October 16, 2023

#85 Product-Centric Organizations (Portfolios, Taxonomies) with Craig Strong

54 minutes

In this episode, we explore what a product-centric organization looks like, with our guest Craig Strong. Sharing his experience as a Global Practice Leader at AWS (Amazon Web Services) and seasoned Chief Technology & Product Officer, he helps us dive deeper into the nuances of adopting organizational designs, cultures, and practices that cater to product-customer centricity.

A true product operating model specialist, he has helped countless startups and enterprises modernize and evolve to become more customer-centric. From bio-mimicry to hands-on experience, learn what inspires him every day to design some of the most robust and adopted organization structures in the world. This podcast is just not one to miss!

In this insightful episode, Craig Strong, co-author of "The Lean Product Lifecycle," explores the future of product-centric organizations. With over 18 years in the tech industry, Craig has worked with startups, SMEs, and global enterprises, guiding them through growth and transformation.

Craig shares profound insights on this podcast, emphasizing the importance of life cycles in product development and the dangers of prescribing defined frameworks. We dive into the significance of asking timely questions, what questions to ask, and the necessity of flexible frameworks that cater to the emergent needs of complex organizations. He touches upon his concept of viewing taxonomies and ontologies as products, and so much more.

As a Forbes Technology Council member and co-author of "The Lean Product Lifecycle," Craig provides a blend of theoretical and practical insights on this podcast. This episode is a must-listen for those seeking clarity and inspiration in product operations and organizational design. Tune in for a highly engaging discussion with Craig Strong!

Key Highlights
👉 Importance of timely contextualization, innovation, and autonomy in ideas.
👉 Relevance of incremental governance.
👉 Removal of “Rigidity of Frameworks.”
👉 Creating a balance between heuristics and cultural tenets of an organization.
👉 Complete breakdown of product taxonomies - its necessity, importance, design structure, etc.
👉 How to build collective intelligence in organizations.
👉 How to use visualization tools for imagining and executing dynamic organization design.

Topics / chapters
(00:00) Intro - Product-Centric Organizations (Portfolios, Taxonomies)
(00:57) Introducing Craig Strong
(07:12) Key Tenets and Artifacts of Product-Centric Organizations
(12:31) Incremental Governance
(15:51) All about Product Taxonomies
(19:17) Patterns in Taxonomies
(21:06) Dynamism and Complexity in Organizations
(23:17) Scalability of Taxonomy
(26:55) Alternatives to P&L in Product Development Cycle
(29:11) Objectivity and Removing Bias in Development
(32:18) Innovation Theatre and Operationalizing Product Innovation
(36:20) Skin in the Game
(38:54) Hierarchy of Taxonomies
(43:03) Building a Taxonomy and Ontology that is Convenient
(50:49) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions by Craig
(53:38) Closing Points