Podcast Summary
The Importance of Balancing Outcomes and Output in Product Development: Don't solely focus on outcomes, remember that output is an indicator of success. Balance the two and ship products quickly. Align roles and responsibilities within teams, work effectively as a remote team, and ask the right questions to get the most out of your team.
Many companies focus solely on outcomes, forgetting that output is an indicator of success. While ideation and setting goals are important, shipping products to market quickly is just as vital. Nikita Miller, Senior Vice President and Head of Product at The Knot Worldwide, stresses the importance of not swinging too far on the outcomes train and instead balancing it with output. In an interview with Lenny's Podcast, Miller also discusses how to align roles and responsibilities within cross-functional teams, work effectively as a remote and distributed team, and get the most out of her teams by asking the right question.
The Knot and Trello's Diverse Paths to Success: Both companies started with a specific focus and then evolved to meet their users' needs. The Knot aims to expand beyond weddings, while Trello's progressive disclosure approach allows for growth and adaptability.
The Knot's strategy is to be there for every big celebration in life, not just weddings. While they primarily focus on weddings, they aim to expand to other adulting milestones. Trello, on the other hand, initially started as a task management tool for software teams, but quickly evolved into a tool for anyone to manage anything. Their progressive disclosure approach allowed them to grow with their user's sophistication and problems to solve. The founder of The Knot, Nikita Miller, was previously instrumental in growing Trello's enterprise business, expanding the tool to sales and marketing teams in addition to software teams.
Choosing the Right Project Management Tool: Understand your team's needs and choose a tool that suits your current project stage. Identify core features that add value to the majority while allowing for customization for specific needs. Remember to consider the emotional stakes and pressures involved.
When it comes to project management tools, Trello is ideal for small teams that are still ideating and brainstorming, while Jira is better suited for established projects with defined tasks that need to be assigned. However, building productivity software is challenging because users have different needs and expectations, even within the same team. It's important to identify core features that will benefit the majority of users, while still allowing for customization and flexibility for those who have specific needs. Whether building for product managers or people planning their weddings, it's essential to understand the emotional stakes and pressures involved in the project.
The Challenges and Solutions of Wedding Planning and Product Management: Planning a wedding and managing a product both require managing multiple stakeholders and collaborating effectively. Using tools like The Knot and Trello's Power-Ups, and defining team roles can lead to successful outcomes in both scenarios.
Wedding planning is a huge project that can last up to 18 months and involves managing multiple vendors and stakeholders. The emotional weight of planning a wedding is high as it is a meaningful event for couples and their families. The Knot, as a platform, offers planning tools, e-commerce services for registry and paper, as well as affiliate and ads business. The challenges of wedding planning are similar to those of product management, but with more emphasis on the emotional aspect. Trello's Power-Ups are a valuable but underutilized feature that can enhance collaboration and productivity. Building successful and impactful teams involves clearly defining roles and responsibilities, especially in the triad of product, design, engineering, and data.
Creating a Strong Team Through Defining Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly defining team roles and responsibilities through a contract can prevent misunderstandings and identify areas for potential responsibility shifts, ultimately strengthening the team’s overall performance.
Defining clear roles and responsibilities within a team is essential for creating a strong team. A helpful exercise is for team members to write out their expectations and responsibilities for each other, which can be turned into a contract. This can ensure everyone is on the same page and prevent misunderstandings or disagreements later on. Templates can be used to guide this process, and it's important for each team member to write their own expectations for themselves and others. This exercise can also reveal where certain responsibilities should lie, such as project management, which may shift from product managers to engineering managers over time.
The Roles and Responsibilities Framework for Product Managers: Defining shared responsibilities within product teams can improve efficiency and execution velocity. Regularly revisiting the framework and focusing on decision-making speed and actionable solutions can lead to successful product outcomes.
Many companies struggle with defining the product manager role, leading to overloaded responsibilities and misunderstandings within teams. The "roles and responsibilities framework" helps clarify shared responsibilities within the team, including the importance of embedding data scientists into the team to improve execution velocity. It's essential to revisit the framework regularly and address any conflicts or tensions that arise around execution and velocity. PMs can improve velocity by focusing on decision-making speed, identifying the issue, and finding actionable solutions. Overall, a clear understanding of shared responsibilities helps teams work together more efficiently towards product success.
The Importance of Balancing Outcomes with Execution Velocity in Team Development: Breaking up tasks into smaller pieces and clear articulation of goals is crucial for effective delegation in team development. Balancing outcomes with execution velocity helps ship ideas quickly to the market while maintaining a sense of urgency.
When developing successful teams, it is important to remember the value of breaking up tickets into smaller pieces and how this can be achieved. This responsibility falls on both project managers and engineers, but clear articulation of goals is key for effective delegation of tasks. While focusing on outcomes is crucial for achieving overall success, output is an important indicator of progress and execution. Therefore, it is important to balance outcomes with execution velocity, ensuring that ideas are shipped quickly to the market. Urgency, particularly in the software industry, is crucial for product managers to drive, with reminders and understanding of competition helping to maintain this sense of urgency.
Recognizing and Prioritizing Competition for Successful Product Management: Balancing optimization and big bets depends on company growth. To increase team output, focus on actual output rather than plans. Ahrefs provides a free tool for personal website SEO optimization.
Recognizing and acknowledging competition is essential for success in product management. Prioritization and balancing optimization versus big bets depends on the company's age and stage of growth. To increase team output, focus on asking questions about actual output rather than plans. The role of product management has become more mainstream over time. Ahrefs provides a free tool to optimize personal websites for SEO issues.
The Evolving Role of Product Managers in Today's Business Landscape: Product management is a diverse and growing field, with opportunities for professionals from different backgrounds. While technical skills are valuable, they are not always essential, and there are various paths to becoming a successful product manager.
The field of product management has experienced significant growth and development, with the emergence of related educational programs and a robust business around the discipline. Product managers are increasingly expected to possess technical skills, while designers are expected to be more business-oriented, and engineers are becoming more product and user-focused. While technical skills are beneficial, they are not necessarily a requirement for product management, and many PMs are taking courses and classes to enhance their skills in data analysis and coding. There are multiple pathways to becoming a product manager, including traditional programs at major tech companies and gaining experience at startups.
The balance between sprinting and recharging in the demanding world of Product Management.: Success in Product Management requires optimizing priorities, sprinting during critical periods, and taking time to recharge. Balance between work and life is key, with flexibility provided by tech companies.
The Product Manager role is difficult, stressful and demanding, requiring competence across multiple areas with high expectations. It is essential to optimize rather than balance work and life priorities. In order to succeed, it is necessary to sprint and work hard during critical periods, enabling us to take time for ourselves during other periods. Companies in the tech industry often allow for a certain level of flexibility regarding work-life balance, meaning we can adjust our priorities to suit whatever we need at the time. Remembering this balance between sprinting and resting or recharging is the key to success, even in highly demanding job roles.
Building Stronger Remote Teams: Balancing Asynchronous Communication and In-Person Meetings: Good communication, documentation and trust are key for remote teams while in-person meetings are invaluable for complex problem solving. A structured agenda can ensure productive in-person meetings and occasional get-togethers can build camaraderie and strong teams.
Working with remote and distributed teams requires strong communication skills and the ability to build trust without in-person interaction. Asynchronous communication and documentation are key for successful collaboration. However, for solving complex problems or making major decisions, in-person meetings and building camaraderie can be invaluable. An agenda and a structure should be in place for these meetings to ensure efficiency and productivity. Despite the benefits of remote work, the lack of in-person interaction can make it difficult to build trust and solve complex problems. Incorporating occasional in-person meetings can help overcome these challenges and build stronger teams.
Standard Processes and Sharing Responsibility in Remote Work: Create communication processes and ensure overlap in working hours for collaboration. Onboard new hires by sharing the same foundation. Foster creativity and build a culture where ideas can come from anyone, across geographies and functions. Share responsibility for building together.
In remote or distributed work, it's essential to have standard processes for communication and collaboration, including having overlapping work hours and in-person onboarding. The biggest challenge is replicating the early learning that typically happens in person in a non-office setting. One solution is to make sure everyone starts with the same foundation by giving everyone the same information before making decisions. It's also crucial to make room for creativity and to create a culture where ideas can come from anyone, across functions and geographies, and where everyone shares responsibility for what they're building.
Tips for a Successful Product Manager Career: To grow as a product manager, work at companies with different cultures, practice empathy & ask "What are you optimizing for?" regularly. Read books like You Will Hear Thunder, The Fire Next Time, and High Output Management. Watch K-dramas for entertainment.
Nikita Miller, a product leader, recommends working at companies of different cultures to expand one's experiences and learn empathy, which is essential for product managers. She also emphasizes the importance of asking the question, "What are you optimizing for?" in every aspect of life, personally and professionally, to make trade-offs and set goals clearly. She recommends Anna Akhmatova's You Will Hear Thunder and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time for reading, and High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove for software-related knowledge. Nikita enjoys K dramas and recommends them for entertainment.
Hiring Product Managers: Balancing Artistry, Science, and Management: Consider a product manager's multifaceted role and tailor hiring to your team's needs. Check out The Knot Worldwide's marketplace for wedding vendors. Connect with Nikita Miller on Twitter and LinkedIn.
During a podcast interview, Nikita Miller, a product leader, suggests that when hiring product managers, it's essential to consider their skills as an artist, scientist, and general manager. Miller stresses that it depends on the product team's composition, and one must understand their shared roles and responsibilities. When asked about a pro-tip to use The Knot and other properties, Miller recommends checking out The Knot Worldwide marketplace, an extensive two-sided marketplace to find wedding vendors. Miller can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn; she is responsive to folks who reach out with product-related questions and is interested in hearing about other ways of doing things.
