Welcome to the second year anniversary of the Everyday Innovator -- another 52 episodes of discussions with skilled product managers and savvy insiders. In this year in review I share highlights from several of the discussions – emphasizing concepts and tools product managers and innovators should know. Just like my 2015 Year in review, there a lot of key concepts shared in these episodes.

The review of interviews below is organized into 6 topics:

why product managers should become leaders of organizations,

the skills that correlate to 25% higher pay for product managers,

examples of product management in action at companies,

Design Thinking and its applications,

tips for interviewing for a product management role, and

specific innovation approaches & tools.

And, the review concludes with a few of my favorite quotes from guests.

My guest today discusses another valuable topic related to the skills that all product managers need and that, according to a 2016 study, results in a 25% increase in pay. If you want to see the full list of topics, go to www.TheEverydayInnovator.com/podcast.

The topic is how to use storytelling to share ideas and persuade others to join you. My guest is Michael Margolis. He is the CEO and founder of Get Storied, which serves leaders, innovators, and trailblazers who have a world-changing agenda. He helps those who are inventing the future and need to get their story straight, because ideas don’t sell themselves. He has helped Google, NASA, Greenpeace, Deloitte, and Facebook, among others. His work has been featured in Fast Company, TIME, and Wired.

In our discussion, product managers will learn about the three principles for effective storytelling:

* context,

* emotion, and

* evidence.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of some questions discussed:

* Our topic for this discussion is pitching and presenting disruptive innovation through storytelling. Let’s start by framing the nature of storytelling — what is storytelling about? It’s narrative strategy. It’s the process of how you take anything that is an idea — a product, a service, any business transformation — and get others to see what you see. Storytelling is how you convey that idea in a way they can identify with it, that they can relate to it, and they want to be a part of it. It’s in many ways the holy grail of what every innovator and human-centered designer is trying to solve.

* What are the principles to crafting a story that influences others? The principles are Context, Emotion, and Evidence.

* What is Context? This is a really important principle as it relates to idea adoption. Most of us lead with data. If you start your story with the data, the story is dead on arrival because you haven’t provided any context. You might get people nodding their heads, but they’re not really on board. They’re not leaning in. They’re not accepting your story as their story. Context is when you start a story you start with the where. What I mean by that is, where am I? When you start a story, what your audience is trying to figure out is where the story takes place. What world are you asking them to step into? What’s that ecosystem, universe, or more simply, context? Paint that picture for them and then quickly capture their imagination. If you can’t get them curious and leaning in, you’re going to have a hard time carrying that attention through the rest of your presentation.

* What about Emotion? This is where you  need to show and get people to feel how much you care about who’s at the heart of this story. Who’s at the heart of the story is usually a customer or a key internal stakeholder. You’re telling a story in a way that shows that you get what they’re going through. You’re showing the emotional impact this has on people’s lives.

* How does Evidence fit in? This is where you bring in the data. You demonstrate that you have a right to tell the story and that this story is real. The evidence is the proof. A caution is to not answer all the questions your audience would have. You want to let the story continue.

 

Useful links:

* Get Storied website.

* How to tell a world-changing story video series.

* Undeniable Story online course that teaches storytelling for innovation and change.

* Follow Michael on Twitter

 

Innovation Quote

Listen to the Interview

This interview is a great discussion about a product story — from how the product concept was developed all the way through launch, including industry awards the product has received. My guest is Bill Ott, Executive Vice President of the product development organization at Kärcher. They are the world’s leading manufacturer of cleaning equipment. Bill is a hands-on executive with global experience in private, Fortune 500 and start-up environments within the consumer, commercial and industrial sectors. Bill started his career as a design engineer and progressed from an individual contributor to management roles while working for IBM, Thomson Consumer Electronics and Philips Electronics.

In our discussion, product managers will learn about:

* identifying customer needs,

* using Voice of the Customer research to uncover and prioritize needs,

* navigating the Lean cycle of Build, Measure, and Learn, and

* launching successfully.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of some questions discussed:

* Where does this product story start? Karcher North America is the market leader in carpet extraction cleaning. The core product line was 15 years old and in need of innovation.

 

* How did you identify what the customer needed? Our goal for improving the product line was to decrease the time it took to clean carpet by 30%. That formed the basis of our fundamental requirements and resulted in what we call a concept definition package. We added objectives of reducing work effort that causes fatigue and adding agility so the carpet cleaning machine could work in small spaces like hotel rooms. Our Concept Team takes it from there. The Concept Team consists of the product manager, an industrial designer, an engineer and a project manager. They have the responsibility of developing the concept that ultimately goes to development. Next is voice of the customer (VOC) research.

 

* How was the VOC research conducted? We have a skilled group of ethnographic researchers. We do interviews as well, but a lot of the time we actual watch the operators use the equipment and visually observe reactions, how they go about doing their job, where the pain points are, and ultimately creating a map of the processes they use. We conducted VOC research with existing customers that matched our target market for the new product: universities, schools, hotels, airports, office buildings, and casinos – anywhere with large amounts of carpet.

 

* What happened after the VOC research? We accumulated a long list of needs from VOC research. We apply the Build, Measure, Learn cycle from the lean startup methodology. Our designers conduct brainstorming and use affinity diagramming to organize ideas for solving the needs. Those ideas are narrowed, focusing on the highest potential, and then prototyping of the ideas begins. We invite some customers to our lab to provide feedback, helping with the “measure” part of the lean cycle. Then we learn from the feedback and conduct another round of Build, Measure, Learn. Another tool we rely on is Value Stream Mapping. We have a lean master who facilitates a meeting with the Concept Team to map out the complete process from the point in time that the operator shows up to clean carpet to putting the machine back in the closet, including when the space with the carpet can be used again. This helps us identify areas of waste to eliminate.

 

* What is the finished product?

 

For more, listen to the interview or read the transcript below.

 

Useful links:

* Bill’s LinkedIn profile

*

Chad McAllister, PhD - Helping Product Managers become Product Masters

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46:40

TEI 102: Executive coaching for product managers – with Evan Roth

https://productinnovationeducators.com/blog/tei-102-executive-coaching-for-product-managers-with-evan-roth/

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:50:00 +0000

https://productinnovationeducators.com/?p=9731

I’ve been fortunate to have excellent mentors at different times during my career. I’ve seen an interesting trend in the last few years – the rise of the personal coach. This is a type of mentor. A personal coach can help you in many ways, all of which are generally related to improving performance and […]

I’ve been fortunate to have excellent mentors at different times during my career. I’ve seen an interesting trend in the last few years – the rise of the personal coach. This is a type of mentor. A personal coach can help you in many ways,

I've been fortunate to have excellent mentors at different times during my career. I've seen an interesting trend in the last few years - the rise of the personal coach. This is a type of mentor. A personal coach can help you in many ways, all of which are generally related to improving performance and success -- identifying objectives, holding you accountable for taking action, providing unbiased feedback, and at times just helping you get out of your own way by identifying how you're limiting your success.

Recently I was talking with the head of product for a global company and he mentioned he had been meeting with a coach. I was curious about this because I noticed a change in him and I asked how the coach helped. His response made me more curious and I wanted to talk with his coach myself, which I do in this interview. My guest is Evan Roth, a certified executive coach that works with both individual executives and as well as their teams. Evan has 30+ years' real-world corporate experience in leadership and organizational development, accounting and finance, business strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and international operations. He happens to be based in Denver, Colorado, near my home, but thanks to Skype, he works with clients across the globe.

In our discussion, you will learn about:

- limiting beliefs,

- assumptions and interpretations,

- my personal example of being in quicksand, and

- how to have more energy.

Chad McAllister, PhD - Helping Product Managers become Product Masters

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43:55

TEI 101: 9 traits of highly innovative people- with Tamara Kleinberg

https://productinnovationeducators.com/blog/tei-101-9-traits-of-highly-innovative-people-with-tamara-kleinberg/

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 12:50:00 +0000

https://productinnovationeducators.com/?p=9685

Listen to the Interview I’m a big believer in people playing to their strengths, and this includes product team members and others involved in innovation. Not everyone has the same strengths – if we did, that would be a bit boring. Realizing how people approach innovation and their strengths is something Tamara Kleinberg accomplishes. Tamara […]

Listen to the Interview I’m a big believer in people playing to their strengths, and this includes product team members and others involved in innovation. Not everyone has the same strengths – if we did, that would be a bit boring.

I’m a big believer in people playing to their strengths, and this includes product team members and others involved in innovation. Not everyone has the same strengths – if we did, that would be a bit boring. Realizing how people approach innovation and their strengths is something Tamara Kleinberg accomplishes. Tamara has spent more years than she’ll admit brimming with ideas and launching and running entrepreneurial businesses. She is known for her ability to innovate from ideation to implementation and has brought to market products for very large brands. For the past 18 years she has advised companies such as Disney, Procter & Gamble, General Mills and Otterbox on fostering innovative ideas and people. She has run multi-million dollar businesses and launched a few of her own, including Launch Street, which provides resources for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.

In the interview, we discuss nine traits of innovators and how to identify the trait(s) that is your strength. The traits are:

* Collaborative

* Experiential

* Futuristic

* Fluid

* Imaginative

* Inquisitive

* Instinctual

* Risk Taker

* Tweaker

 

Also, you will learn the two most important things to say after you present a new idea.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of some questions discussed:

* What is the backstory on your Innovation Quotient Edge? The Innovation Quotient Edge (IQE) is the culmination of 20+ years of work and experience. I started my career in brand strategy and innovation in New York City in a big firm and in advertising on Madison Avenue. Then I branched off, with most of my work being in new product development for Fortune 500 consumer goods companies—Procter and Gamble, General Mills, Clorox, etc. Time and again I would hand innovative ideas to these brilliant people in these great companies. Yet a lot of them wouldn’t make it to market. Their ability to be innovative and drive change they needed to get the results was suffering. So I stepped back and thought about what was occurring. I always believed that if we did one or two things, we’d all be innovative. But in my work and research, what I actually discovered blew my assumptions out the door, about how innovation works. What I discovered is that we’re all innovative, but how we innovate is unique to each of us. In fact, there are nine human triggers of innovation and the combination of your top two triggers make your unique innovator profile.

 

* What are the nine traits? The image  below provides a good summary of the nine traits. Listen to the interview to hear details about each.

 

What is the language of innovation? When we present ideas we often force people into a yes or no vote. We share the idea and ask “What do you think?” Most people hate ideas that are new. We are programmed to poke holes in them. Instead, when presenting a new idea, ask:

* “What would you do to strengthen this idea?” and then

* “What holes do you see and how would you fill them?”

 

Useful links:

* Special resources from Tamara just for listeners, diving deeper into the Language of Innovation.

* Tamara’s website

* How entrepreneurs elevate communities and change the world: Tamara G. Kleinberg at TEDxCSU

* Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn

 

Innovation Quote

“The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be s...

Welcome to the 100th episode of The Everyday Innovator podcast. I have a little something different for this episode, being this is kind of a big milestone, the 100th episode. I don’t have a guest today, and I’ll tell you more about that in the episode recording.

For the 100th episode, I cover four topics:

- An opportunity to get The Everyday Innovator coffee cup.

- Learning from self-reflection to increase your empathy and influence, using my self-reflection as an example.

- Why the podcast and blog is named The Everyday Innovator.

- Answers to product manager questions: advice for new product managers, where product management is heading, and why launches go bad.

I visited a few dozen Chick-fil-A restaurants across several states while I was on a year-long RV trip interviewing innovators. It was one of several restaurants I frequented. I was surprised and delighted with the consistently pleasant customer experience. That level of consistency is difficult for any chain of restaurants to achieve. It is one of many areas where Chick-fil-A applies innovation – customer experience in this case. To find out more about how Chick-fil-A innovates, I arranged an interview with Steve Nedvidek. He is a senior manager in Innovation for Chick-fil-A,  responsible for helping to build the innovation muscle within the organization. His primary duties are geared toward creating a culture of and competency for innovation at Chick-fil-A.

At the end of the interview Steve shared that Chick-fil-A is a case study in Nancy Duarte’s new book, Illuminate, which shares the steps for effectively communicating your ideas and getting others to support them. Nancy will be a guest in a future interview.

In this interview we discuss:

* The relationship between improv acting and innovation

* Three questions to increase organizational innovation

* How “Hatch” – the Chick-fil-A innovation lab – is used

* Design Thinking influences at Chick-fil-A

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* Many people are interested in what it takes to be an innovation leader. What was your path to becoming responsible for building the innovation muscles at Chick-fil-A?  I started as an associate producer in the training video area, utilizing some of my background in theater and communications. I then moved to marketing for about 16 years in a variety of roles. In 2010 I started to focus on innovation as a discipline for Chick-fil-A and became part of a group that was committed to building the innovation muscle at Chick-fil-A. I’ve been a part of the innovation dialogue since then. My primary job right now is helping us learn how to coach, train, and socialize innovation in the organization so that we stimulate progress as well as preserve the core of the business.

* How did your work in theater and improv influence your work and innovation? I have my master’s in theater and I always wanted to use my creativity either in an advertising agency or somehow in the arts world. When I joined Chick-fil-A, I didn’t know how I was going to make that work. But I have parlayed my theater experience into a very nice career of spreading creativity in every role that I have had at Chick-fil-A by just asking the questions of “what if” versus “what is.” That is a very powerful question for innovators – “what if.”

* What actions have you taken to increase innovation at Chick-fil-A? We first had to understand the current state of innovation in the organization – how people thought about innovation. We surveyed employees and asked three very important questions:

* What is innovation?  We learned there was no common definition or process in place.

* Do we have a culture of innovation? Instead of a culture of innovation we had a culture of continuous improvement.

* Why or why not? We had a culture that feared failure and was unsure what would happen if an employee failed.

We created classes, that we still teach monthly, about the meaning of innovation to us and our processes for innovation. We went to d.school and learned about Design Thinking. We also created Hatch, a dedicated innovation environment.

* Tell us about Hatch. We opened Hatch, an 80,000 square feet facility, on 12-12-2012 to be a place where we can try out new ideas, create prototypes, bring in customers for feedback, and safely innovate without the fear of failure. It is the place where we try new things, fail,

This episode is about market research - what's in your toolbox for conducting consumer and market research? Does it include Conjoint Analysis? Well, if not, it will after you listen to this episode. To explore the topic and walk through an example of using Conjoint Analysis, I tracked down a previous guest, way back in episode 008. In that episode we discussed quantitative and qualitative research tools but didn't go into details about applying Conjoint.

My guest is Brian Ottum, a market research specialist with 30 years experience in new product development. He started as a chemical engineer and joined Procter Gamble, contributing to Charmin, Pampers, and other products you know. He went on to earn a PhD in Market Research. Today, he helps companies with product development. He has also developed a new online course called “Tools for Early Innovation.” It’s a little over an hour of videos, case studies and downloadable materials. The usual price is $30 but he is making it available to listeners of this podcast for just $10 for a limited time – until the end of January, 2017. See the link section below to get the discount.

In this interview, you’ll learn about:

- the types of information Conjoint Analysis can provide, such as pricing specifics,

- when to use Conjoint, and

- the specific steps for using Conjoint.

The last episode was on the topic of product roadmaps and today we extend that topic by considering product line roadmaps - roadmaps for product lines and product families.

The person who has turned that topic into his professional career is Paul O’Connor. He is the founder and managing director of The Adept Group and he has had significant impact on the field of new product development over the past thirty years. During this time, he has developed and implemented a number of innovative approaches to creativity, innovation, and productivity in NPD. He is truly one of the savvy insiders that can go both board and deep on many topics related to new product development.

In this interview, you’ll learn about:

What is a product line and a product line strategy,

How are platforms related to product lines,

How product line roadmaps differ from product roadmaps, and

Why product line roadmapping is important.

Listen to the Interview

I’ve had some requests from listeners to explore product roadmaps, so I had a discussion with Jim Semick. He is co-founder of ProductPlan, which creates roadmap software for product teams.

Jim has helped launch new products generating hundreds of millions in revenue, including being part of the founding team at AppFolio for property management, responsible for the requirements and launch of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting (acquired by Citrix), as well as spending time at Microsoft.

In the interview we discuss:

* The purpose of a product roadmap,

* Various ways roadmaps look,

* How roadmaps help product teams and organizations, and

* The best practices for constructing product roadmaps.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* What is the purpose of a roadmap? A product roadmap is used by most companies to communicate what they’ll be building over the near term and possibly over the longer term. It is also a tool for showing the product strategy, the why behind what they’re building. A lot of companies feel that the product roadmap is simply the backlog, but that’s not the best way to communicate the strategy. A feature list isn’t a product roadmap. The product roadmap needs to tie back to the strategy. A product roadmap is usually a visual document and communicates the why behind what you’re doing.

 

* What do roadmaps look like? They can take on different forms. It depends on the company, the type of product, and where it is in its lifecycle. Examples can be found here. Some startups, for example, use a Kanban-style roadmap, which is simply putting what you’re going to be building into certain buckets: what is planned, what is approved, what’s in development, and what’s been delivered. That’s a typical style for a smaller organization or maybe a new product. The more traditional product roadmap looks something like a Gantt chart, which is a timeline-style. It communicates what you’re going to build and the expected start and end date for each part of the work. Twelve months is a typical time-frame for showing what you’re going to build. But there are some caveats. For example, organizations moving to an agile development process may have greater uncertainty over a longer period. From a product manager’s perspective, showing a 12-month roadmap is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you want to communicate where you’re headed and inform executive stakeholders. But on the other hand, things tend to change. Competitors come on the scene and release different features, the market and the underlying technologies used can evolve, and of course, customer tends and priorities change over time. You need to communicate to executives what is likely to change the farther the plans are in the future.

 

* How do roadmaps help product teams? A couple of areas are creating collaboration and setting priorities. Most product teams use some sort of mechanism to score and prioritize features. Some of them do it ad hoc — having a conversation about customer value, and maybe T-shirt sizing level-of-effort. The benefit of having a product roadmap and then also a mechanism to prioritize what goes on the roadmap is that you’re having the conversation to begin with. The roadmap becomes an important collaboration tool.

 

* How much detail should go into a product roadmap? If you’re an agile organization and you’re working in epics and stories,the roadmap should be at that epic level. Otherwise, if you’re at the story level, that is a product roadmap that is like a project plan. A good product roadmap brings it up a level where it’s no...

According to my guest, "Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer." Of course, then my first question is how do we find the ideal customer for a product or service.

Thankfully, my guest, Tom Schwab, had some ideas. Tom is the founder of Interview Valet and his previous background is in medical device products.

In this interview you will learn:

- Why marketing should start with the customer,

- How to identify the ideal customer, and

- What we can learn from the ideal customer for a product.

I expect you’ll enjoy this wonderful discussion with the world-wide director of design at IBM, Karel Vredenburg. In this role, he leads design efforts, applying Design Thinking. He also conducts organizational transformation design workshops with senior executives at major companies around the world.

Karel introduced User-Centered Design at IBM in 1993 and assumed a company-wide role only two years later. He has written over 60 conference and journal publications, authored a book titled “User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach,” contributed chapters to other edited books, and has served as editor for special issues of notable design journals.  He also hosts the Life Habits podcast, which helps you learn new habits to optimize your life so that you can stay sane in this crazy world.

I tracked Karel down after seeing he was a keynote speaker at the Product Innovation Management annual conference, where he spoke on the topic of “The Power of Design for Business.”

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Summary of a few questions discussed:

* How did you get your start in User-Centered Design? It was not a career path I was seeking. I was working on a PhD in cognitive science that led to examining the social phenomenon of a gender difference in computer use. That caused me to dig deeper, leading to research on how to increase the enjoyment of using computers, reduce anxiety, and related topics. My research results became very popular and one day a person at IBM called me and asked if I had thought of joining IBM. I decided to try it for a year and am still there, 27 years later.

* You introduced UCD to IBM and rapidly went on to be responsible for design at IBM worldwide. This would lead me to believe that you think of design from the traditional cognitive science perspective of human-computer interactions. Yet, your keynote speech at the Product Innovation Management conference had a much broader context – design as a team sport involving all the functions of a company. How has your perspective of Design evolved? It has evolved in interesting ways. Most recently, there is a new movement focusing on design.  IBM accelerated its design emphasis by purchasing a company that did not provide a technology advantage for us but a design advantage. The company was using the latest methods of Design Thinking from David Kelly and the d.school at Stanford (e.g., Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford). They had taken those principles and put them on steroids for the purposes of business. We are embedding them in the culture at IBM. We do this by focusing on three different areas: (1) people, (2) places, and (3) practices – the 3 P’s of IBM design. For people, we are increasing the number of designers on staff, hiring over 500 in the last couple years with around 1100 in the company now.  Places are studios designed to accelerate Design Thinking and experiential learning among a small team, such as two products managers, two designers, and two engineers. We now have 26 studios around the world. The practices piece is all about the IBM Design Thinking framework, which is grounded in having empathy for the user. We can use this method to create absolutely anything, whether it’s a process, a back-end system, or the way to run your child’s soccer team. You start with deeply understanding the user and then being able to look at their experience, what pain points they have, and then creating solutions to those pain points. In the process you get clarity on which of the ideas are better than others and then create prototypes, gather feedback, and iterate.

* In your roles you have worked with numerous product managers and product teams. What would you tell new product managers to help them be more successful in their careers? Become a T-shaped person.