Ryan Stenson

Tomorrow, join Jared Spool live to talk about Navigating Politics: Prioritizing UX Above Product Delivery July 8 at 2pm ET (18.00 GMT) Break the tension between Product and UX. In many organizations, there’s a tension between delivering a product quickly and ensuring that the product has an excellent (or even good) user experience. UX leaders in those organizations hear, “We think UX is important, but we just don’t have time right now.” UX leaders find it challenging to navigate the politics behind why product delivery gets top priority. They need a multi-pronged approach that shows stakeholders why UX is important while ensuring their work doesn’t obstruct critical delivery deadlines. In this perspective-changing discussion, Jared Spool will explore how influential UX leaders have successfully made UX a priority in their organizations. You’ll discover new approaches to overcoming political obstacles when you win over your most challenging stakeholders. Uncover how you’ll… 👉 Position UX efforts as a product delivery accelerator by prioritizing and reducing non-necessary work through research findings. 👉 Introduce metrics that are tied directly to UX outcomes to measure how each product team drives improvements in customers’ and users’ lives. 👉 Establish a UX-quality baseline that aligns your product and development peers on what “done” means for each upcoming release. RSVP in our Leaders of Awesomeness community: https://cstu.io/206655

1

Seeing any of these red flags in your product development processes? 🚩 Lack of clear prioritization in the roadmap 🚩 Constantly shifting feature requirements without rationale 🚩 Ambiguous ownership of features and deliverables 🚩 Excessive stakeholder input that derails decision-making 🚩 No standardized process for handling feedback 🚩 Poor alignment between engineering and product 🚩 Inadequate testing procedures before launches 🚩 Over-reliance on manual tracking and updates You need a better way: https://bit.ly/3zlaKUl

1

When can 'mercenary' Product Managers can make a big impact? Early on, we were inspired by Mirela Mus pioneering fractional product work. It was awesome to hear you speak on Product Growth with Aakash Gupta! Thanks to you both for putting together your insights. https://lnkd.in/gnVmh-4y

5

2 Comments

How do you enable everyone who wants to do product discovery to effectively run their own research? 🤔 Allison Hall shared during our External Panel Launch Party that Rally’s email and study templates help unlock research for folks outside the Research org: product managers, designers, product marketing, and more. 🔐 Templates help to streamline and speed up the study building process so that anyone can run their own research while maintaining the consistency that your participants expect. Share our recruitment best practices guide with your non-researchers to make study building even easier, linked below. 👇 #productdiscovery #research #researchops #reops #researcher #userresearch #uxr #ux #researchoperations #uxresearch #researchrecruitment

18

2 Comments

🎙️ New episode alert! 🚀 What role do company values play in shaping successful product teams? Listen or watch our latest podcast episode to find out, as Brian Walsh, SVP of Product at Pendo.io, uncovers the power of open communication and collaboration in fostering a thriving product culture. #prodmgmt #prodpodcast

22

Truly enjoyed joining the Product Thinking with Melissa Perri podcast. It's a must-listen for product managers, innovators, and anyone eager to see their ideas take flight. During our 45-minute conversation, we covered a wide range of topics. Here are some highlights: 🔍 Origin Story: I shared my journey of helping organizations systematically venture into the unknown. When I transitioned from Amazon to McDonald’s, I had to create "new ways of working" because what’s standard at a tech giant is often a foreign language to more traditional companies. 🏢 Culture: I discussed my view on culture—not as a set of slogans, but as the reality of the employee experience. Changing how work gets done is the best way to evolve culture. 🚀 Beyond Execution: We explored why many Fortune 500 companies excel at execution but struggle with the muscles needed to bring good ideas to life. We talked about how to get to execution faster and more effectively. 🗣️ Leadership Hacks: I shared how I would hold meetings with teams (even as President) with the expectation of reviewing questions rather than answers. Starting with a good question list is a powerful way to kickstart momentum on ideas. 📚 Why I Wrote Decision Sprint: After a decade in the C-Suite at McDonald’s, Volvo, and MGM Resorts, I realized that the practices I was putting in place needed to be distilled into a methodology, leading to the creation of Decision Sprint, a WSJ bestseller. 🌐 Beyond Product: The next evolution in product thinking involves bringing the rest of the organization along. It’s not enough for just one part of the company to be product-oriented; collective intelligence is key to solving today’s problems. Decision Sprint is designed to create a universal language that works for any role in an organization. 🕵️ Purposeful Exploration: We discussed how purposeful exploration isn’t as time-consuming as you might think and how it actually speeds things up while providing more clarity. 💡 Ritual: I also shared why I started a workflow + AI company three years ago and how an idea that was ahead of its time is now finding product-market fit. Some describe what we’re doing as a McKinsey-killer, but we believe Ritual is much bigger, reshaping knowledge work in profound ways. Everything we discussed --> build momentum to allow ideas to flourish. 🎧 Thank you to Melissa Perri for hosting such an engaging and insightful conversation. If you benefit, it's because the host knows the right questions to ask :) Listen to the podcast: https://lnkd.in/g37Wb9K7 https://lnkd.in/g_--qb2S More links: www.decisionsprint.com (Atif’s WSJ bestselling book) https://app.ritual.work/ (try Ritual) https://www.produxlabs.com (Melissa’s company) #ProductThinking #Innovation #Leadership #Culture #DecisionMaking #AI #Podcast #ProductManagement

28

1 Comment

🚀 The Product Job Market is Evolving! 🚀 Are you ready to pivot your career? Growth roles are now the fastest-growing positions in the product job market! 📈Check out our latest blog post on Product Manager Hub to learn why paying attention to these shifts is crucial and what skills you need to excel in a growth product role. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g2FQ664D #ProductManagement #CareerGrowth #GrowthRoles #JobMarket #ProductManagerHub

1

❓ Do you need #product mentorship in these areas? ☑️ Finding product-market fit ☑️ Product strategy ☑️ Positioning and storytelling ☑️ Making new/complex things simple ☑️ Commercial & GTM strategy Request mentorship from mentor Sam Favager today: https://lnkd.in/eJWd-DKM #productmanagement

4

Hot topics from SAFe Product Owners/Product Managers in our July class... - How do we break down Features and Stories? - Help me with splitting patterns for work? - How do we write acceptance criteria together? - Why don't we pre-write user stories before PI Planning? (link here - https://lnkd.in/dQ6J-5d) Congratulations to everyone who have already passed exams and best of those still studying. Justin Yon Natasha Ager Sudharsan Rajendran Stokes Dallas Anthony M. Mark Nilsson Jon Graeme Hewitt Patricia Melendre Diptungshu Mazumder Ratul Want to learn more? Next SAFe POPM Class is 19/20 August AEST https://lnkd.in/g8JkC7QX Claire Sanders Melissa Hay Adrienne Wilson Nicholene Africa Em Campbell-Pretty Emma Sharrock Scaled Agile, Inc. Rob Howard Belinda Tee #Productowners #SAFe #POPM #Productmanager #notrainwrecks #tribalunity #ScaledAgile #ScaledAgileFramework

22

Garbage metrics: the case against NPS 👀 w/Noam Segal Tune in to our new episode to hear Noam Segal, a UX leader with experience at companies like Airbnb, Intercom, Wealthfront, X, and Meta, explain why NPS is a flawed metric and why companies should stop using it. 🔎 In his talk with Tina, Noam explains the issues with NPS from a survey science perspective and suggests better alternatives for measuring customer satisfaction and engagement. Find a short summary of his opinions on NPS in the video below 📽️, and go listen to the full episode to learn the reasons behind it! 🎧 Spotify:  https://lnkd.in/dEZPdfCj 🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/dg6Wm64V

12

2 Comments

Many career product marketing practitioners hold that getting your company's product/market fit right is the foundation not only of product marketing, but of corporate strategy. If you don't really understand your customers and their needs, and design your offerings and go-to-market strategies accordingly, you're going to find yourself at a severe competitive disadvantage. Our latest blog entry, the next tenet of the Callan Way, describes the importance of nailing your product/market fit and provides our thoughts and advice on getting it right.

1

✨ 5x types of product vision ✨ Product visions are hugely effective at two things: 1. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - making it clear what you're building 2. 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - making everyone care about what you're building But how do you actually do that? "Product vision" is one of the most ambiguous terms in product management... Right up there with "roadmap" and "product strategy" 😜 We've found 5x ways people use the term: 1. 𝗔 𝟭-𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 This crisply sums up the future you want to build ✅ Memorable and stable 🚨 Very ambiguous and easily confused with a mission statement. 2. 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 3-4 bullet points describing key benefits and features you want to offer ✅ Fast to create and clear what the customer benefits are 🚨 Hard to envisage what we're talking about 3. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 Roman Pichler's famous business canvas ✅ Triangulates on vision from both customer and business perspective 🚨 Not at all inspiring 4. 𝗣𝗥 / 𝗙𝗔𝗤𝘀 Amazon's thorough process for drafting a press release and FAQs up front ✅ Holistic appraisal of the merit of a new idea 🚨 Significant effort to do well, still not visual 5. 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 Vision in a prototype. A series of mockups, often with a storyboard narrative ✅ Vivid and inspiring illustration of what you're building 🚨 Can be lots of work to create We're a big fan of vision types, but which one is right for you? What are the right trade offs for you to make? Full article here: https://lnkd.in/drGGcC4x

5

🚀Fractional Chief Product Officers (fCPOs)—what’s the deal? How do you access experienced product leadership in the early days of your start-up journey? That’s where a Fractional CPO comes in. They give you top-level product expertise without the full-time commitment or cost. If you’re curious about how a Fractional CPO can help guide your product strategy, build your team, and keep things running smoothly, swipe through the slides for the key takeaways (we did the homework for you). 🤔 Still want more details? Dive into the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dRn_kVg5 #Startups #ProductManagement #FractionalLeadership #ChiefProductOfficer #Leadership

5

NEW EPISODE 📢 Kevin Gentry chats with the amazing ✨Jason Fraser✨, a well-known author and advisor, about his journey from linguistics to product management. Grab your cup of ☕️ and listen now! #podcast #productmanager #productmanagement

2

Smaller teams and shorter timelines can make it much harder to find what truly drives your users and apply those insights to your product planning and design efforts. It becomes easier to make assumptions or follow market treads. But that approach leaves so many opportunities on the table! At Common Marvel, we partner with clients like you to provide: -Actionable Insights: Understand what drives your users and their expectations for engaging with your product. -Internal Clarity: Gain a clear direction for product planning and design, from feature prioritization to micro-interactions and content design. -Stakeholder Alignment: Build consensus with a research-informed strategic foundation that guides your decisions and priorities. Connect with us to uncover insights that propel your product, team and business forward. Get in touch to learn more: https://buff.ly/3zlFZOK

3