Product Thinking for Product Leaders: How to Apply It to Your Organization
How product leaders can use product thinking on the product organization itself, with experiments, minimum viable changes, and evidence-based adaptation.
Click image to open full size Product leaders should treat the org as a product
“PMs work on the product. Product leaders work on the product org.” - Ed Biden
Let’s take it one step further. Product leaders should work on the product organization using a product approach.
Successful product leaders I have worked with apply their product chops to the organization itself. They hypothesize, experiment, keep options open, inspect and adapt, orient to outcomes, and use evidence to guide them.
They do not spend 100 days planning the reorg that will supposedly solve every product-organization problem. They get going with bite-sized changes within 10 days. If we were playing buzzword bingo, you could call this bias for action.
They apply a product operating model to introduce a product operating model. They consider themselves stewards of the product management experience and frame their goals around serving their customers: the PMs and other stakeholders of the product organization.
They treat potential changes as hypotheses and walk the truth curve. They use minimum viable changes. They engage and empower cross-functional teams of the right people, often bringing in perspectives from outside the product org, to work through complex problems.
You might consider this Product Operations. Initially, it may be a capability the product leader and core product management team focus on. Over time, as the organization scales, it often makes sense to organize a specialized enabling or platform team to help steward the product operating model.
The most successful ones rally their colleagues to work on the whole company as a product.
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