. In this week’s podcast episode, we speak with Leah Tharin, currently the Chief Product and Growth Officer at gotphotocom. She provides some insights on your first 90 days[...]
Listen to our conversation with Ipsita Basu, Product Management Leader at BILL all about rediscovering our passion in product. In this episode, Ipsita shares practical advice for product managers looking to get out of a rut and build innovative products that customers love. Featured Links: Follow Ipsita on LinkedIn | Bill | Read Ipsita's 'Product[...]
When you have questions about roadmaps, it pays to talk to someone who has spent way too much of her life thinking about them. Janna Bastow – co-founder of both Mind the Product and ProdPad joins us to give advice to anyone ready to break up with their roadmap.Featured Links: Follow Janna on Twitter and[...]
Tune into our latest conversation with Dominique Jost, Head of Product at Doist. In this episode, we peel back the layers on why product managers are especially vulnerable to this modern malaise, with Dominic offering an enlightening breakdown of stressors and personal amplifiers that escalate work pressures into health hazards. Featured Links: Follow Dominique on LinkedIn[...]
How much should you be charging? Are you leaving money on the table, or are you scaring away potential customers? Pricing strategy can be one of the biggest challenges for product people, so we asked Founders Factory coach Fanni Fejes to share some of the lessons she teaches founders.(Since we originally ran this episode, Fanni[...]
This week on the podcast, we sit down with Yana Welinder, CEO of Kraftful. Yana shares insights into how today's product managers are transforming their roles by leveraging AI to create compelling user stories, fine-tuning financial models, and even hiring. As AI interfaces grow more intuitive, we navigate the importance of a product manager's openness[...]
In our latest episode on The Product Experience, we delve into a great discussion with Katie Marcus, Product Lead at Progression. Katie gives us a deep insight into the trials and tribulations of fostering continuous discovery within a B2B environment and the start-up space. Featured Links: Follow Katie on LinkedIn | Progression | Katie's 'Lessons learnt[...]
For many of us in product, building products that have long-lasting impacts on people's lives is the dream. In this episode, we speak to Omer Kaplan from Sonara Health. We discuss his mission in forging a path in healthcare technology to combat the opioid crisis. We also explore the principles of equity-first design and the[...]
Join us on this week's podcast for a conversation with Nesrine Changuel, Senior Product Manager at Google, as she shares key insights on how we can delight users. Featured Links: Follow Nesrine on LinkedIn | Nesrine's website | 'The Emotion Wheel: What it is and How to Use it' piece by Hokuma Karimova | 'Keeping Track[...]
Join us on this week's podcast episode with Todd Olson, CEO and Co-Founder of Pendo. We venture into the world of AI, software, and how launching AI-powered products can generate real outcomes for your business and customers. Featured Links: Follow Todd on LinkedIn | Pendo | Register for AI Academy Lisbon 2024 Our HostsLily Smith enjoys[...]
This week on the podcast, Kate Leto, Executive Product Leadership Coach, makes a return to the Product Experience spotlight. Join us as she shares insights on improving leadership, communication, conflict, and stakeholder management as a product leader. Featured Links: Follow Kate on LinkedIn | Kate's website | Sign up for the 'Essential Coaching Skills for Product[...]
Liz Immer, brilliant Head of Product at Frontiers, brings a wealth of knowledge from the realm of behavioral science to the Product Experience podcast. Join us as Liz unravels the intricate connection between human behavior, product design, and team environments, offering a rare peek into the craft of creating products that don't just solve problems[...]
Crafting effective messaging is key for product success. In this podcast episode, Diane Wierdu, Founder and Messaging Strategist for Lion Works, underscores the significance of this key element. In the realm of product management, Diane breaks down a step by step guide on effective messaging, while also providing insights on engaging customers and growing products. Features[...]
Join us on this week's podcast with Dominik Busching, Head of Product Management at Tado. In this episode, Dominik guides us through the intricate landscapes of hardware product management.Featured Links: Follow Dominik on LinkedIn | Tado° | 'How to Build an IoT Product Roadmap' piece by Daniel Elizalde | Designing for Play - Melissa Pickering[...]
This episode on The Product Experience unlocks the secrets to elevating your product management skills with insights from our distinguished guests Andrew Skotzko, Alex Watson, Liz Clow, and Daniel Stillman. Tune in to hear what some great product experts had to say! Featured Links: Follow Lily on LinkedIn and Twitter | Follow Randy on LinkedIn[...]
In this exclusive episode of The Product Experience podcast, we bring together a diverse panel of product experts from around the world to share their invaluable insights on the essential aspects of recruiting top-notch product managers. Additionally, we delve into actionable tips for candidates seeking to distinguish themselves in the competitive landscape of the product[...]
Join us for our conversation with Diana Stepner, Head of Product at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Diana shares a refreshing reminder that putting people at the heart of product management isn't just nice to have; it's essential. As Diana unfolds her journey from user experience research to leading product innovation, she champions a transformative approach[...]
What is the secret to exponential product growth? Daphne Tideman, Growth and Startup coach, joins us on the podcast this week. She discusses Product/market fit, the importance of business/channel models, and where companies go wrong when looking to grow their products.Featured Links: Follow Daphne on LinkedIn and Twitter | Daphne’s book ‘Growing Happy Clients’ |[...]
In this week's podcast episode, Tami Reiss, Product leader coach, dissects the fundamental questions that guide successful product managers: envisioning the destination, understanding the current position, and strategically planning the next move. Our conversation with Tami delves into her career journey, offering valuable insights on how product management principles influence not only team dynamics but also[...]
Tune into our conversation with Esther Weinberg to hear about how product people can deal with company transformation during times of turbulence.Featured Links: Follow Esther on LinkedIn and Twitter | The Ready Zone | Esther's article' The Power of a Reality Check, Moving from Reactive to Responsive' | Better.com CEO fires 900 employees over Zoom[...]
Join us for an insightful conversation with Martin Eriksson, EQT Product Partner and Co-founder of Mind the Product. Martin unveils The Decision Stack, a model to empower product teams in making more effective decisions.We dissect the five steps of this model, demonstrating the power of a defined vision, cohesive strategy, and an understanding of objectives,[...]
Join us for an insightful conversation with Martin Eriksson, EQT Product Partner and Co-founder of Mind the Product. Martin unveils The Decision Stack, a model to empower product teams in making more effective decisions. We dissect the five steps of this model, demonstrating the power of a defined vision, cohesive strategy, and an understanding of[...]
Navigating the job market, finding your specialization, and making career decisions that suit your needs can be a complex process. That's why we sat down with HHoang Nguyen , Director of Product at Westwing, to dig into these intricate topics and offer some insight. In the realm of AI, not only do we discuss its[...]
This week's episode on The Product Experience podcast demystifies what it truly means to lead an empowered team and helps you navigate the tricky waters of autonomy and accountability. Uncover invaluable advice on earning and extending trust, understanding the power dynamics in a team setting, and transforming company relationships. Featured Links: Follow Andrew on LinkedIn[...]
Today, on a very special episode on The Product Experience, Randy Silver joins us for a change on the other side of the mic as a guest! Lily Smith interviews Randy to talk all about what differentiates good product managers from exceptional ones as well as touching upon his experience in speaking at #mtpcon London[...]
Experimentation is a key aspect of product management. What are the most important things to consider when experimenting and testing new product features? And when do you know when it's the right time to do just that? At #mtpcon London 2023, Randy Silver and Lily Smith, were joined by Faith Forster, VP of Product at[...]
This week, we go back into the archives when Susana Lopes, Director of Product at Abatable, joined us on the podcast. In this episode, we discuss how she used the State of the Product presentation to manage stakeholders and drive alignment. Tune in for an episode filled with practical insights and invaluable resources.Featured Links: Follow[...]
In this week's podcast, Dan Balcauski shares his thoughts on the challenge of measuring uncertainty in pricing strategy and how tools like Fermi decomposition can be game-changers. Additionally, if you've ever wondered how to manage existing customers when you decide to tweak pricing and packaging, we've got you covered. Tune in for some pragmatic advice[...]
In this week's podcast, we invited Mel McVeigh, VP of Product at Condé Nast. In our conversation, we discuss all of the unique challenges of building products within a global mass media company and hear from Mel how to transform products and build teams. Featured Links: Follow Mel on LinkedIn | Mel's website | Condé[...]
On this week's podcast episode, product veteran Itamar Gilad joins us on the podcast to provide insights on implementing evidence-guided principles into product management. He argues that as product managers, we must be driven by evidence to find product success. Featured Links: Follow Itamar on LinkedIn | Buy Itamar's new book 'Evidence-Guided: Creating High Impact[...]
In this week's podcast, we were joined by Dan Balcauski, Founder and Chief Pricing Officer at Product Tranquility. Dan sheds light on the common misconceptions around pricing and gives valuable advice on aligning your pricing strategy with your business objectives. Featured Links: Follow Dan on LinkedIn | Product Tranquility | 'How To Price Your Product: A[...]
Many organisations and teams have faced the challenge of scaling a product. This week we invited Dave Martin and Andrea Saez, authors of "Product Momentum Gap", to share their wisdom and help bring together product strategy and provide customer value.Featured Links: Follow Andrea on LinkedIn and her website | Follow Dave on LinkedIn | Dave's[...]
With only 30 days to go until our flagship conference, #mtpcon London, we thought that this week, we'd take a trip down memory lane to when we invited AI and Health Tech leader, Randeep Sidhu on the podcast. Randeep, who will be speaking on the #mtpcon main stage on 20 October, spoke to us about[...]
In this week's episode, we sit down with Alex Watson, Product Director at Spotify's Core Experience. Together, we unpack the tools and mindset necessary for anyone navigating a career in product management. We delve into the critical aspects of understanding your motivation for career progression and the unique benefits that different levels of seniority hold.Featured[...]
In this week's podcast, we were joined by Tobias Freudenreich, a product leadership coach and consultant based in Hamburg. This episode dives deep into the structure of cross-functional teams and explains how this structure can help us build great products that people love. Featured Links: Follow Tobias on LinkedIn and his website | Tobias' 'Introducing[...]
Transitioning from a CPO to a CEO is a daunting task, requiring more than just technical skills. In the second half of our chat, Namrata delves into the importance of long-term planning and developing skills. Specifically, we discuss the intricacies of combining sales and product roles, highlighting the potential challenges that come with it. The[...]
Listen to our conversation with Lucie Buisson, Chief Product Officer at Contentsquare. Lucy is a master at building high-performing teams who focuses on creating value for customers while striking a balance between scalability and feature development. She's got loads of experience and wisdom to share, whether you're leading a team or being part of one.She[...]
Rerun: OKRs are a simple concept — but deceptively hard to get right. There’s an awful lot of horror stories about implementations gone wrong, along with any number of gurus and guides on how to get it right. Storm Fagan — now the Chief Product Officer at the BBC, formerly at JustEat — joined us[...]
On this week's podcast, we sit down with Mirela Mus, Founder and CPO of Product People, as we unbox the career progression in product management. We decode the vital differences between various product leadership roles, from VPs to Directors and Heads of Product. Listen as Mirela details her incredible journey into product management and discusses[...]
Product Operations has been the talk of the town over the past two years, but why is it so important in product management, and what does the role entail? In this week's podcast, Antonia Landi, Product Operations Consultant, leads us on a journey through the world of product ops, outlining its purpose, significance, and how[...]
Ever wondered what it takes to thrive in product management across different sizes of organizations? We welcome experienced product leader, Liz Clow, Chief Product Officer at memmo.me. We journey through her experiences across diverse organizations, you'll learn how to put OKRs into practice to steer teams effectively and maintain laser focus. We'll explore the delicate[...]
Join us on the podcast this week where we uncover the world of content design with Erica Jorgensen, seasoned content designer at Chewy and author of 'Strategic Content Design Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX'. Erica walks us through her professional journey and how she fell into the realm of content strategy. She enlightens[...]
Christian Idiodi, Partner and SVPG joins us on the podcast this week! We speak with Christian about onboarding new product hires, and the work he is doing for the first in-person product conference for the African continent. Featured Links: Follow Christian on LinkedIn and Twitter | Innovate Africa Foundation | Inspire Africa | The 7[...]
This week on the podcast, we speak to Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta. She tells us all about her story of going from IC to her product leadership, and the key lessons learned along the way. Featured Links: Follow Kax on LinkedIn and Twitter | Kax's website | Women In Product | Kax's[...]
Tune back into our chat with Donna Lichaw on this week's podcast. In part two of the episode, she continues to share key insights in reinventing product leadership and success in product. Featured Links: Follow Donna on LinkedIn and Twitter | Donna's website | Donna's book 'The Leader's Journey' | Career and alignment: Part 1[...]
Donna Lichaw, product expert, consultant, and author of ‘The Leader’s Journey’ joins us on the podcast this week. She shares the lessons to reinvent your leadership journey, by activating your superpowers, transforming your team, and poising your business for success in product.Featured Links: Follow Donna on LinkedIn and Twitter | Donna's website | Donna's book[...]
In product, basic business analyst skills often get misrepresented in the midst of the plethora of tasks that product managers have to juggle. In this weeks' podcast, Dr J Harrison joins us on the podcast to discuss how product can collaborate more effectively with business analysts. Featured Links: Follow Dr J on LinkedIn and Twitter |[...]
How can pricing of a product be affected by supply and demand? In this weeks' podcast we spoke with Vishal Kapoor, Senior Director or Product Management at Shipt, he discussed the process behind dynamic product pricing strategy, when it's right to introduce this strategy, and the lessons he has learned along the way.Featured Links: Follow[...]
Have you encountered the challenge of delivering more features quickly with limited resources in your product? Many product managers tend to fall into the trap of becoming feature factories. In this week's podcast, we had a conversation with Assaph Mehr, a product leader and coach, who shared insights into the analogy of transitioning from a feature[...]
Dinushi Pieries, VP of Product Management at J.P. Morgan, has years of experience in the product space, having worked for prominent tech organizations for several years. Her expertise ranges from managing services to spearheading the development of innovative portals. In this week's podcast, we spoke with her on the topics of platform product management, open[...]
Tune into our conversation with Kirsten Mann, CPO at Prospection to hear her key lessons learned from moving the organisation from services-led to product-led.Featured Links: Follow Kirsten on LinkedIn and Instagram | Kirsten's feature 'A case study: The journey to becoming a product-led company' at Mind The Product | ProspectionOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as[...]
How can product managers design the right conversations with stakeholders, teams, and customers alike? Tune into our conversation with Daniel Stillman, Author of Good Talk - How To Design Conversations That Matter' to find out. Featured Links: Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and Twitter | Daniel's website | The Conversation Factory | Daniel's book 'Good Talk[...]
Tanguy Crusson, Product leader at Atlassian joins us on The Product Experience podcast this week to talk all about product launches. Tune in to find out his thoughts on why most products fail, and learn how he successfully launched a new product at Atlassian. Featured Links: Follow Tanguy on LinkedIn and Twitter | Atlassian Presents: Unleash[...]
We all have passions and desires in life by how can we use our individual passions and channel this into creating products that customers love? In this week's podcast we speak with Manon Dave, Chief Product Officer to get our creative juices flowing in product management. Featured Links: Follow Manon on LinkedIn and Twitter |[...]
Data has been the talk of the town for product managers over the past few years. To provide some insights on data as a product, how to manage data products, and conclude whether it's pronounced 'Dayta' or 'Daata', we spoke to data expert, Omar Sallam, Senior Product Manager at Booking.com.Featured Links: Follow Omar on LinkedIn[...]
Tim Herbig has made many mistakes (who hasn’t?). Fortunately for us, Tim not only owns up to his mistakes, he’s written a book to help the rest of us avoid making the same ones. We’ve all had issues with how to work best – not only within our individual teams, but with the rest of[...]
If you're starting a new role in product at whatever level, it can sometimes be difficult to get started, especially if you're chucked in the deep end. In this week's podcast episode, we speak with Leah Tharin. She provides some insights on your first 90 days in a new product role and the best ways[...]
This week on the podcast, we jump straight back into our conversation with Ben Foster. Tune in to hear what he had to say about war, peace, vision, strategy, and how to tie it all together in a perfect bun. Featured Links: Follow Ben on LinkedIn and Twitter | Prodify | Ben's book 'Build What[...]
Vision and strategy in product go hand in hand. In this week's podcast episode we speak to product expert Ben Foster about how to craft these two aspects of product in the real world. Visit AnswerLab.com/mtp to fill in a form for your chance to win a free ticket to Mind The Product San Francisco[...]
After nearly 200 episodes on The Product Experience podcast, and four years of interviewing amazing guests, Lily and Randy decided to take on the topic of product coaching by themselves.Based on their expertise in coaching and leading product teams, they dive deep into this topic to share insights for anyone who might be coaching curious.Featured[...]
What is design debt and how do so many teams end up in this conundrum during or after the design phase? In this week's podcast, Bansi Mehta, CEO of Koru UX Design teaches us a lesson on how product teams can work with design teams to recognise, avoid, or even tackle design debt.Visit AnswerLab.com/mtp to[...]
It's not always so easy being green in product management. Listen to our conversation with Amy Wagner, Agile Consultant and Coach, where we discuss permaculture for agile teams and why it's important to inherit a green culture in product. Visit AnswerLab.com/mtp to fill in a form for your chance to win a free ticket to Mind[...]
OKRs here OKRs there. Every product team seems to have an opinion on how effective they are and their best approach to making best use of the metric model. We spoke with OKR expert Sten Pittet, to find out ways on how to get the most out of this goal setting strategy, and discuss where[...]
There's a ton of stuff going on in the product and wider workspace today. Tune into our conversation with Esther Weinberg to hear about how product people can deal with company transformation during times of disruption. Featured Links: Follow Esther on LinkedIn and Twitter | The Ready Zone | Esther's article 'The Power of a[...]
What are the keys to making a quality product for quality customers? There was no one better to talk with than Lina Zubyte, Head of Quality, at Doodle AG to discuss this. Jump into this quality conversation in this weeks' podcast episode. Featured Links: Follow Lina on LinkedIn and Twitter | Quality Bits | 'What is[...]
In this weeks' podcast, we jump straight back into our conversation with Lucy Spence where we speak with her about trade-offs in product management. Featured Links: Follow Lucy on LinkedIn and Twitter | Lucy's page at Medium | Lucy's 'Trade offs' talk at UX Brighton 2022 | Listen to Lucy's part 1 episode her.Our HostsLily Smith[...]
Today on the product experience podcast is all about trade-offs in product. Lucy Spence, Product Director at Appvia talks to us about her unique take on this important aspect of product management. Featured Links: Follow Lucy on LinkedIn and Twitter | Lucy's page at Medium | Lucy's 'Trade offs' talk at UX Brighton 2022Our HostsLily[...]
What is it like starting a brand new job in product with a shiny new title? How do you approach onboarding and ensure that you have a smooth transition into your new team? Lily and Randy in this podcast episode provide their top tips on getting things off on the right foot. Featured Links: Follow[...]
There's a stage in many product interviews where the hiring manager asks you to prepare a presentation. With limited information about the level of detail and the quality of your competition, how are you meant to know what flies and what doesn't? On this weeks' podcast, we spoke with Edward Biden, Founder of Hustle Badger[...]
Welcome back to The Product Experience podcast! For our first podcast episode to kick off 2023, we speak to Andy Polaine, Design Leadership Coach, about the systems and languages behind a product. The perfect topic to start the new year.Featured Links: Follow Andy on LinkedIn, Twitter and Mastodon | Andy's website | Andy's 'Mind Your[...]
Some of the most successful people we know credit their mentors for making the difference in their careers. We’ve recently heard great talks from the likes of Barry O’Reilly, Marty Cagan, and Gibson Biddle where they talk about having a ‘personal Board of Directors’. But how do you go about getting a mentor and getting[...]
With 2023 just around the corner, product managers have been spending the last few weeks looking at their OKRs and thinking about the direction of their product. To help us better comprehend product strategy and direction, we spoke with Product Leader, Chiedza Muguti to discuss making your product strategy come alive. Let's jump right in![...]
New products get tested and brought to market every day across different scales and sectors. What are the most essential go-to-market keys to make a product launch successful? There was no one better to discuss this with than Lea Hickman, now Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group—who played a crucial part in introducing Adobe's subscription model[...]
Featured Links: Follow Marty on LinkedIn and Twitter | Silicon Valley Product Group | Coaching - Managing Time article at SVPG | Two in a Box PM article at SVPG | Shreyas Doshi on Twitter | How to run a Project Premortem Exercise with your Team feature at Atlassian Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a[...]
Product innovation can get more challenging with the multiple layers of management you have to deal with in larger organisations. How can product managers channel their inner creative thoughts while collaborating effectively in large organisations? There was no one better to ask than Daniel Elizalde, Author of B2B Innovator’s Map, who had all of the[...]
Featured Links: Follow Esha on LinkedIn and Twitter | Meta | WhatsAppOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in[...]
On this weeks' podcast episode, we welcomed the man who needs no introduction...Marty Cagan, Founder and Party of SVPG , and Author of ”Inspired” and “Empowered” delved into a plethora of topics including strategy, vision, ethics, and ways of working. We struggled to fit so much product wisdom into one episode, so we decided to[...]
Rerun: We learn something from every guest that joins us on the podcast, but it’s not that often that something they say makes it onto our wall. Dave Martin (co-founder of Right to Left) chatted with us about building great habits for product people, and how to make sure they stick. He also tells us[...]
Lily and Randy in this special episode, take a trip down memory lane to have a chat about the best Roadmap insights they've heard from a range of product episodes on the podcast over the past year. Tune in to listen to actionable insights from Philips Nwachukwu, Janice Fraser, Maahir Shah, and more! Featured Links: Follow[...]
What is the art and science behind a global music platform like Spotify nailing its algorithms to ensure that all users get the exact results that users want when using the search bar? On this week's podcast, Lily and Randy sat down with Jonny Brooks-Bartlett, Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Spotify, to discuss this process,[...]
This week on the podcast experience, we're talking all about churn. How do you reduce customer churn. What are the biggest obstacles? What are the biggest challenges? And are there any misconceptions behind the perfect churn strategy? Churn expert, Andrew Michael, CEO of Avrio, was able to answer all of our questions with ease and[...]
What makes a great manager and what are the most important factors in making the leap to leading a team? In this weeks' podcast episode, Lily and Randy were joined by the amazing Melike Hope, Product Director at Twitter, to talk all about managing product managers and scaling up your career ladder. Featured Links: Follow[...]
This week's episode on The Product Experience is going to sound a little different...Lily and Randy in this special episode, take a trip down memory lane to have a chat about the best OKRs insights they've heard from a range of product episodes on the podcast over the past year. Tune in to listen to[...]
What is The Metaverse and how can it helps product managers in their daily craft? To help us make sense of the movement, Lily and Randy talked with Mitchell Bayer-Goldman to help us unpack all of the buzzwords and complexities about The Metaverse, and why us as product managers should note of where the concept[...]
What are the most important factors when a organisation decides to adopt a product-led growth approach? On this weeks' podcast episode, we spoke with Executive Product Coach, Noa Ganot all about how to do this the right way and pitfalls to avoid. Featured Links: Follow Noa on LinkedIn and her website | Noa's Infinity Product Leadership[...]
It can be tough, even at the best of times, to remain engaged at work – to find a community of people to share with and learn from. Emily Webber’s seen this in action and has started (and nurtured) successful communities both at work and at home. In this rerun podcast episode, she joined Lily[...]
It's a common saying that 'ego is the biggest product killer'. In this weeks' podcast episode, CPO at R-Zero, Tony Poon, delves into a discussion with Lily and Randy about how to ensure that your ego doesn't get in the way of discovering and managing the best products. Featured Links: Follow Tony on LinkedIn and Twitter[...]
This week on The Product Experience the topic of choice was product discovery. However, with both of our hosts having worked extensively in this subject area before, they decided to hijack this episode and take on the topic all to themselves...For this special episode, Randy Silver and Lily Smith share their best tips on customer[...]
We all know what OKRs are. Most of us use them or have tried to at some point. But it’s a much smaller group that have used OKRs well, and for their intended purpose. Natalija Hellesoe, co-author of OKRs at the Center, joins us on the podcast to chat about taking your practice to the[...]
It seems like everyone on the product scene is about launching brand new products in large organisations, however, we speak with Ben Sehl, Senior Product Lead from Shopify to find out key things to do this in the most effective way. Featured Links: Follow Ben on LinkedIn and Twitter | Shopify CEO Toby Lutke on Twitter[...]
We jump right back into where we left on in part two of this series with experience product coach Itamar Gilad. We carry on discussing evidence-based decisions, and how this approach can enable teams to achieve key product goals.Featured Links: Follow Itamar on LinkedIn and Twitter | Itamar's website | 'Idea Prioritization with ICE and[...]
In part one of two of this podcast series, we spoke with experienced product expert Itamar Gilad to find out more about evidence-based decisions, ideas, and key product goals. Featured Links: Follow Itamar on LinkedIn and Twitter | Itamar's website | 'Idea Prioritization with ICE and the Confidence Meter' piece | Sign up for Itamar's newsletterOur[...]
We all know what product design is but what does inclusive design, and why does it need to be a priority for product managers? On this week's podcast, we were joined by Saielle DaSilver, Director of User Experience at Cazoo to talk all about designing products for people who might face limitations when using your[...]
What's it like launching new products within a big organisation like Ocado? In this weeks' podcast Lily and Randy sat down with Hannah Gibson, Chief Product Officer at Ocado Technology to discuss her experiences in product management over the past 10 years at her organisation, and the key lessons learned from launching a new product[...]
How can product managers get more work done by doing less? On this weeks’ podcast, we spoke with Jim Morris, Founder of The Product Discovery Team about the benefits of having a team-led approach to research, and how that can be an effective way to collaborate effectively and improve your product over time.Featured Links: Follow[...]
What is the secret to succeeding in the product management craft? In this podcast episode, we were joined by Enterprising Senior Product Manager, Ronke Majekodunmi to discuss how building relationships are a key asset to developing your product career, and how to master the art of developing alliances. Featured Links: Follow Ronke on LinkedIn and[...]
In this weeks' podcast, we jump straight back into our chat with Daniel Harris about customer-centricity and developing that mindset in product management. Let's get straight back to the chat! Go check out part one of this conversation if you missed it. Featured Links: Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and Twitter | 'The State of Customer Centricty'[...]
Customer centricity is about bringing the human dimension to everything that you do with your product. To create that process, you need to create an environment where product managers can innovate and thrive. Daniel Harris, Experience Strategy Director at cxpartners joins us on the podcast to talk all about how to deliver that great customer[...]
Matt Walton was one of the founders of FutureLearn, where he scaled the product team and organisation from nothing to the significant player in online education that it is today. Along the way, he learned a lot about continuous improvement of both the product and the processes for building it – including the use of[...]
What does a good Hypothesis look like in product and what does it include? In this weeks' podcast episode, Lily and Randy say down with Mark Tsirekas, VP of Product at ZOE to discuss both the scientific and the non-scientific methods behind hypothesis and testing. Featured Links: Follow Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter | Zoe[...]
Experienced product manager and technology expert Rick Klau, currently California's Chief Technology Innovation Officer sat down with Lily and Randy on the podcast this week to discuss innovation in government throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. They also had time to share insights on OKRs and frameworks in product management.Featured Links: Follow Rick on LinkedIn and Twitter[...]
On this week's podcast, we speak to Lily Smith, Head of Product and Gro....wait...that name sounds familiar? For this special episode on the podcast experience, we decided to turn the tables and interview our very own podcast host, Lily Smith, Head of Product Growth at Bower Collective. With her many years of experience working in product management[...]
What it's like to join a new company and set up a new product from the start. On this weeks' podcast, we spoke to Maggie Crowley all about her experiences during this process. We also had some time to discuss hypotheses and testing in product. Featured Links: Follow Maggie on LinkedIn and Twitter | Work[...]
In recent years the Fintech industry has exploded with many product managers delving into this fast-growing sector. However, what would it be like to pack up all of your things and land a Fintech job in a completely new continent? On this week's podcast, we spoke with. Makera Kigarada, Principal Product Manager at Fintech start-up[...]
What is an OODA loop and how can it be used in product management? OODA stands for observe, orient, decide, and act. In this week's podcast, Kausambi Manjita, Co-Founder and CEO of Mason joins us to talk all about this military concept and how it has been a useful asset in building products and scaling[...]
In this episode of The Product Experience, Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of Pendo, reveals how he climbed the leadership ladder and shares his advice for anyone keen to do the same.Featured Links: Follow Todd on LinkedIn and Twitter | Pendo - The Product-Led Organization Digital Workshop | Todd's book 'The Product-Led Organization' | Patrick[...]
If a product manager is doing their job really well, they will be invisible and the results will speak for themselves. In this rebroadcasted podcast episode, product coach, consultant, and author speaks with Lily and Randy about the product management craft and how the best product managers do their job really well.Listener of The Product[...]
What is the secret to exponential product growth? Daphne Tideman, growth coach joins us on the podcast this week to talk all about how Product/market fit, the importance of business/channel models, and where companies go wrong when looking to grow their products. Listener of The Product Experience? We need your help! Fill out this short[...]
If used well, machine learning (ML) can be a key tool to gain the most effective data about your users. However, how do you conclude if it's the right approach for your product and teams? We spoke with Ha Phan, Director of Discovery Products at Pluralsight, to develop a stronger understanding of how we can[...]
Releasing new products and features are a routine part of a product manager's craft. But what are the keys to a successful product launch, and how do you make sure you have all the right components upon release? We spoke to launch expert, Derek Osgood, to gain all of the key insights.Featured Links: Follow Derek[...]
Since January 2020, Fintech growth has been off the charts. The industry has seen a 337% increase in active users and is only predicted to grow further. We spoke with Deepika Adusumilli, Product Manager at HSBC Retail Banking and Wealth Management to hear more about what it's like to have a product role in this[...]
Product people wear lots of hats - but sometimes we want to swap from one role to another. Author, Consultant, Product lead and recovering-UXer Christian Crumlish joined us on the podcast to talk about why someone might want to move from UX to Product Management, what superpowers they bring to the role, and the biggest[...]
Roisi Proven's last episode was one of our most popular, so we had to have her back for a return chat! She updates us on what she's learned about data ethics and unbiased data sets as Director of Product for Altmetric, and on the horrible story she made up that came true. Featured Links: Follow[...]
Figuring out what to prioritise is one of a product team's biggest challenges. Using a North Star metric to orient around can make it easier - but, as Maahir Shah (Product Manager at Facebook) tells us, it can also lead you in the wrong direction. He joined us on the podcast to talk about how[...]
Most of our time as product people is spent trying to figure out how to improve things. Every once in a while, we find ourselves where everything seems to work and we're growing like crazy. Congratulations: you're in Hypergrowth. And while it sounds amazing (and can be), it comes with a separate and unque set[...]
Product people are charged with representing the needs of the customer as well as the needs of the business—but what happens when these are in conflict? We asked ethics consultant Cennydd Bowles to chat with us about how to handle some tricky situations in product.Featured Links: Follow Cennydd on LinkedIn and Twitter | Cennydd's website[...]
Making your roadmap work hard for you is one of the critical skills of a Product Manager. Find out how Jeremy Levy, CEO of Indicative, leverages customer data to inform his product roadmap. In this episode we also discuss who should be responsible for the data strategy in the business and why it's so much[...]
After over three years on The Product Experience, we have reached our 150th episode! With so many amazing guests and countless memorable moments, we reckon it's a landmark worth celebrating! In this compilation episode on the podcast, we look back at the highlights from some of our favourite shows. Tune in to listen to the[...]
We've run a number of podcast episodes about product discovery because it's one of the hardest things to get right. Even the most experienced product people find it hard to avoid common mistakes. This week, product coach and consultant Anthony Marter joins us on the podcast to chat about the tricky balance between strategy, business[...]
There's a huge shift that takes place when you move from managing a product (with a team) to leading a Product Team. It's not just a change in how you spend your day - it's a whole new outlook, with a focus on different skills and competencies. Jason Knight joined us on the podcast to[...]
Philips Nwachukwu, a Senior Product Manager at The Bulb Africa, joins us on the podcast this week to talk about how he transitioned from a jack-of-all-trades to starting a Product Operations function, as well as the unique challenges he sees for Product people working in Africa. Featured Links: Follow Philips on LinkedIn and Twitter |[...]
If the last coupleof years has taught us anything, it’s that predicting the future is hard. In this podcast episode, sponsored by Amplitude, we turn to Margaret Heffernan to learn how to do it better. She’s a captivating speaker with more than 12 million views of her TED talks and a prolific writer who recently[...]
If you're the kind of person that listens to the Product Experience and reads articles on MTP, then you're already familiar with any number of frameworks, methodologies and principles to make you a better product manager. But knowing them isn't enough to do the job — or, at least, not to do it well. Figuring[...]
Ashley Smith has a long career of helping early-stage startups scale into successful organisations. In this episode, Ashley talks to our hosts about product-led growth, and how everyone can and should do it.Featured Links: Follow Ashley on LinkedIn and Twitter | OpenView Partners Product-Led Growth Index Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager[...]
One great product person can do some amazing things. An entire team of great product people is a force multiplier, creating an environment that is far more than the sum of its parts. We talked with Petra Wille - Coach, Author & co-creator of MTP Engage/Hamburg - about what it takes to 10x your team.Featured[...]
Product people have a tendency to solutions—we're enlightened enough to know better, but we always need to resist the urge to try and fix every problem we come across. That's an especially hard challenge when the problems are internal. Keeping on top of your mental wellbeing is critical, so we talked with Nicholas Jemetta about[...]
Guido Lonetti’s career started out at age 14 in his bedroom – he built an MP3 search engine website that immediately started making money until his parents quashed that idea! In this episode, he shines a light on the diverse product culture in South and Latin America, where he’s spent time as a Head of[...]
At some point, virtually every product person has had a run in with their CEO and thought to themselves, "Hey, I could do a better job than they do. Maybe I should start my own thing." Most of us then think about all the things we'd have to take on (or about the lack of[...]
One of the biggest challenges of working in product is figuring out what story we're trying to tell, and bringing everyone on board with that story. On this week's podcast, we talked with Janice Fraser about ensuring that the story you're telling is rooted in truth—and all of the things that can get in the[...]
OKRs are a simple concept — but deceptively hard to get right. There's an awful lot of horror stories about implementations gone wrong, along with any number of gurus and guides on how to get it right. Storm Fagan — now the Chief Product Officer at the BBC, formerly at JustEat — joined us[...]
Just when you've finally convinced everyone to work mobile-first, the world goes multimodal. If you're not already working on how you might need to plan for voice interaction and conversation design, physical interaction, and even augmented reality, don't worry - you'renot alone. We sat down with Cheryl Platz (author, and now Director of UX, Player[...]
We initially ran this episode back in May, but that was before Frances Haugen came forward as the Facebook whistleblower. Our guest, Columbia University sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, worked in the same area of Facebook as Haugen (civic integrity), albeit years earlier; he also held a similar role at Twitter. We asked him to join[...]
We've talked about avoiding and escaping feature factories a number of times—but how do you take the next step, to become an outcome-driven product organisation? Becky Flint, CEO at Dragonboat, was able to provide all of the answers — after all, she built the product portfolio organisations at Paypal, Shutterfly, and others.Featured Links: Follow Becky[...]
Evolving your organisation from a feature factory to becoming outcome-focused is a challenge many of us have faced - but how do you actually do it? Impact Mapping is a great way to help take stakeholders and teams from focusing on the how-to the what and why. We asked consultant, trainer and author Tim Herbig[...]
Why do good people make bad products? You know the feeling: you're trying to complete a transaction on someone else's site or app,and it Just. Does. Not. Work. You wonder who the poor product manager is for it - or if there even is one. And then you remember the last time you sat in[...]
Back in the dark ages of web design — back when the job title Webmaster was a thing — every team included someone who specialised in Information Architecture (IA). These days, that work is often considered to be part of UX, but that can mean that we're not doing the job well enough. Abby Covert[...]
We always encourage people to experiment with their product development techniques - but experimenting with your team can be a step too far. We talked with Monzo Chief Product Officer Mike Hudack (ex-Facebook, Deliveroo) about how he approaches this: what's worked and what hasn't, avoiding cross-team dependencies, communication & collaboration, and much more.Featured Links: Follow[...]
We've all had the experience of presenting to the leadership team - but what do they say about you when you leave the room? What's it like to work at that level? And how do you get promoted to the C-suite? We talked with experienced product & boardroom vet Tanya Cordrey about all of this[...]
When we sat down with Roll20.net Product Director Kenton Hanson for this week's podcast, we were hoping to hear tales of how he and his product team (or band of adventurers!) went on quests to conduct user research. We wanted to hear about dodging orcs and dragons (stakeholders) while collecting treasure (insights).Instead, we learned that[...]
We all want more customers - but being able to understand who your best customer segments are, prioritise for them, and then land more of them? That's a game-changer. We talked with Tamara Grominsky (Unbounce's VP of Strategy) about some easy-to-implement techniques that will help you do just that.Featured Links: Follow Tamara on LinkedIn and[...]
There's nothing more useless to a Product team than a big backlog. Bringing backlogs to life - making them usable, relevant, and getting value from them - is something that transforms ordinary teams into extraordinary ones. To guide us on how to do that, we asked Jeff Patton - creator of User Story Mapping -[...]
There's no better training ground than working in Emergency Services for learning how to deal with stress, uncertainty, prioritisaton with imperfect information, and challenging stakeholders - all skills that are key to working in Product. Nathan Henry joins on the podcast this week to chat about how he levereges the skills he developed as a[...]
As product people, it's important for us to love our products, our customers, and the problems we're trying to solve. (though not in that order!). A lot of the time, though, we're not really working on something truly important.That's not the case for Randeep Sidhu—he got a call to help rescue the UK's Covid-19 app,[...]
Over the last 15 years, Merissa has gone from New York media to Australian finance to German fintechs - with a number of stops in between. She joins us on the podcast to talk about what she's learned along the way, including: from working in different cultures & industries, influencing executives,knowing if you want to be a[...]
What holds most Product people back? Hint: it's not ability. For this week's podcast, we talked with Martina Hodges-Schell and Teresa Leighty about how to make changes in your company's environment that actually work, for you, and your teams.Featured Links: Follow Martina on LinkedIn, Twitter & her Website｜Follow Teresa on LinkedIn and Twitter | Heath[...]
Understanding your company's business model is a key skill for all product people - but understanding how that affects your company's valuation is what takes things to the next level. What are you maximizing for - and how does your pricing model impact that? We talked with Giff Constable (ex-Chief Product Officer, Meetup) about all[...]
We all know that solving your customer's problem - in a way that's feasible, viable and usable - is the key to a product's success. (Or one of them, anyway!) Inherent in that is clearly understanding your users, and their peoblems. We talked with Peter Yang (Product Lead @ Reddit) about understanding the needs and[...]
Want to make a veteran product person sad? Just ask them how they've used MVPs in the past. Once you get past the sobbing, you're likely to get stories of the myriad ways that a perfectly good experiment got turned into a v1 release. It doesn't have to be like that! Dan Olsen joins us[...]
You've optimised your product to solve a problem for your users. You've refined the sales funnel, built for scale, and made sure that accessability is baked in from the start. Great job!But what about ensuring that your customers can trust it? We talked with Nathan Kinch, an Entrepreneur & Digital Trust Expert, about the big[...]
You may have heard about Project Aristotle — an effort by Google that revealed Psychological Safety as the common element in their highest-performing teams. Understanding what that is — and how we can create a culture of safety in our teams — isn’t quite as easy. We spoke with Alla Weinberg, author of A Culture[...]
We all know that discovery is important — but how it’s done is just as critical. Randy had the chance to collaborate with service design consultant Simon Wilson on a project recently, where mapping formed the basis for much of the discovery work. We invited Simon onto the podcast to talk about this approach. Featured[...]
Debbie Madden wants you to make better teams because she knows what she’s doing. The founder and CEO of NYC-based Stride Consulting, Debbie offers practical advice for hiring managers, anyone looking for a new job, or who wants to change the culture in their current organisation. And it’s not just that hiring for diversity is[...]
Egyptian-born Abdelrahman (Abdo) Wahba co-founded popular Arabic audiobook site Iqraaly—but it wouldn’t have seen its current success unless Abdo had taken the time to analyse deeply what made customers stay loyal. To do that, he had to get to his “Aha moment”. Now based in Berlin as the Chief Product Officer for the Offerista Group,[...]
The job of a Product person is hard to define. We’re a little of everything, depending on the day and what’s needed. The one thing we can all agree on is that it’s never really done. Christian Idiodi—partner at Silicon Valley Product Group—joins us on the podcast to break down what’s expected of us, what[...]
In 2008, Columbia University sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh published his first book, Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes To The Streets. A few years later, that got the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, which led to a role working in Integrity for Facebook, and later, as Director of Social Science Research and Health Research[...]
In his new book, Product Direction: How to Build Successful Products at Scale with Strategy, Roadmaps, and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Xing Product Director Nacho Bassino details the parts of the job that any senior product person needs to master – but which are really difficult to learn before you’re responsible for them. We[...]
Building and managing products is hard. Building an organisation that manages existing products, and is optimised to build new ones is exponentially harder — which is why we spoke with Cait O’Riordan, Chief Product and Information Officer at the Financial Times, for this week’s podcast. A veteran of the BBC and Shazam, she’s now working[...]
Monika Turska defines the job of a Product Manager as someone who helps make better decisions, faster. But making the right decisions—whether it’s the ones that we’re actively making, or the ones we’re empowering our algorithms to make—requires a real understanding of the environment they’re being made in. We asked Design for Cognitive Bias author,[...]
For many product people, it’s a dream to get in early at a startup — or to start their own. Unless you have the ability to bootstrap, that means you’ll need access to money, which often means working with venture capital. That can be a mysterious and scary world, so we asked Dharmesh Raithatha, CPO[...]
When we talk about product strategy, we often go back to the double diamond approach: identify the problem that you need to solve, then work on creating & optimising a solution for it. There’s a similar approach to Product careers — first, we need to get the job, then we need to excel in it. [...]
For most of us, the way that we conduct user research has been different during a year of lockdowns. Not so much for Anna Lee Anda, UX Research Manager at Zendesk — as someone with a global customer base, she’s been working with these techniques for ages. She joined us on the podcast to talk[...]
We all know that we need to measure what matters; that if it’s not measured, then it’s not managed. We know that we need to have a North Star; that we need to run A/B tests; and that A/B tests are awful. We also know there’s a massive difference between what we read in the[...]
How much should you be charging? Are you leaving money on the table, or are you scaring away potential customers? Pricing strategy can be one of the biggest challenges for product people, so we asked Founders Factory coach Fanni Fejes to share some of the lessons she teaches founders. In this episode, sponsored by Hotjar,[...]
Estimation is a dark art — get it wrong, and your stakeholders will never forget (or forgive). We talked with agile consultant Liz Keogh about how to get this right, who estimates are for, her invaluable scale for estimating complexity, and how to pronounce the word Cynefin. In this episode, sponsored by Hotjar, listen to[...]
There’s no glory in working on internal tools – no one ever gives you credit for success, it’s almost impossible to recruit for, and there’s never enough time to fix all of the things that are needed. It’s no wonder that we don’t talk about it very often. But they’re the key to making lots[...]
One of the key things to do in any product lifecycle is to review if it’s meeting your user’s needs. The last time we sat down to do this for the podcast, we decided to use the Jobs To Be Done approach, which led to a key question: how might we power up our JTBD[...]
We all know what OKRs are. Most of us use them or have tried to at some point. But it’s a much smaller group that have used OKRs well, and for their intended purpose. Natalija Hellesoe, co-author of OKRs at the Center, joins us on the podcast to chat about taking your practice to the[...]
Accessibility is one of those things that we all know we should do, but are rarely confident that we’ve done it well. To get over that hump, we talked with Prof Jonathan Hassell about how and when to embed and test for accessibility (or a11y!), when you can skip it, and how to convince stakeholders[...]
Over the last decade in the public sector, there’s been a global explosion in citizen and resident-centered design and development, with movements in the UK, Estonia, Australia, Canada, USA, and many more strengthening their approaches. Where it’s been done well, it’s made a huge difference. At the same time, civil services are always facing budget[...]
Startups, scale-ups, and unicorns get all the press – but there are an awful lot more product people working at large organisations. Katie Saindon, Senior Manager of Product Management at GE Healthcare, is one of them. Working on their digital products and platforms, she’s learned a lot about how to survive and thrive in a[...]
Everyone – or so we’re told – has the dream of joining or founding a hot startup and making their fortune, all while really proving their product chops. Though he’s now a Product Manager at Facebook, Karthik Suresh co-founded Altrest and grew Craft.io from an early stage. He joins us on the podcast to share[...]
Startups are often talked about as if they’re all the same, as if experience in one is directly transferable to another. Georgie Smallwood, Chief Product Officer at Tier Mobility, joined us on the podcast to chat about the differences in working for earlier stage companies and those that are scaling up. She covers why she[...]
Some of the most successful people we know credit their mentors for making the difference in their careers. We’ve recently heard great talks from the likes of Barry O’Reilly, Marty Cagan, and Gibson Biddle where they talk about having a ‘personal Board of Directors’. But how do you go about getting a mentor and getting[...]
We learn something from every guest that joins us on the podcast, but it’s not that often that something they say makes it onto our wall. Dave Martin (co-founder of Right to Left) chatted with us about building great habits for product people, and how to make sure they stick. He also tells us about[...]
One of the things we’ve learned in 2020 is just how important it is to have great facilitation skills as product people. That’s why we’re revisiting our chat with Elena Astilleros from earlier in the year – she’s the author of Invisible Leader: Facilitation secrets for catalyzing change, cultivating, innovation, and commanding results, a topic[...]
As product people, we work extensively with images. While our designers may be doing the heavy lifting, who hasn’t spent an extra 30 minutes trying to find the perfect image to help get a point across for an executive presentation? (It can’t just be us who does that…) That’s why we invited Grant Farhall, Chief[...]
In 2020, we had to brush up on our skills. Building quickly and testing with users is key to many product people, but this year demanded a new approach when we couldn’t do our work in person. With that in mind, we’re revisiting our chat with Cookpad’s Head of Product for Premium Services, Philip Pantelides,[...]
As we start to wrap up the year and panic shop for gifts, our thoughts naturally drift to everyone’s favourite part of the holiday season: playing with toys! Our go-to person to learn more about creating a great play experience is Melissa Pickering, Strategic Product Director at The LEGO Group. Melissa joined us on the[...]
Being on the inside of a company as it takes off is a special kind of experience – and being in a product leadership position while that’s going on gives a unique viewpoint. Gibson Biddle has been lucky enough to have gone on that ride at Netflix, and he’s generous in sharing the lessons he[...]
Matt Walton was one of the founders of FutureLearn, where he scaled the product team and organisation from nothing to the significant player in online education that it is today. Along the way, he learned a lot about continuous improvement of both the product and the processes for building it – including the use of[...]
It’s been drilled into our heads time and time again – as product people, we know that we are not the customer. What follows is that we need to get to know our customers, to figure out what their problems are, how they perceive and prioritise them, and how they react to the solutions we[...]
A quick update to this episode: Since we recorded this episode, one of our guests has made a change. Eli Montgomery is now known as Saielle Montgomery and goes by the pronouns she/her. We’ve worked with her to updated the links below, but we wanted to make sure that there wasn’t any confusion about the[...]
We first saw Onfido’s Susana Lopes talk about how she used the State of the Product presentation to manage stakeholders and drive alignment at London’s Product Camp. She’s since written two great articles on the subject (Tools to Help Product Managers Think Strategically and Commercially Part 1 and Part 2), and she joins us on[...]
When you have questions about roadmaps, it pays to talk to someone who has spent way too much of her life thinking about them. Janna Bastow – co-founder of both Mind the Product and ProdPad—has been trying to fix the problems of roadmaps for most of her professional life. She hacked together the first version[...]
“People are hard.” That’s what Mind the Product co-founder Janna Bastow said in her keynote speech at #mtpcon in 2017. As product managers, we have to deal with demanding, unreasonable people who hold us to unrealistic standards and want everything delivered yesterday – and as a parent, you have to deal with stakeholders and team[...]
Talking to users is easy. Talking to them in a way that gets you useful information is hard. Using that information in a way that helps align stakeholders and teams on the path to building great products? That’s the hardest of all. Lucky for us, our guest on the podcast this week is Robert Chokr,[...]
As we’ve got an Ask Me Anything session with Colin Pal coming up soon (October 14th), we’re re-broadcasting this episode from earlier in the year so that you can get to know Colin and prep some questions for him! The AMA is for Prioritised and MTP Leader members so if you’re not a member yet,[...]
In our previous episode, Adam Thomas introduced how he uses a military technique (BLUF) for prioritisation. This week, former US Marine William Treseder – now co-founder and SVP of Product at innovation consultancy BMNT – joins us to talk about how he works with Government, Defense, Academic and Corporate clients to transform their innovation culture.[...]
The one thing every product person needs is a new acronym that comes from the military, and Adam Thomas is here to help. Sarcasm aside, Adam’s made good use of the BLUF technique: Bottom Line Up Front, a short template, clearly laying out what the team is working on and how they plan to do[...]
Matt LeMay has a problem. He’s a content machine. He’s written 3 books (two books on product and one on the musician Elliot Smith), plenty of music, and much more – which means that he’s prone to going down a rabbit hole before sharing his work with a team. To combat that, he now employs[...]
Product people love to study frameworks, techniques, and approaches that have worked at other companies. In Kate Leto’s new book, Hiring Product Managers: Using Product EQ to go Beyond Culture and Skills, she gives an overview of how to actually use those tools – both in building a team and day-to-day, as a product professional.[...]
April Dunford’s mtpcon Digital 2020 keynote on positioning was so good that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dig deeper into the topic with her. This is one of the dark arts for many product people, and it has such a deep effect on everything else you do – take a listen to upgrade[...]
Bugs are the bane of existence for product teams. They frustrate our users, ruin the best-laid plans, and screw up our sprints. Figuring out how to deal with them is a problem for many teams: do we have good acceptance criteria? How do we test? What’s better, unit tests or user acceptance testing? Who has[...]
Is product management an art or a science? Holly Hester-Reilly, the founder of H2R Product Science and a former Chemical Engineer, uses her background to apply scientific principles and techniques to product development. She joins us to chat about evidence-based product strategy, continuous discovery & delivery, and empowered teams. In this episode, sponsored by Amplitude,[...]
Just call him Mr Joe. A UK-based consultant, Joe Leech has built a reputation for managing change (for both users and stakeholders) and as the guy to call when a product launch has gone wrong. Joe gave one of the most entertaining and engaging talks at Mind the Product in London 2018, so we followed[...]
One of our favourite pub discussions after a ProductTank is to try and define the difference between a product and a service. (We’re fun like that.) These days, we’re doing all of our meetups and events remotely, so Andy Budd joined us on the podcast to talk about the difference between product managers and service[...]
Teaching something is hard – to do it well, you need both an incredible command of the subject and great communication skills. Teaching in the form of a narrative story? That’s another level of difficulty and in her new book, The Team That Managed Itself: A Story Of Leadership, Christina Wodtke does just that. Drawing[...]
All the sexy stories around product management come from startups, or revolve around working like a startup. Working in an enterprise gets much less respect – but being successful in a large firm is no picnic. It takes a very particular set of skills to be able to communicate, influence, prioritise and execute at scale[...]
Nandini Jammi started out in product marketing and growth, but after the US elections in 2016, her career took an unexpected turn when she joined Sleeping Giants, an organisation that aims to make bigotry and sexism less profitable. In this episode of The Product Experience, sponsored by Amplitude, learn how to apply this ethos to[...]
Product people have a lot of things in common: we’re curious, we like connecting the dots, we try to solve more problems than we create, we get bored easily, we’re pretty social (even if we also identify as introverts), and we enjoy looking at things at both a tactical and strategic level. Unfortunately, we’re also[...]
Working in product is a dream job for lots of people but sustaining a dream career certainly isn’t without challenges. There are problems around burnout, advancement, the challenges of specialisation, and in being a generalist. Jeff Gothelf has been there. He woke up one day and realised that his path forward as a design leader[...]
Over the course of lockdown, how we maintain relationships with our nearest and dearest has been tested. But Fabrice des Mazery, CPO at Thiga, suggests the skills we’ve honed during this time can actually be useful in building relationships with our customers. In this episode, sponsored by Amplitude, he draws on his experience at Deezer,[...]
Berlin-based Product Coach Shaun Russell was always destined to work in Product. He co-founded Audiobubble while still in school and gave himself all the responsibilities of a Product Manager years before ever hearing of the title. In the years since he’s put a lot of thought into the development of his practice and has spoken[...]
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that predicting the future is hard and in this episode, sponsored by Amplitude, we turn to Margaret Heffernan to learn how to do it better. She’s a captivating speaker with more than 12 million views of her TED talks and a prolific writer who recently published Uncharted: How[...]
One of the critical skills never mentioned in the job description is being a great meeting facilitator. We’ve all been thrust into the situation of trying to wrangle a room full of people into working together to create a strategy, generate a plan, or get past a roadblock. Elena Astilleros has been there, too –[...]
The story of the first ProductTank – held in the back room of a London pub, arranged by Martin Eriksson, attended by a handful of people – has been told many times. And so, to celebrate the 10th anniversary, we wanted to hear from someone else who was there, in the room, when it all[...]
In previous roles, Julia Whitney led teams at WGBH and the BBC, so she’s familiar with rooms full of people in meetings where decisions not only don’t get made, they’re sometimes actively avoided. Now an executive and leadership coach, she’s devoted a lot of time over the last few years to working with teams on[...]
One of the tropes we’ve heard again and again is that product people don’t actually build anything. We’re not designers (except when we are) or engineers (unless we can code) or anything actually, y’know, useful. What that viewpoint misses is that we build understanding, alignment, and purpose – and that our best tool is conversations.[...]
At ProductCamp Southwest UK earlier this year, Adrian Howard ran a session that focused on something he termed ‘Sturgeon’s biases‘ – where he talked about how the experience of being in a community was not evenly distributed, about the fact that like-minded people tend to group together, and that 90% of everything is crap. We[...]
It can be tough, even at the best of times, to remain engaged at work – to find a community of people to share with and learn from. Emily Webber’s seen this in action and has started (and nurtured) successful communities both at work and at home. She joined us to continue where her 2018[...]
We’ve heard it again and again – these are odd times; we’re not working remotely, we’re working during a crisis; this is not the new normal. You’re not working the same way, and your customers have different needs than they did a month ago. We turned to Teresa Torres – our first repeat guest! –[...]
For obvious reasons, most of us are currently working from home, along with teams that are also all remote. Even if you’ve worked from home before, even if you’ve done it under tough conditions, this is different. Amir Salihefendić should know. As the founder and CEO of Doist (makers of Todoist and Twist), his company[...]
Throughout their careers, whatever question either Lily or Randy has had, Roman Pichler’s probably had some great advice on the topic! A longtime consultant, author and teacher, we grabbed him for a chat focusing on some of the lessons contained in his fourth book, How to Lead in Product Management. Quote of the Episode A[...]
When you want to learn about the state of product management across Asia, there are two people who come to mind: Adrienne Tan (CEO and co-founder of Brianmates in Sydney) and Colin Pal (Chief Product Officer, Caterspot in Kuala Lumpur). With more than 25 years of experience between them, they’ve been there since the beginning,[...]
A couple of things we’re hearing people talk about a lot this week are how they’re adjusting to working in a different way, and how they are adjusting their strategies to deal with the current situation. These are situations that are fraught with the possibility for unintended consequences – something Roisi Proven covered in her[...]
Nobody rants quite like Laura Klein. Others have tried, but we’ve yet to find anyone else with her depth of experience (spanning stints as a developer, designer, researcher and product manager), her empathy for both users and stakeholders, her experience as a teacher, and her sense of humour. She’s author of Build Better Products: a[...]
One of the things we’ve learned from doing this podcast is that it’s important to schedule in time to reflect and to revisit some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. It’s been a recurring theme, actually – something that’s been mentioned by Barry O’Reilly, Rian van der Merwe, and John Cutler – and[...]
The best product people are the ones that are insatiably curious, who want to learn more, who want to get better at all aspects of the job. In many businesses this can be hard – there’s not always an established culture, or people around who have done the job before and can help upskill the[...]
At MTP Engage Manchester (February 2020), Rakhi Rajani (Associate Partner at QuantumBlack) joined us for our first-ever live podcast recording. Talking to Rakhi we learned why Engage organiser Adam Warburton called her the smartest person he’s ever worked with as we discussed building teams, hiring at scale, when you need troublemakers, and why she had[...]
If you listen to the end credits of the podcast every week, then you already know Marc Abraham’s voice – he’s ProductTank’s Global Coordinator, a co-curator of the Mind the Product conference, an author (of My Product Management Toolkit), and he’s got a day job as a Head of Product at ASOS. What you might[...]
We’ve all had that one manager that we’ll do anything to avoid for the rest of our careers – but have you ever stopped to think if you’re that person for someone else? That’s the question that prompted Claire Lew to start Know Your Team and here she joins us on the podcast to give[...]
If you’ve ever had to fill a role in your team, then you already know how broken most hiring processes are. It’s even harder if you’re competing for top talent but are only able to pay at NGO/charity scales. That’s the situation that Simprints found itself in when they decided to treat their hiring process[...]
W. Edwards Deming wrote, “In God we trust, all others must bring data.” Product people hold on to this as a mantra – how else can we defend ourselves from random requests? – but we’re not always taught how best to use data. In this week’s episode, Lens.ai founder Mike Bugembe joins us on the[...]
For the 50th episode of The Product Experience, we’re proud to have Chris Adams join us to talk about making your products more sustainable. One of the rare people who’s seen our world from all sides – Chris has been a developer, designer, researcher and product manager – he came on the show to share[...]
There’s a lot of debate in the product and research communities about quantitative vs qualitative approaches to metrics, so we sat down with Tomer Sharon (MD/Head of User Research and Metrics at Goldman Sachs) to talk about how he uses Google’s HEART approach to track what matters. Formerly of Google and WeWork, Tomer talks about[...]
One of the hardest skills for product people to acquire is that of saying no. After all, when everyone comes at you with ideas, prioritisation can be a massive challenge. So it’s refreshing when we get a chance to come at it from the opposite direction in order to generate good ideas. Gal Josefsberg, VP[...]
We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes over the holidays. We’ll be back with new interviews in early January. But don’t despair! In the meantime, we’re re-running two episodes that fit the theme of the season: reflection and planning for 2020. Randy’s Pick ‘Tis the season to make a list of resolutions for[...]
We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes over the holidays. We’ll be back with fresh interviews in early January. But don’t despair! In the meantime, we’re re-running two episodes that fit the theme of the season: reflection and planning for 2020. Lily’s Pick I think, by now, we all know that product management[...]
Taking a break from the always entertaining/sometimes informative podcast Jake & Jonathan (formerly known as The Product Breakfast club, which he co-hosts with Jake Knapp), AJ&Smart CEO Jonathan Courtney joined us to chat about Design Sprints, workshops, and how to get groups of people collaborating. Quote of the Episode One of the best things about[...]
Todd Green knows a few things about creating and managing things that attract a lot of attention – before he joined King (makers of Candy Crush etc), he helped to define the digital experience for The X Factor, and the [Your Country] Idol and [Your Country]’s Got Talent franchises. We talked to him about how[...]
Jimena Almendares has held senior product roles and leadership positions at Zynga and Meetup, and now runs the Global Expansion efforts for Intuit. She has plenty of great stories to tell from those roles, but it’s her time as Chief Product Officer at OKCupid that we wanted to talk about. Jimena’s team completely revamped the[...]
If you’ve got a background in waterfall processes, it can seem as if agile techniques are just about making it up as you go along. (MTP’s own James Mayes once commented that waterfall, on the other hand, “is making it up before you even begin”.) What happens if we embrace this, and bring improv techniques[...]
Mixcloud CTO and co-founder Mat Clayton helped bootstrap his company from humble beginnings in an empty warehouse with no internet connection to more than 15 million active users over a 10-year period, all before they took their first round of funding. He joined us to talk about startup life, scaling, making hard decisions, and more.[...]
Author, advisor, professor, and podcaster Barry O’Reilly joined us on The Product Experience where we learned that he has a lot of sympathy for senior executives. These are people, he points out, whose entire career has led them to a position of responsibility and reward – so it naturally follows that the behaviours that got[...]
If you – or your kids – have ever controlled a Lego creation from an app, then you’re familiar with Melissa Pickering’s work. Now Lego’s Head of Interactive Play, blending digital and physical play, she got her start as an Imagineer at Disney (designing rollercoasters!) before founding a STEM startup. She joined us on the[...]
David Bland is the CEO and Founder of Precoil, an author, and a long-time practitioner of agile and lean startup. He joined us on the podcast to talk about how to create focus around what matters to your users by using different testing methodologies – a topic he and Alex Osterwalder cover in their book,[...]
With over 20 years of experience in industries ranging from manufacturing to aerospace, to energy, and more, Daniel Elizalde has seen it all. Currently VP, Head of IoT at Ericsson North America and also an IoT instructor at Stanford University, Daniel talks to Randy and Lily about how to gain the skills needed to confidently[...]
A manager of product management at Pivotal Software, Brazilian native Gabrielle Bufrem has worked on three continents (North America, Europe and Asia) and hails from a fourth. She’s delivered great talks at our #MTPEngage conferences in Hamburg and Manchester, but we caught up with her after a talk about “saying no” at Edinburgh’s Turing Festival.[...]
After starting out as an agency (37 Signals), those at Basecamp realised that the tools it used to manage its own projects would have value for others. What followed was a bootstrapped journey to creating an entire suite of products, using Basecamp’s own approach on how to work well together. Over the years, the company[...]
Guido Lonetti’s career started out at age 14 in his bedroom – he built an MP3 search engine website that immediately started making money until his parents quashed that idea! In this episode, he shines a light on the diverse product culture in South and Latin America, where he’s spent time as a Head of[...]
Nandini Jammi started out in product marketing and growth, but after the US elections in 2016 her career took an unexpected turn when she joined Sleeping Giants, an organisation that aims to make bigotry and sexism less profitable. In this episode of The Product Experience, learn how to apply this ethos to your products, where[...]
Presently a partner at expansion stage venture capital firm OpenView, Ashley Smith has a long career of helping early-stage startups scale into successful organisations. In this episode, Ashley talks to our hosts about product-led growth, and how everyone can and should do it. Quote of the Episode It really comes down to: listen to your[...]
After starting his career on the road with a circus (yes, really), no business setting should ever be a challenge for Jeff Gothelf – after all, he’s worked with real clowns. Jeff sat down with our hosts for a rare in-person conversation during Scotland’s Turing Festival to chat about effecting change, focusing on outcomes, using[...]
For our first episode back after a summer break, we chat with Philip Pantelides, who takes us on a journey through Japan, Indonesia and beyond. (er, Bristol.) As the Head of Product for Premium Services at Cookpad, Philip has become known for his unstinting attention to detail, and taking rapid prototyping to a whole new[...]
We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes for the month of August. We’ll be back with new interviews in September. But don’t despair! We’ve asked a few friends to pick some of their favorite episodes to re-broadcast in the meantime. This week’s pick comes from Mind the Product co-founder, Martin Eriksson. Martin Eriksson’s[...]
We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes for the month of August. We’ll be back with new interviews in September. But don’t despair! We’ve asked a few friends to pick some of their favorite episodes to re-broadcast in the meantime. This week’s pick comes from our co-host, Randy Silver. Randy Silver’s Pick Of[...]
We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes for the month of August. We’ll be back with new interviews in September. But don’t despair! We’ve asked a few friends to pick some of their favorite episodes to re-broadcast in the meantime. This week’s pick comes from our Executive Producer, Emily Tate. Emily Tate’s Pick[...]
Roisi Proven is a true product person: she has a penchant for imagining the worst, which she’s turned into a superpower to put all of her product decisions through a rigorous ethics test. That’s useful – but she’s also found a way for you to engage your team in a creative way, using the model[...]
A nice bit of serendipity this week: this week’s guest, Josh Seiden, had his new book (Outcomes Over Output) recommended in last week’s episode by guest Rich Mironov. While we didn’t plan this, it’s no surprise – Josh is a respected author, speaker, trainer, and consultant, and the book is a fantastic read. As a[...]
Rich Mironov got his start in product with a a single, very demanding customer: Apple. Realising it would be safer to diversify, he’s gone on to spend the last 30-plus years working with more than 90 organisations across the world in interim leadership roles and consulting. He’s seen it all, and he shares his experience[...]
After leaving the Navy and working on nuclear submarines, Dan Olsen embarked on a career that has spanned enterprises and start-ups, consulting, speaking, writing, and running the Lean Product & Lean UX meetup. He joined us to talk about product/market fit: what it is, how to know when you have it, and how to achieve[...]
Lucie McLean started on mobile products before the launch of the iPhone – she once held a phone for an illustration in a BBC article, and as a result, has some of the most famous hands on the internet. She joined us to talk about some of the things she’s learned from her long career[...]
Egyptian-born Abdelrahman (Abdo) Wahba co-founded popular Arabic audiobook site Iqraaly – but it wouldn’t have seen its current success unless Abdo had taken the time to analyse deeply what made customers stay loyal. To do that, he had to get to his “Aha moment”. Now based in Berlin as the Head of Product for the[...]
The Head of Product at Wildbit, Rian van der Merwe has spent his career being crazy busy – and he’s had enough of it. He joined us to talk about slowing down to speed up, making sure your team(s) are productive, and managing yourself to provide the most value to everyone around you. Quote of[...]
Ashwini Asokan, CEO and co-founder of intelligent retail automation platform VUE.ai, is working to evolve the world of retail, making shopping more of an entertainment experience. She’s spent a lot of time thinking about artificial intelligence and she sat down with us to go beyond the hype – and give us some practical advice about[...]
Ash Williams (Evil Dead); Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock (Zombieland); Shaun (Shaun of the Dead); Alice (Resident Evil); Lisa Long (ProductTank). All have killed zombies, and entertained us as they did so… but only Lisa did so on stage at London’s ProductTank, giving us practical advice on how to kill off zombie features and[...]
In 2017, Teresa Torres gave one of our favourite talks on the Mind the Product stage, introducing the concept of Opportunity Solution Trees. Simple, powerful, and immediately useful, it’s been a critical part of our toolkits ever since. When we started this podcast, Teresa was one of the people we simply had to talk to[...]
Ryan Jacoby is an expert on innovation, but not, perhaps, on optimising book titles for SEO – his book, Making Progress, is a guide on how to ensure that your team is open to and successful at innovation. Ryan has been working in the field since his undergraduate days, when he became the first person[...]
From humble beginnings with 25 people in the back room of a pub in London in May 2010 looking for a group therapy session, the ProductTank meetups have grown to over 180 cities with hundreds of thousands of people signed up. We grabbed co-founder Martin Eriksson and Dallas organiser Emily Tate (now also US General[...]
Melissa Perri is the product manager’s product manager—she’s able to do the job, explain it, and teach you how to do it better. So when we got her on this week’s podcast, we covered everything…including Japanese deployment strategies, Marmite and peanut butter, product leadership and team organisation, how companies scale, how to pick the right[...]
Over the course of her career, Donna Lichaw has moved from Design and UX to Product – consulting with teams, giving keynotes and working with leadership groups – but what she’s always focused on is storytelling. Now an executive coach – “I just won’t help people build products, I help them build themselves,” she says[...]
Debbie Madden wants you to make better teams – but because she knows what she’s doing, she gave her book the attention-grabbing title Hire Women. The founder and CEO of NYC-based Stride Consulting, Debbie offers practical advice for hiring managers, anyone looking for a new job, or who wants to change the culture in their[...]
Few people have more experience in leading product teams than Joff Redfern. Now the VP of Product at Atlassian, he’s held similar roles at LinkedIn, Yahoo!, and Fidelity Investments. Joff’s team at Atlassian creates the products that many of us use to manage our own product and development processes; he’s got a unique viewpoint on[...]
Just call him Mr Joe. A UK-based consultant, Joe Leech has built a reputation for managing change (for both users and stakeholders) and as the guy to call when a product launch has gone wrong. Joe gave one of the most entertaining and engaging talks at Mind the Product in London 2018, so we followed[...]
Kai Haley is Google’s Lead of Design Relations, but in her spare time she also looks after the company’s internal Design Sprint Academy. Jake Knapp (late of Google Ventures/GV) may have written the book, but Kai has run the sprints, trained the trainers, and has spent the last few years in the trenches. We had[...]
Prior to taking on the role of COO and CPO at Singapore-based financial portal MoneySmart, Nick Ramsay was a strategy consultant and product manager. In the last year, he’s grown the product team there from one to 10 product managers, and has been working on changing the culture and attracting the right kind of talent[...]
Before financial software provider Aquila Heywood transformed how it approaches prioritisation, it had a backlog that was more than 20 years long and its projects took about seven years to release. Product Director Holly Donohue was part of the team that changed how the business approaches its work, so that it now sees value being[...]
Tim Herbig has made many mistakes (who hasn’t?). Fortunately for us, Tim not only owns up to his mistakes, he’s written a book to help the rest of us avoid making the same ones. We’ve all had issues with how to work best – not only within our individual teams, but with the rest of[...]
If you’re active on Product Twitter, then you already know John Cutler. It’s not just that he’s extremely prolific – it’s the quality and depth of his tweets (and his longer essays) that reach deep into the heart of what we’re struggling with on a daily basis – especially his post 12 Signs You’re working[...]
Bruce McCarthy was the president of the Boston Product Management Association, is the founder of consultancy Product Culture and co-wrote the book on roadmapping, Product Roadmaps Relaunched. He joined us live at the Mind the Product Leadership Forum to chat about how he builds his own roadmaps, prioritisation, product vision, OKRs and quite a bit[...]
Marty Cagan recently called her an “exceptional discovery coach”, but we’ve known that Petra Wille is special for a long time. One of the co-organisers of the MtP Engage conference in Hamburg (and a featured speaker at the Leadership Forum this year), she gave a talk a while back on Egoless Product Development. We wanted[...]
Ken Norton needs no introduction. Now Senior Operating Partner at GV (we still slip up and call it Google Ventures), Ken was a CTO and CEO/founder before he joined Yahoo! to run its Product organisation. He then joined Google, where he worked on Maps, Calendar and Docs. Ken has also been a keynote speaker, giving[...]
Christopher Nheu (Head of Product at Australia-based Mad Paws) came to our attention after speaking at ProductTank Sydney. His presentation, Product Thinking for Marketplace Startups, does an amazing job of documenting the differences between pipes and platforms, the three fundamental forces of marketplaces, and the specific challenges of catering to customers concerned with the well-being[...]
The founder and CEO of NYC-based Motivate Design, Mona Patel, first came to our attention after appearing on another great podcast, Jonathan Courtney and Jake Knapp’s Product Breakfast Club. She spoke about running and scaling an agency, which was interesting – but what really got us was her unique take on the Discovery process. Her[...]
Ben Newell was the first guest we got by recommendation. After giving a talk on persuasion techniques at ProductTank Dallas-Fort Worth, it was a no-brainer for us: this is a key skill for anyone whose job includes wrangling tricky stakeholders, herding teams or presenting to senior management – an area where in which we’d all[...]
Thor Mitchell knows his bones – he’s an ex-Google product manager (Maps and Google+ APIs) and was most recently the Chief Product Officer at Crowdcube. Following a talk at ProductTank Bristol, he joined us to chat about the advice he gives both to aspiring product managers and to those angling for leadership positions. Quote of[...]
Earlier this year, I had the chance to speak at Mind the Product/Engage in Hamburg. It was a fantastic experience, and an opportunity I didn’t want to waste. In preparation, I took the chance to give the talk a few dry-runs at ProductTanks across the UK – and I learned something that was obvious, but[...]

The Product Experience features conversations with the product people of the world, focusing on real insights of how to improve your product practice. Part of the Mind the Product network, hosts Lily Smith (ProductTank organiser and Product Consultant) & Randy Silver (Head of Product and product management trainer) ‘go deep’ with the best speakers from ProductTank meetups all over the globe, Mind the Product conferences, and the wider product community.

Podcast Home

All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are directy attributed to Mind the Product or their podcast platform partner. If you believe your copyrighted work is in use without your permission, you can follow our process outlined here. See terms of use.