Jeff Gothelf is a product coach, author, speaker and trainer who is currently trying to get companies to work with outcomes, not outputs. He's written two classic books: Sense & Respond, and Lean UX, as well as a variety of other books covering various aspects of product management and design thinking.
This episode is sponsored by My Mentor Path. I'm a passionate advocate for mentoring, and believe it to be one of the highest-leverage activities you can undertake to get ahead in your career. I try to do my part, but am but one man, so I helped set up this FREE mentoring community to try to help out at scale. Sign up now as a mentor, a mentee, or both!
Lean, Agile & Design Thinking can get along
These came from different places, but the philosophies that underlie all of these ideas are the same: understanding our customers, working in shorter cycles, making decisions based on evidence, and continuously improving.
Managing for outcomes is the hinge that everything else pivots fromThere are many principles of good product management, but moving away from output enables focus on the change in behaviour you want to see & have the humility to accept you don't have all the answers upfront
OKRs are the gateway drug to agility and good product managementOKRs are easy to explain, but difficult to implement. Used right, they can empower teams to make measurable impact towards an aspirational goal, without micromanagement or deciding on a fixed plan upfront.
OKRs are for teams, not individualsOKRs enable teams to focus on impact, changing customer behaviour in a way that matters to their business & knowing whether they've succeeded. Cramming individual task lists into the OKR format doesn't achieve anything.
Change is scary & might not work the first timeSome people start with OKRs by mistake or give it a quarter & then give up. Using OKRs well takes work. If it's not working, make sure you have open & honest retros to understand whether it's fixable & whether you can try again.
Buy "Lean UX""Lean UX is synonymous with modern product design and development. By combining human-centric design, agile ways of working, and a strong business sense, designers, product managers, developers, and scrum masters around the world are making Lean UX the leading approach for digital product teams today In the third edition of this award-winning book, authors Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden help you focus on the product experience rather than deliverables."
Check it out on Amazon.
Buy "Lean vs. Agile vs. Design Thinking""As companies evolve to adopt, integrate, and leverage software as the defining element of their success in the 21st century, a rash of processes and methodologies are vying for their product teams' attention. In the worst of cases, each discipline on these teams -- product management, design, and software engineering -- learns a different model. This short, tactical book reconciles the perceived differences in Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Agile software development by focusing not on rituals and practices but on the values that underpin all three methods."
Check it out on Amazon.
Check out Jeff's coursesJeff is running some self-paced courses on OKRs, including in Spanish! Check them out here.
Contact JeffYou can catch up with Jeff on his website. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.
Navigating the World of Product Management (with George Nurijanian, Product Owner @ Xero & Founder @ prodmgmt.world)
Fighting Fires in B2B Product Management (with Rich Mironov, Product Consultant & author ”The Art of Product Management”)
Servitising Product Management & Setting Up Product Teams For Success (with Jas Shah, Product Consultant & Founder @ Bitsul)
Curing Product Diseases with a Radical Product Vision (with Radhika Dutt, author ”Radical Product Thinking”)
Driving Organisational Alignment with Survival Metrics (with Adam Thomas, founder @ Approaching One)
Product Leadership Principles for Tumultuous Times (with Giff Constable, former CPO @ Meetup & author ”Talking to Humans”)
Solve Customer Problems Quickly by Joining the No-Code Revolution (with Natalie Furness, founder @ Minimum Viable Stack)
How to Deploy Empathy to Truly Understand User Needs (with Michele Hansen, author ”Deploy Empathy”)
Chinese Startup Culture & Putting the Minimum into MVP (with Carlos Lastres, Creative & Marketing Director @ Kaiyan Medical)
Finding a PM Superpower and Using your Product Sense (with Peter Knudson & Braxton Bragg, co-authors "Product Sense")
Escaping VC Culture & Building Products that Focus on True Lifetime Value (with Rand Fishkin, author "Lost & Founder" & co-founder @ SparkToro)
Taking Data Science from Academia to the Heart of your Product (with Paul Meinshausen, co-founder @ Aampe)
All Aboard! Why You Need To Get Product Onboarding Right (with Ramli John, MD @ ProductLed)
Challenges & Opportunities for Africans Making Products for Africans (with Abisoye Falabi, Senior PM @ TradeDepot)
Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (with Teresa Torres, author "Continuous Discovery Habits")
Platform Product Management & Getting Ready for Launch Day (with John Zilch, Director of PM @ Upland & founder @ Launch Day)
Putting Customers at the Heart of your Product Decisions (with Hubert Palan, founder & CEO @ Productboard)
Applying Agile Principles to Education & Measuring Learning (with Chris Hull, founder & CPO @ Otus)
Data-Driven Product Development & Ethics in AI (with Korbinian Spann, founder & MD @ Insaas)
Avoiding Bulls**t Product Advice & Focusing on the Essential (with Henry Latham, founder @ Prod MBA)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The emPOWERed Half Hour
NABOR® TALKS
U.S Property Podcast
Aligned Money Show
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money