Ken Norton needs no introduction. Now Senior Operating Partner at GV (we still slip up and call it Google Ventures), Ken was a CTO and CEO/founder before he joined Yahoo! to run its Product organisation.  He then joined Google, where he worked on Maps, Calendar and Docs. Ken has also been a keynote speaker, giving [...] Read more »

The post Podcast: Too Many Product Managers with Ken Norton appeared first on Mind the Product.

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Ken Norton needs no introduction. Now Senior Operating Partner at GV (we still slip up and call it Google Ventures), Ken was a CTO and CEO/founder before he joined Yahoo! to run its Product organisation.  He then joined Google, where he worked on Maps, Calendar and Docs. Ken has also been a keynote speaker, giving inspiring talks at Mind the Product conferences in both London (10x not 10%, 2015) and San Francisco (Please Make Yourself Uncomfortable, 2016).  When the opportunity came up to chat with him, we wanted to cover something new – the idea that startups are hiring too many product managers.

Quotes of the Episode

You really can’t solve organisational problems by hiring more people.

If you told me 20 years ago that I’d be trying to convince people not to hire as many product managers, I wouldn’t believe you – because I was spending so much of my effort with the community to convince people that this was a role anyone even needed and wanted.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

* When should you hire your first product manager?

* When you should you hire the second?

* How should you organise a product team?

* Should you go work at a startup?

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page

Suggest a guest

Have you seen someone give a great talk? Suggest a guest to us here

Talk to us

* Tweet at us!

* Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community

Christopher Nheu (Head of Product at Australia-based Mad Paws) came to our attention after speaking at ProductTank Sydney. His presentation, Product Thinking for Marketplace Startups, does an amazing job of documenting the differences between pipes and platforms, the three fundamental forces of marketplaces, and the specific challenges of catering to customers concerned with the well-being of [...] Read more »

The post Podcast: Marketplace Thinking and Fur Babies with Christopher Nheu appeared first on Mind the Product.

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Christopher Nheu (Head of Product at Australia-based Mad Paws) came to our attention after speaking at ProductTank Sydney. His presentation, Product Thinking for Marketplace Startups, does an amazing job of documenting the differences between pipes and platforms, the three fundamental forces of marketplaces, and the specific challenges of catering to customers concerned with the well-being of their fur babies.

Quote of the Episode

Once you start thinking of users as “bad actors”, it makes you frame their intentions really negatively – and it makes you challenge the brand and design decisions you’re making to build for this [specific] case.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

* The fundamental way marketplaces differ from other B2B and B2C models

* Using metrics to drive product decisions

* The theory of matchmaking

* How a marketplace deals with off-line interactions among its users

* The psychology of placing pets

* The surprising things he learned about geography as a driver

* Why Mad Paws is the Harry Potter of their user’s lives

* Fur babies!

Links mentioned in this episode:

* Sangeet Paul Choudary – in the Harvard Business Review (Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy) and his personal site

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page

Suggest a guest

Have you seen someone give a great talk? Suggest a guest to us here

Talk to us

* Tweet at us!

* Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community

The founder and CEO of NYC-based Motivate Design, Mona Patel, first came to our attention after appearing on another great podcast, Jonathan Courtney and Jake Knapp’s Product Breakfast Club.  She spoke about running and scaling an agency, which was interesting – but what really got us was her unique take on the Discovery process.  Her [...] Read more »

The post Podcast: Breaking the Rules and Generating Insights with Mona Patel appeared first on Mind the Product.

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

The founder and CEO of NYC-based Motivate Design, Mona Patel, first came to our attention after appearing on another great podcast, Jonathan Courtney and Jake Knapp’s Product Breakfast Club.  She spoke about running and scaling an agency, which was interesting – but what really got us was her unique take on the Discovery process.  Her Insider Insight process ignores all the traditional things we know about leading questions and ignoring bias – and she claims that it generates results in as little as two weeks.  As veterans of some long and frustrating discovery processes, we had to learn more about this.

Quote of the Episode

One of the things I’ve recognised, in working with Product and Innovation folks, especially those that subscribe to an agile and lean methodology is that they kept skipping ‘research’, especially discovery research.  And when they did validation research, they really just wanted to hear what they wanted to hear.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

* How to use this approach to complement your current research methods

* How you can use this technique to run your own Research sprint – and how that pairs with Design sprints

* The difference between interviews and conversations

* Introducing your kids to Product thinking

Links mentioned in this episode:

* Motivate Design

* The Insider Insight methodology

* Want to be an Insider yourself? Get fast-tracked.

* The Thing About Swings children’s book (US) (UK)

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page

Suggest a guest

Have you seen someone give a great talk? Suggest a guest to us here

Talk to us

Ben Newell was the first guest we got by recommendation. After giving a talk on persuasion techniques at ProductTank Dallas-Fort Worth, it was a no-brainer for us: this is a key skill for anyone whose job includes wrangling tricky stakeholders, herding teams or presenting to senior management – an area where in which we’d all like [...] Read more »

The post Podcast: How to Persuade People with Ben Newell appeared first on Mind the Product.

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Ben Newell was the first guest we got by recommendation. After giving a talk on persuasion techniques at ProductTank Dallas-Fort Worth, it was a no-brainer for us: this is a key skill for anyone whose job includes wrangling tricky stakeholders, herding teams or presenting to senior management – an area where in which we’d all like to improve.  A long-time veteran of the travel industry and now the VP of Product at rewardStyle, Ben shared some easy-to-use tips on how to get better at something you do almost every day.

Quote of the episode

I was scared to put this talk together and let my wife see it – for fear that she might get all of my tricks.  Where you have someone you respect greatly, and is like-minded, and is equally as skilled at what they do… these are the areas where it’s most challenging.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

* When to have that conversation – how your daily hormone cycle affects what kinds of meetings to have, and how this affects remote and co-located teams

* How to run a meeting, and the difference between presentation and discussion

* Using data to tell a story

* Using WIIFM to your advantage

Links mentioned in this episode:

* The chart Ben mentions can be found in this fun article from Wired:

4 Tricks to Sharpen Your Mind for the Best Workday Ever

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more here: https://www.facebook.com/Paupulism/

Suggest a guest

https://mindtheproduct.typeform.com/to/oi0UyX

Talk to us

* Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MtpPod

* Slack: Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community: https://mindtheproduct.slack.com/messages/CE13B3A23

 

Thor Mitchell knows his bones – he’s an ex-Google product manager (Maps and Google+ APIs) and was most recently the Chief Product Officer at Crowdcube. Following a talk at ProductTank Bristol, he joined us to chat about the advice he gives both to aspiring product managers and to those angling for leadership positions. Quote of [...] Read more »

The post Podcast: Moving Up the Career Ladder with Thor Mitchell appeared first on Mind the Product.

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Thor Mitchell knows his bones – he’s an ex-Google product manager (Maps and Google+ APIs) and was most recently the Chief Product Officer at Crowdcube. Following a talk at ProductTank Bristol, he joined us to chat about the advice he gives both to aspiring product managers and to those angling for leadership positions.

Quote of the episode

In almost all cases, the person best qualified to make decisions… is the product manager, no matter what level they’re at… Have confidence in your convictions, because you’ve spent more time thinking about this than anybody else.

Listen if you’d like to learn more about:

* What is the core difference between a product manager and leader?

* How to communicate with people at all levels.

* Assumptions that managers and stakeholders have the answers.

* When hiring, what is the most important skill for product managers?

* What kind of training do I need to become a product manager?

* If a product manager does all the real work, what does a product leader do all day?

* To advance your career, do you need to become a manager of product managers? Or can you continue to be a practitioner?

Links mentioned in this episode:

* Six leadership styles, from the Harvard Business Review. There’s a good summary at https://www.corporatetraining.ie/harvard-leadership-styles/

* Product.careers is the site Thor started to encourage university and graduate students to get into product management

Your Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services.  He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community.   He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more here: https://www.facebook.com/Paupulism/

Suggest a guest

https://mindtheproduct.typeform.com/to/oi0UyX

Talk to us

* Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MtpPod

* Slack: Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community: https://mindtheproduct.slack.com/messages/CE13B3A23