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Are OKRs broken? Failure in Product Management. Plus Design & Persona GPTs

Author

Alastair Preacher
November 21, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes

We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.

Hello, Product fans!

Here’s today’s tasty edition of Product Tapas! 🌮

🔥 What’s hot today:

🔥 Not Boring News: Broad topics today covering supercomputers, to AI In product management and insights from failed product launches. 🌐

🤖 GPT & Tool Time: We dive into 3 Design specific GPTs, and a couple on personas and strategy to help you up your Product game. 💼

🎙️ Product Bites: And finally, we’ve got a stack of time-saving summaries. Today it’s self-gaslighting in the workplace, do OKRs work, the art of customer discovery AND a POD bite on Failure - complete with our chatbot so you can quiz the podcast about its content 👀 

Here we go! 🚀👇

📰 Not boring

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📰 Time Saving Tools & GPTs

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    • How can the Chatbot Brand Builder assist in creating a unique brand identity for my business?

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    • Description: How to make impactful visual designs and avoid missteps. Suggested prompts:

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  4. PersonaPilot AI: Custom Persona Builder (The Market Maestro 🎻📊)

    • Description: Swiftly create detailed, accurate user personas. Ideal for product development. Suggested prompts:

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    • Description: This AI tutor will walk you through building your own strategy on a page. Suggested prompts:

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Just a heads-up: I've gone through over 15,000 GPTs with a fine-tooth comb to compile the ultimate list of Product Management GPTs, just for you. And guess what? You can snag your free copy just by bringing one friend into our Product Tapas family. Share the love, and the insights! 🚀👇

🫦 Product Bites

🌟 Self-Gaslighting and the Doubt Loop

Hey, Self-Doubters! 🤯 Got a Minute? Let's Talk Self-Gaslighting.

📖 Read the full article here: Self-Gaslighting and the Doubt Loop

What's the Buzz? 🐝 Feeling like you're always in the wrong at work? You're not alone! This article dives into how we often end up gaslighting ourselves at work. It's not about the big, toxic stuff but those subtle, everyday interactions that slowly chip away at our confidence. 🔄

What's the Big Deal? 🌟 It turns out, constantly questioning ourselves, like wondering if we're good enough or if we deserve better, can trap us in a cycle of self-doubt and stagnation. We start thinking the problem is us, not the situation. And guess what? That's not always true. The article shines a light on how we often misinterpret our workplace woes and how this self-gaslighting affects our overall well-being and career growth.

Why Should You Care? 💡 Listen up, because this is important: Recognizing self-gaslighting is key to breaking free from it. It's about finding joy and pride in our work and understanding that even those at the top have their doubts. This article helps us ask the right questions to navigate these murky waters. It's not about developing a thick skin; it's about understanding your worth and finding ways to thrive despite the workplace drama. 🚀

So, if you're tired of spinning in circles with self-doubt, give this a read. It might just change the way you see your role in the workplace!

👀  OKRs sound good but they don’t work

Contrarian viewpoint ahead from Tom Kerwin…. Let's Talk About OKRs and Why They Might Just Be Leading Us on a Wild Goose Chase!

📖 Read the full articles here: Part 1, Part 2

What's the Buzz? 🐝 OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are the toast of the tech world, but Tom argues - they're often more sizzle than steak. They tell a neat story about management, but the real world? Not so much. It's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

What's the Big Deal? 🤔 Turns out, humans don’t operate like OKRs suggest. We’re not quite wired to set one big shiny objective and then neatly tick off numerical key results. Real life? It's more like making decisions on the fly, based on gut feelings and a mishmash of subconscious goals.

So, when OKRs come into play, it's like two worlds colliding. You've got one camp that's been handed down these OKRs from high up. These folks typically find themselves doing the OKR dance – partaking in the 'OKR theatre' while quietly keeping their real work on the down low. Then there's the other camp – the OKR consultants – swooping in like superheroes promising to 'unsuckify' your OKRs.

We don’t just magically align with neat, quantifiable goals. Instead, we're a bundle of complex motivations, trying to balance personal and professional objectives, often subconsciously. This disconnect can lead to a lot of OKR cynicism and, let's be honest, a lot of eye-rolling.

Why Should You Care? 💡 Because this isn't just about ticking boxes or getting a pat on the back for meeting targets. It's about how we really get things done. It’s about finding work that makes sense to us, not just following a script. If you've ever felt like OKRs are a bit of a charade, or you're just going through the motions, these articles are for you. They paint a fresh perspective that challenges you to rethink how we set and chase our goals, both personal and professional.

🤖 Crash Course in Customer Discovery

What's the Buzz? 🐝 In the world of customer discovery, the art of asking the right questions is crucial. Tristan Kromer, an expert in product innovation, offers a practical and enlightening breakdown of how to effectively conduct customer interviews. It's not just about the questions you ask; it's about how and when you ask them.

What's the Big Deal? 🤔 Tristan presents a variety of question types – from the straightforward closed ones to the more explorative open-ended questions. Each has its unique role in guiding a customer interview. The trick lies in understanding when to employ each type to extract the most valuable insights. For instance, closed questions can establish facts or narrow down specifics, while open-ended questions encourage storytelling and richer details. He even delves into the perils of leading questions and the art of using multiple questions to frame a narrative. It's a veritable toolkit for anyone looking to refine their interview technique.

Why Should You Care? 💡 For anyone involved in product development or customer research, this approach is a treasure trove of wisdom. The right questioning technique can uncover genuine customer needs and preferences, steering clear of assumptions and biases. It's about engaging in a meaningful dialogue where the customer's voice leads the way. Understanding this subtle art can significantly enhance your customer discovery process, leading to more informed and user-centric product decisions. And let's be honest, who wouldn't want to avoid a metaphorical shipwreck on the 'Island of Wasted Time'?

🎙️ Pod Review: Failing forward; how to learn from Product Failures

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes. Time saved 27 minutes 🔥

🔍 Introduction: In this podcast episode, Mark explores the concept of failing forward in the world of product management. Through real-life examples and practical tips, the episode delves into the tension between wanting to fail fast and the pressures that prevent product failures. The FAIL framework (Features, Assumptions, Impact, Learning) is introduced as a tool to unlock critical learnings and ensure that products don't fail in vain. The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding the problem, making measurable hypotheses, and learning from failures.

🚗 Theme 1: Well-Publicised Product Failures (Neil Young's Pono, Quibi, Segway, Juicero) The episode begins by highlighting well-known product failures such as Neil Young's Pono, a yellow Toblerone-shaped music device that aimed to provide high-quality audio but only sold 10,000 devices globally. Other examples include Quibi, a content streaming platform that crashed and burned within a year, and Segway, a two-wheeled electric vehicle that failed to revolutionize transportation. The Juicero, a $400 machine that squeezed juice packets, is also mentioned as a product that failed to gain traction. These examples demonstrate the importance of understanding market demand and solving real problems. (🚫)

📊 Theme 2: The Tension Between Failing Fast and Organizational Pressures The episode explores the tension that arises within organizations between product managers who want to fail fast and the rest of the organization that may be resistant to failure. Commercial pressures, resource constraints, rigid product roadmaps, and concerns about brand reputation are identified as factors that limit the ability to embrace failure. The host emphasizes the need to overcome these pressures and develop the skill of calling time on a product or feature at the right time. (⚖️)

🔍 Theme 3: Understanding and Mitigating Product Risks The FAIL framework is introduced as a tool to assess and mitigate product risks. Four types of risks are identified: problem risk, solution risk, execution risk, and timing risk. Examples such as Juicero (problem risk), Quibi (execution risk), and Google Glass (timing risk) are used to illustrate the impact of these risks on product failure. The episode emphasizes the importance of constantly assessing and prioritizing risks, as well as developing confidence in their likelihood and impact. The fail framework provides a structured approach to understanding and mitigating these risks. (🔍)

📈 Theme 4: Quick Wins vs. Big Bets The episode explores the concept of quick wins and big bets in product management. Quick wins are characterized by high confidence in the problem and solution, resulting in a low likelihood of failure but also lower expected returns. Big bets, on the other hand, involve high confidence in the problem but significant uncertainty in the solution, leading to a higher likelihood of failure but potentially significant returns if successful. The exploit and explore continuum is mentioned as a way to visualize this concept. The importance of data and hypothesis validation is emphasized in both quick wins and big bets. (💡)

🔍 Theme 5: The FAIL Framework: Features, Assumptions, Impact, Learning The FAIL framework is introduced as a practical tool to unlock critical learnings and ensure that products don't fail in vain. The four components of the framework are explained in detail. Features involve understanding the problem and flipping the feature to focus on the outcome for the user. Assumptions encompass problem, user, solution, and risk assumptions, which need to be tested and validated. Impact focuses on defining success through measurable hypothesis statements. Learning involves understanding what happened, what was learned, and what decisions were made based on those learnings. (🔑)

🔍 Theme 6: Overcoming Pressures and Embracing Failure The episode acknowledges the pressures and constraints that prevent organizations from embracing failure. However, it emphasises the need to use the FAIL framework to learn early and often, ensuring that failures lead to valuable insights and informed decisions. By understanding the problem, making measurable hypotheses, and being clear on the why behind learnings, product managers can navigate the tension between failure and organizational pressures. (🌟)

Timestamps:

  • 00:00:07 Introduction to the concept of failing forward and the tension between failure and organizational pressures.

  • 00:00:25 Examples of well-known product failures: Neil Young's Pono, Quibi, Segway, Juicero.

  • 00:04:36 The tension between failing fast and organizational pressures: commercial pressures, resource constraints, rigid product roadmaps, and concerns about brand reputation.

  • 00:09:39 Understanding and mitigating product risks: problem risk, solution risk, execution risk, and timing risk.

  • 00:10:51 Quick wins vs. big bets: high confidence in problem and solution vs. high confidence in problem but significant uncertainty in the solution.

  • 00:11:57 Introduction to the FAIL framework: Features, Assumptions, Impact, Learning.

  • 00:25:44 Importance of overcoming pressures and embracing failure using the FAIL framework.

  • 00:29:48 Conclusion and call to keep failing and learning from failures.

From diving into the world of supercomputers to unravelling the secrets of customer discovery and OKRs, we've covered a lot.

Remember, the journey doesn't end here! Keep exploring, keep questioning, and most importantly, keep growing in your product journey. Until our next issue, keep savouring the bites of wisdom we've shared. 🚀👋

Alastair & the Product Tapas Team 🍽️.

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