26.06.15 Focusing on Outcomes over Activity with Jay Wohlken (47)
Chris: [00:00:00] In this episode of Great Practices, I'm joined by Jay Wohlken, a product management executive who is adept at creating and managing profitable technology products for Fortune 500 clients. Listen in as Jay discusses the role of product management in an organization.
Common misalignments that occur between product management and PMOs, and how product management and PMOs can play nicely with each other. Plus, you'll find out why it's so important to focus on outcomes over activity, how PMO leaders can become even more strategic in their thinking. And why? A Swiss army knife that's a foot long and weighs seven pounds.
Sounds really cool on paper, but is a whole different thing when you actually try to use [00:01:00] it.
we'd like to welcome you to this episode of Great Practices and today we're taking a step back in time and we're stealing a quote from the iconic movie Field of Dreams. That quote, of course is if you build it, they will come. Now in field of dreams, he did build the baseball field and his father and other players did indeed appear.
But let's add a bit of a plot twist here. What if he built the field and they didn't come? Now, that would be a waste of time, money and resources. Friends and family would have looked at him very differently as if he'd lost his mind, and the movie would've had a very different ending. Now sometimes projects may head our way in the [00:02:00] PMO with that same optimism attached to it.
That optimism of if we build it, they will come, may be expressed in different ways. You may have heard it as if we do this project, it'll be a financial windfall for this company, or if we build this free prototype for a customer, they'll surely sign the agreements.
Many other variations of if we build it, they will come, but how do we know this will be the case? Is there a way to guarantee that whatever we're working on ends up as a financial windfall for the company, or a signed agreement or some other form of success? Now, while there are no guarantees, there are processes and disciplines in place that can greatly raise our chances of success, and that's what our guest today Jay Wilkin is going to be talking about.
Jay is a versatile product management executive adept at creating and managing profitable technology projects for [00:03:00] Fortune 500 clients. His strengths include leading cross-functional teams, defining and advancing strategic product roadmaps, and driving tangible business outcomes through technology. In other words, when Jay builds something, people do indeed show up.
Jay, welcome to great practices.
Jay: Hey Chris. Thanks for having me on.
Chris: So Jay, we're gonna start out with, of course, you just telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Jay: so, so I'm coming to you here from Nashville, Tennessee. Uh, moved down here in the nineties to go to school at Vanderbilt. you know, currently work. I am a product strategy director with a company called Ever North. I'll be sharing my own views, not theirs, but I lead a benefits navigation solution there, and it's a company that's deadly serious about innovation.
So that, that's what brought me here. I've spent around 25 years or so in technology product management. Uh, last eight have been in health tech and you [00:04:00] know, I've been, I've been really fortunate to work with some great leaders. I love what you kind of kicked this off with, with don't, you know, if you build it, they will come, is kind of the wrong way to look at things.
and I've been fortunate to, to build products that have had people come. Things like Asurion, cell phone insurance, things like TSA precheck, you know, healthcare cost and quality transparency tools that have all, all done pretty well and, and been well used. always taking advantage of kind of really strong teams that have been able to put in place around it.
Chris: Excellent. Well, it sounds like, uh, you are the right person to talk about, you know, what is it that needs to be in place in order for. Products in order for these services that are offered to be, you know, something that is adopted basically, and something that's gonna be used. So what, what exactly is the role of product management in an organization and why is this so important?
Jay: You know it, it's funny, a lot of companies, you know, a couple years ago you were hearing a whole. Lot [00:05:00] about product-led growth and there there was a lot, a lot you could read about it. Big focus on making sure that companies were bringing in product leaders to be the tip of the spear and lead the company into the great unknown, you know, as, as things change and unfold.
but I always like to say at its heart, product management really starts not with the product, but with a, a business problem. And so I wouldn't call it problem management, but that's really where it starts and it's. To me, it's about getting deeply interested in a problem that your customers are running into, not just at a superficial level, but really at the point where it becomes visceral, where I understand you've got a need, you've got a problem.
What does it mean to you each and every day? How does it change your day? What, what, uh, escalations and difficulties do you run into? What are the the crazy things you're having to do have, since you have to work around not having a, a product that does what you need? And I think you've gotta get to the point where [00:06:00] you've got some empathy and you can almost put your brain into your customer's shoes.
And I say customer, it could be prospects too. So it's really, it's looking across the market. What are those major pain points and what are the patterns that you see emerging that are common where it might make sense to offer a product ties solution to help there?
Chris: it sounds like you actually like putting yourself in the shoes of the person that is using whatever the application is, whatever that product is, and you can just feel. Right, the frustration and maybe the, the angst, you know, like the rage, clicks or whatever, you know, that kind of thing.
And I like that word you said is visceral. Right? So it's something that you can just absolutely relate to and that you would need to, you know, that you would absolutely need to solve then. So that's a really good way of looking at that. So what, what trap then have you seen maybe companies fall into if there's not a product management?
Function running somewhere, so there's not somebody that's paying attention to that visceral [00:07:00] reaction that people are having.
Jay: I think there are a couple that that can happen. I think one is. You end up building what someone says to go build. And usually it's the, it's the person with the biggest title or it's the founder of a company. And they may have some good ideas, they may have some kind of market informed perspectives, but building something because someone says to is not usually the right way to go about this.
The big problem, they're never representative of the market. So you know, someone who's A, a CEO. Intelligent loves their company. They're convinced they know what's right. That's part of what got them to where they are. But I think it good product management requires a little bit of humility and empathy to look at what your customers are actually going through and trying to think about what they want.
And no one can know that. You know, I can have my opinion. You can have your opinion. We're going to be wrong and wrong more often than not. Unless we go and we talk to lots and lots of customers and we [00:08:00] begin to catalog across all those customers, what the common pain points are, what the implications are of solving those pain points.
Uh, how big of a deal is this financially to them? I think you've gotta understand that. So one is don't just do something because someone says they're going to, if you don't have a product management function, you people default to listening to the, the power structure and the hierarchy. I think the second, and this is really one of the main things I wanted to talk with you about today.
I, I think you start focusing on busyness instead of business. And, you know, there, there's a, there's a book that I, our, our team read recently. It's called Escaping the Build Trap. And it talks about the danger of becoming a, as a product team, becoming a feature factory. And all you do is turn out new features, one after the other, and delivering the features becomes the goal.
When delivering the features is never the goal. I use the term kind of activity junkie. I tell all my, like, new hires, don't be an activity junkie. Your [00:09:00] goal is not to be busy. It's not to be a doer. Your goal is to make sure that we focus on the things that matter and we get the right outcome. And you know, I think that there's a sobering reality.
Uh, there, there's a statistic. There are actually a few different versions of the statistic. You know, somewhere between 50 and 80% of every product feature that product managers deliver, never gets used rarely, or never gets used. Um, and there've been different groups that have come out with this. They've had different methodologies that have been critiqued.
You know, Standish Group was one of the first, but then, you know, have had Google and Microsoft and Pendo, they've done their own studies. Most features that you design, develop, test. Productize marketing market and package, they never get used. They're waste. Every bit of the work that all these well-intentioned, smart, and talented product leaders put into it.
Waste. And, and so that's really the, the goal here is to make sure that we're thoughtful about what work is even worth doing, which problems are [00:10:00] even worth solving that have a higher probability of being successful and actually getting used.
Chris: Man, that is a sobering statistic. What was the percentage again, of features that aren't used?
Jay: 50 depending
Chris: 50 to 80? Yeah. So, but then you've got all these people, like you're saying, it is, it's the busyness. It's like, oh man, we feel we are, you know, we feel like we're busy. We feel like we're doing something.
I mean, that's almost like a cultural thing, isn't it? It's just like, you've gotta be, how you doing, man? I'm wide open. I got so many things, but are you working on the right things? That's, that's ultimately what comes down to that question, you know?
Jay: Well, it, it is, and I think for a lot of people that move into product, and I think it's true for, for PMOs too, a lot of people that are successful in these, this career path. Get there because they're hard charging. They care. They have this outside sense of responsibility, and so that tends to naturally lead to get it done, find a way.
Don't, don't miss a deadline, instead of asking the question and taking the time deep to ask the question, what happens if [00:11:00] we don't do this? What if we do something instead? And that slows people down and some people just don't react well to it. But someone in the organization has to do that and, and I believe that sits with the product organization.
Go focus on outcomes. Don't focus on activity.
Chris: So then based on your experience, Jay, of the importance obviously of product management, what is there kind of like a process that uh, an effective product manager or an effective product management team follows that kind of makes sure that we're not stuck in busyness but rather focusing on the business?
Jay: You know, there, there are a few processes and, and this is well documented. There are a lot of books and, and. Methodologies that have been outlined. A lot of teams will refer to themselves, themselves as agile. Uh, make sure that you start off work in small increments. Make sure that you have the, the full team engaged in kind of understanding the work and doing it and testing it rather than, specializing that [00:12:00] and, getting individual teams to focus solely on their piece and missing the bigger picture.
but I, I think it's more important to focus on the mindset, within product and the process. the process certainly matters, but to, to me, you know, you should be thinking like an investor. And so there, there's a book that I like. you know, he's got several good books, but Jim Collins has one called Great By Choice, and he talks about this notion of firing bullets before canon balls.
And this whole idea is, hey, if you're, you're out fighting the enemy. I think that your pro business problems you're solving as the enemy, you want 'em to know where they are before you start lobbying the big expensive cannon balls. So buy your bullets, find where they are, do small tests, small features, and the, the, the smallest scrappiest way you can to build confidence that that's the thing to go after and then let your bigger investment follow.
And I think that that's just a core principle that that's really valuable and it forces you as a product person I. To [00:13:00] think from the outside in, Hey, how am I gonna know if I'm solving the problem? I have to go talk to the customer. Hey, you had this feature. What'd you think about it? Is it working for you?
Oh, you don't Like, what do you, what do you not like about it? Oh, it made you think of this other need that you have. Great, I'm gonna file that away. But it forces that outside in, um, mentality. And then once you become confident that you know what to deliver, then it's paddle to the metal. Then it's like, let's go.
Now I'm ready to invest. I know, like I know at a gut level that I'm right on what the product needs to be. It's called product market fit. Usually you start to feel it though. You can feel it in your bones and it, it's usually there when customers are almost pulling it from you. They're so hungry for, for your product that you can't keep up.
That's when you know you've kind of hit that product marketing market fit that you've gotta, uh, pursue.
Chris: That. And I guess that goes back to even like your, you were talking about that agile approach. 'cause that agile approach is about just getting feedback very fast, right? Those short increments, right? So that's when you start that process there, you get that, you get that [00:14:00] immediate feedback, are we going in the right direction?
If not, you haven't invested too much. And then you can pivot and you can go find, you know, find the correct direction from there. So great approach.
Jay: Yeah, and I mean, I think for, for folks in your PMO. Anyone who's got as little hair as I do, probably remember the ages, like the, the days of waterfall where you would write your big bible of requirements, your your market requirements document and your product requirements document upfront. You'd build in the PMO, you'd build out your full schedules, and then it was a matter of just executing.
But as everyone's kind of, kind of realized, things change. So you can't do 12 and 18 month projects without things changing. You can't show something to a customer and not expect them to have their own opinion and reaction. Once they see it, once they interact with it, their, their thinking is going to change.
It's inevitable. And so that's where Agile came about. Ken Schwaber was the one of the big advocates. It was, let's break this down in a bite-sized chunks, small sprints and, and, um, iterations. And that's gonna give us a little [00:15:00] more flexibility to adapt as we go.
Chris: It just reminds me of there's that, there's like that classic cartoon that I think, you know, a lot of people have seen about, you know, the tire swing that was proposed by the customer and then, you know, the project manager got a hold of it and the analyst got a hold of it and everybody. Had their had their say on it.
And by the time it was all said and done, it wasn't anything that the customer had wanted, but they just followed that process. They just kept blazing forward, not going back and saying, oh, is this actually what you want? Is this gonna solve your problem? And it didn't do the trick, you know? So I mean it's like, it's just a caricature of what could immerse.
So I can see why product development really, and product management really plays such a, a key part to making that a success. Now, do you see value? Having A PMO involved in product development initiatives, is that something that, you know, maybe they don't necessarily play together all the time, but should they, why or why not?
What role would they [00:16:00] play?
Jay: I think I do. Um, but it depends. So I've worked with good PMOs and bad PMOs, and you get a bad program manager and it's, it's a time suck. Um, it's not worth the time. you gotta have a really good idea of what the outcome is that you're after, and then you have to work together to burn through those risks.
Some are product risks and product has to figure out what are the, what are the questions I have to get answered on the product first, but some are not. Some are just, are we able to execute on this work? What has to happen in first, second, and third? Where are the biggest risks? And I've always found it really helpful when you have a strong program manager. Partnered with a strong product manager, you've got the ability then to start to carve through those risks and to look around corners. And, and that's what I love about a strong program manager. They aren't just a note take like the, the days are gone. You no longer have people who are note takers and they set up meeting and they pull people together.
And the answer to every question or issue that comes up is get across functional [00:17:00] meeting together. Um, I, I think those days are long gone. I think what you need are people who understand what we're trying to accomplish so that they can make their own determination of, hey, this is a risk or this isn't.
They can track something down proactively. They can say, Hey, this is something I've got, or this is something product has, uh, to go, go burn through. And I think it actually can, it can cut down that waste, by making sure that you don't ma you don't major in the minors. You go after the things that are actually going to move the needle and help the team get done what needs to get done.
Like when I think about the organizations I've been at. I've been fortunate to be at really good places, but even at, you know, at every single one, you end up with large meetings where you're focusing on things that don't ultimately matter. And I think a strong PMO helps you focus your time, as an investment, just as a strong product leader, helps you focus your product investment, in a, in a way that's wise and, and, uh, really just shows good, good responsibility,
Chris: what [00:18:00] you're saying is that somebody, project manager, program manager, that just basically forwards an email and says, status, please. That's, that's not the kind of value you're looking for to bring, right?
Jay: Exactly, or, or the one you'll get is, hey, you know, when are you gonna have, you know, do you have this requirement done? When is it gonna be done? It needs to get done by the state. Well, the, the requirement, the requirement has to be right. Being right is more important than being done. and, and so I think.
What I always appreciate is when someone, someone helps me understand, hey, there's an organization that's gonna execute on this work. And for them to be successful, there's a timeline they're operating by. If we delay, if we can't get something ready, this is what it means. We're gonna have to do different work or, or we're not gonna get something in.
I've got someone, someone who's been coming to me saying, Hey, we've got a certain number of sprints remaining for the rest of the year. And the ones at the very end of the year starting to get, they're starting to fill up. So they're asking me if they're saying, Hey, if you could be ready with this, this requirement for this epic, you know, earlier, it's gonna help our team.
It's [00:19:00] gonna help us because we're going to be able to use the capacity we have now rather than waiting to the end of the year when maybe there's gonna be more resource contention. That's great work by our program manager.
Chris: That's, that is good. I mean, it is just much more strategic and not just checking off the boxes and saying, this is what we need to do. Right. Just really thinking through it. Love that. So that's, that's what a a, a good PMO office good pro program management would look like. What are some maybe common misalignments that you've seen between product teams and PMOs over the years?
Like, what are some of those, what do those look like? How, how can you think those may have been rectified?
Jay: You know, I think, I think it's inevitable you're gonna have some role overlap. Both roles are strong coordinating functions. and, I guess when I look at it, Chris, project managers tend to live and die by their schedule, by the timeline, and product managers just don't.
I, I like to describe as product should be focused on the why and the what, you know, [00:20:00] what, why do you need to go do this work? What are you ultimately trying to accomplish and what are we doing to help address that need? That has to be really well understood. Um, it has to be.
Those insights need to be reached. Product can't do it. We have to have some humility. We can't do it in a vacuum. We have to talk not only to clients, but to our, all, all of our internal teams, to finance, to operations, to technology. you've gotta talk to, uh, your marketing folks and your sales folks.
You can't be successful with the product on your, on your own. And, and so I think as you're coordinating that, our focus should be really on, on the why and the what. And project management should help us with the how and the when and the who. And so I think that's important as you think about how do you sequence the work, what's the right way to do it?
Who needs to be pulled in? product isn't always gonna be in a position to do that. There's some organizations, like smaller organizations I've been in where sometimes those roles will kind of be collapsed. You have one person does it all for big, big products, it tends to be too much. but, [00:21:00] but I, I, I just, I bring up that tension between kind of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.
Because product managers, you, I think when, when I get someone comes to me, they say, Hey, I've gotta have the product requirement. I've gotta have it, I need it by this date. Well, this is not like, if I don't know the right product requirement, I'd be doing a disservice to the organization by writing something down and putting it out.
Now, it doesn't need to be perfect to, to share it, but it has to have some thought. It has to be partially baked. The, the cookie has to at least be gooey and taking form before I'm gonna take it out of the oven.
Chris: And I, and I like, you know, uh, I like that, that, that, that conflict that could arise. It could be because like you were talking about, there could be that overlap, you know, of, of common positions. But I think the, I think the opposite of that could be true as well is that there could be, I. Well, that's not, you know, that's, that's, that's their job to do it.
There's, it's like you think that the other person is doing it and they think that you're doing it, and there could be a gap there as well. So if you [00:22:00] define, you know, if you define between, okay, product, this is your straight up role of, what did you say, the why and the what. And then program management, PMO, we're focusing on the how, when, and who.
If you've got all those bases covered, you know, you've got, you've got a really good plan to move forward, you know, as far as kind of working together to get that done.
Jay: It, it raises your odds of success, right? If, if we know who's on first and we all agree. Who's playing what role? And, and I don't know if the roles always aligned to titles sometimes. You know, I, I had an escalation, um, in the last week and teams had to do work that probably wasn't theirs to do, but they were able to do it and it had to get done.
So I think being flexible, being nimble, and again, focusing on the outcome. If the client, if you gotta take care of your clients, you've gotta preserve that revenue coming in and that client satisfaction, or you know, it's gonna harm the product, it's gonna harm the whole organization.
Chris: So sometimes just roll up your sleeves, get your, get your hands dirty. Right? Get the job done. Move on. [00:23:00] Now, what advice would you give to. PMs and PMO leaders to be maybe more of the strategic partner in problem solving and just kind of get outta that task execution mind, you know, and just kind of driving forward really, you know, just being more strategic in partnering with product.
What would you, what advice would you give there?
Jay: So early in my career, I actually was a program manager, for, for a couple years. And I got to learn from someone who's phenomenal. and I did it long enough. I could tell, I would get, I would get decent at it, but I would never be as good as she was. She was, she was just fantastic.
you know, I'd say first I'd say resist the urge to be an activity junkie. Just don't do it. Like, get, make sure you're comfortable and be respectful, but be, make sure you're comfortable challenging people. I like to say challenge people and it's not about like your position, your title, ignore the hierarchy as long as your, your culture will will, um, support that, for where you're working.
But don't focus on the hierarchy, just get comfortable asking respectful challenges. I [00:24:00] worked at one place and, you know, our, our most senior leader kind of said, Hey, I want people challenging each other. And not long after that, there was something, he needed a, a document pulled up and put together very quickly for.
for the president of our line of business, he needed it that day, like in an hour. And he went to a, you know, to a team member and said, Hey, I need this. And he kind of sat there and he said, yeah, I, I guess I'd be willing to do that. And so that was the culture that we built. It was, Hey, I have a choice to make.
Is this the right work to do? And, and you're, you're up a here in the hierarchy, but is it valuable to do? If not, I'm gonna have a conversation about, Hey, why would we do that? Why wouldn't we, why wouldn't you give him a different type of document than exactly what he asked for? I, I think not everyone's comfortable with that.
I don't know that all organizations support that, but I think ultimately we all have free will and we should be figuring out how do we get comfortable, respectfully challenging people who bring work to us? Because there's more work in a day than most people can get to. So you're naturally [00:25:00] prioritizing on your own.
Isn't it better to have an honest conversation of, Hey, Chris, what? Why do you really need that? What are you really trying to accomplish? and I, I think, you know, I'll, I'll throw out one other, just a tip from the, the program manager I got to learn under. Again, she was just spectacular. But part of what made her good, she would say, Hey, Jay, your, your job is not to show up and lead the cross-functional meeting and just facilitate the meeting.
Kind of go through the topics and the agenda and go, go person by person. That is not your job. Your job is to make sure the team gets the work done that needs to get done. To make the team look good in the process. I was like, well, what, what do you mean? And she said, well, before every meeting, go to the each team member one at a time and ask them how their deliverables are coming, that you're gonna ask them about in that team meeting.
See if they're having problems, see if there's help that they need something you can do, something someone else can do. So that when you get to that team meeting and you say, Hey Chris, how's the, how's the, uh, how's the prototype coming? [00:26:00] You already know, Chris is gonna say, oh yeah, I got it and it's cooking, it's great.
I'm ready to show it to people versus embarrassing Chris on the spot. or if there's an issue, it's already been resolved or partially resolved, and that time is more valuably spent. When we can all sit there and talk about what's being done and is that the right thing and are there alternatives that we should be thinking about?
It just helps the team get to the outcome faster. she wasn't in product, but that, that was kind of the first. Aha moment I had early in my career working in program manage.
Chris: That is great advice. I mean, it is. It's just basically have the meeting before the meeting. You know, you don't wanna be surprised in front of everybody with what's gone off the rails. You know, when there's something that could be done of it, you know, done with that ahead of time. That's excellent advice.
And, you know, and I mean, and that is, this is what I'm hearing you say is like the, the question that you would ask is. Is this the right thing to do? What is the problem that you are trying to solve? Because you're right, people will come to you even as, you know, program managers, PMO [00:27:00] leaders with a, a solution in mind of what they want to do, you know?
And it's like, but, but, but don't gimme the solution. Let me, let me figure out what you're trying to do. So you can definitely be more strategic if you start asking that very first question there. It's
Jay: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, A lot of the, the i i I work increasingly, I spend more and more time with my clients and I encourage product people. Spend at least half of your time not talking to your coworkers. Go talk to customers, go, go read competitive briefs, go try out a competitor's product. Um, like these are the ways you start to get real meaningful insights and understand when things are changing.
I think as you start to do that and, and engage more with clients, I start getting requests. You know, I had one, Hey, in your app, I'd like this message to appear in this place. And I had another one. It was, I had like to have a button added to added so a, a user can select something here.
Well, when I started to like poke on, hey, well why do you want that? Why is that important? It had nothing to do with the [00:28:00] original ask. They didn't care where it showed up. They just wanna make sure that their members are coming in and that they're being engaged properly, that they're actually utilizing the product and our particular section of the product.
And there are a whole bunch of ways to get them to do that. A button or the placement of a, a verbiage, a tile in one place. That's just one way. That's their hypothesis on how to do it, how to do that. But you have to ask the questions like the five why's. Well, why do you want that? What are you trying to accomplish?
What happens without, what's the pain you're feeling? Um, you have to ask those questions and, and just kind of peel the onion back to get to the nugget of what they're actually after.
Chris: Be much more consultative in your approach. For sure. Now this is something, Jay, we had talked about this, you know, offline. You had talked about an example of a Swiss Army knife that was just so exemplary of something that had gone wrong. Can, can you share that, share that with our listeners?
Jay: Yeah. so, so this is something, um, and you can go look at it. You can go Google. I, I think it's like ridiculous [00:29:00] Swiss Army knife or giant Swiss Army knife. But I use this, I've used this for years and, and I just love to kinda share it. An example of the value of product. There is, you know, Swiss Army Knife went through its a hundred year anniversary and around that time they released all of these anniversary edition knives and they've got one that's got like, so cool.
It's got all these blades on it. It's got like, I think 87 blades on it. It performs 150 or 200 functions. This thing is awesome, and they're all on one knife, and so you can just flip open the screwdriver and the saw and the pliers and the nail file and, the Allen Ray, they've just got it all, all there on one thing and it's just, it's freaking cool when you look at it.
but from a product standpoint, this is the exact opposite of what you don't want you, your our job, the whole reason the function exists is to make sure we don't go down this path. Because that knife, while really cool, does not [00:30:00] solve a single business problem. Not one, it doesn't fit in your pocket.
'cause it's too big. It's like two feet long. It doesn't, um, it's not really portable because, you know, it weighs like six pounds. Um, you can't use the screwdriver and small quarters because it's too big and clunky and, and unwieldy. And again, you think about all the work it took to create each of those features and.
To get them put together and packaged like that and it's all waste 'cause it doesn't solve a business problem. There was a simpler, more elegant solution. And in product there's always this temptation to just keep adding features, just glom them on one after the other. And when you have just kind of an ambulation of features, you end up with something that's just wasteful.
We, we abdicate our fiduciary responsibility to be good stewards of the product and the resources the company has. Instead of focusing on what's the simple, elegant solution, I want something small that fits in my pocket. It does like the, the most common functions. That's good enough. I, [00:31:00] I always use that just because it's such a vivid example.
And again, if you go Google this thing, like it, the image will burn into your brain and it'll never go away.
Chris: I am looking at it as we speak, and I, I guess the good news is it's only a thousand dollars, so, you know,
Jay: down. It used to be up like nine, so.
Chris: So I, you know, maybe this is a knockoff or something, but it is the giant Swiss Army knife, uh, 85 tools, meaning you'll probably be able to find the tool you're looking for. That's, that's the tagline right there.
So that's a, that's a good example of what not to do, but it is pretty cool. And you're right, I will never forget this image. Well, Jay, we definitely appreciate you being on today and giving us this, this insight into the product management. Mentality. And like you're saying, it's a mindset more than anything.
So it just really helps us, as you know, program managers, PMO leaders, to understand how we can partner best and be more strategic, you know, in our approach to, to bringing value to the organization. Now, if there was one [00:32:00] great practice, Jay, that you wanted our listeners to walk away with today, what would that be?
Jay: It's probably what we've said. Say focus on outcomes over activity. You know, avoid the urge to be an activity junkie. Don't be a junkie. Outcomes over activity.
Chris: Love it. All right, we'll leave it there then. Now, if someone wanted to talk, uh, further about this topic, what's the best way, what's the best way to connect with you? How could they reach out to you?
Jay: Yeah. Uh, so I'm a proud Duke Blue Devil. Um, and one thing I got to take away from, there was a great email address when they rolled out the forwarding ones. So I'm at, uh, JY at alumni.duke.edu. Um, or hit me up on LinkedIn. Just say you, you, uh, saw me on, the Great Practices Podcast and I'd be glad to connect.
Chris: All right,
Jay: Thanks for having me on.
Chris: Yeah, Jay, we appreciate you being on today as well, man. We'll talk to you soon.
Jay: Perfect. Thanks Chris.
Chris: Bye.
Well, that was another great episode of great [00:33:00] practices and we certainly do appreciate Jay joining us today. Uh, what were some of these great practices and insights that came from this episode? Well, I like the way that Jay started out with, he doesn't necessarily start with the product, but he starts with the business problem.
What problem are the users having? Do they have a particular need or is whatever they're doing having to change their day in an inconvenient way? Are there escalations involved in workarounds? He's like, that's where you start in order to figure out exactly what needs to be built into this project. look at those pain points, look at those patterns, use that empathy, uh, have that visceral sense of what the user is experiencing, and then you can have a good attitude when it comes to that role of product management.
But what traps do companies fall into if they don't have a strong product management function? He brought up two. He said, number one, you are going to end up [00:34:00] building what somebody says go to build, whether it's the right thing or not, because you're not getting that input from customers or from the market or from the actual end users.
So it may be the biggest title or the founder of the company, and they're gonna say, we need this, and everybody says. Yep. We need that. And then that's what gets done. Whether or not it's the right thing that needs to be built, the second problem or the second trap that companies fall into, he said, was
The problem of busyness, just being busy instead of business and really working on the right thing. So it's easy to fall into that trap of just becoming a feature factory and just continuing to build one feature after a next, and just continue to glom that on was the word that he used, the expression he used, onto the product so that it just becomes unwieldy and unusable.
And speaking about unusable or even unused, that statistic, he said 50 to 80% of every feature that is [00:35:00] developed rarely or never gets used. That's absolutely shocking when you think about all the, the time and the effort and the resources that go into building something and then realizing that they did actually not come to use that feature that was built into that product.
What about the process that a product management team follows, you know, is that something that we would want to understand as PMO leaders and, employees in A PMO? Well, certainly it is, but he said it's really not so much the, the process, but more the mindset. So there's, you know, there's standard frameworks that people could follow and books to read and all that type of thing as far as how to do product management.
But he says the mindset about thinking like an investor. I. Is where it's important, you know, where is it that you, as a steward of this product, where is it that you are going to invest your time, money, and resources in order to get the biggest ROI use that example of firing bullets before [00:36:00] cannonballs.
So you're gonna use bullets, maybe a small test, small features, small scrappy ways to build confidence that this is the right direction for these features to go, or this product to go. And then once you determine that. And he says, you're gonna know it because you'll hit that product market fit sweet spot, and they're almost gonna just be pulling it from you.
Once you know that, then that's when you can start firing cannonballs and you can really put a lot of resources towards building that product out and those features out to be what people are wanting. Regarding the value of having PMOs involved in product management initiatives?
He said it depends. What does it depend on? Well, if it's a good PMO or if it's a bad PMO. so a good PMO is basically going to have the product management team and work side by side with them and have them execute on the work. Prioritize what's first, second, third, identify, mitigate, resolve risks.
Um, he said that a strong [00:37:00] program manager, strong PMO, is able to look around the corners. So that's really where the value of a strong PMO strong program and project managers would come into place. Now, the days of a bad PMO where you just show up and you have people that are just taking notes, is gone.
So. Those types of PMOs, those types of organizations, if that's the type of thing where you're just sitting there as a scribe, you know, that's really a time suck and that's not value add. So wanna be mindful as far as where to position ourselves as PMO leaders. I. Another interesting, thought that he had was when it comes to the common misalignment between product teams and PMOs, because both are strong coordinating functions and there may be, a role overlap, but I like being able to kind of draw the line of which team should focus on what.
So the product team should focus on the why [00:38:00] and the what. and the PMO side of things, project management. Program management should focus on the when, the how, and the who. So if product focuses on why and what program management focuses on when, how, and who, you've got a real good combination that plays to each other's strengths between these two functions within an organization.
what about the, Advice to resist the urge to be an activity junkie, right? it falls into that trap of just being busy. I've just gotta do this and I've gotta feel like I'm building things and we're adding these new features and we're expanding this product.
That's just being an activity junkie. He says, as a product management professional, you're gonna wanna challenge people. Ask him if this is the right thing to do, especially if the culture obviously would support that in an organization of challenging hierarchy. And not necessarily, you know, just saying, oh, this is what we're gonna do because it's coming down from above.
But ask the question, what are [00:39:00] we really trying to accomplish? And he brought up another question earlier, um, that I thought would really fall into this as well, is, what happens if we don't do this? What if we just, what if we just say this isn't gonna be done? Think about all the, activity and the time and the resources, the money that could be spent, if there's not gonna be that much value for setting up or for building this new feature.
And he wrapped things up with the example of this giant Swiss army knife has, like, what? I don't know, a hundred, 150 different tools on it. It's got everything. But while it's really cool. It doesn't solve one problem. It doesn't fit in your pocket because it's too big. You can't carry it around because it's too heavy.
You can't use a screwdriver because the, the whole foot long Swiss army knife is too unwieldy. So, yeah, it sounds cool. There's gonna always be these temptations to keep adding these new tools but is it actually something that people will use or.[00:40:00]
Be useful, which I guess really is fundamentally what product management comes down to. Is it useful, used, and usable? if you can answer yes to those three questions, then you've got a good feature that really you could go and build and know that people will use.
Well, again, we'd like to thank Jay for being on great Practices today and sharing his insight with us. And do you have a great practice that you'd like to share? Go to the pmo leader.com, click on Resources, great Practices Podcast. Fill out the form at the bottom of the screen, and somebody will get in touch with you shortly.
Also be sure not to miss out on a single episode by subscribing to great practices on your favorite podcast platform. and if you like what you hear, we've had some great guests on, we've got many more lined up, be sure to share this with your manager, colleague, and any others that you think would benefit.
So thanks again for listening to this episode and keep putting great practices in the practice.
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