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TLDR

In my recent conversation with Carmel Dibner from Applied Marketing Science, we explored how artificial intelligence is transforming Voice of the Customer (VOC) research for product teams. The collaboration between AMS and MIT researchers has yielded impressive results, with AI tools not only matching human analysts in identifying customer needs but often exceeding them—especially for emotional needs that humans might overlook. Rather than replacing human researchers, AI serves as a copilot, helping product teams uncover twice as many unique needs while reducing analysis time and eliminating bias. This hybrid approach offers tremendous potential for innovation, particularly in the early stages of product development.

Key Topics

• AI can now match or exceed human analysts in identifying customer needs from research data
• Large Language Models (LLMs) are surprisingly effective at capturing emotional needs that humans often miss
• AI finds twice as many unique customer needs compared to human analysts alone
• The most effective approach is using AI as a “copilot” alongside human researchers
• AI tools significantly speed up data analysis and can process multiple data sources simultaneously
• These tools can find niche needs that create innovation opportunities
• AI still has limitations in prioritizing needs and assessing the validity of different data sources

Introduction

Voice of the Customer research has been a cornerstone of product management for decades. But it is changing, with AI tools that are transforming how we uncover and analyze customer needs. While some fear AI might miss the human element of customer research, recent advancements show it can actually help us capture more nuanced emotional needs while eliminating human bias.

Joining us is returning guest, Carmel Dibner, who is a principal and co-owner at Applied Marketing Science (AMS), where she has helped companies uncover critical customer insights to improve products, services, and customer experiences. Before moving to consulting she was in brand management at Unilever. More recently, she has collaborated with AI researchers at MIT to improve VOC outcomes. I regard Applied Marketing Science, Carmel’s company, as the thought leaders in VOC research, and it was the first organization to formalize the VOC interview process.

In this discussion, we’ll explore how LLMs are revolutionizing Voice of the Customer analysis. Carmel will share results of experiments where AI not only matched human analysts in extracting customer insights but excelled at finding hidden needs – unmet needs that could unlock your next innovation opportunity and create competitive advantage.

Whether you’re skeptical about AI in customer research or eager to embrace it, this discussion will challenge your assumptions about the future of Voice of the Customer analysis.

The AI Revolution in Voice of the Customer Research

Early AI Experiments (2017-2018)

AMS began experimenting with artificial intelligence for customer research around 2017-2018. Their initial focus was on developing algorithms that could effectively analyze textual data and extract meaningful customer insights.

However, these early efforts faced significant limitations. The AI could identify potentially useful information, but human analysts still needed to invest considerable time sifting through and making sense of what the AI had found. The process wasn’t yet efficient enough to deliver the time-saving benefits they hoped for.

Recent Breakthroughs (2023)

In 2023, AMS and MIT researchers tackled a more ambitious question: Could AI now effectively craft unmet customer needs statements that would be just as good as those created by experienced human analysts?

To answer this question, they employed a technology called supervised fine-tuning. This approach involved “teaching” large language models how to craft clear, actionable customer needs statements based on transcript data, social media comments, and other text sources.

The supervised fine-tuning approach represented a significant advancement. Rather than simply flagging potentially relevant text, these newer AI models could produce fully formed needs statements that captured what customers truly wanted and why.

This breakthrough laid the groundwork for the impressive results they observed in their comparative experiments between AI and human analysts.

Validating AI Effectiveness in VOC Research

The claim that AI could match or even exceed human performance in VOC research required solid evidence. During our conversation, Carmel described several experiments they conducted to validate the effectiveness of their AI approach.

Experimental Approach

One of their key experiments involved a blind testing methodology. They took authentic customer needs statements from previous VOC studies conducted by human analysts and mixed them with needs statements that the AI had generated. Then, they asked experienced human analysts to evaluate all the statements without knowing which were AI-generated and which were human-generated.

The analysts evaluated each statement based on several criteria:

• Clarity – Was the need clearly articulated?
• Articulation quality – Was it well-expressed and understandable?
• Absence of hallucination – Was there any evidence of the AI inserting details that weren’t actually present in the customer data?
• Authenticity – How true was the need to what customers actually said?

Surprising Results

In these blind tests, the AI-generated needs statements performed just as well as—and in some cases better than—those crafted by human analysts.

Key Benefits of AI-Powered Analysis

Through these experiments, Carmel and her team identified several significant advantages of using AI for VOC research:

This last point about reduced bias is particularly important. As product managers, we sometimes unconsciously look for evidence that confirms our existing assumptions about customer needs or product direction. An AI system, properly implemented, doesn’t have these same motivations—it simply reports what it finds in the data.

These benefits combine to create a more robust database of customer needs, which serves as the foundation for effective product innovation. The faster a product team can build this comprehensive understanding of customer needs, the more quickly they can move into solution development with confidence.

AI’s Ability to Capture Emotional Needs

One of the most surprising findings from AMS’s research was how effectively AI could identify emotion-infused customer needs. This discovery challenged a common assumption that machines would struggle with the emotional aspects of customer research due to their lack of human empathy.

Why AI Excels at Finding Emotional Needs

Humans conducting customer research are often unconsciously biased toward functional needs. As product professionals, we’re trained to identify problems and create solutions. We get rewarded professionally for finding practical issues that can be addressed with concrete features or improvements.

This solution-oriented mindset can cause us to quickly move from emotional needs to functional needs to potential solutions. It’s simply how our professional brains are wired.

AI, however, doesn’t have this bias. It gives equal weight to functional and emotional needs in customer data because it isn’t influenced by the pressure to jump to solutions. This creates a unique advantage in identifying the full spectrum of customer needs.

Case Study: Wood Stains Category

In analyzing customer feedback about staining furniture and wood products, the AI identified an emotional need that human analysts completely overlooked: Customers wanted “a manufacturer that values my feedback, will respond to my emails, and will address my concerns.”

Human analysts had dismissed this as a generic desire that everyone would have, not recognizing it as a core need specific to this category. However, this need is particularly important for wood staining projects because customers often encounter problems and need responsive manufacturer support.

The AI, without bias toward “important” functional needs, recognized this emotional need as significant based purely on the data.

The Competitive Value of Emotional Needs

There are three dimensions to any customer job:

• Functional – The obvious practical outcome the customer wants to achieve
• Emotional – How they want to feel (or avoid feeling) during and after the job
• Social – How they want to be perceived by others

While functional needs are often the easiest to identify and address, emotional needs frequently drive purchasing decisions and brand loyalty. A product that connects strongly with customers’ emotional needs will typically outperform one that only addresses functional requirements.

Even in highly functional categories like home heating and cooling systems, emotional needs like “feeling like a responsible homeowner” or “not feeling like I’m throwing money down the drain” are important to customer satisfaction.

By leveraging AI to help identify these often-overlooked emotional needs, product teams can develop more holistic solutions that connect with customers on multiple levels, creating stronger competitive advantages.

The Human-AI Partnership in VOC Research

While the results from AI-powered analysis are impressive, Carmel emphasized that the most effective approach is using AI as a copilot rather than a complete replacement for human researchers. This partnership model leverages the strengths of both human expertise and AI capabilities to produce superior results.

AI as a Copilot

During our conversation, Carmel described how she views the relationship between human analysts and AI tools. The AI will find many things that humans overlook, but humans will also identify aspects that AI might miss. It’s similar to having two different analysts review the same data—each will notice different things. This copilot perspective emphasizes collaboration rather than replacement.

Quantifiable Advantages of the Hybrid Approach

The partnership between human researchers and AI creates measurable benefits for product teams. In their experiments, AMS examined the overlap between needs identified by humans and those identified by AI, creating a Venn diagram of findings.

The results were eye-opening:

• When examining just the unique needs (those found by only one method), AI identified twice as many unique needs as human analysts
• AI didn’t suffer from the “I already heard that” fatigue that affects humans reviewing large datasets
• AI excelled at finding that “one new piece of data in a mountain of data” that might otherwise be missed

These niche needs—ones that might be mentioned infrequently in customer feedback—are opportunities for innovation. As Carmel pointed out, the frequency with which a need is mentioned doesn’t necessarily correlate with its importance. Sometimes, these rarely mentioned needs represent the greatest opportunities for competitive differentiation.

Case Study: Finding New Insights in Mature Industries

To illustrate how the human-AI partnership can unlock unexpected value, Carmel shared an example from the snowplow industry. She worked with a client who had been in the snowplow and snow equipment business for 20 years—a veteran who deeply understood the industry.

Initially, she wondered what new insights they could possibly discover for someone with such extensive experience. However, through their research process, they uncovered insights about visibility issues—specifically, that snowplows often have the worst visibility precisely when they need it most.

These insights weren’t obvious even to industry experts, but they represented significant innovation opportunities. The client had never thought to ask certain questions, but the AI-augmented research process helped uncover these hidden needs.

Breaking Through Subject Matter Expert Limitations

AI-powered research can help overcome the limitations that come with deep domain expertise. When we’re very familiar with an industry, product, or customer base, we often make assumptions that limit our perspective. We might believe we’re in a commodity space or that we already understand all customer needs.

In these situations, an outside perspective is valuable. Traditionally, this might come from new team members who aren’t constrained by industry conventions. Now, AI tools can provide a similar fresh perspective, almost like bringing in a consultant who specializes in finding customer needs across many different categories and can apply that expertise to your specific domain.

Limitations of AI in VOC Research

Despite the impressive capabilities of AI in VOC research, it’s important for product teams to understand its current limitations. During our conversation, Carmel highlighted several areas where human judgment and expertise remain essential.

Equal Weighting of Data Sources

One significant limitation is that AI algorithms like large language models tend to treat all data sources with equal weight. As Carmel explained, these tools currently can’t make sophisticated judgments about the relative validity or reliability of different data sources they analyze.

This means that human expertise is still necessary for:

• Determining which data sources are worthy of the AI’s attention
• Evaluating the quality of inputs the AI is analyzing
• Deciding how much weight to give various pieces of feedback

The AI is only as good as the data provided to it, so human selection and curation of input data is critical.

The Continued Value of Direct Customer Conversations

There’s still no substitute for real, live conversations with customers. While AI can extract tremendous value from interview transcripts and written feedback, direct customer interactions provide benefits that go beyond data collection:

These human-to-human interactions develop deeper understanding within product teams that purely AI-mediated research might miss. The ideal approach combines direct customer conversations with AI-powered analysis of the resulting data.

Prioritization Challenges

Carmel also noted that AI currently can’t prioritize needs for innovation effectively. While AI excels at identifying the full spectrum of customer needs, it doesn’t yet have the capability to determine which of those needs represent the most valuable opportunities.

The AI can identify all the needs that should go into a prioritization survey (what AMS calls “secondary needs”), but product teams still need to:

1. Conduct surveys or other customer research to prioritize these needs
2. Identify which needs are most important to customers
3. Determine which needs are currently unmet or poorly met
4. Decide which needs represent the best innovation opportunities

This final step of prioritizing where to focus innovation efforts remains a human-driven process that requires business judgment, market understanding, and strategic thinking.

Balancing AI Capabilities with Human Expertise

Understanding these limitations helps product teams use AI tools more effectively. Rather than seeing AI as a complete replacement for traditional customer research methods, the most successful approach treats AI as one powerful tool in the product manager’s toolkit.

By being realistic about what AI can and can’t currently do, product teams can design research processes that leverage the strengths of both AI analysis and human expertise, creating more comprehensive customer insights than either could achieve alone.

Integrating AI into the Product Innovation Process

With an understanding of both the capabilities and limitations of AI in VOC research, the next question becomes how product teams can effectively incorporate these tools into their innovation processes. Carmel shared several practical insights on this topic during our conversation.

AI Throughout the Innovation Funnel

Carmel described AI as providing product teams with “different lenses” to view customer needs. Unlike traditional research projects that often require extensive planning and formal structure, AI-powered approaches offer more agility and flexibility.

Product teams can leverage AI at multiple stages of the innovation funnel:

Most Useful Application: Beginning of Innovation

While AI can provide value throughout the innovation process, Carmel emphasized that its most useful application is at the very beginning—the discovery phase where teams are trying to understand the landscape of customer needs before diving into solutions.

This aligns with best practices in product management, where thorough understanding of customer problems should precede solution development. AI can help product teams build this foundation more quickly and comprehensively than traditional methods alone.

Filling Gaps in the Process

AI can fill gaps when the ideal innovation process hasn’t been followed. In practice, product development doesn’t always follow a perfect linear path:

• Sometimes teams jump directly to solutions without thorough needs identification
• Sometimes they develop concepts first, then try to determine the right messaging
• Sometimes they’re already far along in development when they realize they need to verify customer needs

In these situations, AI can quickly analyze customer data to ensure teams haven’t missed anything foundational before proceeding to later stages. The speed and efficiency of AI analysis makes it a highly agile tool for course correction.

Broadening Innovation Horizons

Another benefit of integrating AI into the product innovation process is how it can help teams break out of established patterns of thinking. By identifying needs that might be overlooked in conventional analysis, AI can point product teams toward unexpected innovation opportunities.

This is particularly valuable in mature product categories or for teams working with products they’ve managed for a long time. The AI can help challenge assumptions and reveal new possibilities that might not have been considered.

Practical Implementation of AI-Powered VOC

Understanding the potential of AI in VOC research is one thing, but knowing how to practically implement these tools is another challenge entirely. During our conversation, Carmel provided insights into how product teams can begin leveraging these capabilities today.

Current State: Client Service Model

Currently, AMS is offering AI-powered VOC as a service to their clients. This approach allows product teams to benefit from advanced AI analysis without needing to develop the expertise or tools internally. Carmel explained that their goal is to help clients get insights faster and more efficiently than ever before.

This service model makes sense given the specialized nature of the AI tools being used. The large language models employed by AMS have been fine-tuned with supervised learning based on 1,500 carefully selected customer needs from multiple case studies. This specialized training creates AI systems that are specifically optimized for VOC research rather than general-purpose AI.

Benefits for Product Teams

Implementing AI-powered VOC research, whether through a service provider like AMS or eventually through internal capabilities, offers several practical benefits for product teams:

Tailoring Implementation to Product Complexity

Carmel noted that the level of detail needed from AI-powered analysis varies based on the complexity of the product and its development stage. Not all products require the same depth of customer needs exploration:

• Higher complexity products may need comprehensive needs identification
• Products already in development might need targeted analysis to verify assumptions
• Products nearing launch might need focused research on messaging alignment with needs

The flexibility of AI-powered approaches allows teams to adjust the scope and depth of analysis to match their specific situation, making this a highly adaptable tool for diverse product development contexts.

Conclusion

The integration of AI into Voice of the Customer research represents a significant advancement for product teams seeking to better understand and address customer needs. These tools aren’t replacing human researchers but rather enhancing their capabilities, helping teams discover more customer needs—particularly emotional ones—faster and more comprehensively than traditional methods alone. The ability to process diverse data sources without fatigue or bias opens new possibilities for innovation, especially in mature product categories where fresh insights can be challenging to find.

By leveraging AI to help us better understand customer needs—both functional and emotional—product teams can create solutions that connect more deeply with customers, driving both satisfaction and competitive advantage.

Useful Links

• Register for the Supercharge Your VOC Webinar on March 5th, 2025, with Carmel Dibner and Artem Timoshenko
• Stay up-to-date on upcoming AMS workshops
• Connect with AMS on Instagram

Innovation Quote

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Application Questions

1. How could you use AI as a “copilot” in your current customer research process? Consider specific points where AI analysis might complement your team’s human analysis and help identify needs that might otherwise be overlooked.
2. What emotional needs might your customers have that your team hasn’t fully explored? How could you use AI tools to help uncover these less obvious but potentially valuable insights?
3. How might your team’s subject matter expertise be creating blind spots in your understanding of customer needs? What “fresh perspective” could AI bring to challenge your established assumptions?
4. Where in your product innovation funnel could AI-powered customer research create the most value? Consider both early-stage discovery and later validation activities.
5. What data sources about your customers do you already have that could be analyzed more comprehensively with AI tools? Think beyond interviews to include support tickets, reviews, social media comments, and other text-based feedback.

Bio

Carmel Dibner is a principal in the Insights for Innovation practice at Applied Marketing Science (AMS) where she is responsible for client relationships, client service delivery, and business development.

She has worked closely with researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management to experiment with new AI techniques and has successfully applied machine learning to answer her clients’ most difficult research questions. These techniques became the basis for a research study for Boston Children’s Hospital that was awarded a 2023 Quirk’s Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Award in the Health Care/Pharmaceutical Research Project category. More recently, she’s collaborated with researchers from MIT and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management on next generation AI. She regularly presents at leading industry conferences such as the Front End of Innovation Continued and The Market Research Event Continued.

Carmel is passionate about the intersection of psychology and business. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology with a Business and Organizations concentration from Cornell University. She also holds an Masters in Business Administration in Marketing and Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was named a Palmer Scholar.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

How an AI-powered fashion startup achieved product-market fit

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TLDR

In this episode, we’re joined by Anya Cheng, former product leader at Meta, eBay, McDonald’s, and Target, and current founder of the AI-powered fashion startup Taelor. Her journey from corporate product management to successful startup founder offers valuable lessons for product managers and innovators. The key message: Focus on solving one problem exceptionally rather than competing on multiple features.

Key Topics

• Why successful products often start with a single powerful feature
• How to discover and validate product-market fit through deep customer research
• The importance of balancing customer feedback with your own product vision
• Ways to create value on both customer and supplier sides of your business
• Lessons from Target’s iPad app success through radical feature minimization
• The value of breaking out of your industry bubble for innovation insights

Introduction

We all face numerous challenges creating products customers love—understanding the customer and their unmet needs, achieving product-market fit, working with stakeholders, scaling the product in the marketplace, and more. Today we’ll learn how to overcome some of those challenges from a product leader with experience at Target, McDonalds, eBay, and Meta, and now as Founder and CEO of Taelor. Our guest, Anya Cheng, founded Taelor, combining her leadership experience at B2Cs and her knowledge of tech product management, to make it easy for men to wear stylish clothes for any occasion. Anya also is mentor at 500 Startups and a teacher of product management for Northwestern University. 

A Fresh Perspective on Product Development

Anya challenged common assumptions about product development strategy. Instead of advocating for feature-rich products or complex innovation frameworks, she emphasized the power of solving one problem exceptionally. This approach has informed her success across different industries and roles, from retail to technology.

Core Product Development Challenges: The Power of Single-Feature Focus

Anya highlighted a mistake many startups and product teams make: trying to compete with established companies by matching or exceeding their feature lists.

The Feature Competition Trap

During her work mentoring product managers and startups, Anya noticed a recurring pattern. Teams often pitch their products by comparing them to industry giants: “It’s like Uber, but with these extra features” or “It’s Amazon, plus these additional capabilities.” The problem? This approach fundamentally misunderstands how successful products actually emerge and grow.

Large companies can quickly replicate individual features, making it nearly impossible for smaller players to compete on feature quantity. Instead, a startup should focus on solving one problem better than anyone else.

Historical Examples of Successful Single-Feature Products

To illustrate the power of focused problem-solving, Anya shared three examples:

The Key to Standing Out

The lesson Anya learned from both her corporate experience and startup journey is clear: Success comes from doing one thing exceptionally rather than doing many things adequately. She shared wisdom from her mentors, including founders of Rotten Tomatoes and YouTube, who emphasized that startups should focus on having “one giant check mark” instead of many small ones.

This approach requires:

• Identifying a specific, valuable problem to solve
• Developing a focused solution that addresses that problem better than any alternative
• Resisting the temptation to add features just because competitors have them
• Maintaining focus on core value proposition during growth

Finding Product-Market Fit: The Taelor Case Study

The journey to product-market fit often begins with a personal pain point, but successful products emerge when founders look beyond their own experiences. Anya’s development of Taelor offers valuable lessons in how to validate and expand upon initial product insights.

From Personal Problem to Market Opportunity

Anya found herself wanting to look more professional but discovered existing clothing services weren’t designed for busy professionals who prioritized efficiency over fashion. This led her to explore whether others faced similar challenges.

Through market research, she discovered her ideal customers weren’t whom she initially expected. While her original problem centered on professional women’s clothing needs, her research revealed a more acute pain point among busy professional men who:

• Need to look good for various occasions
• Don’t enjoy shopping
• Want to save time on clothing decisions
• Prefer efficiency over fashion exploration

Developing the Value Proposition

Based on this customer understanding, Taelor evolved into a comprehensive solution combining several key elements:

Validating the Model

Anya explained that although Taelor sells clothes, their real value proposition is helping customers save time while getting ready for the week.  The service attracted a surprisingly diverse customer base, ranging from 16 to 85 years old, including professionals across various industries – from sales executives to pastors. This broad appeal confirmed that the core problem (wanting to look good without spending time on fashion) resonated across demographics.

Taelor’s customers pay a monthly fee and receive ten clothing items per month. They answer some questions about their current favorite clothes and clothing issues. They can upload a picture, get a 15-minute free consultation with a human stylist, and provide information about special events they’re dressing for each month. An AI uses this information to pick five clothing items that are mix-and-matched into two to three outfits, which are shipped to the customer. They can wear these clothes for two weeks, mail the dirty clothes back, and keep any pieces they want.

The business model created multiple value streams:

• Monthly subscription fees for the core service
• Purchase options for items customers particularly like
• Significant discounts (30-70% off) on pre-owned items

Thorough customer research and iterative development can transform a personal insight into a viable product with broad market appeal. The key was moving beyond initial assumptions to discover and validate deeper customer needs.

Customer Research and Product Evolution: Uncovering Hidden Opportunities

Anya emphasized how continuous customer research revealed unexpected opportunities and shaped Taelor’s product evolution. Her approach to gathering and acting on customer insights offers valuable lessons for product managers at any stage.

Multi-Channel Research Approach

Rather than relying on traditional surveys alone, Taelor implemented a comprehensive research strategy that combined multiple touchpoints:

Emerging Customer Needs

This deep customer engagement revealed several unexpected opportunities for service expansion:

• Gift recommendations for special occasions
• Style guidance beyond clothing (haircuts, accessories)
• Corporate partnership opportunities for employee benefits
• Educational institution collaborations for student interview preparation

The Human Touch in AI-Driven Products

Taelor decided to maintain human stylists alongside AI capabilities. While they could have automated all customer communications, they discovered that human interaction provided invaluable product development insights. This human element helped them:

• Understand nuanced customer needs that might not appear in data
• Identify patterns in customer requests before they become trends
• Build stronger relationships with customers
• Gather qualitative feedback that improved their AI systems

Strategic Partnerships

The research also led to strategic partnership opportunities that expanded the product’s value proposition. These included:

• Collaborations with women’s rental companies for gift services
• Partnerships with dating apps for style preparation
• Corporate programs for employee benefits
• Educational institution partnerships for student career preparation

This systematic approach to customer research and product evolution demonstrates how careful attention to customer feedback can reveal new opportunities while strengthening the core value proposition.

Supply Side Innovation: Solving Industry-Wide Challenges

Anya revealed how Taelor’s innovation extends beyond customer service to address significant industry challenges. This dual-sided approach to product development offers lessons for product managers about finding opportunities in industry-wide problems.

Addressing Fashion Industry Waste

The fashion industry faces two challenges that Taelor’s  business model helps address:

Creating Value for Suppliers

What makes Taelor’s approach particularly innovative is how it transforms these industry challenges into opportunities for brands. The platform serves as:

• A real-world testing ground for new designs
• A direct feedback channel from customers
• A solution for inventory management
• A market research platform for future collections

Market Testing Innovation

Anya shared how Taelor has become a valuable testing platform for clothing brands in several ways:

Breaking Traditional Distribution Models

The platform also solves a significant challenge for new brands: finding their initial customer base. Anya explained how traditional distribution channels often involve multiple intermediaries, resulting in:

• Delayed feedback from end customers
• Limited understanding of customer preferences
• Reduced ability to iterate on designs
• Increased inventory risk

By providing direct access to customers and immediate feedback, Taelor helps brands make more informed decisions about their products while reducing waste and improving sustainability. This demonstrates how innovative product development can create value for multiple stakeholders while addressing larger industry challenges.

Key Product Management Lessons: Trust, Testing, and Breaking Bubbles

Anya shared several pivotal lessons from her product management journey that challenge conventional wisdom. These insights, drawn from both successes and failures, offer valuable guidance for product managers at any stage of their careers.

Trust Your Product Knowledge

Anya shared a story about her early pitching experiences that illustrated a common product manager challenge. In preparing for startup competitions, she initially focused on memorizing answers to potential questions, consulting 42 former judges. However, this over-preparation actually hindered her ability to respond authentically and confidently.

Key lessons she learned about product leadership:

• Value your deep product knowledge as the product’s “parent”
• Trust your understanding developed through daily engagement
• Balance external input with your own expertise
• Respond authentically rather than reciting prepared answers

Think Beyond Utility

One of Anya’s most significant realizations came after transitioning from corporate to startup environments. She discovered that successful product development requires thinking beyond pure utility:

• Move beyond the corporate “usefulness” mindset
• Embrace curiosity about different perspectives
• Seek insights from unexpected sources
• Break out of industry and professional bubbles

Value of Diverse Perspectives

Anya emphasized how her most valuable insights often came from unexpected sources:

• Successful entrepreneurs outside tech
• Professionals from different industries
• Customers with unique use cases
• Team members with diverse backgrounds

Successful product management isn’t just about following established frameworks – it’s about developing the judgment to know when to trust your instincts, question assumptions, and seek diverse perspectives.

Conclusion

Throughout my conversation with Anya Cheng, one theme consistently emerged: Successful product development isn’t about matching competitors feature-for-feature or trying to solve every customer problem. Instead, it’s about identifying a significant problem, solving it exceptionally, and having the discipline to maintain that focus even as your product grows. Her journey from leading product teams at major tech companies to founding Taelor demonstrates how this principle applies across different scales and industries.

For product managers and innovators, the lessons from Anya’s experience offer a refreshing perspective on product development. Whether you’re working in a large corporation or leading a startup, success comes from deeply understanding your customers, questioning your assumptions, embracing diverse perspectives, and having the courage to maintain a singular focus on solving one problem exceptionally.

Useful Links

• Connect with Anya on LinkedIn
• Check out Taelor and use code global30 to get 30% off your first month of subscription or globalgitft10 to get 10% off a gift card

Innovation Quote

“A great product solves a real problem with a singular, powerful value proposition.” – Anya Cheng

Application Questions

1. How could you simplify your current product down to one “giant check mark” – a single feature or capability that solves a crucial problem better than any alternative? What would you need to remove or change to achieve this focus?
2. How could your team expand your customer research methods beyond traditional approaches? Consider Anya’s example of having customer service representatives purposefully engage with users to gather product development insights. What new channels could you create for deeper customer understanding?
3. Looking at your product’s recent feature additions, how many were driven by competitor comparison versus genuine customer needs? How could you reframe your feature prioritization process to focus more on solving specific customer problems exceptionally?
4. How could you break out of your industry bubble to gain fresh perspectives on your product challenges? What unexpected sources or diverse viewpoints could you engage with to inspire innovation in your product development process?
5. Consider the Target iPad app example: How could your team apply radical feature minimization to your product? What would happen if you reduced your product to just two core capabilities that align perfectly with your key value proposition?

Bio

Anya is an entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley with profound expertise in tech product management and marketing, recognized as one of the “Girls in Tech 40 Under 40.” She is the Founder & CEO of Taelor, an AI-powered menswear rental subscription service that helps busy men look sharp while promoting environmental sustainability. Her career accomplishments include pioneering the development of Facebook and Instagram Shopping at Meta and serving as Head of Product at eBay, where she led teams focused on new business in the U.S. and emerging markets in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Additionally, as the Senior Director at McDonald’s, Anya was pivotal in expanding their global food delivery business. She also played a key role in developing Target’s tech team in Silicon Valley, particularly their mobile tablet eCommerce initiatives. Starting her career as a marketer and data scientist, Anya rapidly advanced to leadership roles, managing extensive teams across software and AI engineering, data science, product management, UX/UI design, and marketing for Fortune 500 companies over the past decade. 

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

The product manager’s path to influence

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TLDR

In my recent conversation with Francesca Cortesi, CPO, we explored why the popular phrase “CEO of the product” can be misleading for product managers. Francesca explained that while this concept aims to emphasize ownership and decision-making authority, successful product management actually requires a different approach. Instead of acting as a sole decision-maker, today’s product managers need to excel at facilitation, stakeholder collaboration, and building trust across teams. She shared insights from her experience leading product teams at various organizational scales and helping companies transform their product vision into measurable business growth.

Key Topics

• The evolution from the traditional “decision-maker” model to a modern “facilitator” approach in product management
• How product management roles and responsibilities vary across different organization sizes and contexts
• Essential skills for product management success: trust building, stakeholder management, and collaborative leadership
• Setting clear role boundaries and expectations in product management positions
• Practical strategies for navigating product management challenges while maintaining customer focus
• Career development considerations for product managers, including different growth paths and role transitions

Introduction

Ever heard someone call product managers “CEO of the product”? It’s a catchy phrase that has attracted some people to product management, but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. In today’s discussion we’ll break down where the CEO comparison holds up, where it falls short, and most importantly what makes product management a uniquely challenging and rewarding role in its own right. Along the way we’ll explore how the role varies across different organizations and discuss the critical skill of defining and managing the boundaries of that product management role. If you’re considering how to grow your product management career and your influence, this episode will give you some clarity about what success really looks like in this field.

Our guest is Francesca Cortesi, CPO and consultant for some of Europe’s multi-billion dollar brands and fastest growing businesses. Recently, at Hemnet, Sweden’s beloved property platform, she led product development that drove a 130% increase in top line revenues, making it the growth engine of the business. She now runs her own consultancy, helping CEOs scale their companies by transforming product vision into measurable business growth.

The Reality Behind “CEO of the Product”: Redefining the Product Manager’s Role

The “CEO of the product” concept emerged when product management literature was scarce, and professionals often had to figure out their roles with limited guidance. Early in her career, Francesca encountered this phrase alongside the common description of product management as sitting at the intersection of business, user experience, and technology. While this description aimed to emphasize ownership and agency in decision-making, it created some misconceptions about the role.

Today’s product management landscape has evolved significantly. While the role still requires strong leadership skills, the most successful product managers approach their work differently than what the “CEO of the product” phrase might suggest. Instead of focusing on authority and control, they excel at facilitation, stakeholder collaboration, and building trust across teams.

This shift reflects a deeper understanding of how successful products are built in modern organizations. As we’ll explore in this article, effective product management requires a unique blend of skills that goes beyond traditional leadership models. Whether you’re an aspiring product manager, a seasoned professional, or a leader developing your product team, understanding these nuances is necessary for success in today’s product landscape.

The Evolution of Product Management Understanding

Francesca shared how her understanding of product management transformed over her career, moving from a traditional decision-maker model to a more nuanced facilitator approach. This evolution offers valuable insights for product managers at all career stages.

The Traditional Decision-Maker Model: A Limited View

Early in her career, Francesca interpreted the “CEO of the product” concept literally, believing her primary role was to make decisions. She positioned herself at the intersection of different functions, collecting input from business stakeholders to define problems, then transmitting requirements to development teams to create solutions. This approach, while common, created several challenges:

• Information bottlenecks formed when all communication flowed through the product manager
• Stakeholders became disconnected from understanding product development complexities
• Development teams lost direct insight into business context and customer needs
• The product manager’s personal biases could inadvertently filter or alter important information

The Modern Facilitator Model: A Better Approach

As Francesca’s experience grew, she discovered that effective product management requires a different mindset. The role isn’t about being the sole decision-maker, but rather about:

This evolved understanding acknowledges that no single person, even a CEO, can be an expert in all areas. Instead, successful product managers excel at bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise to create better outcomes.

This shift isn’t about abdicating responsibility. Rather, it’s about recognizing that the most effective product decisions emerge from collaborative processes where all stakeholders can contribute their expertise directly. This approach leads to better solutions and stronger buy-in from teams responsible for building and supporting the product.

The facilitator model also addresses a common challenge in product management: the need to drive progress without direct authority over many of the people involved. By focusing on facilitation rather than control, product managers can maintain momentum while building the trust and relationships necessary for long-term success.

This evolution in understanding reflects broader changes in how modern organizations approach product development. As products become more complex and teams more specialized, the ability to facilitate effective collaboration becomes increasingly valuable.

Key Motivations and Misconceptions in Product Management

Throughout my years of teaching and practicing product management, I’ve asked hundreds, if not thousands, of product managers why they chose this career path. During my conversation with Francesca, we explored these common motivations and the misconceptions that often accompany them.

Why People Choose Product Management

Three primary motivations consistently emerge when people discuss their attraction to product management:

Common Misunderstandings About the Role

Francesca highlighted several misconceptions she encountered when working with and mentoring product managers:

• Many believe becoming a product manager automatically grants decision-making authority
• Some think their job is to have all the answers rather than facilitate finding solutions
• Product managers often struggle with undefined boundaries of their role

These misconceptions can lead to frustration when new product managers encounter the reality of the role. Francesca shared that she often heard product managers say, “We can just solve this because I’m the CEO of the product,” not realizing that the product is much bigger than any individual’s authority.

Bridging the Gap

Successfully navigating these misconceptions requires understanding that:

1. Influence and authority are different skills
2. Product success depends on collaborative decision-making
3. Role boundaries vary significantly by organization
4. Leadership doesn’t always mean management

Many professionals enter product management from technical backgrounds, such as engineering or development. While these backgrounds provide valuable technical knowledge, they don’t always prepare individuals for the people-focused aspects of product management. This transition often requires developing new skills and sometimes discovering whether you actually enjoy the highly collaborative nature of the role.

This understanding leads to an important question that Francesca posed: “How do we know that this is what we like?” Not everyone who excels at technical work will enjoy or excel at the collaborative, facilitative aspects of product management. Recognizing this early can help professionals make better career choices and find roles that align with their strengths and preferences.

Essential Skills for Product Management Success

My discussion with Francesca revealed that success in product management hinges on two key competencies: building trust capital and mastering stakeholder management. These skills form the foundation for effective product leadership, regardless of organization size or industry context.

Building Trust Capital

A key element for product management success is trust capital—how much you’re able to make people around you trust you. Francesca explained that trust capital comes from two primary sources:

A significant insight Francesca shared was her evolution from trying to convince others of her ideas to truly empathizing with their perspectives. Early in her career, she focused on building compelling arguments to win support for her decisions. However, she discovered that success comes from understanding where others see opportunities and why they prioritize certain approaches over others.

Mastering Stakeholder Management

Effective stakeholder management requires a proactive approach. Francesca outlined several key strategies:

• Early Involvement: Engage stakeholders at the beginning of initiatives rather than presenting finished solutions
• Collaborative Ownership: Help stakeholders feel the solution is theirs by incorporating their input meaningfully
• Cross-functional Alignment: Ensure marketing, sales, and customer support believe in the product direction

This approach doesn’t mean everyone needs input on every decision. Instead, it means identifying key stakeholders and involving them at appropriate points in the process.

From Convincing to Collaborating

The shift from convincing to collaborating represents a fundamental change in how product managers approach their role. Instead of preparing perfect presentations for the boardroom, successful product managers:

1. Hold preliminary discussions to understand concerns and perspectives
2. Build consensus through ongoing dialogue
3. Incorporate diverse viewpoints into product strategy
4. Create shared ownership of solutions

This collaborative approach yields several benefits:

Francesca noted that these skills become increasingly important as product managers advance in their careers. Whether moving toward senior individual contributor roles or people management positions, the ability to build trust and manage stakeholders effectively remains crucial for success.

The Varying Nature of Product Management Roles

Product manager occupy various roles across different organization, so it is important for them to understand their specific context and adapt their approach accordingly.

Impact of Organization Size

The size of an organization significantly influences the scope and nature of product management roles:

Context-Specific Variations

Francesca highlighted two distinct contexts that shape product management roles:

1. Product-as-Company Environment

• Digital-first businesses where the product is central
• Clear connection between product metrics and business success
• Direct influence on company revenue and growth

2. Product-as-Channel Environment

• Traditional businesses with digital components
• Product serves as one of multiple channels
• Need to align with broader business strategies

For example, Francesca contrasted a digital marketplace with a luxury retailer like Gucci. While the marketplace’s product team directly drives business success, Gucci’s digital product team supports a broader retail strategy where physical products generate most revenue.

Organizational Considerations

The role’s scope can vary dramatically based on organizational structure:

Francesca noted that these differences often relate more to company stage than industry type. As organizations grow, product management roles typically become more specialized and focused on smaller components of the overall product strategy.

Managing Internal Competition

An important challenge Francesca highlighted was managing internal competition between products or channels. Product managers must navigate situations where:

1. Different products target overlapping market segments
2. New digital channels might cannibalize traditional sales
3. Multiple teams compete for the same resources
4. Various stakeholders have conflicting objectives

Success in these situations requires strong stakeholder management skills and regular engagement with key decision-makers to understand their objectives and help them achieve their goals while maintaining product focus.

Setting Clear Role Boundaries

Francesca emphasized how important it is to establish clear boundaries and expectations in product management roles, especially as organizations scale and evolve.

Establishing Expectations

Francesca recommended conducting expectation workshops, particularly during key organizational transitions. These workshops should address:

Managing Role Evolution

As organizations grow, product management roles often shift dramatically. Francesca highlighted several key considerations:

• Different roles require different skills (individual contributor vs. management)
• Career progression isn’t always linear
• The higher you go, the less direct product work you do
• Not everyone wants or needs to become a people manager

Creating Clear Guidelines

Francesca recommended being explicit about expectations in several key areas:

1. Customer Interaction

• Required frequency of customer contact
• Expected depth of market understanding
• Methods for gathering customer feedback

2. Business Understanding

• Knowledge of revenue models
• Understanding of key metrics
• Grasp of market dynamics

3. Stakeholder Management

• Required meeting cadence
• Communication expectations
• Decision-making processes

Adapting to Change

Organizations need to revisit role boundaries regularly, especially during:

What works in one company or context might not work in another. Product managers often join new organizations with expectations based on previous experiences, which might not align with their new environment. Regular expectation alignment helps prevent confusion and ensures everyone understands their role in driving product success.

Call out unreasonable expectations, such as excessive stakeholder meetings that prevent meaningful customer interaction. The key is approaching these discussions with solutions rather than complaints, showing how adjustments could improve overall impact.

Practical Advice for Product Managers

Francesca shared valuable insights for product managers navigating their roles, drawing from her experience both as a product leader and consultant to major European brands. Her advice focused on practical approaches to common challenges and sustainable professional development.

Navigating Role Challenges

When facing common product management challenges, Francesca recommended several key strategies:

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Francesca highlighted several modern product management pitfalls to watch for:

• Following industry best practices without considering context
• Implementing frameworks without understanding their purpose
• Prioritizing execution speed over proper validation
• Losing touch with customer needs due to internal focus

Professional Development Strategies

For ongoing growth, Francesca recommended focusing on:

1. Context-Aware Learning

• Study industry best practices but adapt them to your environment
• Understand why certain approaches work in specific contexts
• Learn from both successes and failures

2. Expectation Management

• Regularly align with managers on priorities
• Document and track role expectations
• Proactively address misalignments

3. Impact Measurement

Maintaining Focus on What Matters

Product managers should:

1. Prioritize customer insights over internal politics
2. Focus on facilitating good decisions rather than making all decisions
3. Build collaborative relationships across the organization
4. Keep learning and adapting their approach as contexts change

While books and frameworks provide valuable guidance, success comes from understanding your specific context and adapting best practices accordingly. Maintain a learning mindset while staying focused on creating value for customers and the business.

Conclusion

As product management continues to mature as a discipline, we’re seeing a shift away from the oversimplified “CEO of the product” concept toward a more nuanced understanding of the role. Success comes not from authority or control, but from the ability to facilitate collaboration, build trust, and maintain focus on creating value for customers.

The most effective product managers embrace this evolution, recognizing that their impact comes not from making every decision, but from enabling better decisions through collaboration and shared understanding. By focusing on building trust capital, managing stakeholder relationships effectively, and adapting their approach to specific organizational contexts, product managers can drive success while maintaining enthusiasm through the inevitable challenges along the way.

Useful Links

• Check out Francesca’s website to learn about her mentorship service and to get free resources
• Connect with Francesca on LinkedIn

Innovation Quote

“Success is being able to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Application Questions

1. Which decisions about your product are you currently acting as a bottleneck for?
2. How well do your current role boundaries and expectations align with your organization’s needs?
3. How could your team benefit from improved stakeholder management?
4. How could you build stronger trust capital in your organization?
5. What internal activities could you eliminate or delegate to create more space for customer understanding?

Bio

With over a decade of product leadership experience, Francesca Cortesi knows what it takes to turn big ambitions into real, scalable outcomes. She specializes in helping growing companies go beyond market fit and scale sustainably, focusing on clear strategies, practical frameworks, and fostering strong collaboration across teams. Drawing from her experience as Chief Product Officer and Head of Product, Francesca enables businesses to drive results that matter—for both the business and its customers. A passionate advocate for human-centered leadership, she shares insights through speaking and thought leadership, helping founders and teams navigate the exciting (and messy!) journey of scaling.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

Serial innovators see dead people

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TLDR

The transformation of Olay from a declining “Oil of Old Lady” brand into a market-leading skincare innovator offers valuable lessons for product managers and innovation leaders. Through deep consumer research, strategic pricing, and holistic product development, P&G’s Nancy Dawes led a team that created an entirely new market category of “mass-prestige” skincare products. The success of this transformation hinged on understanding consumer psychology, developing innovative technology, and carefully positioning the product between mass market and luxury price points.

Key Topics

• Characteristics and strategies of successful serial innovators in product development
• Comprehensive approach to consumer research and insight gathering
• Strategic product positioning and pricing in the mass-prestige market
• Integration of technical innovation with consumer psychology
• Organizational navigation techniques for innovative product managers
• Holistic approach to product development and brand transformation
• Market validation and testing strategies for premium products
• Cross-functional expertise development for product innovation

Introduction

Remember when Pringles was just another potato chip, or when Olay was losing its shine in the cosmetics aisle? If you’ve ever wondered how struggling brands transform into market leaders, you’re about to get a masterclass in product innovation and consumer insight. Today, we’re joined by Nancy Dawes, a legendary force in product transformation who tripled Pringles sales and breathed life into the Olay brand by creating new product lines. She was Proctor & Gamble’s first female engineer to be honored as a Victor Mills Society Research Fellow. Nancy has also been recognized as a Serial Innovator—featured in the book Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms. She spent 38 years at P&G mastering the art of understanding what customers want before they know they want it. After retiring from P&G, Nancy continues to guide founders and entrepreneurs in creating products customers love and also volunteers with Ohio State College of Engineering and Girl Scouts of Western Ohio.

Whether you’re leading a product team at a Fortune 500 or founding a startup, Nancy’s proven approach for uncovering consumer insights and driving breakthrough innovation could be the difference between your product’s decline and its dramatic comeback.

Serial Innovation in Product Development

Nancy characterized serial innovators as those who:

• conceive new ideas for products that solve problems
• develop those ideas into breakthrough new products and services
• invent technologies as needed along the way
• guide those products into the market for commercial success

Serial innovators solve important consumer problems, and often figuring out the right problem is just as important as fixing it. They invent new technologies to support their solutions and follow their products into the marketplace rather than handing them to someone else.

The Olay Transformation: A Product Innovation Case Study

Nancy told the story of how Olay transformed from a struggling brand, called “Oil of Old Lady” by some customers, to a market leader through strategic product innovation. The story begins in 1985 when P&G acquired Olay, which was then known as Oil of Olay. By 1995, when Nancy joined the project, the brand had declined by approximately 50% in value.

Market Analysis and Opportunity Recognition

Nancy identified four factors that created the perfect environment for transformation:

• Demographic Opportunity: 75 million Baby Boomer women were entering their prime skincare years, ready to reinvent aging
• Technology Evolution: The emergence of alpha hydroxy acids moving from professional to consumer products
• Corporate Support: Strong leadership commitment to winning in the skincare category
• Expertise Alignment: Right combination of technical knowledge and consumer understanding

Initial Assignment vs. Strategic Vision

Nancy’s original assignment was simply to create a superior facial moisturizer, but Nancy recognized that just having a better product wasn’t enough for success and it wasn’t really what the women who were buying skincare and starting to age really wanted. She came to this conclusion by using what she calls “kitchen logic”—understanding both what women wanted and how women believed anti-aging skin care products worked. Customers believed products need to penetrate the skin to work. They wanted to develop a product that is efficacious and that women intuitively feel is working.

Connecting the Dots

To create a product that delights customers, Nancy and her team had to “collect and connect” many dots—considering many areas that were important to customers. Their innovations included:

Consumer Research and Insight Development: Understanding the Skincare Market

Nancy’s approach to consumer research demonstrated how product managers can gain deeper insights by going beyond traditional market research methods. Her commitment to understanding consumer behavior firsthand led to breakthrough insights that shaped Olay’s transformation.

Research Methodology

Nancy’s comprehensive research approach included:

• Personal conversations with over 1,000 women about their skincare routines and preferences
• In-home visits to observe real product usage patterns
• Shopping with customers to learn their packaging preferences
• Blind product testing without branding to understand true value perception
• Analysis of the consumer decision-making timeline in skincare

Understanding the Consumer Journey

By observing customers do their skincare routines, Nancy learned that after a customer first uses the product, she thinks about how it makes her feels. Over the next few days, she checks whether her fine lines and wrinkles are disappearing. After 2-3 weeks, she decides whether to keep using the product, but the bioactive ingredients take a few months to work. This knowledge led to Olay adding light-reflecting particles to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, encouraging customers to keep using the product long enough for the bioactive ingredients to start working.

Market Positioning and Pricing Strategy: Creating the Mass-Prestige Category

Nancy learned from customer focus groups that customers perceived Olay’s product as a department store product that would cost $30-40. Olay created the “mass-prestige” skincare category, launching their Total Effects skincare as a $20 prestige product but in the mass channel. To validate the premium positioning, the team conducted extensive testing, including blind tests in which Olay outperformed leading department store brands in improving seven signs of aging.

Developing a Different Product

Nancy realized early-on that it wouldn’t be enough to develop a better product. Olay needed a different product. Rather than just staying comfortable as a product developer, Nancy acted as a serial innovator and took the risk of launching an entirely new brand.

Nancy identified a significant market gap between cheap mass market skincare and expensive department store skincare. Their customers shopped at both places. They tested different price points and found that $20 was inexpensive enough for mass market shoppers and expensive enough to be a high-quality department store product.

Navigating Organizational Challenges

One of the most valuable insights Nancy shared was about managing the challenges serial innovators face within large organizations. She acknowledged that innovators often feel like “square pegs in round holes” and offered practical strategies for success:

• Make the “implicit explicit” by creating visual models and clear documentation of your thinking process
• Build a network of mentors and allies who understand and support your approach to innovation
• Identify and execute critical experiments that can validate your ideas to stakeholders
• Learn to communicate complex, interconnected ideas to linear thinkers in your organization

Nancy’s experience showed that while holistic innovation might look simple once completed, the process of getting there can appear chaotic to others in the organization. The key is helping others understand your thought process and building support for your approach through clear evidence and results.

The Spider Web

Nancy compared the work of a serial innovator to a spider in its web:

• Intimacy with the Problem: Just as a spider is intimately connected to its web, successful innovators maintain close contact with the problems they’re solving. This means getting personally involved in consumer research and product testing.
• Multi-Domain Mastery: Like a spider’s expertise in web building, vibration analysis, and food capture, innovators need deep knowledge across multiple domains. Nancy called this becoming an “M-shaped innovator” rather than just having depth in a single area.
• Integration of Knowledge: Serial innovators must connect insights across different areas, similar to how a spider interprets various web vibrations to make decisions.
• Environmental Awareness: Understanding when and where to build the web is as crucial as knowing how to build it – timing and organizational context matter significantly.

Conclusion

The transformation of Olay from a declining brand into a market leader offers valuable lessons for today’s product managers and innovation leaders. Through Nancy’s systematic approach to consumer research, strategic product development, and market positioning, we see how breakthrough innovation happens when technical expertise meets deep consumer understanding. Her story demonstrates that successful product transformation requires more than just creating better products – it demands a holistic approach that considers every aspect of the consumer experience.

For product managers looking to drive innovation in their organizations, the key takeaway is the importance of becoming what Nancy calls an “M-shaped innovator” – someone who can master multiple domains while connecting insights across disciplines. Whether you’re working to transform an existing product or create an entirely new category, success depends on your ability to combine consumer insights, technical innovation, and strategic thinking while building the organizational support needed to bring transformative ideas to market. The Olay case study shows that with the right approach and persistence, even the most challenging product transformations are possible.

Useful Links

• Watch Nancy Dawes and Bruce Vojak’s webinar, “Serial Innovators”
• Check out Nancy and Bruce’s PDMA session, “Are You Firing the Wrong People?”
• Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn

Innovation Quote

“I see dead people.” – Nancy Dawes, based on The Sixth Sense

Application Questions

1. What research methods could you use to better understand your users’ unstated beliefs and assumptions about your product category?
2. What evidence would you need to gather to validate a new price positioning for your product?
3. Looking at your current product development process, how could you better integrate immediate user satisfaction with long-term benefits? What early indicators could you provide to users that would encourage them to stick with your product long enough to see its full benefits?
4. How could you become more of an “M-shaped innovator” in your organization? What additional domains of expertise would help you better connect insights across different areas of your product development process?
5. Think about a current challenge in your product line: How could you use small-scale experiments to validate your hypotheses before requesting major organizational investments? What would be your equivalent of Nancy’s early package testing?

Bio

Nancy is a recognized Serial Innovator from Procter & Gamble for her transformative work on Pringles, Olay, & Head & Shoulders.  She was instrumental in creating the anti-wrinkle, masstige skin care movement inside the $135 billion global skin care category via her pioneering work which turned a declining Olay brand into a $2.5 billion powerhouse.  She led global teams that demonstrated improvement in skin health and appearance, strategized proprietary materials, innovated packaging and product characteristics with uniquely strong consumer appeal and enabled pricing that led to holistic business wins for P&G.  Bookending this program, she employed similar methods and achieved similar results in P&G’s global Head & Shoulders and Pringles’ brands.  Nancy’s string of achievements caused P&G to elevate her to the level of its most elite scientists and engineers (Vic Mills society) and the Ohio State College of Engineering to award her the 2021 Benjamin Lamme Medal for Meritorious Achievement in Engineering.  

After 38 years at P&G, Nancy leverages her innovation experience providing training to help companies/people improve their innovation capability.  She is an active volunteer for Girl Scouts and the College of Engineering at Ohio State.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

How product managers use Jobs-To-Be-Done to create products customers love

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TLDR

In this episode, I explain the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework, a powerful approach to understanding customer needs and developing successful products. Real-world examples like McDonald’s morning milkshakes, Snickers vs. Milky Way marketing strategy, and Bosch’s entry into the circular saw market demonstrate how understanding what customers are trying to accomplish (their “job-to-be-done”) leads to better product decisions and innovation. The episode contrasts Clayton Christensen’s consumer demand approach with Tony Ulwick’s job analysis perspective, while providing practical guidance for conducting customer interviews and prioritizing product improvements.

Key Topics:

• The classic McDonald’s milkshake study and what it reveals about customer behavior
• How Mars used Jobs-To-Be-Done to differentiate Snickers and Milky Way
• Bosch’s successful entry into the North American circular saw market through customer observation
• Two main approaches to Jobs-To-Be-Done: consumer demand vs. job analysis
• Four key areas to explore in Jobs-To-Be-Done interviews
• How to prioritize unmet needs through customer surveys
• The importance of ethnographic research in understanding customer needs
• Tony Ulwick’s IBM PCjr experience and its influence on Jobs-To-Be-Done
• Different jobs-to-be-done for various podcast listener segments
• The fundamental role of curiosity in effective product management

Introduction

Last week, I met with my podcast production team to discuss the job-to-be-done that our listeners have. I got a few blank looks and one person said, “Yeah, the milkshake story.” Since we don’t all know the milkshake story, I want to share this Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) story with you too.

Jobs-To-Be-Done is a great tool, concept, and language that helps us understand the customer’s problem, what they need solved, and what might prevent them from buying our product. I’ve found the JTBD language very helpful, and through examples and applications, I hope you’ll learn how to make better use of it yourself.

The Classic Milkshake Story

McDonald’s wanted to sell more milkshakes. They had tried reformulating them, making them thicker, and offering flavor-of-the-month options, but sales hadn’t improved significantly. What caught their attention was that they were selling many milkshakes around 9-10 o’clock in the morning through the drive-thru.

They hired Clayton Christensen and his colleagues to examine this phenomenon. As Clayton tells the story on YouTube, they stationed themselves at the end of the drive-thru lane. When customers ordered a morning milkshake, they would ask, “What did you hire that milkshake to do for you?”

The responses were revealing. Many customers had a long, boring commute ahead and wanted:

• Something that would take time to consume
• Was easy to drink while driving
• Would fill them up
• Help with the monotony of the drive

When asked what else they had tried for breakfast, customers mentioned alternatives like donuts, which are messy and distracting while driving. The milkshake worked well because it satisfied multiple needs: It was filling, took time to consume, and was neat and easy to manage while driving.

Analyzing the Milkshake Case Study

The milkshake story illustrates how JTBD helps us understand existing products. We’re examining what consumers are doing, their demand for the product, and any friction in the process. This understanding provides insights into how we can improve the product to better meet customer needs and make our marketing more effective to attract the right customers – in this case, those looking for a breakfast solution during their morning commute.

Interestingly, I’ve never heard Clayton Christensen or others discuss what McDonald’s actually did with these insights. As an occasional McDonald’s customer, I’m not sure if they made any changes. It seems they could have developed a morning smoothie – a breakfast-appropriate option that might appeal to health-conscious customers with the same need. A smoothie might sound healthier than a milkshake, which can feel like an indulgence or too sweet for breakfast.

The Snickers vs. Milky Way Case Study

Another interesting JTBD example comes from Chris Spiek, who shared it in episode 057 of this podcast. The story involves two candy bars: Snickers and Milky Way. Chris’s boss, Bob Moesta at the Rewire Group, was hired by the candy company to help them decide which product to remove from the market. The company believed focusing their energy on one brand would help them compete more effectively.

Bob began his research at an airport when he noticed someone selecting a Snickers bar. This led to a broader study where researchers would observe customers making purchases and ask why they chose one candy bar over another. They found:

• Snickers was chosen primarily as a filling snack, almost like a meal replacement
• Milky Way was selected as a reward or indulgence, appreciated for its rich, creamy experience

Based on this research, the company realized these products served different market segments for different reasons. They decided to keep both brands and reframe their marketing. They even enhanced the Snickers formula by adding more peanuts and increasing the nougat to make it more filling and satisfying.

This is an example of how JTBD can give companies valuable information they can use to enhance the product or more effectively market it.

The Empty Nester Condominium Story

Bob Moesta shared another example in episode 335, involving condominiums designed for retirees downsizing from their homes. The builder was having trouble converting interest into sales for their 55-plus community condominiums.

Through interviews with potential buyers, Bob discovered two main barriers to purchase:

1. The overwhelming task of downsizing possessions
2. Emotional attachment to furniture, particularly dining room tables that held years of family memories

The builder responded with two innovative solutions:

• Redesigned floor plans with smaller kitchens but larger dining areas to accommodate family dining tables
• Free first-year storage in the building for items people weren’t ready to part with

This allowed potential buyers to:

• Bring their cherished dining room tables
• Avoid rushed decisions about possessions
• Retrieve stored items if needed
• Gradually decide what to keep or discard

Two Approaches to Jobs-To-Be-Done

The Consumer Demand Perspective

The examples shared so far – the milkshake, candy bars, and condominiums – represent what we might call a Consumer Demand approach to JTBD. This approach focuses on:

• Understanding why consumers choose or don’t choose a product
• Identifying barriers to purchase
• Finding ways to make the product more appealing

Questions for Jobs-To-Be-Done Interviews

Dave Duncan, who worked with Clayton Christensen, outlines four key areas to explore in JTBD interviews, from the Consumer Demand perspective:

1. Customer circumstances (current context)
2. Jobs-to-be-done (what they’re trying to accomplish or avoid)
3. Current solutions (what they’re doing today)
4. Quality evaluation (how they measure success)

The Consumer Demand perspective works well for existing products, and its language helps us understand what customers want.

The Unit of Analysis Perspective

Tony Ulwick offers a different perspective, focusing on the “unit of analysis,” which is the job itself, rather than consumer demand.

The IBM PCjr Story

Tony Ulwick’s perspective on Jobs-To-Be-Done emerged from his experience at IBM during the PCjr project. The PCjr was designed to revolutionize home computing at a time when personal computers were primarily used in business settings. There was growing interest in home computers, with options like the VIC-20, Commodore 64, and Tandy 8080 from Radio Shack already in the market.

The project development took about a year, with significant marketing buildup creating anticipation for the product. However, the launch was disastrous – within two hours of release, the Wall Street Journal declared the IBM PCjr “dead on arrival.”

For Tony and the team, this was a gut-wrenching experience. After spending a year developing what they thought would be an exciting product, they discovered that consumers weren’t interested. From a consumer perspective, the PCjr was both overpriced and underperforming compared to other options available, including self-built computers.

This failure led Tony to deeply investigate how products could go so wrong despite extensive development efforts.

Later, after Clayton Christensen had published The Innovator’s Dilemma about disruption in business, he and Tony had a conversation at Harvard. Clayton was intrigued by Tony’s framework, which had been published in Harvard Business Review. They discussed how Tony’s approach might provide solutions to the innovation dilemma Clayton had identified.

During this conversation, Clayton suggested they needed a name for the concept, and “Jobs-To-Be-Done” was born. However, their approaches remained distinct:

• Clayton’s approach focused on consumer demand and choice
• Tony’s approach focused on the job itself as the unit of analysis

This difference in perspective makes Tony’s framework particularly valuable for identifying opportunities in white space markets and creating entirely new products, while Clayton’s approach excels at understanding and improving existing products.

The Bosch Circular Saw Example

This case study demonstrates how focusing on the job itself can lead to innovation in what seems like a commodity market. When Bosch was trying to enter the North American market, they wanted to stand out rather than be in direct competition with other circular saws. Tony used ethnographic research (observing customers) to identify 14 unmet needs in the circular saw market, including:

• Prevent the cord from being cut (solution: removable power cord)
• Tool placement between cuts (solution: built-in hook for hanging)
• Line visibility while cutting (solution: improved sawdust blower)

The result was an award-winning product that quickly captured market share.

The primary job of a circular saw is straightforward: cut a straight line. But there are other elements of value that are important to customers. Ethnographic research allows us to identify those other unmet needs.

Prioritizing Unmet Needs

After conducting ethnographic research like in the Bosch case study, where they identified 14 unmet needs, the next question is: Do we design solutions for all of them? The answer is typically no.

Even though all identified needs are unmet, they exist in a hierarchy of importance. Some needs provide significantly more value when addressed, while others might be merely minor annoyances that customers can live with.

To determine which needs to address, follow these steps:

1. Take the insights gained from observations
2. Convert them into a list of unmet needs
3. Create a survey for other users
4. Ask them to rank the importance of each need

This process provides real evidence to guide development decisions. Often, addressing the top 30% of needs can result in 80% more value for customers. This data gives designers clear direction on where to focus their efforts.

The Results for Bosch

This approach paid off significantly for Bosch:

• The resulting circular saw won product innovation awards
• It quickly captured market share in the North American market
• Contractors recognized the added value and were willing to pay slightly more for a significantly better tool

This success demonstrates the power of not just identifying unmet needs through ethnographic research, but also properly prioritizing which ones to address based on customer input.

Understanding Our Podcast Listeners’ Jobs-To-Be-Done

When I was with my team that produces this podcast, we talked about why customers listen to this podcast. What is the job-to-be-done for them?

We identified several key audience groups and their specific needs:

Product VPs and Chief Product Officers

These senior leaders listen to:

• Gain insights from expert interviews
• Find ways to coach and mentor their product managers
• Build and organize effective product management teams

For these leaders, I offer the Rapid Product Mastery (RPM) Experience, a facilitated training program designed to help them nurture their product managers’ development.

Individual Contributors

This group spans several experience levels:

Aspiring Product Managers

• Want to understand what product management looks like
• Learn how product managers think and what they prioritize
• Explore if product management is right for them

Current Product Managers

• Many have 5+ years of experience
• Looking to deepen their skills
• Want to fill knowledge gaps from on-the-job learning
• Seeking comprehensive understanding of the discipline

For these professionals, I offer the self-study version of the RPM Experience, based on the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) seven knowledge areas. The program works best for those with at least two years of experience who want to:

• Solidify their existing knowledge
• Connect disconnected pieces of learning
• Fill in blind spots
• Gain a comprehensive view of professional product management

Product VPs/CPOs

• Improving the performance of their product managers
• Needing to refocus on customers to drive product improvements
• Seeking improved collaboration and trust among product managers
• Wanting to provide training to aid in nurturing product managers

For Product VPs and CPOs, I provide a facilitated version of the RPM Experience for groups of up to 14 product managers (and related product professionals). We meet virtually 75 minutes a week for 9 weeks. Participants also have access to all the materials provided in the self-study version of the RPM Experience.

Innovation Leaders

For those preparing to:

• Help their organizations improve innovation processes
• Move into formal innovation leadership roles

I offer the Certified Innovation Leader (CIL) Program, aligned with the Association of International Product Marketers and Managers (AIPMM). This program provides training and certification for those who want to lead innovation initiatives within their organizations.

Senior Leaders

These listeners include executives who:

• May not be directly involved in product management
• Recognize product’s importance to their organization
• Need to understand how to foster innovation

For these leaders, we’ve created the Unleashing Innovation Program, which focuses on:

• Moving beyond operational leadership
• Encouraging innovation throughout the organization
• Effectively responding to employee ideas
• Leveraging frontline employees’ insights
• Creating new revenue opportunities
• Reducing costs through innovation

The common thread among all these listeners is their desire to enhance their product management knowledge and move toward product mastery. Whether they’re looking to advance their careers, build better products, or transform their organizations, they’re all seeking practical insights and actionable knowledge.

Conclusion

The Jobs-To-Be-Done framework, whether approached from Clayton Christensen’s consumer demand perspective or Tony Ulwick’s job analysis perspective, provides valuable tools for understanding customer needs and creating successful products. But at its core, effective product management comes down to one fundamental trait: curiosity.

From understanding why people buy milkshakes for breakfast to designing better circular saws or creating the right living spaces for retirees, by maintaining genuine curiosity about customer needs and problems, product managers can uncover the true jobs-to-be-done and create solutions that customers love.

Useful links:

• Check out my product management training
• Watch Clayton Christensen tell the milkshake story
• 057: Applying the Jobs-to-be-Done Framework – with Chris Spiek
• 335: JTBD tips from a veteran practitioner – with Bob Moesta
• 345: How to use Jobs-to-be-Done to be a market detective – with Dave Duncan, PhD
• 106: Jobs to be done – with Tony Ulwick
• Stopping the confusion of Jobs to be Done (JTBD)- with Tony Ulwick

Innovation Quote

“Many product managers are nervous about talking with customers, yet that is a primary responsibility of product management. You can make talking with customers easier by simply being genuinely curious about them, about their problem, and about what they want to achieve. Just be curious.“ – Chad McAllister, PhD

Application Questions

1. How could you apply the Jobs-To-Be-Done interview structure (circumstances, jobs-to-be-done, current solutions, quality evaluation) to better understand your customers? Consider a specific product in your portfolio and outline what questions you would ask to uncover the true job your customers are hiring that product to do.

2. How could you use ethnographic research to better understand why customers choose or don’t choose your solution?

3. Think about the last time your team identified multiple potential product improvements. How could you adapt Bosch’s approach of surveying customers to rank unmet needs? How might this change your current prioritization process?

4. What barriers might prevent customers from choosing your solution?

5. How could you use Jobs-To-Be-Done insights to better align your marketing messages with customer needs? Like the Snickers/Milky Way example, are there ways you could better differentiate your product by focusing on the specific job it does for customers?

Bio

Chad McAllister, PhD, is a product management professor, practitioner, trainer, and host of the Product Mastery Now podcast. He has 30+ years of professional experience in product and leadership roles across large and small organizations and dynamic startups, and now devotes his time to teaching and helping others improve. He co-authored “Product Development and Management Body of Knowledge: A Guide Book for Product Innovation Training and Certification.” The book distills five decades of industry research and current practice into actionable wisdom, empowering product professionals to innovate and excel. Chad also teaches the next generation of product leaders through advanced graduate courses at institutions including Boston University and Colorado State University and notably re-engineered the Innovation MBA program at the University of Fredericton, significantly broadening its impact. Further, he provides online training for product managers and leaders to prepare for their next career step — see https://productmasterynow.com/.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

How serial innovators transform product management

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TLDR

Navigating innovation in mature organizations requires a unique approach that goes beyond traditional business strategies. During my conversation with Bruce Vojak, PhD, a leading expert in breakthrough innovation, we explored the challenges and opportunities for product managers and business leaders seeking to drive meaningful organizational change. The key is understanding how serial innovators can transform business potential and overcome deeply entrenched operational mindsets.

• Understand the concept of serial innovators and their unique value to organizations
• Learn strategies for overcoming innovation barriers in mature businesses
• Discover practical tools for fostering a culture of continuous innovation
• Explore real-world examples of successful innovation in different industries
• Develop a mindset that embraces creative problem-solving and organizational renewal

Introduction

Innovating is tough for businesses. Companies find something that works and gives them a competitive advantage and then tend to stick with it, limiting meaningful innovation over time. Since you are an innovator, you already know where your organization struggles with innovation. I have had the pleasure of coaching some of the best organizations in their industry and I can tell you every company can improve how it innovates. Let’s get some help and learn how to talk about the importance of innovation with senior leaders and the tools that can help organizations be better at innovation.

Joining us is Dr. Bruce Vojak, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors. He helps companies survive and thrive in a volatile, complex, and increasingly ambiguous world. Bruce has a unique and powerful mix of expertise in product innovation, including as a Director at Motorola, and in academia and research, serving at the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and previously as a researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. His research in innovation has been published in several places, including his recent book No-Excuses Innovation and his practice-changing book Serial Innovators.

The Challenge of Innovation in Today’s Business Landscape

Mature businesses typically have three strategic options when facing innovation challenges:

The most successful organizations recognize that innovation is not a one-time event but a continuous process. It requires a unique approach that goes beyond traditional management techniques. Product managers and business leaders must create an environment that nurtures creative thinking, supports risk-taking, and values the unique perspectives of serial innovators within their organizations.

By understanding these challenges and adopting a proactive approach to innovation, businesses can transform potential obstacles into opportunities for growth and renewal.

Understanding Serial Innovators: The Breakthrough Difference

Serial innovators are a unique breed of professionals who consistently drive breakthrough innovations within organizations. These individuals possess a remarkable ability to see opportunities where others see roadblocks.

Bruce’s research, highlighted in the groundbreaking book Serial Innovators revealed fascinating insights into these exceptional team members. Unlike traditional employees who often work within established frameworks, serial innovators approach challenges with a fundamentally different mindset. They’re not just thinking outside the box – they’re reimagining the box entirely.

Characteristics of Serial Innovators

What sets these individuals apart? Bruce’s research identified several key traits:

• Exceptional ability to understand unarticulated customer needs
• Willingness to challenge existing organizational assumptions
• Capability to reframe complex problems in unique ways
• Intrinsic motivation to drive meaningful change

The Value They Bring to Organizations

Serial innovators are not just creative thinkers – they’re strategic assets. Many of the most significant breakthroughs in business come from these individuals who:

One insight from Bruce’s research was the diverse backgrounds of these innovators. Interestingly, most serial innovators he studied did not have traditional business degrees. Instead, they learned business “on the street” – through direct experience, observation, and an innate ability to solve real-world problems.

The key for organizations is not just identifying these individuals, but creating an environment that nurtures and supports their unique approach to innovation. This means moving beyond rigid processes and embracing a more flexible, human-centered approach to product development and organizational strategy.

By recognizing and empowering serial innovators, companies can transform their innovation potential and create sustainable paths for growth in an increasingly competitive business landscape.

Overcoming Innovation Barriers in Mature Organizations

Innovation doesn’t happen by accident. Organizations often struggle to break free from the gravitational pull of their existing business models. Mature companies, in particular, face significant challenges when attempting to drive meaningful innovation.

Most organizations inadvertently create barriers that prevent breakthrough thinking. These barriers can be deeply ingrained in company culture, organizational structure, and management approaches. Functional departments often become siloed, with each team focused narrowly on their specific performance metrics, creating natural resistance to cross-functional innovation efforts.

Common Innovation Roadblocks

• Comfort with existing successful business models
• Reward systems that discourage risk-taking
• Rigid organizational hierarchies
• Fear of failure and short-term performance pressures

Tools and Frameworks for Innovation Success

Having the right tools can make the difference between innovation success and failure. While processes alone don’t guarantee breakthrough innovations, they provide essential frameworks for structured thinking and exploration.

Bruce shared valuable insights about combining traditional innovation approaches with more unconventional methods. The key is understanding that these tools should enable rather than constrain creative thinking.

Essential Innovation Tools

Strategies for Breaking Through

Bruce emphasized that successful serial innovators often practice what he calls “understanding unarticulated assumptions.” This means looking beyond surface-level problems to identify deeper patterns and opportunities. The most effective innovation tools support this kind of deep exploration while providing practical frameworks for moving ideas forward.

The key is remembering that these tools should serve as enablers rather than constraints. Whether you’re using design thinking, lean methodologies, or another framework, the goal is to support and amplify innovative thinking, not replace it with rigid processes.

Leading Innovation: Strategies for Success

Navigating organizational resistance to innovation requires a delicate balance of leadership approaches. Bruce shared several powerful strategies that successful innovation leaders use to drive meaningful change in their organizations.

Three Key Approaches to Innovation Leadership

The “quiet momentum” approach proved particularly interesting. Bruce shared examples of successful innovation leaders who chose to work quietly on breakthrough projects until they became too significant to ignore. This strategy often works well in organizations where traditional innovation processes might stifle creativity early on.

Building Innovation Support

Effective innovation leaders focus on:

• Creating psychological safety for teams to experiment and take risks
• Developing cross-functional relationships to navigate organizational barriers
• Identifying and nurturing potential serial innovators within the organization
• Building credibility through small wins before pursuing larger innovations

One insight from our discussion was the importance of understanding organizational context. What works in one company might fail in another. The most successful innovation leaders adapt their approach based on their organization’s culture, structure, and readiness for change.

Bruce emphasized that innovation leadership isn’t just about managing processes – it’s about creating environments where breakthrough thinking can flourish. This often means protecting innovative teams from bureaucratic constraints while still maintaining enough structure to deliver results.

The key is finding the right balance between structure and freedom, between direct advocacy and behind-the-scenes work, and between short-term results and long-term innovation potential. Success often comes from knowing when to push forward and when to build quiet momentum for change.

Real-World Innovation Success Stories

In my discussion with Bruce, we explored several compelling examples of successful innovation in mature industries. These case studies demonstrate how organizations can achieve breakthrough results even in traditionally conservative markets.

Innovation in Action: Key Examples

The Slice box cutter case particularly stands out. In a market where box cutters were seen as pure commodities, the company identified opportunities for meaningful innovation. They introduced features like:

• Ergonomic handle design for better grip and protection
• Ceramic blade technology for longer life
• Enhanced safety features
• Improved user experience

West Tech Automation’s story demonstrates how companies can innovate in their approach to customer relationships. Rather than following traditional supplier specifications, they embraced a collaborative approach to solving complex manufacturing challenges in the electric vehicle industry. This required a fundamental shift in how they engaged with clients and managed projects.

The Moneyball Effect

Bruce highlighted the movie Moneyball as a metaphor for innovation in traditional industries. The story illustrates several key innovation principles:

1. Challenging deeply held industry assumptions
2. Using data to drive decision-making
3. Navigating organizational resistance to change
4. Creating sustainable competitive advantages

These examples show that meaningful innovation is possible in any industry, regardless of how mature or traditional it might be. The key is finding ways to challenge assumptions, identify unmet needs, and execute effectively on new ideas. Success often comes from combining deep industry knowledge with fresh perspectives on longstanding challenges.

Conclusion

The landscape of product innovation is continuously evolving, and the insights Bruce shared during our conversation reveal both challenges and opportunities for today’s business leaders. Organizations that want to thrive, rather than just survive, must embrace innovation as a core capability rather than treating it as a peripheral activity.

For organizations seeking to enhance their innovation capabilities:

• Start by recognizing and supporting the serial innovators already in your midst
• Create space for experimentation and learning from both successes and failures
• Build cross-functional relationships that enable innovation to flourish
• Invest in tools and frameworks that support rather than restrict creative thinking

The message is clear: in today’s rapidly changing business environment, innovation isn’t just an option – it’s a necessity for long-term survival and growth. Whether you’re leading a small enterprise or a large corporation, the ability to innovate consistently and meaningfully will increasingly determine your organization’s success.

Remember, there are no excuses for avoiding innovation. Every organization, regardless of size or industry, has the potential to create breakthrough value. The key is combining the right mindset, tools, and leadership approaches to unlock that potential.

Useful links:

• Check out Bruce’s website, Breakthrough Innovation Advisors
• Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn

Innovation Quote

“We have a guy like that; his name is Kevin.” – Steve McShane, founder and CEO of Midtronics, Inc., in response to Bruce sharing insights about Serial Innovators

“I see dead people.” – Nancy Dawes, retired Vic Mills Fellow at P&G and Serial Innovator, in response to Bruce’s question, “How do you know what to do?” describing her ability to see patterns and opportunities that others missed

Application Questions

1. How could you identify potential serial innovators within your organization? What characteristics would you look for, and how could you create opportunities for them to demonstrate their innovative capabilities?
2. Think about a recent innovation initiative that faced resistance in your organization. How could you apply the “quiet momentum” strategy to build support for similar initiatives in the future? What specific steps would you take to grow the project until it becomes “too big to fail”?
3. How could your team adapt Adobe’s Kickbox program concept to fit your organization’s needs and constraints? What resources and support would you need to include to make it successful in your specific context?
4. Looking at your current product portfolio, where could you find opportunities for breakthrough innovation in seemingly “commodity” products, similar to the Slice box cutter example? How could you and your team challenge basic assumptions about these products?
5. How could you better balance your organization’s need for structured processes with the flexibility required for breakthrough innovation? What specific changes to your current development process would help achieve this balance?

Bio

A leading authority on innovation, Bruce Vojak helps mature companies survive and thrive in a volatile, complex, and increasingly ambiguous world. Co-author of No-Excuses Innovation: Strategies for Small- and Medium-Sized Mature Enterprises (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022) and Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), Bruce is a Senior Fellow with The Conference Board, he has served on the boards of JVA Partners, Micron Industries Corporation, and Midtronics, Inc. He regularly presents to, leads workshops for, and advises various other companies, having founded Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, LLC following and building on a career as an innovation practitioner and executive at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Amoco Corporation, and Motorola, and as an innovation researcher in the top-ranked Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

How product managers can make OKRs drive real results

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TLDR

In my recent conversation with Ben Lamorte, the world’s most experienced OKR coach and founder of OKRs.com, we explored how product managers and leaders can transform their approach to Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). Ben shared insights about why many OKR implementations fail and how to avoid common pitfalls. The key to success lies in focusing on measurable outcomes, maintaining transparency, and avoiding the temptation to create too many OKRs. Whether you’re just starting with OKRs or looking to improve your existing implementation, this comprehensive guide will help you create an effective OKR framework that drives real results.

Key Topics:

• Understanding OKRs: Their evolution from Intel’s early days to modern implementation
• Common pitfalls: The top reasons why OKR programs fail and how to avoid them
• Implementation strategies: Key factors for successful OKR deployment
• Practical guidelines: Choosing the right cycle length and organizational levels
• Success factors: The importance of transparency and outcome-focused metrics
• Change management: How to transition your team to effective OKR usage

Introduction

Does the mention of OKRs make you break into a cold sweat, or does it energize you with a sense of purpose? Whether you’re nodding in recognition or scratching your head wondering what OKRs even are, you’re about to discover how this powerful framework can transform your work life. In this episode, we’ll cut through the confusion and show you exactly how to turn Objectives and Key Results from a dreaded management mandate into your secret weapon for driving success. Miss this episode, and you risk continuing to struggle with misaligned priorities, unclear metrics, and the frustration of not seeing how your work impacts the bigger picture.

With us is a true OKR expert, Ben Lamorte. Ben has more OKR coaching experience than anyone. Consequently, he has become the coach to OKR coaches. He has also helped business leaders and organizations to define and make measurable progress on their most important goals, guiding more than a hundred organizations in deploying OKRs. He is the founder of OKRs.com, which provides resources and coaching services. He co-authored Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus, Alignment, and Engagement and authored The OKRs Field Book.

Understanding OKRs: From Intel to Modern Product Teams

The evolution of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) began at Intel during the 1970s and 1980s, where Andy Grove transformed the traditional Management by Objectives (MBO) system into something more dynamic and outcome-focused. He decoupled objectives, which are broad qualitative statements, from their specific measurable results, creating a framework that would eventually reshape how organizations set and achieve goals.

While MBOs were typically tied directly to bonuses, OKRs intentionally separate performance measurement from goal setting. This separation encourages teams to think bigger and take calculated risks without fear of compensation impacts. Here’s how the two approaches differ:

Core Components of Effective OKRs

Ben emphasized that OKRs serve as a critical thinking framework rather than just a goal-setting tool. The objective answers the question “What is the most important area to focus on?” while key results address “How will we know we’ve achieved it?” This structure creates clarity and alignment across teams by:

• Establishing clear, measurable targets that indicate progress toward objectives
• Creating a common language for discussing goals across the organization
• Enabling teams to understand how their work contributes to larger organizational goals
• Promoting regular check-ins and adjustments based on measurable progress

As organizations like Oracle and Google adopted and refined the OKR framework, they demonstrated its effectiveness in driving alignment and results. These companies used OKRs as a communication tool, ensuring everyone spoke the same language about priorities and progress. This common understanding became particularly valuable for product teams, who often need to coordinate efforts across multiple departments and stakeholders.

The beauty of this system lies in its flexibility and focus on outcomes rather than activities. For product managers, this means shifting conversations from feature lists and deadlines to measurable impacts and customer value. This outcome-focused approach helps teams stay aligned on what truly matters while maintaining the agility to adjust their approach based on real results.

Common OKR Implementation Failures and How to Avoid Them

Some people have tried using OKRs and don’t like them. I asked Ben what reasons he has seen for this. Ben shared that the landscape of OKR implementation changed after 2018, when John Doerr’s book Measure What Matters sparked widespread interest in the framework. While the book effectively conveyed why organizations should implement OKRs, it left many teams struggling with practical implementation. Before this, most organizations that used OKRs were doing a pretty good job. After, more organizations wanted to start using OKRs, but many failed because they didn’t have a good reason to use them and had no idea how to use them effectively.

Ben pointed out several pitfalls that often derail OKR implementations. Understanding these common failure points is essential for product managers and leaders who want to ensure their OKR program drives real value rather than becoming another administrative burden.

• Using too many OKRs: OKRs are supposed to help an organization focus on the most important areas of progress, but some organizations use OKRs for every task.
• Confusing tasks with key results: An action like “update the blog” is a task, not a key result. Key results should be measurable outcomes that tells the team whether they are making positive progress, like “200 people sign up for the demo after reading the blog post.”
• Only one name next to every key result: Measure What Matters teaches that only one person should be accountable for every key result, but in many cases this is the wrong approach and causes teams to struggle with cross-functional alignment. Instead, enable cross-functional ownership when appropriate. For example, if a key result depends on both marketing and IT, assign two names to that key result.
• No name next to a key result: Ensure someone is accountable to every key result.
• Every key result written as commit-level: There are two types of key results: commit, which are achievable, and stretch, which are moonshots. Most teams only make lists of commit results, causing them to not stretch themselves enough. Other times, they have stretch results on their commit lists, but don’t identify them as stretch results. Instead, consider listing one commit result and one stretch result for each level.
• OKRs tied to bonuses
• Direct cascade: The company sets objective and key results, and a department adopts one of the key results as their objective. This limits the department’s thinking to the key results selected by the company and ignores the difference between objectives and key results.
• Failing to define why the objective is important and why it is important now
• Making OKRs a compliance system: Treat OKRs as a critical thinking framework, not a performance management system.
• OKRs at the individual level: When a company has team OKRs and individual OKRs for each person, the team members will prioritize their individual OKRs, even though the team OKRs are more important to the company.

Many companies have challenges implementing OKRs. If your organization is starting to use OKRs, don’t start blindly rolling them out as fast as you can. Take time to be thoughtful about why you’re doing it and what problem you’re trying to solve.

Transparency

Unlike traditional goal-setting approaches that keep objectives private between manager and employee, OKRs should be visible across the organization, enabling better alignment and collaboration. John Doerr’s startup companies would even write their OKRs in the bathroom for everyone to see.

Key Success Factors for OKR Implementation

The Importance of Alignment around Deployment Parameters

Successful implementation of OKRs requires alignment on answers to ten questions about deployment parameters before rolling out OKRs. These parameters help organizations avoid common pitfalls and create a framework that works for their specific context. All ten questions are in Ben’s book and on his website, but some key considerations include:

• Cycle duration: Choosing between quarterly, four-month, or six-month cycles based on business rhythm
• Organizational levels: Determining where in the organization to implement OKRs
• Goal-setting approach: Balancing commitment targets with stretch goals
• Cross-functional alignment: Establishing mechanisms for collaboration across teams
• Review cadence: Setting up regular check-ins to monitor progress

Choosing the Right Cycle Length

Ben challenged the conventional wisdom about quarterly OKR cycles, sharing insights about what actually works best for different organizations:

The Five Mantras for Success

Ben has five mantras for successful OKR implementation, but in our discussion he shared just three. You can find the others in his book.

A Real-World Success Story: Transforming Through OKRs

During our conversation, Ben shared a success story that illustrates how organizations can transform their goal-setting approach through OKRs. The case involved a trading card marketplace company that initially struggled with their OKR implementation but ultimately achieved remarkable results by adapting the framework to their specific needs.

This company got half of their annual business from one conference. Their CEO set an audacious goal for this conference to be a wild success. He clearly defined the why and why now around that objective, but the conference was eight months away, much longer than a typical OKR cycle. Ben encouraged the company to set an OKR for the conference anyway.

The CEO was initially unable to identify measurable outcomes that would show whether the conference was a success. He said the team would just have a feeling afterward about whether it went well or not. However, after talking with Ben, he identified several trackable metrics, like the number of private demos they complete. The team came up with OKRs that everyone in the organization was able to align around. They made two times their expected annual sales within the first week after the conference. This huge success was because everyone at the company was focused on a single goal with clear, measurable outcomes.

Ben advised that if you have a big event, don’t hesitate to write an OKR around that event’s timeframe. Tune your OKRs to what’s happening in your business.

Conclusion

Throughout our discussion, Ben Lamorte shared invaluable insights about making OKRs work effectively for product teams and organizations. His experience as the most experienced OKR coach revealed that success with OKRs isn’t about rigid implementation of rules, but rather about thoughtful adaptation of the framework to each organization’s unique context. The key lies in identifying measurable outcomes, maintaining transparency across teams, and ensuring that OKRs serve as a bridge between strategic planning and day-to-day execution.

For product managers and leaders looking to implement or improve their OKR process, the path forward is clear: start with clear deployment parameters, focus on meaningful outcomes, embrace transparency, and maintain the flexibility to adapt as you learn. By avoiding common pitfalls like over-cascading, task-based key results, and compliance-driven implementation, teams can transform OKRs from a management mandate into a powerful tool for driving focus, alignment, and exceptional results. The journey may take several cycles to perfect, but the potential impact on organizational alignment and product success makes it well worth the investment.

Useful links:

• Read about the 10 OKR deployment parameters
• Learn more about Ben’s OKRs coaching
• Check out The OKRs Field Book
• Learn more about OKRs Coach Network

Innovation Quote

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter Drucker 

Application Questions

1. Looking at your current product team’s goals, how could you transform task-based objectives into outcome-focused OKRs? For example, instead of “Launch feature X,” what measurable customer or business outcomes would indicate real success?
2. How could your team use cross-functional OKRs to improve collaboration between product, engineering, and other departments? What shared outcomes could create better alignment across these teams?
3. Thinking about your organization’s business rhythm, what OKR cycle length (2-month, 4-month, or 6-month) would work best for your product development process? How could you align OKR cycles with major product milestones or market events?
4. How could you modify your current OKR process to include both commitment-level and stretch goals? What would be appropriate stretch targets that could inspire innovation without causing team burnout?
5. What steps could you take to increase transparency around product team OKRs? How could making objectives and progress more visible help improve alignment with other teams and stakeholders?

Bio

Ben Lamorte is a leading figure in the space of “Objectives and Key Results” (OKRs). He has more OKRs coaching experience than anyone on the planet. Lamorte coaches business leaders focused on defining and making measurable progress on their most important goals. He started OKRs.com in 2014 and over the past decade has helped 200+ organizations based in 20+ countries implement OKRs including eBay, Adobe, Capital One, 3M, Booking.com, Zalando, and Nike. After co-authoring one of the first books dedicated to OKRs, Lamorte wrote The OKRs Field Book, the first book written specifically for OKRs coaches published by Wiley in 2022. Ben studied Engineering and Mathematics at University of California, Davis and holds a graduate degree in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

A product manager’s guide to breaking free from reactive problem solving

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https://youtu.be/kPPhRPwbjTU

TLDR

In my recent conversation with Doug Hall, master of turning chaos into clarity, we explored how product managers and innovation leaders can break free from reactive problem-solving and create more value through proactive innovation. Doug shared that the average manager wastes 3.5 hours daily fixing problems, with 75% of issues stemming from broken systems rather than employee mistakes. Even more concerning, products typically lose 50% of their innovative value during development as unique ideas get compromised to fit existing systems. Doug offered practical solutions through three powerful frameworks that can transform how teams approach innovation and problem-solving.

Key Topics:

• How to define problems effectively using the Yellow Card method, inspired by military Commander’s Intent principle
• Creating solutions through structured “Create Sessions” that leverage stimulus, diversity of thought, and fear reduction
• Six types of innovation stimulus, including patent mining and wisdom mining from academic sources
• Using the Deming Cycle (Plan-Do-Study-Act) to systematically reduce risks in product development
• Transforming organizational culture by focusing on system improvement rather than individual blame

Introduction

Ever feel like your organization is stuck in an endless cycle of putting out fires instead of truly innovating? You’re not alone in that frustration. Today, we’re diving into a well-practiced approach that will transform how you and your team solve problems and drive innovation. Our returning guest, Doug Hall, is a master of turning chaos into clarity – he’s not just the founder of Eureka! Ranch and co-founder of the Dexter Bourbon Distillery, but has spent decades helping companies break free from innovation roadblocks. Doug also has a new book hot off the press titled Proactive Problem Solving: How Everyone Can Fix Problems & Find Ideas for Working Smarter!

Doug joined us in episode 518 and is back to share battle-tested strategies that will help you fix problems faster and smarter.

Proactive Problem Solving

Doug was motivated to write Proactive Problem Solving by two pieces of data showing the impact of reactive problem solving:

• The average manager wastes 3.5 hours every day dealing with problems. Seventy-five percent of these issues stem from broken systems, bureaucracy, and inefficient processes, while only 25% come from employee mistakes.
• Products typically lose 50% of their innovative value during the development process. This happens because unique ideas get repeatedly compromised to fit existing systems, rather than adapting our systems to support innovation.

We discussed the book’s three main sections:

• Defining Problems
• Creating Solutions
• Driving out Risks

Defining Problems

Doug shared an approach for defining problems borrowed from military strategy – the Commander’s Intent framework. This methodology emerged from lessons learned during World War II and the Korean War, where military leaders discovered that simply telling teams what to do wasn’t enough. Instead, they needed to explain why it matters.

The Three Components of Commander’s Intent

• What needs to be done – The clear direction that points the organization toward a specific goal
• Why it matters – The deeper purpose that provides motivation and context for the work
• Boundaries and scope – Clear guidelines for what’s in and out of scope for the solution

The Yellow Card

The Yellow Card tool helps teams capture and communicate both problems and potential solutions effectively. Its first section focuses on problem definition, clearly stating what the problem is and why solving it matters. This why component is particularly important as it serves as the motivational energy source when teams face challenges or setbacks.

The second section of the Yellow Card focuses on communicating solutions, including how the solution works, its key benefits, and an easy next step for learning more. This last component – the easy next step – helps reduce resistance to change. When presenting new ideas, especially those that challenge existing systems, people naturally feel stress. By providing a simple, low-risk way to learn more about the solution, teams can build confidence gradually and increase buy-in for larger changes.

Structure of the Yellow Card Tool

The Yellow Card serves a dual purpose: it helps teams think through problems more clearly and provides a structured way to communicate solutions to stakeholders. Doug shared that this approach has proven so effective that when used in a Canadian TV show called “Backyard Inventor,” it helped inventors achieve a 100% success rate in pitching their ideas to CEOs. The clear structure helped them present their innovations in a way that made the value immediately apparent to decision-makers.

Creating Solutions

The Three Innovation Pillars

Successful solution creation rests on three innovation pillars, each backed by extensive research and quantitative data. These principles aren’t just theoretical – they’re practical tools that any product team can implement to enhance their innovation process.

Create Sessions

Doug uses Create Sessions to help teams stimulate ideas. These structured meetings come in different formats depending on the scope of the problem and the organization’s needs. He outlined two main approaches that product teams can implement.

Small-Scale Create Sessions

These one-hour sessions work well for immediate operational challenges that work teams face. These sessions can include the following elements:

• Problem Definition: Begin by identifying the what and why of the problem using the Yellow Card framework
• Stimulus Introduction: Present relevant stimulus materials to the team
• Mind Mapping: Create visual connections between different ideas and perspectives
• Solution Development: Move quickly to actionable solutions

Large-Scale Create Sessions

For company-wide challenges or significant product innovations, Doug recommended a two-level approach: Start with an initial small-scale create session, then go deeper to take your ideas to the next level.

The key to successful Create Sessions lies in proper preparation, particularly in developing effective stimulus materials. This two-level approach mirrors how successful entrepreneurs naturally work. While corporate environments often expect perfect planning and immediate success, true innovation requires multiple cycles of creation, testing, and refinement.

At Eureka Ranch, they often run sessions over several days, allowing teams to generate ideas, test them, blow them up, and start over again multiple times. This iterative approach, while sometimes uncomfortable for traditional corporate cultures, consistently produces stronger results because it eliminates the pressure of trying to plan everything perfectly from the start.

The Create Session framework also addresses a common challenge in innovation – the tendency to rely on what Doug called the “brain drain” or “suck” method of creativity, where teams try to extract ideas from people’s heads without providing fresh stimulus or perspectives. By contrast, Create Sessions provide a structured environment that makes innovation more reliable and enjoyable for participants while producing better results for the organization.

Six Sources of Innovation Stimulus

Stimulus should be disruptive, forcing you to stop and think. Doug shared six specific types of stimulus that teams can use to spark innovation:

• Patent Mining: Exploring public domain patents for solution frameworks. Doug noted that 75% of patents are in the public domain, providing free access to detailed solution recipes.
• Wisdom Mining: Leveraging academic articles and research. This approach helped Doug build and sell an entire company based on insights from academic publications.
• Insight Mining: Understanding customer thinking and needs
• Market Mining: Analyzing competitive approaches and market trends
• Future Mining: Exploring emerging trends and possibilities
• Unrelated Mining: Drawing inspiration from random, thought-provoking sources

To make these stimulus sources more actionable, Doug’s colleague Maggie Slovonic developed the Spark Deck approach. A Spark Deck combines disruptive images, videos, facts, or research with thought-provoking prompts that help teams make new connections. Each slide pairs a piece of stimulus with questions like “How might we use this?” or “How could we twist this concept?” This structured approach helps teams move beyond simple brainstorming to generate more innovative solutions.

Driving Out Risks

When discussing risk reduction in product development, Doug drew heavily from W. Edwards Deming’s work, particularly the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. While many organizations use the similar Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle for implementation, PDSA is specifically designed for discovering and validating new approaches.

The PDSA Cycle Components

The Study phase is particularly important yet often overlooked. He illustrated this with a story about developing their Woodcraft Finishing process for whiskey. The team conducted 72 tests in seven days, meticulously documenting each attempt. When test number 72 failed on a Friday night, they initially felt defeated. However, by returning to their documentation the next day and deeply studying why each attempt had worked or failed, they discovered that they had misinterpreted the results of test number 13. This insight led to test number 73, which became their breakthrough success and is now patented in 51 countries.

The PDSA cycle offers several key benefits for product development:

• Risk Reduction: Each iteration builds understanding and reduces uncertainty
• Learning Acceleration: Structured documentation captures insights that might otherwise be lost
• Fear Reduction: The expectation of multiple iterations removes the pressure for immediate perfection
• Culture Change: Teams develop comfort with experimentation and learning from failure

Doug noted that about 98% of the time, teams need multiple PDSA cycles to reach their desired outcome. This iterative approach might seem time-consuming, but it actually accelerates development by ensuring teams learn from each attempt rather than repeating the same mistakes. He also shared how they’ve adapted this approach for rapid testing, developing systems that can test product concepts in 24 hours at 5% of the normal cost.

The key to making PDSA work effectively is maintaining a clear connection to the original what and why from the Commander’s Intent and Yellow Card. This core purpose provides the motivation to persist through multiple iterations and keeps teams focused on their ultimate goal rather than getting discouraged by initial failures.

Conclusion

Throughout our conversation, Doug Hall shared how product managers and innovation leaders can break free from reactive problem-solving and create more value through proactive problem solving. His research showed that the combination of wasted management time (3.5 hours daily) and value loss during product development (50%) creates a massive opportunity for improvement. By implementing the frameworks he shared – the Yellow Card for problem definition, Create Sessions for solution generation, and the PDSA cycle for risk reduction – teams can transform how they approach innovation and problem-solving.

The key to success lies in shifting focus from individual blame to system improvement, supported by the right tools and motivation. As Doug emphasized, true culture change happens when we empower employees to identify and solve systemic problems that affect their daily work. By making this shift, organizations can not only recover wasted time and preserve innovative value but also create an environment where breakthrough products can thrive. For product managers and innovation leaders, this provides a clear path forward: Focus on the systems, empower your teams with the right tools, and create an environment where proactive problem-solving can flourish.

Useful links:

• Learn more about Eureka! Ranch
• Check out Doug’s book, Proactive Problem Solving on Amazon or at an independent bookseller near you
• Check out Doug’s other books

Innovation Quote

“Ninety-four percent of the problem is the system. Six percent is the worker.” – W. Edwards Deming

Application Questions

1. Looking at your last three product launches, how could you identify where systemic issues caused compromises to the original innovative vision? What patterns emerge about which systems (manufacturing, sales, marketing, etc.) most frequently force compromises in your organization?
2. How could you implement small-scale Create Sessions (1-hour) with your team to address immediate product development challenges? What types of stimulus (patents, academic articles, market research) would be most relevant for your current product challenges?
3. Thinking about a current product development challenge, how could you use the Yellow Card method to clearly articulate both the problem and its importance to stakeholders across your organization? How might this change the way your team approaches the challenge?
4. How could your team modify its current development process to incorporate more deliberate Study phases after each iteration? What specific changes to your documentation and review processes would make learning from failures more systematic?
5. How could you shift your team’s focus from fixing immediate problems to identifying and improving the underlying systems that cause those problems? What specific benefits would motivate your team members to embrace this change?

Bio

Doug Hall is on a relentless, never-ever ending quest to enable everyone to think smarter, faster and more creatively.  His learning laboratories over the past 50+ years have included 10 years at Procter & Gamble where he rose to the rank of Master Inventor shipping a record 9 innovations in a 9 months and 40+ years as an entrepreneur including as founder of the Eureka! Ranch in Cincinnati Ohio – where he and his team have invented and quantified over 20,000 innovations for organizations such as Nike, Walt Disney, USA Department of Commerce, American Express and hundreds more.  Doug’s newest book,  out in December, PROACTIVE Problem Solving, was inspired by his experiences founding and leading a fast-growing manufacturing company, the Brain Brew Bourbon Distillery. Despite the COVID pandemic, Brain Brew grew from shipping a few thousand cases to shipping over 100,000 cases a year by enabling employee engagement. 

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

The product manager’s journey from Individual Contributor to Chief Product Officer

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TLDR

Kimberly Bloomston’s journey from individual contributor to Chief Product Officer at LiveRamp demonstrates the key transitions and skills needed at each level of product management leadership. Her path highlights how responsibilities evolve from hands-on product development to strategic business leadership, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, vulnerability, and strong relationship-building skills.

Key Topics:

• Career progression stages in product management, from IC to CPO
• Transition from tactical to strategic responsibilities at each level
• Evolution of stakeholder management and leadership requirements
• Importance of vulnerability and continuous learning in product leadership
• Role of business acumen in product management success
• Critical skills needed at different career stages
• Value of cross-functional understanding and relationships
• Impact of organizational structure on product leadership
• Balance between product expertise and business leadership
• Strategies for successful career transitions in product management

Introduction

In this episode, I interviewed Kimberly Bloomston, Chief Product Officer at LiveRamp, to explore her journey from individual contributor (IC) to executive leadership in product management. Kim’s unique perspective comes from climbing every rung of the product management career ladder, experiencing firsthand the evolving responsibilities and challenges at each level.

The path from IC to Chief Product Officer isn’t just about gaining more responsibility – it’s about transforming how you think about product development, team leadership, and business strategy. Whether you’re aiming for your first product management role or setting your sights on the C-suite, understanding these career dynamics can help you navigate your own path to product leadership success.

Early Career Foundation: Building a Base for Product Leadership

Kim’s journey into product management began with an unconventional blend of philosophy and computer science studies in college. This unique combination developed both her analytical thinking skills and her ability to question assumptions – capabilities that would later prove valuable in her product career. Growing up in a tech-friendly household with an entrepreneurial father who owned retail businesses gave her early exposure to both technology and business operations.

Her first professional role was with a retail industry consulting company, where she started as a part-time employee during college. Over ten years, she rose through the ranks until everyone in the company reported to her. The company operated a software platform for their call center, managing customer communications while ensuring compliance with state regulations. As VP of Operations, Kim worked with third-party engineering consultants to improve the platform’s ROI and customer outcomes.

It was during this time that Kim discovered her passion for product management. She shared a story about finding a way to save a hundred dollars per week through code automation. When discussing this achievement with her brother, an engineer, he pointed out that what she was doing – finding ways to improve processes and outcomes through technology – was essentially product management. This revelation led her to refocus her career from general business operations to technology product management.

Key Learnings from Early Career Experience

• Cross-functional understanding: Her operational role provided valuable insights into how different business functions work together, from support and services to sales and customer success
• Business metrics expertise: Managing operations gave her deep understanding of business KPIs and how they impact different teams
• Leadership experience: Early management responsibilities helped develop crucial people skills before entering product management
• Technical foundation: Growing up with technology and working with engineering teams built technical credibility

This foundation proved instrumental in Kim’s later product management roles. Her experience managing people, understanding business operations, and working with technology teams gave her a unique perspective that many product managers develop only later in their careers. Most importantly, it sparked her passion for using technology to solve real business problems – the core essence of product management.

These early experiences highlight an important lesson for aspiring product leaders: there’s no single “right” path into product management. Whether you’re coming from engineering, business operations, or another field entirely, your unique background can provide valuable perspective and skills for a successful product management career.

Transitioning to Individual Contributor (IC) Product Manager

Kim’s entry into product management came with a unique twist – she stepped down from an executive role to become a senior product manager. While most product managers work their way up to leadership positions, she chose to start fresh in a role that would let her work directly on product development.

As a new product manager, Kim faced the common challenge of understanding her company’s technical landscape. She joined a facial recognition company that built hardware and software primarily for government agencies. The company wanted to expand into commercial markets, particularly retail – a perfect fit for Kim’s background. However, she still needed to learn the company’s products, technology, and internal language.

Strategies for Success as a New Product Manager

One of Kim’s most valuable insights was about the importance of asking “dumb questions.” She found that being vulnerable about what she didn’t know actually added value to the team. New perspectives often help challenge assumptions and bring fresh thinking to long-standing problems. Her approach was to acknowledge knowledge gaps openly while demonstrating steady progress in understanding the technical aspects of the role.

Kim developed what she called a “superpower” – the ability to remember information without fully understanding it initially, then gradually connecting the dots as her knowledge grew. She would often realize the meaning of something she’d heard weeks earlier, creating connections between different aspects of the business and technology.

Success as an IC product manager isn’t just about what you know coming in – it’s about your ability to learn, adapt, and bring new perspectives to the team. Whether transitioning from another field or starting fresh in product management, the key is to balance humility about what you don’t know with confidence in what you can contribute.

Director of Product: Expanding Scope and Influence

The transition from individual contributor to Director of Product marked a significant shift in Kim’s responsibilities and focus. After successfully bringing a retail product to market, she moved into a director role where she managed multiple product managers and took on broader strategic responsibilities. This role expanded beyond individual product features to encompass entire product lines and their impact on the business.

Key Changes in Responsibilities

• Roadmap Planning: Rather than focusing on individual features, directors need to plan comprehensive roadmaps across multiple products and teams
• Customer Engagement: More frequent and strategic customer interactions, including managing escalations and leading customer advisory boards
• Stakeholder Management: Building relationships across various organizational levels, from individual contributors to executive teams
• Revenue Focus: Greater emphasis on business outcomes and revenue impact of product decisions

One of the most significant changes Kim experienced was the depth of stakeholder alignment required. As a director, she needed to coordinate efforts across multiple engineering teams, platform teams, and both pre-sales and post-sales organizations. This led to the creation of “product success teams” – cross-functional groups that included leaders from various departments working together to ensure product success in the market.

Product Success Team Focus Areas

Customer interaction also evolved at the director level. Beyond handling escalations, Kim found herself hosting customer development partner groups, speaking at industry events, and participating in strategic sales calls. These interactions weren’t just about immediate product needs – they focused on building long-term partnerships and ensuring customers saw value in the product vision and roadmap.

The director role required a delicate balance between tactical execution and strategic planning. While individual contributors focus primarily on getting features right, directors need to ensure that all product initiatives align with broader business goals and market needs. This transition highlighted the importance of developing both leadership skills and strategic business acumen alongside traditional product management capabilities.

Vice President of Product: Leading Through Others

Kim described her transition to Vice President of Product as her biggest career shift. While she had previously been a VP in operations, the VP of Product role demanded a fundamentally different approach to leadership and product strategy. This position was a departure from hands-on product work to leading through others and shaping organizational direction.

Core Changes in Role Focus

One of the most significant changes was stepping away from day-to-day product backlogs. While Kim occasionally found herself wanting to dive into tactical details, she learned that her role needed to focus on broader strategic initiatives. Her primary responsibility shifted to coaching teams, developing the practice of product management, and creating compelling narratives about the product vision that could inspire both the organization and customers.

The VP role also brought new financial responsibilities and accountability. While Kim didn’t directly own a P&L, her compensation structure became tied to business outcomes such as profitability, product growth, and customer satisfaction metrics. This alignment of incentives with business results changed how she approached product decisions and strategy development.

Key Success Factors at VP Level

• Storytelling Ability: Developing skills to communicate product vision effectively to diverse audiences, from development teams to executive stakeholders
• Strategic Thinking: Moving beyond individual product features to focus on portfolio-level decisions and market positioning
• Business Acumen: Understanding and influencing key business metrics, including revenue growth, customer retention, and profitability
• Leadership Development: Building and coaching a team of product managers and directors to execute effectively

The role also required a different approach to stakeholder management. Instead of working primarily with individual contributors, Kim needed to build strong relationships with other executives and senior leaders across the organization. This meant developing the ability to influence without direct authority and align different departments around common goals and objectives.

Chief Product Officer: Leading at the Executive Level

Chief Product Officer (CPO), Kim’s current role, brings new challenges and responsibilities at the executive level. As a member of the executive leadership team at LiveRamp, her focus has expanded beyond product organization to encompass overall business stewardship and strategic direction.

Executive Leadership Responsibilities

Kim’s primary team is the executive leadership team rather than just the product organization. This shift required viewing herself as a business leader first and a product leader second. Her role involves not just leading product strategy but contributing to all aspects of business operations and growth.

The position demands a comprehensive understanding of business operations across all functions. Kim explained that being a CPO means having both the right and responsibility to identify challenges and opportunities throughout the organization, not just within product development. This systemic view helps ensure alignment between product strategy and overall business objectives.

Organizational Structure Insights

Based on her experience, Kim shared valuable insights about product organization structure:

• Direct CEO Reporting: Product leadership should report directly to the CEO to ensure proper strategic alignment
• Engineering Alignment: In some cases, combining product and engineering under a Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) role can be beneficial
• Business Integration: Product organization should be structured to facilitate close collaboration with all business functions
• Leadership Development: Focus on developing strong product leaders at all levels of the organization

The CPO role represents the evolution from product leadership to business leadership, requiring a delicate balance between maintaining product excellence and contributing to overall business success. It demands the ability to think systematically about the business while ensuring the product organization remains effective and aligned with company goals.

Key Success Factors Across All Levels: Leadership Lessons and Best Practices

Throughout our conversation, Kim emphasized several critical factors that contributed to success across all levels of the product management career ladder. Her insights revealed that while technical skills are important, the ability to learn, adapt, and build strong relationships often determines long-term success in product leadership roles.

Essential Skills for Product Leadership Success

Critical Success Behaviors

• Embrace Learning Opportunities: Actively seek new challenges and be willing to step outside your comfort zone
• Build Strong Relationships: Invest time in understanding different functions and building trust across the organization
• Celebrate Failures: View failures as learning opportunities and encourage teams to take calculated risks
• Maintain Curiosity: Stay interested in both technical and business aspects of product development
• Practice Authentic Leadership: Lead with transparency and create safe spaces for innovation

Another key insight was the importance of understanding business fundamentals at every level. Whether as an IC or CPO, having a clear grasp of how different business functions operate and contribute to success helps product leaders make better decisions and build more effective relationships across the organization.

Conclusion

Kim’s journey from philosophy major to Chief Product Officer demonstrated that success in product management isn’t about following a predetermined path – it’s about continuously learning, adapting, and growing while staying true to core principles of innovation and customer focus. As Kim’s experience showed, each level brings new challenges and opportunities, requiring different skills, perspectives, and approaches to success. While technical knowledge and product expertise form the foundation, long-term success depends increasingly on leadership ability, strategic thinking, and business acumen as you progress up the career ladder.

For product managers aspiring to advance their careers, the key takeaway is the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. Whether you’re just starting as an IC or preparing for an executive role, focus on developing both the hard and soft skills needed for the next level while maintaining curiosity and openness to new challenges. Remember that there’s no single “right” path to product leadership – your unique experiences and perspectives can become valuable assets as you progress in your career. The most successful product leaders combine strong technical and business knowledge with the ability to build relationships, foster innovation, and drive organizational success through authentic leadership.

Useful links:

• Learn more about LiveRamp
• Connect with Kim on LinkedIn

Innovation Quote

“So many leaders fail to realize that without vulnerability there is no creativity or innovation. Why? Because there is nothing more uncertain than the creative process, and there is absolutely no innovation without failure.” – Brené Brown

Application Questions

1. How could you use Kim’s insights about vulnerability and “asking dumb questions” to create a more innovative culture within your product team? Consider specific situations where being more open about knowledge gaps might lead to better outcomes.
2. What steps could you take in your current role to develop the skills needed for your next career move in product management? Think about the gaps between your current responsibilities and those of the next level up.
3. How could your team implement some version of the “product success teams” concept Kim described? Consider which stakeholders you would include and what specific challenges this cross-functional approach might help solve.
4. Looking at your current approach to stakeholder management, how could you expand or modify your relationships to better align with the next level of product leadership? Think about which relationships might need more development.
5. Based on Kim’s experience with balancing metrics and strategic thinking, how could you adjust your current focus to better demonstrate business impact while maintaining strong product leadership? Consider what metrics you might need to pay more attention to.

Bio

Kimberly Bloomston is Chief Product Officer at LiveRamp where she heads the company’s global product organization with an emphasis on cloud infrastructure growth. Kimberly previously served as LiveRamp’s Senior Vice President of Product, Vice President of Core Platform and Data Marketplace and Head of Product, Data Marketplace and Application Experience.

With over 15 years’ of experience leading product management and business operations, Kimberly spearheads strategic initiatives that focus on maturing and expanding solutions in the midst of market and company transformation. She has held executive roles leading product, design and operations across a variety of software companies and industries, including higher education, security and data enablement. Kimberly has also led sales, partner programs, managed services and customer success over the course of her career. Prior to LiveRamp, Kimberly served in leadership positions at Ellucian, Digital Signal Corporation and The Zellman Group.

Kimberly loves tackling hard problems and is passionate about design thinking, storytelling, collaboration and enabling product operations to scale and grow a business. She resides in California with her family where she enjoys exploring the outdoors, working out in her home gym, making art and spending time with her family.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

How product managers are transforming innovation with AI tools

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TLDR

In this deep dive into AI’s impact on product innovation and management, former PayPal Senior Director of Innovation Mike Todasco shares insights on how AI tools are revolutionizing product development. From enhancing team brainstorming and prototype development to product iteration, AI is becoming an essential tool for product managers. However, Mike emphasizes the importance of balancing AI capabilities with human oversight, warning against over-reliance on AI. The discussion explores practical applications of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude in product development, including MVP refinement, customer testing, and marketing content creation. Drawing from his experience building PayPal’s Innovation Labs, Mike also shares valuable insights on creating an innovation culture that empowers all employees to contribute to product innovation, regardless of their role.

Key Topics:

• Building Innovation Culture (PayPal Case Study)
• AI as a Brainstorming Partner
• AI Tools in Product Development
• Product Development Acceleration
• AI Implementation Cautions
• Future of AI in Product Development
• Customer Testing and Validation

AI’s Impact on Product Innovation and Management: A New Era for Product Teams

In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I’m interviewing Mike Todasco, former Senior Director of Innovation at PayPal and current visiting fellow at the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence. Mike brings valuable insights about the revolutionary transformation of product development through artificial intelligence. Through our discussion, Mike shares how this dramatic acceleration in product development processes signals a fundamental shift for product teams. Drawing from his experience leading innovation at PayPal and holding over 100 patents, Mike explains how AI tools are creating new opportunities for innovation, faster iteration cycles, and more comprehensive market understanding while maintaining a balance between artificial intelligence and human insight.

Building Innovation Culture: Lessons from PayPal’s Innovation Lab

In our discussion, Mike shares insights from his experience building PayPal’s Innovation Lab following the company’s separation from eBay in 2015. He explains that their approach to innovation deliberately avoided the common pitfall of creating a two-tiered system where only designated “innovators” were responsible for new ideas.

Creating an Inclusive Innovation Environment

The foundation of PayPal’s innovation success rested on a culture of trust and autonomy. Mike points to their unlimited vacation policy as a symbol of this trust-based culture, where employees were treated as responsible adults capable of managing their time and contributions. This philosophy extended to how employees could engage with the Innovation Lab, allowing them to pursue innovative projects alongside their regular responsibilities.

Implementation Strategy

PayPal deliberately kept the definition of innovation flexible. Rather than imposing a strict interpretation, they allowed different roles to define innovation in ways that made sense for their work. Mike encouraged employees to include innovation in their annual goals but never forced this approach.

• Innovation goals were customized to individual roles and responsibilities
• The Innovation Lab served as a gathering space for collaborative work
• Employees had freedom to explore projects in their spare time
• Leadership encouraged but didn’t mandate innovation participation

This approach helped create a culture where innovation wasn’t seen as an additional burden but as an organic part of the workplace. While some areas of the company found this adjustment challenging, PayPal’s long-standing history of innovation made the cultural shift more natural. The success of this approach demonstrates how creating the right environment for innovation can be more effective than mandating it through formal structures.

Leveraging AI in Product Development: A Practical Approach

Mike shares examples of how AI is transforming product development, starting with his own daily interactions with tools like Claude and ChatGPT. His examples demonstrate the versatility of AI in both personal and professional contexts.

AI as Your Development Partner

Through our discussion, Mike explains how AI can serve as a brainstorming partner for product managers. He illustrates this with a recent experience helping an entrepreneur develop a video analysis product. What stands out is their approach to rapid iteration – continuously challenging themselves to simplify their concept, moving from four-week solutions to one-week versions, and ultimately to one-day tests. This methodology helps teams identify the core value proposition quickly.

Choosing the Right AI Tools

When it comes to selecting AI tools for product development, Mike shares several practical approaches to compare different models:

Available AI Tools for Product Managers

Mike outlines several key AI platforms product managers should consider:

• Claude: Excels at analytical tasks and detailed explanations
• ChatGPT: Strong general-purpose tool with quick responses
• Gemini: Google’s AI with robust integration capabilities
• Copilot: Particularly useful for technical development
• Mistral: Emerging option worth exploring

The key takeaway from our discussion is that AI tools aren’t just about automation – they’re about augmenting human creativity and decision-making in product development. Mike notes that while no single tool is perfect for every task, having multiple AI resources available allows product managers to leverage the right tool for specific needs.

The quality of AI’s work is not as good as human’s work, but its speed is superhuman, and product managers can take advantage of that.

AI Applications Across Product Development Phases

In our discussion, Mike provides valuable insights into how AI can enhance each stage of product development, particularly emphasizing the importance of rapid testing and validation. His perspective on using AI to accelerate the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) process is particularly enlightening. Product managers can use AI to help make their tests simpler.

Early Stage Development with AI

Mike strongly advocates for the 24-hour testing principle – the idea that teams should strive to test core concepts within a single day. He explains that AI tools can help product teams:

• Rapidly refine MVP concepts through multiple iterations
• Generate and evaluate multiple solution approaches quickly
• Test core assumptions before investing significant resources
• Create basic prototypes for initial feedback

Customer Testing and Validation

One of the most innovative approaches Mike shares is using AI for initial customer testing. However, he emphasizes that this should complement, not replace, traditional customer research.

Mike suggests an experimental approach to using AI in early customer testing, though he emphasizes this is something he hasn’t fully implemented yet. He explains that product teams could potentially feed customer personas into AI models and run multiple tests to gauge reactions to different product options. For example, if you run the same prompt ten times and the AI selects option A eight times versus option B two times, this might indicate a preference pattern.

However, Mike strongly emphasizes that this approach should never replace actual customer research. He explains that while AI might help teams get their product into a better place before customer testing, it’s important to remember that AI models are trained on internet data, not real customer thoughts and behaviors. As he puts it, “People are weird complex beings,” and AI might not always catch the nuances of real customer behavior.

The key takeaway from Mike’s discussion is that while AI can be a useful tool for early-stage testing and iteration, it should be used to supplement, not replace, traditional customer research methods.

Product Launch and Marketing

Mike shares how AI can significantly enhance product launch activities:

• Generating initial marketing messages for different customer segments
• Testing various positioning approaches
• Creating customized content for different channels
• Analyzing market response patterns

What makes Mike’s approach particularly effective is his emphasis on using AI to accelerate the learning process while maintaining human oversight for strategic decisions. He explains that the goal isn’t to automate the entire development process but to remove bottlenecks and speed up iteration cycles.

Cautions in AI Implementation

Mike provides a word of caution. He introduces the metaphor of “falling asleep at the wheel” – if we over-rely on a driverless car that is not 100% perfect, we could be in trouble. Similarly, we should not over-trust AI in product development. This analogy serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining human oversight in AI-assisted processes.

Understanding the Risks

Mike shares real-world examples of AI implementation failures, citing incidents at Sports Illustrated and CNET where over-reliance on AI led to publishing errors. He explains that these situations often occur not because the AI tools failed completely, but because human oversight gradually decreased after seeing consistent success.

Balancing AI and Human Input

Mike emphasizes several key principles for maintaining effective AI integration:

• AI should not be a replacement for interactions with real customers
• Use AI as a complement to human expertise, not a replacement
• Maintain regular customer contact through traditional research methods
• Implement structured review processes for AI-generated content
• Regularly validate AI insights against real-world data

The most valuable insight Mike shares is that AI tools should enhance rather than replace human judgment. He explains that while AI can process information and generate options at superhuman speeds, the final decisions about product direction should always incorporate human experience and intuition. This balanced approach ensures that teams can benefit from AI’s capabilities while avoiding the pitfalls of over-automation.

The Future of AI in Product Development: Team Collaboration

In our discussion, Mike shares an exciting vision of how AI will transform team collaboration in product development. Drawing from his experience running innovation sessions at PayPal, where teams of 5-25 people would gather in the innovation lab, he explains how AI could enhance these collaborative environments.

AI as a Team Member

Mike describes several ways AI could augment team interactions:

• Acting as a neutral, knowledgeable participant in brainstorming sessions
• Capturing and synthesizing team discussions in real-time
• Providing fresh perspectives when conversations hit a lull
• Helping teams maintain energy and creativity during intensive sessions

Evolution of Workspace Integration

Looking five years ahead, Mike envisions AI becoming seamlessly integrated into everyday work environments:

Emerging Collaboration Patterns

Mike shares how these changes are already beginning to appear. He points to WhatsApp’s integration of AI into group chats as an example of how AI collaboration is evolving. In these environments, AI can:

• Contribute to group discussions when prompted
• Help teams find information or resources quickly
• Assist with scheduling and coordination
• Provide real-time analysis of ideas and suggestions

The key insight Mike emphasizes is that this future isn’t about replacing human collaboration but enhancing it. He explains that AI can help teams overcome common barriers in collaborative work, such as mental fatigue during intensive brainstorming sessions or the challenge of capturing and organizing multiple threads of discussion.

Conclusion

Throughout our discussion, Mike Todasco shares valuable insights about integrating AI tools into product development processes, drawing from his experience at PayPal’s Innovation Lab and his current work in artificial intelligence. His practical approach to using AI as a development partner while maintaining human oversight provides a blueprint for product managers looking to enhance their innovation processes.

The key to success lies in striking the right balance – using AI to accelerate ideation, streamline product development, and enhance team collaboration while maintaining the human judgment essential for product success. As Mike emphasizes, AI tools aren’t replacing product managers; they’re empowering them to work more efficiently and innovatively. For product teams ready to embrace this transformation, the combination of AI-powered product development tools and human creativity opens new horizons for product innovation and market success.

Useful links:

• Connect with Mike on LinkedIn
• Read Mike’s articles on Medium
• Subscribe to Mike’s Newsletter, AI Conversations
• Learn more about the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence at San Diego State University SDSU

Innovation Quote

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” – Linus Pauling

Application Questions

1. How could you restructure your current sprint process to incorporate AI tools while maintaining the most valuable human interactions?
2. How could your team use AI to get faster feedback on product concepts while ensuring you’re still capturing genuine customer insights?
3. What safeguards could you put in place to prevent over-reliance on AI while still taking full advantage of its capabilities?
4. How could you integrate AI into your team’s brainstorming sessions in a way that enhances rather than replaces human creativity?
5. How could you balance the speed of AI-powered development with the need for thoughtful product decisions and human oversight?

Bio

Mike Todasco is a former Senior Director of Innovation at PayPal and a current Visiting Fellow at the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence at SDSU. With over 100 patents to his name, Mike played a key role in fostering a culture of innovation across PayPal’s 20,000+ employees. A recognized expert in AI and innovation, he explores how AI can enhance creativity and revolutionize business processes and personal tasks. Passionate about democratizing advanced technology, Mike advocates for enabling innovation without requiring deep technical expertise. He frequently shares his insights on AI’s impact on innovation, decision-making, and cognition through articles on Medium and LinkedIn. 

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.