Unlocking Success: Key Strategies for New Product Owners in Transformation
Understanding how key Product competencies spell the difference between dysfunction and consistent value delivery
This article previously appeared on Product Coalition.
As a consultant running Agile Transformations, I used to think Agile and Scrum could solve every software delivery problem.
But I kept seeing how many companies weren’t able to improve despite the cost and effort invested, even as the transformation unleashed chaos.
Because the only way to measure transformation success is by increasing the velocity and effectiveness of delivery against higher-level organizational strategy. It’s not about delivering more “stuff,” but about wasting less, focusing more, and achieving outcomes.
And Product is above all accountable for leading the development and delivery of the right things that translate strategy into client-centric value and Business Impact.
Strategy Execution faces risks
Remember the end goal isn’t to “transform.”
It’s to continuously become nimbler and more effective at accelerating the flow from strategy to execution.
But that value delivery is always threatened by the Four Big Risks.
Simple keys to unlock Product value
It’s taken years, testing ideas across numerous transformations, and repeatedly coaching Product people to success.
But I’ve identified a few mindset shifts new Product people can make that can help them get ahead of the Four Big Risks, build less stuff no one wants, and get value through the system of delivery faster.
It’s a repeatable approach that can make the difference between missed opportunities, and greater delivery success.
What got you here is now preventing you from moving forward
Many Product people may be selected for their role based on demonstrated success in more traditional ways of working.
Consistently taking on the biggest challenges, managing up effectively, commanding those below them — Through no fault of their own, the skills that work so well in traditional Enterprises are now actively preventing their organization from accelerating value delivery.
Because consistently delivering breakthrough experiences for clients requires a different set of values grounded in collaboration, cross-functionality and client-centricity.
Ultimately, making these four key mindset shifts can help Product people effectively lead their teams in software delivery:
Mindset Shift #1: From big, up-front to descaling & continuous
Mindset Shift #2: From commanding to cross-functional collaboration
Mindset Shift #3: From “Everything is Important” to Clear Choice-Making and Prioritization
Mindset Shift #4: From blindly pushing teams to understanding and matching Capacity with Demand
Mindset Shift #1: From big, up-front, to descaling & continuous
Leaders are rewarded for thinking “big” and making elaborate, complex plans. Their manager loves their plan and gives them helpful suggestions.
Now, all that remains is for downstream teams to stay heads-down and simply “execute” against the brilliant plan.
Months of “requirements gathering” are rigidly followed by an extended “development” phase where developers “manufacture” the software.
What’s never looked at is the fundamental logical flaw in the traditional planning model which assumes that everything, including the timeline, can be pre-planned and locked down when the least is understood: at the beginning.
Riskier than you think
The fact these plans succeed less than half the time oddly doesn’t seem to phase either the manager or their manager. When teams aren’t successful, it’s simply because they didn’t properly “execute.”
This is why you hear people say things like
“I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management.”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Why does no one ever call attention to really bad strategic plans that get beautifully executed?
How can we escape this trap and increase our probability of success?
Dual-Track
Modern software delivery welcomes change as part of the process by relying on a more continuous and fluid approach to learning how to solve customer problems.
Product leads and facilitates ongoing Discovery and Refinement sessions on a simultaneous “track” to ongoing Delivery work. This allows teams to collaboratively break down and get ahead of the next set of work to be done.
And this is exactly how teams get ahead of the Four Big Risks: by involving the Product Trio up front, bringing them into the discussions and decision-making processes early.
1+1 = 3
When more people across the team are able to participate in the design and decision-making process, the organization can finally get the full benefit of their skills, experience, and expertise.
But it’s impossible to do this if the Product person isn’t available to lead regular discovery and refinement touchpoints with their team.
Client Contact
Central to this shift is the need for the Product Trio to have regular client contact during Continuous Discovery.
Through regular client touch points — brief interviews lasting no more than 20 minutes, the team can rapidly test assumptions and gain deep insights to inform their decision-making and problem-solving.
In industries or cultures where this is challenging, the Product Trio can at least talk to someone who talks to customers.
Customer Support and Success teams are great places to start.
Mindset Shift #2: From commanding to cross-functional collaboration
In another shift from their past success, working cross-functionally in this way means leading through influence, rather than by commanding through authority.
The way we get ahead of and succeed in the face of these risks is by learning a new set of skills to collaboratively deliverthrough the team.
This is a significant shift for many successful workaholic managers, who are used to either doing all the work themselves, or dropping fuzzy tasks on others with little context on others and walking away. It’s either “I’m in charge, I’ll do it,” or “You’re in charge, get this done.”
Feeding The Decision Monster
Software delivery problem-solving success involves a constant stream of decision-making.
Success frequently requires spending more time actively collaborating with their team than many leaders may be used to. This requires them to be regularly available to answer questions, and actively negotiate and work through the issues to arrive at the best decision possible to move forward.
It’s a shift from “telling” or “directing” to more collaboratively negotiating and working through the many decisions that come up.
Mindset Shift #3: From “Everything is Important” to Clear Choice-Making and Prioritization
Coupled with the hero mentality are cultures that celebrate piling even more work onto already busy people.
Work flows downhill, and those who succeed always agree to take on “just a little bit more.” Being constantly busy is a badge of honor. And people rush around trying to be efficient.
What’s frequently lost is the need to understand what’s truly important and to focus on effectiveness.
Product is strategy-based
Strategy comes down to making a clear set of choices to solve a problem.
A linchpin Product accountability is to collaboratively design a set of choices for their Product to deliver against higher-level organizational strategy. This requires them to be clear what problem they’re accountable for solving.
This will involve taking a step back from the many feature requests, and focusing the team’s limited design and engineering time on the most important problems.
Prioritizing Prioritization
This is one of the most helpful things a Product person can do, and one of the more frequently overlooked.
If they’re regularly meeting with clients, their team, and stakeholders, Product is in the best position to prioritize.
Simply put, prioritizing means continuously moving the next most important set of work to the top of their Backlog.
Deciding what not to do
At the same time, it’s protecting the team from the flood of requests that might come their way.
Setting and staying focused on clear priorities is crucial to delivery success. And those choices depend just as much on what not to do, and actually not doing those things.
This will require Product to have some hard conversations.
Not no, but not now
But the answer is never to simply tell someone “No,” but to invite a richer conversation focused on listening, but staying firm on “Not now.”
They’ll also need to understand changing business needs from across the organization, and adjust prioritization accordingly.
Next, they’ll need to continuously communicate what’s behind the prioritization.
The Roadmap
Once they have a cadence of Continuous Discovery, and a top-down prioritized Backlog, the Product person sequences the work over time.
One effective way to do this is over a “Now, Next, Later” problem-based Roadmap focused on 1–2 specific user problems to solve each quarter.
Just as important is identifying problems we decide we won’t solve for now.
The engineering team isn’t the bottleneck
The goal is never to ship more “stuff.”
It’s to work within the team’s capabilities to deliver the maximum amount of value for users and your business with the least engineering effort possible, soonest.
Stakeholders
Based on what’s made them successful, many new Product people may spend all day in back-to-back meetings with their senior leadership and stakeholders.
The balance for Product is that too much time spent with their leaders will take away from their ability to effectively lead their team through the discovery and delivery process.
One strategy is to decide up front what percentage of time to spend time with the team vs. leadership.
A standing 1:1 will allow the Product person to keep their manager up to date on team decisions and prototypes, sharing insights they’ve discovered with the Product Trio.
Leadership can offer input on prioritization, and helpful guidance on navigating the organization.
The Larger Organization
One great way to better understand the context the team operates in is to map the full range of stakeholders across the organization.
Working with the Product Trio and their stakeholders will help them understand when to bring the right groups and Subject Matter Experts (Security, Legal, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (“GRC”) in at the right times.
When key compliance or technology misses are exposed late in the process, it’s a sure sign of inexperienced Product people.
Only by prioritizing the right problems and bringing the broader organization in at the right time can teams get ahead of the Business Viability Risk.
Mindset Shift #4: From “Pushing the team” to Matching Capacity with Demand
This is a big one for many organizational cultures that run on firefighters as their standard operating procedure.
Inexperienced Product people who haven’t effectively led either the collaborative discovery sessions (Shift #1), or the necessary prioritization (Shift #3) tend to uncover crucial risks late.
This inevitably leads to 80+-hour “death march” work-weeks for the rest of the teams.
Understanding Capacity
By and large, continuous success will come from understanding roughly how much work a team can do in a given week or month (or “Sprint”).
And working within that constraint.
One of the biggest mistakes traditional Enterprise Managers unfamiliar with the Product role make is to fight against a team’s capacity, and attempt to shovel more work onto them.
Have the team’s back, and they’ll have yours
This again one of the main reasons why prioritization (Shift #3) is so crucial.
Collaborative, continuous, smart prioritization and effective sequencing can set the team up for success.
If Product couples this with protecting and supporting their team through the inevitable challenges, the team will repay them many times over through consistent value delivery.
TL:dr; & Takeaways
As long as Product people can be open to shifting from what’s made them successful to four new approaches, and how they play out in:
Leading regular Dual-Track Discovery & Delivery
Regular Refinement
Regularly prioritizing the Backlog
Getting close to end-user client needs
Understanding Stakeholder constraints
Using both to inform the Backlog & the Roadmap
Continuously managing & updating Problem-based Roadmap
Even new Product people can build and lead great teams that consistently deliver results.
Enjoyed reading your article - thanks Mike!
A clear path for both new an experienced Product Managers, that will set them up for success, instead of constantly 'putting out fires'.