Sketchnote: 20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes by Dave Wascha

While scrolling through a lot of Product Management content in the last few days, i came across this presentation by Dave Wascha that I found relevant.

It was one of those presentations that sticks with you. It was one of those presentations that excited me enough to create a sketchnote of (that i share below). Here are the summary of points tthat Dave shared:

1. Listen to your customers
Your job as a PM is to maniacally focus on your customers problems.
You cannot solve customers problems without understanding it.
If you don't listen to customers, you end up creating solutions for the problems no one has.

2. Don't listen to your customers when it comes to solution
Your customers are least qualified people when it comes to solution.
Listen to your customers when it comes to problems but don't listen to customers when it comes to building solutions.


3. Watch the competition
When a competitor launches a new feature, I view it as a user test that I can learn from.


4. ...but don't watch the competition
It's too easy to simply follow the competition into building something shiny, even though it might not be the best solution.


5. Be a Thief
Your job is not to come up all the best ideas, but to make sure you're implementing the best one for your customers.


6. Get Paid
Don't forget to ask the most fundamental question- is this valuable enough for customer to pay for it ?


7. Speed Up
Every time you put off a decision, you are destroying value. It's our job to remove obstacles and make sure that decisions are made- and made fast.


8. Say No
Our job is not to make people happy- it's to solve our customers' problems. Say No often to competing priorities.


9. Don't be a visionary
Products need product managers who are obsessed with solving customers problems and who put in the hard work to grind it out and solve those problems. I have been forged in a white hot heat of failure and I am a better product manager because of that.

Sketchnote Summary of the Talk:

How do you measure progress of your Innovation work ?

Most Innovation teams (atleast the ones that I have led) typically have hackers in the majority. I dislike generalizing things but by and large what I have observed is that hackers tend to fall in love with solution. Now this doesn't necessarily mean that they don't love the problem but it's just that the focus on solutions just keeps them interested and going.

Irrespective of whether the teams are led by hackers or hustlers, one of the hardest things in managing Innovation work, especially the ones in early stages, is determining a way to measure the progress. Early stage innovation projects are the ones that are at the ideation phase or haven't achieved product-market fit.

Lean Start-up approach (that I normally follow in running Innovation programs) suggests an effective framework for solving the progress/measurement problem. There are several approaches that I have successfully applied, part of which you can read here.

Recently, I got an additional perspective on measurement of progress. The insight I received was while reading the book- 'Jugaad 3.0- Hacking the Corporation to make it fast, fluid and frugal'. Here is the related excerpt:

"Intuit Founder Scott Cook is a big believer in what he calls "love metrics"- which might sound soft but can actually be assessed with some precision.
- How much do people actually love idea of the product ?
- Did they recommend it to their peers ?
- How often do they come back ?
These kinds of measures can be more than sufficient to confirm a team's hypothesis or prove the need for a course correction."

Notice that the questions suggested by Scott Cook aren't ground-breaking, neither do it belong to 'never heard of before' category but what stands-out in these metrics is the focus on empathy. The fact that Scott chose to call this "love metrics" make it look so distinctive. After all, aren't we all in the business of delighting the end-user, in the endeavor of making users fall in love with our offerings.

That's why I really loved the insight Scott shared here.

The book also quotes a blogpost from Vijay Anand, also from Intuit Labs. Vijay says:

"When the team asks me if something is a good idea, I ask them for their unit of one- the one customer their product will delight. And once that works, I tell them to bring me 100. When 100 delighted customers actively use a product, I know there's something to it."

Profound. Isn't it ?

So, what's the unit of one  for your idea ? And what love metrics are you tracking to measure their happiness with your offering ?

Image source:
https://www.amazon.com/Jugaad-3-0-Simone-Ahuja/dp/0670090832?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0670090832

Corporate Talk: The mindset of an Intrapreneur

Had a privilege to present in front of young, talented employees of Qapitol couple of weeks back. When my friend Ajay Balamurugadas reached out to me for a possible talk, one of the first topics that

came to my mind was on Intrapreneurship.

The reason this topic is dear to me is for a few reasons:
1. Intrapreneurship is quite an under-rated and under-leveraged concept in the corporate world.
2. I had a recent stint as an Intrapreneur and created opportunities to create more intrapreneurs in my organization.
3. I believe that the young audience (which Qapitol team was) should get introduced to Intrapreneurship as early as possible in the career.

I have used the term 'Intrapreneurship' a few times already and some of you made me wondering what this term actually means. Let me narrate the essence of Intrapreneurship as follows:

About Intrapreneurship:
Entrepreneurship has been a buzzword that dominates most of the conversations in our industry. Entrepreneurs are certainly a special lot who are ultra-passionate, enjoy taking risks and are usually driven by making a positive impact to the world around them.

With all the attention that entrepreneurship gets, it is arguably not possible for all of us to become one. There could be myriad of reasons for this but many of us consciously find our calling in working for the organizations. If an entrepreneur creates a vision, it's the employees who make it a reality. So this choice is absolutely fine and legitimate.

Being an employee doesn't mean that you cannot exercise the traits that make one an entrepreneur. In my career journey, I discovered that one can embrace those traits anytime at work and create a dent in the universe surrounding your organization. Simply put, Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization.
In this session, I shared my experiences about this discovery of mine and dissect a few of the distinguishing qualities that make one an Intrapreneur.

About the mindset of an Intrapreneur:
In the talk I focused majorly on the mindset of an Intrapreneur. I ran my first full marathon (42.195

Km) in 2014, focused a lot on physical training. Realized at the end of that run the importance of mindset training. Recently, finished my 17th  full marathon in 40 degrees plus heat, could finish it due to better mindset preparation.
I follow similar approach while taking any new roles i.e. unpeel the job and figure out what mindset would be needed for success and work to master that first (while working on skills).
In many ways, mindset training precedes skills training.

Here is what I talked about as being an mindset of an Intrapreneur.

1. Intrapreneurs have high degree of situational awareness
2. Intrapreneurs know how to build support for their idea
3. Intrapreneurs know how to effectively communicate success
4. Intrapreneurs are authentic, align first with core values
5. Intrapreneurs are champions at connect the dots
6. Intrapreneurs focus on Credibility/Reputation first, Skills next
7. Intrapreneurs embrace learnability, but also stay teachable
8. Intrapreneurs know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness
9. Intrapreneurs understand that there is absolutely no sense of entitlement
10. Intrapreneurs know how to embrace constraints
11. Intrapreneurs come to work willing to be fired
12. Intrapreneurs keep the hunger, that ‘Fire-in-Belly’ alive at all the times
13. Intrapreneurs show-up more often than anyone else

In the upcoming blogs, I would double-click on each of these aspects and share a bit more details from my experience and a few analogies from the world of sport.

Presentation:
https://www.slideshare.net/amagazine/the-mindset-of-an-intrapreneur-v12-26th-sept2019-slideshare

References:
Jugaad Innovation: A Frugal and Flexible Approach to Innovation For The 21st Century

Add life to moments rather than adding moments to life

I recall a sequence in a Bollywood movie 'Bluffmaster'. It was between two actors: Abhishek Bachchan and Boman Irani.

"Tumhe aise kitne din yaad hai Roy, Your first job, pehla suit, pehli salary? Jab tumne ek ladki ko pehli baar chooa, pehli baar chooma? Jab pehli baar tumhara dil dhadka. 30 saal ki Zindagi mein aise kitne din hain jo tumhe yaad hain - 1, 2, 3 , 5 , 10 , 15, 30… 30 din hain na? 30 saal ki zindagi aur bas 30 din... baaki ke dino ka kya hua Roy?"
Source: http://hindimoviedialogues.blogspot.com/2009/04/bluffmaster-dialogues.html?m=1

In summary, what Boman was relaying to Abhishek Bachchan is that no matter how long we live, we manage to construct only a few moments that are truly memorable and worth living. The rest of life serves a purpose that's likely not indelible.

The assertion made in this dialogue is not hard to validate. If, for a moment, you take a rare-view mirror glance at your own life, you can really count such moments on your finger tips.

Last Sunday, I had one such moment. Let me first share a picture before I attempt to describe it.

This is a picture of me running with my son at Citrix Charity Run on 15th-Sept-2019. Citrix organizes this run in support of charities since last many years. Participating in this run has almost been like a yearly ritual. But this year was special for me.

My family

It was special because of 2 reasons. One, I got to complete a 10 Km run with my son and my wife- which had been my unstated dream. Second, I for an opportunity to train my son and 2 of his close friends and prepare them to complete 10 Km run. Imagine the feeling of joy and pride it gives to see three 9 year olds completing a distance as long as 10 Km!!

Looking back, It was not just the fact that these kids completed 10 Km distance but it was a lot to do with the way they prepared. 

The preparation for their run started on 2nd-Sept. We clearly had very less days as we slacked off in the last few weeks. I followed these principles in training the kids:


1. Since all of them were participating in a long distance run for the first time, I asked them on how they felt everyday before deciding on how many Km to run.
2. In practice, the focus was to finish the run, not target any superior timings.
3. Include appropriate rest and recovery in-between.
4. Mandatorily stretch after the practice run was over.
5. Run initial few Km using more leg power. Run last few Km using more mind power.
6. Make them aware of the race day situation, track etc.
7. Focus on hydration and diet, not only during the run day but also during practice runs.
8. Learning how to have fun while running, especially when going gets tough.
9. Learning how to draw energy from others and giving energy to each other.

Fun during Practice Runs

While it is easy for me to write these principles and thrust upon kids but it is entirely different game for them to execute it. I had accounted for some efforts that I might need to put to encourage kids everyday. But to my surprise and to the credit of kids, I never had to use these efforts. The kids were supremely sincere and showed remarkable commitment to diligently do the practice runs.

Helping each other stretching post the run

"How much do we run today ?", "What is the plan for tomorrow", "What should we eat", "How much water should we drink"- These were the questions i got asked every day during the course of build-up to the run. Needless to say, I was blow-away seeing their sincerity and commitment. Sincerity is such an underrated trait when we talk about the success defining qualities.

I will forever be grateful for this opportunity to create a stand-out memory. It took some effort but it also proved that memorable events can be manufactured in life if we just care enough to create them.

Training Plan that the kids tracked everyday

How do you manage the balance between creation and consumption ?

We live in a consumption economy. The whole digital revolution seems to built on the premise to offer the contents (in the form of news, updates from friends, images, videos etc.) to us as effortlessly as possible. We now have smartphones that are 24x7 content broadcasting machines. As a result of this, human beings are always in content consumption mode. While access to information is good in one way (it has made us more aware) but largely it has also robbed conciseness from the day-to-day communication. The emails tend now to be longer, verbal updates muddled up and our white-boards more busier than they have ever been.

One of the pieces of writing that recently inspired me was the blog- Create less, Consume more by Tanmay Vora. Sharing couple of pieces of advise from this blog:

Consume mindfully by having right set of filters that help you decide if something will *really* add value and increase your ability to create. When you consume mindfully, less is actually more.  

Practice the fine art of subtraction – we don’t need more and more. We need less that is more (useful/helpful/enriching etc.) Sometimes, the only way to find if something is useful is to “try” it. But often, once we try something, it stays with us because we are not so good at subtracting stuff – at eliminating that which we don’t really need.

The other end in the spectrum of consumption is the creation. Sketchnotes and blogging has really helped me balance the continuum of creation and consumption. Sketchnotes offer a powerful medium that lets you do a concise representation of a book or a large number of words in just one page. It really helps to separate signal from the noise. In short, it improves brevity in communication.

Sharing this recent sketchnote of mine that I created along with my son. This has little nuggets of information that are unique to the beautiful state of Assam.

Would appreciate any feedback ?

Six Lessons from Champion Olympians- Viren Rasquinha and Neha Aggarwal

It has to be a special day when you get to moderate a session with two champion Olympians. I got this privilege last week when the former Olympians Viren Rasquinha (Former captain Indian Hockey team) and Neha Aggarwal (First Indian female Olympian for Table Tennis) visited my organization (Citrix).

Left to Right: Viren Rasquinha, Anuj Magazine, Neha Aggarwal

I have been personally supporting Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) for a long time. OGQ's mission is to enable athletes to win Gold medals for India at Olympics. Citrix supports OGQ as well.

After meeting with Viren and Neha, we had organized an employee interaction session with them. Till the last minute, I wasn't aware that I would be moderating the session so it was a sort of last minute plan. But eventually it turned out to be a good one.
Some lively conversations and candid stories from their sporting careers kept the audience engaged, entertained and spellbound. Sports has this unique power that makes comprehension of life lessons effortless. Stories of their formative years, perseverance,to eventual glory & later to reinventing themselves made for some awe-inspiring moments of learning. If I have to summarize a few from today's session, they would be: 1. Believe in yourself when nobody does. 2. Always have a fire in belly and keep the desire to excel always on, especially for the things that matter to you. 3. Have shorter feedback mechanisms. Invest in a trust-worthy coach. Once you have one, be non-judgmental about following his/her advice. 4. Be open to experimentation, especially in the areas of performance that are below par. 5. Be bold to traverse an unchartered path.
6. Eventually, it comes down to 'one percent' efforts that becomes key differentiator in the high-stake environment. All the 'one percents' eventually add up and leads to big results. Above learnings sums up a memorable one hour of interaction that hopefully inspired many in the room. Thanks to Sohini Karmakar (Lead CSR initiatives) for helping organize the session. What are your favorite sporting stories? What did you learn from them.

Career Stories Panel Discussion: Reflection on a few Core Career Principles-3

Sharing more perspectives on the core career principles taking the sequence from my previous blogs (this and this) forward:


5. Focus on managing relationships:
There are a few skills that are as much force multipliers in your career as is managing relationships well.
On this subject, I am reminded of my post at techwell.com, which i will reproduce here:

While leadership and management are traditionally thought of top-down, there is a lesser-known aspect of leadership that's referred to as "managing up." Managing up allows you to positively influence the boss—or even the boss’s boss. Few people consider this aspect of leadership as a skill and therefore fail to make necessary connections with bosses. How do tech leaders manage upwards?

In his book Behind the Cloud, salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff talks about his relationship with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison during his tenure at Oracle. "I had many long conversations with my boss, Larry Ellison, about my outside endeavor. Brainstorming with Larry about new ideas and products had always been the best part of my job."

Benioff considered Ellison to be his mentor, and Ellison not only encouraged him verbally on his salesforce.com endeavor, but he also was open enough to suggest and implement an unusual working agreement with Marc by letting him work on salesforce.com in the morning and Oracle in the evening.

You may credit Ellison for his openness and generosity, but what may not seem clear is that Marc played a part in managing Larry. He went out of the traditional manager-employee mold, made Larry his mentor, and established personal rapport about topics of immense interest to Ellison—innovation and futuristic ideas. By working to rise up to Ellison's expectations and interests, he elevated the work relationship to that of a close friend. 

Google made a major management shift late last year and with that the former Android and Chrome Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai was put in the number two spot at Google. When announcing Pichai's promotion, Google's CEO Larry Page said in a memo to employees, "We very much see eye-to-eye when it comes to product, which makes him the perfect fit for this role.”

Other sources suggested that managing Page was one of Pichai's greatest strengths. He seem to have

proven himself as an able ally to Page when in meetings he could translate Page's out-of-this-world and difficult-to-fathom ideas to the rest of the leadership team. 

An employee can do a lot more than just follow the boss to be seen as an able ally. Pichai helped Page's voice and ideas reach the rest of staff and worked hard to align his ideas with that of his boss. And Pichai did all this without being asked to do so, which helped him to win Page's trust.

In his book How Google Works, Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt talks about his early days at Google and being aware of the negative history of CEOs being hired in founder-led companies. He was smart enough to work out an arrangement that didn’t interfere with Larry Page and Sergey Brin's work and decision style. Schmidt says that the challenge for him was to not to make more decisions, but he made peace with making fewer decisions to be effective at his job.

As James Caan mentions in a LinkedIn post, "Being great at your job is half the battle, the other half falls down to managing your manager and creating a happy medium; a working relationship which allows you both to flourish."

6. Focus on functional skills, but double your focus on timeless skills:
More info here on the post that i had written some time back : https://anujmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/07/timeless-skills-for-new-world.html

7. Consider career reinvention as a skill:
More info here on the post that i had written some time back :https://anujmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-important-is-skill-of-reinventing.html

Hope you liked this series on core career principles. If you like me to expand on some of the expressed thoughts or have any more questions, please do let me know.

Images source:

https://www.amazon.in/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-Dollar-Company/dp/0470521163

https://www.amazon.in/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt/dp/1455582344