449: The secret advice tech companies use to excel in product – with Ben Foster

How to solve common dysfunctions in product management Today’s guest is Ben Foster, the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Prodify. He is convinced that product is the single most important success driver for tech companies, which is why he founded Prodify to share what he learned from being an advisor to over 50 tech companies to realize their full potential. Ben has led successful technology products for the last 25 years. He is also the co-author of Build What Matters: Delivering Key Outcomes with Vision-Led Product Management. He’s with us to share the advice he most frequently gives to the company leaders he advises regarding creating products. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [5:22] Can you take us through the primary challenges you encounter advising companies and what they need to overcome the challenges? I founded Prodify so my team and I can help companies by sharing knowledge from our previous experiences. We have identified several different areas where companies typically struggle when it comes to product. The three areas in which we tend to help companies the most are: * Direction—core metrics, product vision and strategy * People—structure of the product team, coverage, empowerment, accountability * Process and practice—ongoing development and learning, communicating with the rest of the company Every company I’ve ever spoken with, no matter what stage they’re in, has some flaws across each of these areas. It’s not because they’re bad at what they do. It’s because it’s just really hard to get right. [9:24] What issues do you see with strategy? A lot of companies have a mission statement that they think is a strategy or vision. The reality is those two things are very different from one another. A mission statement is why you’re doing what you’re doing. The vision is where you intend to be in several years. The strategy is the plan of attack for how you’re going to get there. A lot of work that goes into a vision. When I was the Chief Product Officer at Whoop, I left the company with a 70-page vision about the future state of the product and how were going to manage it. It provided a lot of clarity. There’s no way any mission statement could ever fulfill that need. Often a CEO tells me something like, “Our vision is to get to $3 billion revenue in five years.” That’s the byproduct of you being successful and executing your vision. What’s the actual vision itself? What’s the customer value that you’re going to deliver? Too often the vision is not tied to customer outcomes and not focused on customer value that needs to be delivered. Product management is concentrated on the creation of customer value from which you’re then in a position to derive business value. Even those companies that build a strong vision and strategy may have a complete disconnect between the work the PMs on the ground are doing and the vision and strategy documents that sit on a digital shelf collecting digital dust while no one is paying attention to them. [12:41] How can leaders better communicate strategy? Often the senior leadership team thinks they talk about strategy a lot, but the employees under them don’t understand the strategy. When I see that type of thing happening, I tell the senior leadership team to ask their CEO, “What’s your strategy?” and then ask the people doing the work, “What’s the strategy?” Either they don’t have an answer or they have a completely different answer from the CEO’s. That’s an indication that the CEO or senior leadership team may feel like they’ve communicated the strategy well or they may feel like it’s well understood within their organization, but their perception is not reality.