Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, I’m interviewing Brian Collard, an expert in managing big projects and plans for global companies. Brian has been working for 15 years in different industries like finance, healthcare, and technology. We’re talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we manage products and come up with new ideas. As people who manage products, lead teams, or come up with new ideas, we’re right in the middle of this AI revolution. We need to figure out how to use AI to make products that customers will love, while also dealing with all the new things AI brings to the table. AI is changing how we manage products and come up with new ideas, giving us new tools to work faster and be more creative.AI can help in many parts of making a product, from research to writing product plans and documents.To use AI well in product management, we need to know how to ask it questions (called prompt engineering), balance AI ideas with human know-how, and always double-check AI’s work.AI can make tasks faster, but it’s important to keep people involved and use AI to help, not replace, our usual ways of working.The future of product management will involve using more AI tools, like advanced language models and creating fake data for testing. We’ll need to keep learning as AI keeps getting better.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I’m talking with Dr. Matthew Wettergreen, Associate Teaching Professor at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) at Rice University. We discuss the benefits of low-fidelity prototyping, the engineering design process, and how to use prototypes effectively to solve problems and validate ideas. The episode also covers potential pitfalls in prototyping and best practices for product managers. The value of starting with simple, low-fidelity prototypesThe importance of focusing on the problem before jumping to solutionsThe need for making well-supported decisions throughout product developmentReal-world examples of how prototyping leads to innovative solutions

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I’m interviewing Jodie Brinkerhoff, VP of Innovation at DFW Airport, about DFW’s journey to winning PDMA’s Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) Award. The discussion covers DFW’s approach to airport innovation, including their dedicated innovation team, strategic focus areas, and unique challenges as a government organization. Brinkerhoff shares insights on fostering an innovation culture, collaborating across departments, and balancing innovation with operational demands in a complex airport environment. The episode provides valuable lessons for product managers and innovators in various industries, highlighting the importance of executive sponsorship, employee engagement, and a structured innovation process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, I’m interviewing Greg Coticchia, an experienced CEO and product management expert. The discussion focuses on the challenges and strategies involved in expanding from a single product to multiple products. Key points include: Why companies have to expand to multiple products to surviveThe importance of portfolio management in product developmentCultural challenges in product expansionStrategies for building influence as a product managerLessons from successful companies like Apple and NetflixPractical tips for navigating the Second Product Problem The episode provides valuable insights for product managers looking to navigate the complexities of product diversification and enhance their leadership skills.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The Targeted Innovation Process is a practical framework that helps product managers drive innovation in their organizations. This approach focuses on understanding customer needs, generating quality ideas, and turning those ideas into real value. The process has five main steps: Stating the problemUnderstanding problem-solving stylesCreating creative pathwaysGenerating ideasEvaluating ideas

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product managers are pivotal in driving innovation within organizations. Today I’m answering common questions I get asked about product innovation and management, including: Supply-side vs. demand-side innovationThe Business Model CanvasStrategic planningPortfolio managementProject selection criteria I also discuss the importance of ongoing learning and professional growth for product managers. By mastering these areas, product managers can improve their skills, boost their influence, and contribute more effectively to their organization’s success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Market research is a key part of product development and management. In this episode, Chip Chonym explains why market research matters throughout the innovation process, discussing both qualitative and quantitative methods. He covers the “double diamond” approach, how to talk about value, pricing strategies, and how market research helps make smart decisions. Chip emphasizes that product managers should see market research as an ongoing process and provides practical tips for doing effective research.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  AI is reshaping how we work, especially in product management. In this episode, Tiffany Price explains how AI affects workplace culture, team dynamics, and leadership. Key points include: Adapting organizational values for the AI eraBuilding psychological safety in AI-augmented teamsEmbracing vulnerability to drive innovationManaging employee concerns about AI integrationUpskilling teams to work effectively with AIBalancing human skills with AI capabilitiesEnhancing team culture in hybrid work environments Product leaders will find strategies to navigate these changes and prepare their teams for an AI-driven future.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The LAUNCH framework, created by James Whitman, offers a complete approach to successful product launches. It has six main parts: Listen to your clients, Assess the opportunity, Unify the team, Navigate the launch, Control the risks, and Hone the process. This framework helps solve common problems in product launches by encouraging teamwork, constant improvement, and strategic planning. By using the LAUNCH framework, companies can improve how they bring products to market, reduce launch failures, and make their product launch processes better over time.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Inspire Innovation Conference, on September 14-17, 2024 in St. Louis, MO, offers product managers and innovators a unique chance to grow professionally.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product managers often face the challenge of significant responsibilities without formal authority.Creating a people-first culture is essential for gaining influence and driving innovation.A five-step model helps build this culture: caring, trust, unity, accountability, and mentoring.Recognizing the value in every team member and leveraging constraints can lead to significant innovations.Clear purpose helps teams navigate complexity and maintain focus.Mentoring is crucial for developing future leaders and sustaining a strong organizational culture.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Tony Ulwick, creator of Jobs-to-Be-Done, introduces Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), a revolutionary approach to product management. ODI shifts focus from generating ideas to understanding and addressing customer needs, leading to more successful products and innovations. ODI prioritizes understanding customer needs over generating product ideasThe approach uses both qualitative and quantitative research to identify unmet customer needsKey components include the job map, need statements, and the opportunity algorithmODI stays focused on customer problems, not potential solutions This customer-centric approach to innovation offers product managers a structured method to create products that truly meet market needs and drive business success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We’ve talked before about design sprints with John Zeratsky, who co-created a way to solve big problems at Google in just 5 days, resulting in the popular 5-day design sprint. What if you don’t have 5 days, but 2 hours? It turns out you can still solve a lot of complex problems in a 2 hour design sprint if you know how. Think about that — being able to confidently solve complex problems with a team in only 2 hours instead of days. To tell us how to gain have that confidence, Teresa Cain is with us. She is the bestselling author of Solving Problems in 2 Hours: How to Brainstorm and Create Solutions with Two Hour Design Sprints, whose first edition became an instant hit among tech teams worldwide. The all new edition, which includes new AI tools, is now available. She is currently the Director of Product Management, User Experience and Design for TreviPay, a leader in global billing and invoicing. She is also the founder of Lucid Startup Consulting, a training firm focused on research, strategy, and vision for product managers, UX teams, businesses and entrepreneurs. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product lifecycle management is key to successful product development and innovation. This article explores the stages of a product’s life, from launch to retirement, and how they differ across industries and product types. Here are the main takeaways: The classic product lifecycle stages are introduction, growth, maturity, decline, and retirement.For software and SaaS products, development and lifecycle management often overlap.Ongoing customer feedback is vital throughout the product’s life.Teamwork across different departments is crucial for effective lifecycle management.Strategies need to be adapted for different types of products and industries.Innovation is key to extending and improving the product lifecycle. Understanding these ideas and using them well can help product managers handle the complexities of product lifecycle management and drive innovation in their companies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Want to level up your product management game? This guide dives into the world of product strategy, sharing insights from expert Andreas Maihoefer. We’ll explore key tools like the House of Strategy, which shows how different levels of strategy fit together, and the VRIO analysis, which helps you spot your competitive edge. You’ll learn how to define your business’s core and why planning is crucial, even if plans change. Whether you’re new to product management or looking to sharpen your skills, this article will help you think more strategically and create products your customers will love.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, former Google product management director Tom Leung shares his experiences with recent tech industry layoffs and offers valuable advice for product managers facing career changes. Key takeaways include: Seeing layoffs as chances for personal and professional growthEmbracing a “gap year” mindset to explore new experiences and skillsFocusing on solving big customer problems in product developmentAdapting to the changing job market for product managersBalancing innovation with practical value in the age of AI and new tech Product managers can use these insights to navigate career shifts, boost their skills, and approach product development with a fresh focus on customer needs and market demand.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Transitioning from one career to another is full of challenges, especially when the two fields seem vastly different. However, as Mary Baird’s inspiring story shows, a successful pivot from nonprofit leadership to product management is not only possible but also incredibly rewarding. In this article, we’ll explore Mary’s journey, the strategies she used to reframe her experience, and the valuable lessons she learned along the way.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, I share insights on developing essential skills for product management and leadership. I explain how mastering the seven knowledge areas of product management outlined by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) can help product managers elevate their careers and create products that customers love. I explore the key objectives and challenges faced by product managers and offer both easy-to-implement and harder-to-implement takeaways to enhance product management practices. By focusing on customer-centric product development, strategic alignment, portfolio management, project selection, and product life cycle management, product managers can sharpen their skills and drive successful product innovation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, I dive into the seventh knowledge area of product mastery: culture and teams. We explore the importance of fostering an innovation culture, understanding team dynamics, and navigating product teams’ common challenges. Key takeaways include: The impact of organizational culture and climate on product successFactors that contribute to a thriving innovation cultureCharacteristics of high-performing product teamsStrategies for resolving conflicts and promoting collaborationThe importance of strategic alignment, engagement, and empowerment in product teams I also provide practical tips for assessing and improving your team’s performance, as well as resources for continued learning and growth in product management and product development.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Market research is essential for product managers to make informed business decisions and to create products customers love. Common market research methods include focus groups, interviews, ethnographic research, customer site visits, and social media. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Using multiple methods provides a more complete and insightful picture of customer needs. Qualitative research uncovers deep insights, while quantitative research offers statistical confidence. The goal is to understand the target market, identify unmet needs, and inform product design and marketing. Successful companies leverage market research to drive innovation and revenue growth.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This article explores the crucial role of product design in product management, focusing on ideation and concept design tools. It covers various ideation techniques such as SCAMPER, brainstorming, mind mapping, storyboarding, brainwriting, Six Thinking Hats, Delphi, ethnography, Day in the Life, empathy analysis, personas, and customer journey maps. The article also delves into concept design, discussing the Kano Method for classifying product requirements and identifying customer perceptions. By understanding and applying these tools, product managers can create customer-centric products that drive satisfaction, differentiation, and competitive advantage.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  – The Product Innovation Charter (PIC) is a short document that provides direction and alignment for a product development project. – Stage-Gate and Agile Stage-Gate are popular product development processes that manage risk and incorporate Agile elements. – Jobs-to-be-Done theory focuses on understanding the customer’s underlying needs and the jobs they are trying to accomplish with a product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Portfolio management is a crucial aspect of product development that helps organizations strategically allocate resources, balance projects, and align their product innovation efforts with overall business goals. By understanding the essentials of portfolio management, product managers and leaders can better position their ideas, defend resources for their projects, and contribute to the organization’s success. This article explores the fundamentals of portfolio management, its goals, and frameworks for structuring portfolios, and provides insights on aligning product innovation projects with organizational strategy. It also discusses the importance of portfolio management for product managers, the characteristics and goals of portfolios, and the common approaches to linking portfolios to strategy.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we’re talking about product innovation strategy, one of the seven knowledge areas for product mastery. These are the knowledge areas that make us successful as product masters who know how to create new value for our customers. They also lead to more influence in our organizations. This is the third episode of a series where we’re diving into each of the seven knowledge areas.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we’re talking about product innovation management, one of the seven knowledge areas for product mastery. These are the knowledge areas that make us successful as product masters who know how to create new value for our customers. They also lead to more influence in our organizations. This is the second episode of a series where we’re diving into each of the seven knowledge areas.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we’re talking about the seven knowledge areas for product mastery. These are the knowledge areas that make us successful as product masters who know how to create new value for our customers. They also lead to more influence in our organizations. This is the beginning of a series where we’ll dive into each of the seven knowledge areas.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about why organizations are increasingly facing the need to transform and how to navigate those changes. If you have experienced a big change, you already know firsthand how challenging it is. All of us need to know the principles that make transformations successful, and that is what we’ll takeaway from this discussion. Joining us is John Rossman, who was an early executive at Amazon and led the launch of the Amazon Marketplace (which allowed third-party businesses to sell on Amazon). He is a four-time author including best seller “The Amazon Way” and “Think Like Amazon,” as well as a sought-after business advisor and keynote speaker. His expertise is on leadership for innovation and business transformation. His most recent book is Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about aspects of the Market Research knowledge area for product mastery. Specifically, we are discussing how to overcome challenges collecting actionable customer insights. Helping us with this is Prashant Mahajan, the founder of  Zeda.io. Prashant is an experienced product manager and leader, having guided product development in several organizations. In these experiences, he identified a critical gap: Many Product Managers are unsure if they are building the right products because they can’t access customer feedback, customer insight, or sentiment. This led him to developing Zeda.io, which is also focused on the importance of publicly sharing product roadmaps and progress with customers.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We all want to create products that customers find valuable and even delightful. But accomplishing that is complicated, and some teams lose focus on the real objective or start without a clear vision for what they need to accomplish. How can using the customer experience journey help you make better products? We are about to find out with Jason Friedman. Jason has started successful businesses in several industries including medical diagnostics, automotive, spirits, and digital media. He has taken his experience and knowledge and focused it to help companies gain an unfair advantage over their competition through the art and science of designing their “customer experience journey.” He is founder and CEO of CXFormula™, which works with entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies including Nike, Universal Studios, Burger King, Bank of America, and others.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how product leaders can create more effective teams by using a people-first leadership approach. Joining us is Diana Stepner, Head of Product for Educations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Her approach to product leadership empowers individuals, fosters collaboration, and connects with people in an authentic way. She is also a product leadership instructor on Maven and has held leadership and advisor product positions.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about product management and innovation of medical products.  Throughout my career, I’ve often found the best insights for improving my product work by learning from other industries, so even if you are not involved in medical products, you’ll be able to apply the practices you are about to hear. You’ll learn where insights for new or improved products come from and the pitfalls to avoid in getting products launched. We are learning with Ron Richard, a seasoned expert specializing in medical devices, medical diagnostics, and the life sciences. He has over 35 years of experience in the Medical Industry, has launched over 40 products, and has 17 patents under his belt. He is also the author of the book Someday is TODAY, which describes how to move from idea to launched product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  You’ve heard about Design Thinking or even tried it. It is a simple-to-understand tool for solving problems, developing strategy, and most commonly for us product professionals, for developing a new product or service. And while it is simple to understand, that doesn’t mean it is easy to apply. I’ve seen Design Thinking mistakes, and I’ve made my own as well, which limit the results this powerful tool can provide. When you apply Design Thinking, wouldn’t you like to know you are getting the most from it? That is why Tom Granzow is with us. He has applied Design Thinking to hundreds of projects and also trained over 1200 people to use it properly. Tom has held senior innovation roles with an emphasis on medical devices and equipment and now shares his 35 years of experience and knowledge with others as the founder of Granzow Design Strategies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference. This discussion is with Marlon Hernandez, whose session is titled “Beyond the pint glass: Learnings from creating the new Molson Coors Non-Alcohol portfolio.” After over 233 years of brewing beer, Molson Coors announced its name change to Molson Coors Beverage Company to reflect its growing focus on beverages outside the traditional beer offers. A successful market entry strategy in the non-alcohol space was one of the critical pillars of the transformational journey into a beverage company. Marlon will share with us the process of defining, shaping, and building this new portfolio and how the PDMA body of knowledge helped him during this process. Also, this episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In episode 468, Dr. Merrick Furst introduced us to the discipline of deliberate innovation and how companies can create products customers absolutely must have. The purpose of this podcast is to help you create products your customers love. Products your customers must have takes this to a higher level. I asked Merrick to join us again so we can learn some of the tools for creating such products, which he also wrote about in the book The Heart of Innovation: A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand. These will be valuable tools to improve your work as a product professional. Dr. Merrick Furst, is a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Center for Deliberate Innovation (CDI) at Georgia Tech. He has also founded numerous startups and in addition worked with hundreds of founders and innovators, helping them use the discipline of deliberate innovation. Listen to episode 468 for part 1 of this discussion.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the knowledge area called market research. How do you know that the product you’re developing will actually create value for customers, that they’ll love it, and that they’ll buy it? Have you done the right things to have confidence of these outcomes, or are you wishfully guessing? You need confidence. That is why Andrea Ruttenberg, PhD, is joining us. As an associate principal at Applied Marketing Science, she has helped numerous clients conduct customer research and make critical business decisions—the same decisions you need to make and this episode will help you move from guessing to confidence.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with two speakers who did a joint session, Dr. Wayne Fisher and Dr. David Matheson, whose session is titled “Improving decision quality during stage gate reviews.”  Recent findings from PDMA’s Outstanding Corporate Innovator award program indicate that highly innovative companies follow some form of stage-and-gate process, including agile-stage-gate, to balance risk and rigor in the development of new products and services. Also, a recent Society of Decision Professionals poll suggests that innovation decisions are a rich area for improvement. We will discuss gate decision best practices with Wayne and David. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about amazing product teams—what is involved in creating one and then how to manage it. Joining us is Amruta Moktali, Chief Product Officer at Skyflow, the world’s first and only data privacy vault delivered as an API. She’s spent over a decade mastering the complex domains of data privacy and analytics and amassed an impressive track record spanning agile startups as well as tech giants including Microsoft and Salesforce.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We are talking about mental health for product managers and leaders—specifically product managers moving into leadership roles and those who are already in leadership roles. We’ll call this emotionally fit leadership. Dr. Emily Anhalt is a psychologist, emotional fitness consultant, and the co-founder and Chief Clinical Officer of Coa, your gym for mental health. For the past fourteen years, Dr. Anhalt has been working clinically with executives, founders, and tech employees and has conducted extensive research with prominent psychologists and entrepreneurs about how leaders can improve their emotional fitness. She has collaborated with some of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world, including Google, Asana, Github, Unilever, and Bloomberg.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference. This discussion is with Matt Phillips, whose session is titled “The Mindsets of Breakthrough Innovators.” Matt shared that successful innovators and entrepreneurs think differently from other people. Further, the way they think can be learned. Using examples from Pixar, Google, Netflix and even ultramarathoners, we can learn the secrets to unlocking innovation as well. Matt will help us. He is the founder of Phillips & Co., a Chicago-based innovation strategy firm. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference. This discussion is with Matt Phillips, whose session is titled “The Mindsets of Breakthrough Innovators.” Matt shared that successful innovators and entrepreneurs think differently from other people. Further, the way they think can be learned. Using examples from Pixar, Google, Netflix and even ultramarathoners, we can learn the secrets to unlocking innovation as well. Matt will help us. He is the founder of Phillips & Co., a Chicago-based innovation strategy firm. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We are talking about some of the lessons from integrating art, design, and business needs that have been learned by SCADpro—the Savannah College of Art and Design’s in-house design, research, and innovation studio—which is generating innovative designs and products for the world’s most influential brands, including Google, Amazon, and Apple. Joining us is Paul Stonick, the Vice President of SCADpro. Prior to SCAD, Paul spent 25 years in the corporate world leading world-class digital and user experience design teams, primarily in e-commerce, most notably with The Home Depot and Barclays.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  As a product person, you know or at least have heard how important it is to talk with customers. Also, if you are not a complete newb, you also know you can’t simply ask the customer what they want. Instead, what do you ask them—how do you conduct a customer interview? We are about to find out from the go-to person on customer interviews, Steve Portigal. Rich Mironov, past guest and CPO of CPOs, said that Steve is the go-to veteran for field research and interviewing users. Steve is an experienced user researcher and consultant who helps organizations to build more mature user research practices. He’s also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. His work has informed the development of professional audio gear, wine packaging, medical information systems, design systems, video-conferencing technology, and music streaming services. You may already be familiar with Steve’s highly regarded book Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights. He has recently updated this book, creating the second edition.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how established organizations can innovate, resulting in new products and ventures. Most of us who have been in established organizations, know this can be challenging as a culture of innovation is often lacking. Joining us is Andy Binns, a management advisor, award-winning author, and speaker on innovation and change. He has over twenty-five years’ experience helping companies make and execute strategic choices to support business growth. He has been at the coalface of innovation, working alongside the leaders of IBM’s “Emerging Business Opportunity” program. He now leads Change Logic, a strategic advisory firm, which takes a hands-on approach to enabling firms to build new businesses. He has numerous articles published about his insights and his recent book he co-authored is Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures in Established Companies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Tony Belilovskiy, whose session is titled “Voice of Customer in Product Design.” Tony will be sharing with us how you can turn customers’ perceptions (that is, their feelings) into numerical, objective data that can be injected into the product design and used as a business case for innovation. Tony is CEO and Managing Principal at C3 Excellence, that empowers clients to develop transformational strategic alignment with their customers. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are visiting the topic that is at the heart of this podcast—creating products customers love. To do that, we are joined by one of the co-authors of the new book The Heart of Innovation: A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand. Our guest is Dr. Merrick Furst, a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Center for Deliberate Innovation (CDI) at Georgia Tech. In 2011, he founded Flashpoint, a first-of-its-kind deliberate innovation studio, to develop formative leaders and exceptional technology startups. Both at Flashpoint and at CDI, Merrick works with hundreds of founders and innovators and is developing the discipline of Deliberate Innovation. He has also personally founded eight startups. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about strategic product planning, which involves decision-making, problem-solving, feature prioritization, and product vision creation. Our guest is Yaroslav Lazor, Founder and CEO of Railsware. He created the strategic product planning tools and frameworks that Railsware continues to apply on projects for customers as well as their own products. I first heard of Railsware when the founder of Calendly talked about the group that developed Calendly for him, which was Railsware. Railsware is a product studio focused on creating services and products that is on a path to becoming a $10B firm.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about four leadership motions that enable increased organizational effectiveness and productivity and alleviate organizational friction, waste, and indecision. The motions reflect a need for leadership change as organizations struggle for higher performance while supporting employees. Sharing the four leadership motions with us is Janice Fraser. Janice built her career in Silicon Valley as a startup founder, product manager, and confidante for entrepreneurs and enterprise executives alike. She currently supports very large organizations including P&G in becoming more innovative and agile. She also guides several venture-funded startup companies, federal government entities, and non-profit organizations. She is the coauthor of Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama: How to Reduce Stress and Make Extraordinary Progress Wherever You Lead.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about organizational change. As innovators, creating change is what we do. You may have already learned that change is not always welcomed, such as when the new product you created also cannibalizes an existing product your organization provides. Organizational change and transformation is challenging, and today we’ll learn how to navigate it more successfully, thanks to our guest Lisa Carlin.  She is a strategy execution specialist, scaleup mentor, and co-founder of FutureBuilders Group, a network of Organisational Development specialists. She works with ambitious leaders to turbocharge their transformation and business planning. Having begun her career with McKinsey and Accenture, Lisa’s experience has allowed her to achieve a 96% transformation program success rate, in comparison to only around a 30% success rate as reported by most research. Not bad Lisa.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Shawn Houser-Fedor, whose session is titled “Creating a Recipe for Innovation Success: Hershey Chocolate Company’s InnovationOps Story.” Shawn is a R&D Senior Director at Hershey and she is about to share with us how InnovationOps helped Hershey and can help your organization achieve innovation at scale. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to build a great product team that in turn will build great products customers love. Joining us is a returning guest, Vidya Dinamani. She’s a product executive, advisor, and coach. She has over 20 years of experience in product management, including multiple executive roles at leading companies such as Intuit. Vidya founded Product Rebels, which teaches people hands-on ways to become stronger, customer-focused product managers. She’s coached hundreds of companies from startups to Fortune 50 and loves seeing people and teams transform when they understand how to build products that customers love.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about using qualitative data to drive our work in product and consequently improve sales. Joining us is Daniel Erickson, the Founder and CEO of  Viable, an AI analytics tool that enables businesses to instantly access and act on valuable insights from customer feedback, saving them hundreds of hours spent analyzing feedback. Before founding Viable, he held senior leadership roles in engineering, technology, and product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to create and use customer use cases to guide product design.  Our guest is Dr. Lilac Muller, VP of Product Management at Kymeta Corporation. She oversees product strategy, definition, and launch activities for Kymeta’s mobile satellite communications product line, which is making mobile broadband connectivity around the world ubiquitous.  Lilac has over 20 years of product development experience in the telecommunications, consumer electronics, and medical devices industries where she has led cradle-to-grave product development efforts, and she holds 19 US patents.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I wonder if you can relate to this frustration—the pressure to get products and product updates released quickly sometimes means making compromises on design quality. It’s an organizational issue—moving quickly to beat competitors and keep up with changing customer preferences. Speed is more important than quality. Our guest, Debbie Levitt, renowned CX designer and author, recommends a different approach. When companies take the time to design products that match what the customer needs, profits soar, customer satisfaction (and retention) soars, and employee satisfaction gets a nice uptick too. Her book, Customers Know You Suck, address how to better understand, attract, and retain customers. We’ll discuss some practices that will help you be more successful with the products you work on.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about tips for selecting, planning, and prototyping product features. To help us, our guest is Matt Genovese. He is the Founder and CEO at Planorama Design. He has in-depth experience marketing products, addressing product requirements, research, UX design, and management. He spent the first half of his 25-year engineering career in the semiconductor industry as a chip designer and the latter half in software product development.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about using the open source innovation system called Kickbox that was created at Adobe. This is a simple and effective tool for increasing innovation by orders of magnitude in an organization. Our guest is Ralph Hartmeier, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of rready, an organization that started from personal experience applying Kickbox, and which now helps other organizations unleash innovation. Ralph was introduced to Kickbox while he was head of growth for Swisscom. He is also a founding member of the non-profit Kickbox.org that promotes the use of Kickbox.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the journey from initial insight to launched product. The featured product is Instafloss, a revolutionary approach to flossing your teeth.  With us is the creator of Instafloss, serial inventor, and two-time founder, Eli Packouz.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We are talking with Erika Klics. Erika is a former Head of Talent for tech companies who became a Job Search Strategist for startup and scaleup Directors, VPs, and department Heads for Product Management and other functions in tech.  She sent me an email message that got my attention, and I’d like to read part of it. She wrote, “In a past life, I sat on the other side of the table supporting hiring teams to define processes, find candidates, and make great hires. And I noticed a few patterns along the way….When it comes to PM leadership roles, hiring teams would share the same small handful of reasons for rejecting candidates. ‘They just weren’t quite strong enough.’ ‘I liked them, but who else do we have?’ ‘We need them to be more strategic.’ ‘They’re great, but I’m not sure they’re senior enough.’ They used different language, different lenses, but it was the same across almost every scorecard. Candidates were missing something, but hiring teams couldn’t articulate what it was.  So I started paying attention to who was getting the offer and what they did differently. Erika will help us not make the mistakes that lead to you not getting the job—she even has a system for job seekers she calls the Inevitable Edge Method.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Tami Reiss is with us. She is an experienced product executive who works with tech product leaders and teams to realize their potential by focusing on their strengths to advance toward their goals. She guides product leaders through defining their personal product vision then taking the right steps to make it a reality. Right now, Tami is focusing on coaching product leaders, speaking around the world about management and strategy, and interestingly, writing a children’s book called What do Product Managers Do? She will be sharing with us how product leaders increase team performance.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product manager, product development, product management, new product development, innovation management, product development process, product design, product innovation, innovation process, innovation strategy, product design process Today we are talking about creating product strategy. Our guest is Bob Caporale. Bob is the author of the book Creative Strategy Generation. He is a strategic practitioner, having spent 20 years leading product, marketing, and business functions for large international corporations. I first heard of Bob when he was the president of Sequent Learning, the product management training company. He has since founded and leads the Strategy Generation company. Bob believes that strategy is derived from a combination of experience, insight, and creativity.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about faster problem-solving to speed innovation by using a three-part framework including Exploration, Alignment, and Decision-Making. Our guest is Atif Rafiq. He invented a system for problem-solving based on his 25-year career spanning Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500. His ideas proved so impactful as a competitive advantage that they sped his rise at Amazon and later to C-suite positions he held at companies, including McDonald’s as their first Chief Digital Officer, and at Volvo and MGM Resorts. He has written DECISION SPRINT: The New Way to Innovate into the Unknown and Move from Strategy to Action. He joins us to share how it works.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Jonas Klink is joining us. He is the Vice President of Product Management & UX Design at Thrive Market, the health-first membership for conscious living. He is responsible for the company’s entire product portfolio, shepherding a lean virtual team of 10 Project Managers & UX Designers. He has established a system allowing the team to focus on understanding customer needs more deeply, creating Outcomes through hypothesis-based testing, and measuring progress through Velocity, Win Rate and impact towards their North Star Metric. In a minute, he will tell us how to do the same thing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  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.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the most influential professional product association you’ve likely never heard of. The association is PDMA, and we’ll talk about what the they do and why you should know about them. Susan Penta is with us. She is the Chair of PDMA and has served in other volunteer roles with the association in the past. She is also the co-founder and managing partner at MIDIOR, which has been providing professional services for 26 years to product organizations in a number of areas from product insights, product development and management, and technology platforms. It’s worth noting that PDMA is a volunteer-led organization and, like Susan, most of the people involved in its leadership have fulltime jobs in product roles yet make time to contribute to the professional association.  On and off, I’ve been one of those contributors as well because PDMA has been vital in my career development and I want to help other product managers. I’m currently serving PDMA by being an author on the 3rd edition of their body of knowledge for product innovation, which Wiley is publishing in early 2024. This episode is sponsored by PDMA so we can find out more about the association. Register for PDMA’s 2023 Inspire Innovation Conference on September 16th-19th in New Orleans, LA, USA.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the “working backwards” approach to product that was created at Amazon. To give us the details on this approach, Colin Bryar is with us. He joined Amazon in 1998—four years after its founding—and spent the next 12 years as part of Amazon’s senior leadership team. For two of his years at Amazon, Colin was Chief of Staff to Jeff Bezos, AKA “Jeff’s shadow,” during which he spent each day attending meetings, traveling with, and discussing business and life with Jeff. Colin is co-founder of Working Backwards where he coaches executives at both large and early-stage companies on how to implement the management practices developed at Amazon. He is also the co-author of Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about portfolio management—creating a portfolio, adjusting it, selecting projects for it, and managing innovation. Our guest is Gareth Bradley, Director of Product Management at Planview. Planview is a leading provider of product portfolio management solutions. Previous to Planview, Gareth held Product VP roles and managed innovation portfolios.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking with a legend in product management. Our guest is Dr. Robert Cooper, who discovered the now famous Stage-Gate process and was named the “World’s Top Innovation Management Scholar” by the prestigious Journal of Product Innovation Management. Besides his best-selling books Winning at New Products and Portfolio Management for New Products, he has published more than 130 articles on R&D and innovation management. He is frequently helping organizations succeed while also holding the role of Professor Emeritus at McMaster University and Distinguished Research Fellow at Penn State University.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about disruptions that impact our product work. Whether it’s supply chain disruptions, the great resignation, AI impacts, market competition or something else, continued disruption is expected. How can we navigate such an environment?  To help us make decisions in this environment, Alexis Gonzales-Black joins us. She is an organization design expert and author, with experience in organization design, transformation, and team leadership. She is currently leading organization design at August Public and previously at IDEO, Zappos, and other organizations. She also authored The New School Rules: 6 Vital Practices for Thriving and Responsive Schools.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are exploring digital transformation in large organizations as well as other challenges leaders are facing in a digitally transforming business environment. With us is David Rogers, an expert on digital transformation, a member of the faculty at Columbia Business School, and the author of five books, including The Digital Transformation Roadmap.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We have had a lot of valuable guests on this podcast, and one of my favorites is Ken Gray. When we talked a few years ago for episode 046, he was the Global Director of Innovation for Caterpillar. Since leaving CAT, he has worked on 3D printing, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and more. He has also been a long-time supporter of the University of Iowa Institute for Vision Research, which is creating cures and solutions everyone can afford for vision diseases. Ken will be sharing lessons learned from years of product innovation wisdom. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about making virtual product teams more effective. Our guest is Anna Marie Clifton, Head of Product at Vowel. She is leading the effort to make virtual meetings more effective by turning them into searchable, sharable knowledge. Before Vowel, she held senior product management roles at Asana, Coinbase, and Yammer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about making virtual product teams more effective. Our guest is Anna Marie Clifton, Head of Product at Vowel. She is leading the effort to make virtual meetings more effective by turning them into searchable, sharable knowledge. Before Vowel, she held senior product management roles at Asana, Coinbase, and Yammer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the skills product managers need to grow their careers. To help us, Neha Bansal  is with us. She is the Head of Merchant Growth and Monetization for Google’s B2B ecommerce business, where she is leading efforts to build the next $1B+ B2B business for the company. Before joining Google, Neha worked as a Management Consultant at Essex Product Consulting, where she helped organizations build products. Outside of her day job, she has guided many PdMs in reaching their career goals, and consequently, has good insights about the skills they need.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about a frequently asked question, which is how are product and project management related. We’ll discuss the differences and similarities between the two. Joining us is Peter Monkhouse. He is a product owner and entrepreneur, with NewGenP being his latest company. Peter is an experienced speaker, educator, and consultant with over 40 years of experience leading teams and organizations to deliver value through projects. He has held several roles with the Project Management Institute, including Chair and Director of the Board. Peter’s latest book is Gen P: New Generation of Product Owners who Care about Customers. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about augmented reality and what product managers and leaders need to know about this rapidly changing field that is becoming part of many digital transformation programs. Our guest has created several products using augmented reality, including a phone-based vision test at Warby Parker, the Neiman Marcus digital mirror that makes trying on and selecting clothes easier, the SalesForce conversational balance table, and much more. His name is David Rose, and he’s an MIT lecturer, an author, and a serial entrepreneur who offers a unique perspective on the next platform of spatial computing—what he calls SuperSight. This is also the title of his latest book, SuperSight: What Augmented Reality Means for Our Lives, Our Work, and the Way We Imagine the Future.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking with Maziar Adl, the co-founder and CTO of Gocious, an organization that creates product roadmap management software. When I met Maziar and he told me about his company, I asked why does the world need another roadmapping company given the abundance of current options to product managers. His answer intrigued me because it identified a clear pain point that isn’t getting enough attention. Then when I heard his backstory in technology leadership roles at Xerox and Experian and the challenges he encountered with product roadmaps, I was eager to invite him to be a guest on this podcast. As the title of this episode conveys, our discussion will weave together topics for aligning customers’ needs and business strategy. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about building a community for a brand or product. What can a community do for a brand or product? It can provide growth, help clarify messaging that resonates with your ideal customer, and provide co-creation opportunities. LEGO, Starbucks, Wyze Consumer Electronics, and many more companies have found customer communities essential to their growth. To help us explore what is involved in creating a community, Bri Leever is with us. She is a community strategist who designs and implements communities for brands. She is also the person who helped me create the Product Mastery Now Community, and she shared many valuable insights with me in the process.  You’ll find her at Ember Consulting, which she founded to help companies build meaningful communities. She and her colleagues also post dissections of public communities on Youtube at her Bri Leever channel.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  For each of the last 36 years, the Outstanding Corporate Innovator award has been provided by PDMA to an organization that excels in innovation. At the time of this recording, the last winner was Hershey, and I was at their award ceremony. There were boxes of Hershey chocolate treats for everyone. It was a good ceremony :)  We are going to learn what has made Hershey an outstanding innovator, gaining insights that might help you and your organization. With us is Charlie Chappell, the VP of Innovation and R&D at Hershey, and Greg Coticchia, the CEO of Sopheon.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about product ops—what it is, if you need it, and how to get started. Joining us is Steve Johnson, a returning guest. He is an author, speaker, and product coach. His market and technical savvy allowed his career to develop from Product Manager to Chief Marketing Officer.  Steve is the author of  Turn Ideas Into Products and co-creator of the popular Quartz Open framework. Before co-founding Product Growth Leaders, his product management consulting company, he was a Pragmatic Marketing lead instructor for over 15 years. Now he empowers product teams with training and coaching that remove the chaos from product strategy and planning. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  As product innovators, we encounter many tensions. To name just a few of these, perhaps meeting this quarter’s objective or creating the breakthrough of the future, perhaps the team building we want to do or having more personal flexibility, or what about process improvement or just getting the job done that is in front of us right now. Research has found that such tensions reflect underlying paradoxes, and they might actually be something that can help us in the end. How can we be more effective in dealing with these tensions or even using them to our benefit? Our guest, who has been researching this for over 20 years, is Dr. Marianne Lewis. She is the dean and professor of management of the Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati. She is a thought leader in organizational paradoxes and among the world’s top 1% most cited researchers in her field.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about what a product-led organization is, barriers that can prevent an organization from being product-led, and actions to create the product-led organization. Our guest is Paul Ortchanian, a problem-solver by nature and founder of Bain Public. He has a great deal of experience that has helped him be well-rounded in product management. Paul acquired the breadth of experience through his leadership roles at San Francisco Bay Area startups and high-growth companies. He helps rapidly scaling early-stage startups craft their Product Strategy and everything related to it. He also helps middle market and scrappy companies generate new product strategies for significant, sustainable growth. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We have talked a few times about Jobs-to-be-Done in past episodes. It is a customer discovery tool for uncovering the unmet needs of customers—the tasks they want to complete or objectives they want to achieve. When using this approach, we may find the customer has multiple Jobs-to-be-Done and each job has a variety of attributes. We then need to know what is most important to tackle first. Our guest has an approach for ranking and valuing jobs to be done. His name is Doug Stone. He is an expert at leading human-centric innovation and product design projects. His work has informed over $1 billion in revenue growth for Fortune 100 companies. He has a Masters of Product Design and Development from Northwestern University and teaches Innovation Strategy internationally.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the interdependence of product and marketing and how marketing trends have changed. To help us, Ali Plonchak is with us. Ali is the COO of Crossmedia. Since 2006 at Crossmedia, she has helped clients navigate the changing marketing landscape. As the company’s first female partner, she proudly leads the agency to deliver on its mission of trust, reason, and happiness every day. Her responsibilities include building and evolving Crossmedia’s services in ways that reflect their commitment to do the right things for their people and their clients. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Every year the Product Management and Development Association (PDMA) recognizes an organization with the Outstanding Corporate Innovators Award (OCI). Hershey, the chocolate maker, was the last winner, in 2022. The winners of the award can teach us valuable lessons about innovation. To help us learn some of those lessons, Sally Kay is with us. She has served on PDMA’s OCI Committee for several years. Sally spent 36 years with The Dow Chemical Company and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare. After working in R&D, Finance, Sales, and Marketing she focused her career on various areas of innovation and new product development. Since retiring, Sally has started her own consulting business, Strategic Product Development, which focuses on the front end of the innovation process. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Identifying the strategies that accelerate innovation starts with the question: “What do the world’s best innovation teams do differently?” To find the answer, we are talking with Matt Phillips, who interviewed over 100 new product innovation leaders, identifying six key strategies they use to cut through bureaucracy, find winning ideas sooner, and improve their success rate at launch.  Matt is the founder of Phillips & Co., a Chicago-based innovation strategy firm. The company’s team of researchers, strategists, and inventors helps organizations reimagine their future and invent new products, services, and brands. Matt has an interesting educational background, with an MBA in Marketing from The Kellogg School of Management. He also graduated from the Conservatory Program in Improvisation at The Second City in Chicago. Summary of some concept

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how you can prepare for and find a senior product leadership role, and we’ll be addressing this both for current senior leaders as well as for product managers. To help us, we are joined by the co-founder of an executive search firm that specializes in placing Product VPs and CPOs. Our guest is Chris Mason, who started Intelligent People in 2002 as a specialized recruitment agency.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about preparing the next generation of innovators. If you are a parent, have a nephew or niece, or want to help influence future innovators, this will be a very helpful discussion for you, especially if the kids you can influence are in grades 6-12 or will be in the future. Joining us is Jennifer Kopach, the CEO of Science Olympiad and President of the Science Olympiad USA Foundation Board.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker spoke on the Three ways to escape gut-feeling and boost innovation rapidly to markets. The topic is about techniques to increase the innovation success rate. For example, by applying Lean innovation, you can speed up development by up to 60% and increase profitability by 31%. Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher is a sought-after mentor, educator, and presenter on the topics of product management, innovation and teams efficiency. She helps product teams get ahead of their competitors by finding innovations quickly and developing and launching complex hardware and software products on time.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker emceed the conference and presented on Lean Product Management: How to Achieve Product-Market Fit. Our guest will teach us a simple but effective process for creating successful products. Dan Olsen is a returning guest to the podcast. He is a well-known product management trainer, consultant, and speaker. He is also the author of the bestselling product management book, The Lean Product Playbook. Through his talks and interactive training workshops, Dan helps companies build great products and strong product teams.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker gave a keynote on transforming products into experiences: injecting the theme park industry’s experience model into product development. In other words, what can we learn from theme parks to help us do a better job creating products our customers love? Geoff Thatcher is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer at Creative Principals. As an experienced creative director, he excels at leading projects from concept to reality. These projects are most often about creating world-class experiences in corporate visitor centers, museums, theme parks, and live events.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about building more innovative organizations. To help us with that, we have the author of Creating Innovation Navigators: Achieving Mission Through Innovation joining us. That is Sabra Horne, who is Entrepreneur in Residence at BMNT, where she supports the development and deployment of government innovation efforts. Before joining BMNT, she was Chief of the Innovation Hub, responsible for envisioning, establishing, and developing innovation efforts in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Previously, she served the National Security Agency (NSA) as Deputy Chief for Information Sharing and Collaboration, facilitating sharing of NSA’s most highly classified intelligence. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about Design Thinking through the lens of a unique new program at the University of Wisconsin that is teaching product design from a multiple-discipline perspective. For example, product design grad students learn UI/UX principles while learning about electronic circuits and product packaging. The cross-discipline experience is unique and provides a valuable perspective. Joining us to discuss Design Thinking is a recent graduate of this program, Emily Phelan. Emily is now a customer experience strategist for Landor & Fitch, the New York-based brand and design group. Previously she was a marketing specialist for Accenture. She also had her own design company and pursued other entrepreneurial interests. And Emily is an amazing illustrator—check out her LinkedIn profile for some of the superheroes she has designed.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker presented on the topic Get into the Discovery Zone. With Lean and Agile methods, it is too easy for teams to fall into the trap of pursuing speed and a sense of progress, while failing to provide value on the most important aspects that customers need. The Discovery Zone changes that. We’ll find out how from David Matheson. He’s a Practitioner & Thought Leader in Portfolio & Innovation Management and cofounder of SmartOrg, a Silicon Valley based company that connects innovation and finance. With decades of experience, David has helped senior management of firms around the world improve their results from portfolio management, product development, innovation, R&D, capital investment and strategy. He earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University where he has also taught strategic portfolio management.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker presented on the topic Improv to Improve Your Team’s Creativity. How do you think improv can improve your product work and your group? We are about to find out. Our guest is Seth Greenwald, aka Sherpa Seth. He’s a best-selling author, keynote speaker and popular communication coach for creative professionals and technical leaders. He founded Creative Warrior Secrets to help professionals be excellent communicators and increase their success. He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and has served as design lead and senior project manager for many of the nation’s largest engineering and construction organizations. Among other publications on communication, he hosts an online course called Improv to Improve Your A-Game Mindset.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the problem you solve, the value you create, and the difference you make—and not just you specifically but also your organization. Just like you, I have encountered organizations that confuse me—I’m uncertain what they are really about. This is a branding and messaging issue. As product professionals, we need to help position our products in ways that make sense for customers and the organization. We have to tell the product and brand story effectively. To help us do that, Sarah Panus is with us. She is a brand storytelling strategist and coach, host of the Marketing With Empathy podcast, and founder of Kindred Speak, which provides editorial brand storytelling services and coaching. Sarah also speaks on topics for humanizing your brand. Before starting Kindred Speak, she contributed to brand and marketing strategy for the Sleep Number Corporation and other companies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about roadmaps. Some product people love roadmaps, while a lot hate them. What can make them better? Our guest has had good experience creating roadmaps from objectives and key results (OKRs), and he is going to tell us how. That guest is Michael Harrison. He is the Head of Product Management for Fleetio, a SaaS company that automates fleet operations to keep vehicles and equipment running smoothly.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about digital transformation and why it matters to product managers and leaders. Tim Bottke is an Associate Professor of Practice in Digital Transformation at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy. He is also a Senior Partner at Deloitte Germany, specializing in digital transformation. Tim has more than 22 years of top management consulting and digital transformation experience, working with clients in more than 20 countries. He is also author of the new book, Digital Transformation Payday: Navigate the Hype, Lower the Risks, Increase Return on Investments.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized innovative companies in the world. PDMA is the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. PDMA invited me to their conference to interview some of their speakers. This speaker gave a keynote on “Reimagining Engagement in Product Development and Management: A Masterclass on the Employee Experience in the Future of Work.” Employee engagement remains very low, and everyone wants more of it. What seems to be missing from the conversation is an understanding of the science behind engagement. I want to learn how engagement is so connected to creativity and innovation, and I bet you do to. Dr. Brad Shuck is an internationally recognized and sought-after thought-leader in the areas of employee engagement, leadership, and organizational culture. He is the author of Employee Engagement: A Research Overview (Routledge, 2020). He routinely works with leaders throughout the public and private sectors, and his insights are widely applied in the world’s largest Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies, as well as small- and medium-sized organizations seeking to grow and empower employees at all levels.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the need for product leaders to manage stakeholders and the associated challenges this creates. Aligning the perspectives of stakeholders on a product project is desirable as well as difficult. Helping us with this difficult task is Bruce McCarthy. Previously, Bruce joined us for a three-part series on creating and using product roadmaps. He is the co-author of the book Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction While Embracing Uncertainty. He is currently working on a new book project, co-authoring Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders. He is also the co-founder of Product Culture—one of his customers said about Bruce, “Coach, trusted advisor, organizational therapist—like me, you’ll probably hire Bruce because of his experience in product management or his skills as an Agile coach.” What a great quote.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  PDMA invited me to their conference, which was in Orlando, Florida, to interview some of their speakers. This speaker spoke on The Key to Successful Voice of the Customer (VOC) in Agile Teams. This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org. Agile teams need to know what they are developing, and VOC is a tool for understanding what customers need. However, traditional VOC doesn’t meld well with development accomplished in a series of sprints. We’ll discuss how to get more benefits from VOC in Agile teams. We are with Kristyn Corrigan. Kristyn is a principal and co-owner of Applied Marketing Science, a Boston-based market research consultancy that helps companies develop better products and services through harnessing the power of customer insights. She specializes in helping companies understand stated and latent customer needs through in-depth interviewing and ethnographic observation. She also trains companies to create and implement their own in-house Voice of the Customer programs.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to unleash confidence. As product professionals, we need authentic confidence. Joining us is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, a cutting-edge psychologist known for her work in communication, confidence, resilience, authenticity, and grief. She is frequently sought by media and companies to speak and train on these topics.  She is a clinical professor of psychology at Pepperdine University and author of several books including her most recent book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love: How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity.

Apply to join the Product Mastery Now Community — Application deadline is November 28th. Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the value of community. Some products are started as a community while other products add a community aspect later. Of course, many products exist without a community, but that may be missing opportunities. Let’s find out together how community can benefit products. Joining us is Patrick Woods. He is co-founder and CEO of Orbit, the leading community growth platform. He’s worked with business leaders from some of the world’s fastest growing businesses to leverage the power of community. He’s the co-creator of the Orbit Model, host of the Developer Love podcast, and author of the Brand Strategy Canvas.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about getting attention for your product launch. Joining us is a co-founder who got his product to #1 Product of the Day, #1 Product of the Week, and a finalist for Product of the Year on Product Hunt. That’s a lot of attention. His name is Ken Babcock, and he is the Co-founder and CEO of Tango. Tango allows you to simply create step-by-step tutorials of anything you do in a web browser or on your computer desktop—it simplifies creating instructions or workflows.  Prior to Tango, Ken spent most of his career in the Bay Area at Uber, where he held roles in Launch Operations, Data Science, and Product Strategy. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to price B2B SaaS products, learning from pricing examples. Joining us is Marcos Rivera, the author of the new book Street Pricing: A Pricing Playlist for Hip Leaders in B2B SaaS. Marcos is a pricing specialist with deep roots in product management, having served in roles from product manager to executive senior director for product management. He has leveraged his experience to specialize in pricing for the last several years and founded Pricing I/O to train and coach high-growth B2B SaaS companies on how to accelerate Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I expect you love shaping the direction of a product, especially one that provides you value. That is why I’m inviting you to be a founding member of a product I’m launching—the Product Mastery Now Community. Too many of us have little interaction with product professionals—in your own organization and at other companies. We need to be developing our professional network and learning with other product managers and leaders. If you neglect your learning, you are jeopardizing your ability to move toward product mastery and not getting better at developing products customers love. Instead, become a founding member of the Community. Not only will you influence its direction while getting value from the community; you’ll join for the lowest price that will ever be offered. Applications to join the Community will close soon. I’d like you to get the benefits of being a founding member—learn about the community and apply at www.ProductMasteryNow.com/community. Today we are talking about the journey to product mastery. While everyone’s journey is different, I created a roadmap to cover the major stages. I expect you’ll find it helpful to talk through the four main stages of the roadmap so you can make better use of your resources to help you get to the next stage and help those you mentor and encourage at a previous stage. Download the product mastery roadmap at ProductMasteryNow.com/roadmap.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about what Andrew Wolgemuth has learned creating a unique product business called Wove. Andrew and his co-founder and team have created a way for their customers to design engagement rings, experience their design in their home with a mock-up ring, tweak what they want, and then receive their one-of-a-kind custom ring. This is a digital business coupled with rapid physical product creation. Regardless of your industry, there are lessons you can learn from Andrew’s mistakes and successes. Before founding Wove, Andrew served as the Deputy Commander of a Special Operations unit in the United States Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) has been curating the body of knowledge for product managers, leaders, and innovators and helping them improve since 1976—the longest-running product management professional group. Most of us haven’t known about product management for more than 10 or 20 years, yet PDMA has been improving the discipline of product management for nearly five decades. What value does it provide? Is it staying up with current practice? Is it worth looking into? To help answer these questions, Susan Penta joins us. She is the current Vice Chair of PDMA and serves on PDMA’s group responsible for certification and the group that helps local PDMA chapters across the world. She is the co-founder and managing partner at MIDIOR, which has been providing professional services for 25 years to product organizations in a number of areas from product insights, product development and management, and technology platforms. It’s worth noting that PDMA is a volunteer-led organization and, like Susan, most of the people involved in its leadership have fulltime jobs in product roles yet find time to contribute to the professional association. On and off, I’ve been one of those contributors as well because I have found PDMA very helpful in my career development. Attend the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference in Orlando, FL, November 13-15, 2022: pdma.org/page/conference-central. Use code PMNPodcast10 for 10% off registration.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about being a serial innovator and how that can greatly improve the innovation results of an organization. Joining us is Dr. Abbie Griffin, who holds the Royal L. Garff Presidential Chair in Marketing at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. She began her career in chemical engineering at Polaroid, went on to do product commercialization at Corning Glass, and later became a university professor after earning her PhD from MIT. Also with us is Carmel Dibner, who is principal and co-owner at Applied Marketing Science, where she has helped dozens of companies uncover critical customer insights to improve products, services, and customer experiences. Before moving to consulting, she was in brand management at Unilever, working with the Dove brand. Abbie and Carmel, with the help of a few others, have created a public workshop titled Product Innovation Master Class: How to Become a Serial Innovator. If you find the discussion helpful in this episode, check out this masterclass, which is being offered virtually from November 1st to 3rd. They are offering a $400 discount for listeners of this podcast. Register here and use the discount code ProductMasteryNow.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the role of CPO, Chief Product Officer, and the skills and capabilities that help you move from product roles to a CPO role. Joining us is Rick Kelly, who is the CPO at Fuel Cycle. They’ve developed an insights platform to facilitate collaboration between market researchers, UX professionals, marketing managers, and product leaders.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the importance of product management and what makes a product manager great. We have the perfect person for this discussion, JJ Rorie. JJ has spent her professional career in product roles, both leading product in internal roles and advising and coaching companies. She teaches a graduate product management course for the engineering school at Johns Hopkins University and hosts the Product Voices podcast. She is the author of Immutable: 5 Truths of Great Product Managers. She is also the founder of Great Product Management, where she provides training, coaching, and advisory services for product managers, leaders, and teams.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, and perhaps the Lean version, a prototype is worth a thousand meetings. Prototypes help us convey our product ideas and gain critical feedback from customers. Being able to create prototypes quickly is an important capability for product teams. In this discussion we’re exploring a tool for prototyping digital products, which is Uizard. I enjoy exploring tools that can help us be more productive and understanding the problem they solve, and I expect you’ll find the discussion valuable too. Joining us is the Director of Customer Experience for Uizard, Tarek Silmani. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I start episodes by saying, “I’m so glad to be part of your journey towards product mastery so you can better develop products customers love.” Today I want to dig into that journey in detail. As a listener of this podcast, your journey in some way involves developing and managing products. The titles vary, but you likely relate to product manager, product leader (such as a Product VP or CPO), or innovator. By diving into the specifics of the journey towards product mastery, you can identify where you are now on the journey and what to do next to further accelerate your career. I’ve talked with hundreds of product managers and leaders about their journey and found three recurring levers present in their journey as well as mine—levers that made a significant difference in our growth as product professionals. I’ll be sharing those levers in this episode (see below, starting at 11:03). For our 400th episode, I also have big news. I’m starting a community, the Product Mastery Now Community. This is something I’ve been asked about many times since starting the podcast in 2015. It is a way for people who already find value in this podcast to get even more from it and add additional fuel to help accelerate your product career. Apply to join the Product Mastery Now Community.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Scrum is a frequently used approach for software projects and many other types of projects that would benefit from agility, including physical products. While Scrum is common, there are still many issues organizations encounter using Scrum. To understand how to overcome them, you would want to hear from a real master, and that is Fred Fowler, one of only 50 individuals in the United States who holds the prestigious Professional Scrum Master Level III certification. Fred has been developing software in Silicon Valley for more than 35 years. He tackles many of the issues he has encountered in his book Advanced Scrum Case Studies: Real-World Situations and How to Address Them.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  If you have listened to me before, there is a good chance you’ve heard me say we need to fall in love with the customer’s problem, not our solution. Getting enamored with our solution can distract us from the customer experience. Instead, the customer experience is a component of what creates value for customers. For example, have you ever been asked to enter your address more than once during an onboarding experience? What about at your doctor or dentist? For me, the answer is yes to all three. It’s those simple things that add friction to the customer experience and if we want to make products customers love, we need to improve the experience for customers. To help us explore customer experience, joining us is Natashya Narkiewicz, currently VP of Product Management at Avetta and formerly senior director of product management for Newfold Digital, the company behind several popular webhosting brands, such as Bluehost, Network Solutions, HostGator, and Sitebuilder. She has held product roles for nearly 20 years and enjoys building products that have a clean customer experience. She is also a mentor in the business college at the University of North Florida, sharing her knowledge and experience each year with seniors as well as serving as a business mentor to female entrepreneurs in a 12-week program at the Jacksonville, Florida, Women’s Business Center.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are looking at product management work through the eyes of a CEO, exploring several topics together. The CEO joining us is Matt Young, CEO of UserVoice, the first product feedback and research tool for software companies. UserVoice is the tool I see most frequently used for collecting customer feedback and prioritizing customer needs to help product managers create more valuable products. Matt started his professional career as a software developer, and throughout his career he has been pushing for better ways to build software products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about a popular and often misunderstood product management tool—Jobs to be Done (JTBD). Joining us is the originator of Jobs to be Done, Tony Ulwick. I first discovered Tony through his book What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services. It was published while I was working on my PhD in Innovation and resonated with my research on why products fail. It is the innovation book I have most often gifted to others. He is also the author of the more recent book Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice. Both are valuable books to add to your library if you don’t already have them. This discussion will examine misconceptions about JTBD and approaches for using it better. 

Most of the people that listen to this podcast have been in product management for several years. Many of them are in leadership roles, such as Product VPs, CPOs, and Heads of Innovation. But many others listen as well. Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Some are new in their product management careers, and others listen to this podcast because they are considering a career in product. All of us have different paths to our roles, and I love hearing about people’s paths and what attracted them to product management, especially when the path is uncommon. In this episode, we are going to hear about Bella Renney’s path and what she learned along the way that helped her become Head of Product at Tray.io, her current role. Bella is a former secondary schoolteacher with a bachelor’s degree in geography.  After teaching she moved to product roles. Now at Tray.io, she believes embedded integrations may be the relief product teams sorely need. She is leading product and engineering teams to develop a platform for embedded integrations that quickly connect various software applications.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  We hear a lot about strategy and that product managers need to create a product strategy. In practice, what does that mean and how does a product strategy help you be more successful? Helping us explore that topic is Sean Kim. He is the President and Chief Product Officer at Kajabi, a web platform that helps creators and entrepreneurs turn their knowledge into income. Previously, Sean was head of product at TikTok, where he set the strategic direction and led product teams. Prior to TikTok, he was the global head of product at Amazon Prime.  You can see from his intersection of product and business leadership experiences that he is the perfect person to help us better understand creating product strategy.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about one important skill that separates great product managers and innovators from the rest. It is the same skill that separates great leaders from the rest. It is also seen in great friends. What is that skill? I’m going to leave you in suspense for a moment and first introduce our guest. Tony Poon is the Chief Product Officer for R-Zero, a biosafety technology company creating products for disinfecting shared spaces. He has a long history in technology products that includes Texas instruments, Logitech, AMD (where his customer was Apple), and many others. Tony is going to help us get better at this important skill for product managers, which is asking the right questions.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are exploring technology-driven vs. market-driven innovation. I want to set up the topic for us a bit. There are times that a technology comes first and later a problem associated with a market need is found that the technology addresses. Examples include the glue that made 3M’s Post-it-Notes possible 7 years after the glue was invented, an electric actuator Caterpillar invented that went unused until they later created a digger that couldn’t use their standard hydraulics platform, or the magnetic research my daughter is doing as a physics student, studying spin wave properties, for applications that are yet to be discovered. However, I find market-driven innovation is more common—the wants and unmet needs of customers are first discovered and then solutions are considered. This is the innovation process seen in the Jobs-to-be-Done methodology and described in many books including The Innovator’s Method. To help us compare and contrast these approaches, Dr. John Cooley is with us. John has five technology degrees from MIT, starting with dual bachelors in electrical engineering (EE) and physics and including a PhD in EE. He founded Nanoramic in 2009 and now serves as the Chief of Products and Innovation. Nanoramic is a nanocarbon composites engineering company, currently working on electric vehicle batteries by reducing their costs while increasing their energy density (more energy in smaller and lighter batteries) and at the same time providing rapid charging.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are taking a product journey, exploring how an insight about an underserved market turned into a valuable product and a rapidly growing company. I love hearing stories of a product’s journey and enjoy sharing one occasionally on this podcast because, regardless of you role in product management, leadership, or innovation, there are important lessons to be learned.  Joining us is Matt Danna, who graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rochester Institute of Technology, where he focused on web development and human computer interactions. His professional career has entirely involved product roles, most often as Product VP or Head of Product. During his experience he became aware of an opportunity to better serve small businesses that needed to frequently make and manage client appointments. He is now the co-founder and CEO of Boulevard, which provides a SaaS platform for spas and salons to increase sales, in part by increasing client bookings and decreasing no-shows. I’m eager to hear how Matt has made this happen.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Three years ago I was looking for a wifi camera I could put in our RV so I could check on our dog when we needed to leave her in the motorhome. The leading brand cost about $150. I tried a brand that was new to me offering a wifi camera for $29. It worked great with the cloud features I expected. This year I was looking for a robotic vacuum cleaner for our house. The highly rated and recognized brand was about $800. I went back to the company I got the camera from and learned they also had a robotic vacuum, complete with LIDAR, which I got on a Cyber Monday sale for $200.  I wanted to learn how this company creates competitive products, differentiating on cost while offering comparative capabilities that equate to much higher value for customers. Today, we get to find out together as the VP of Product for Wyze joins us. His name is Steve McIrvin and we met a few years as we both had kids competing in Science Olympiad. Before joining Wyze, Steve was last at Amazon.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Most of us have become product managers and then moved on (or will move on) to product leadership based on our experiences and knowledge. We encounter tools along the way—some that are helpful and some that are not. I want to explore experiences that help you be a better product professional. Joining us is a Tom Leung, Director of Product Management at Google Health and previously at YouTube. He also hosts the Fireside Product Management podcast.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Is your organization innovative? Is innovation part of the culture and an aspect of the organization’s reputation? Or is innovation something that is just talked about, but you know real action isn’t taking place—what’s been called Innovation Theater. If so, today we are talking about changing that—how organizations can be more innovative and the action leaders need to take to make it happen. To help us is Tendayi Viki. He is a returning guest, having joined us in episode 308. Tendayi is an author and innovation consultant. He holds a PhD in Psychology and an MBA. He is also an Associate Partner at Strategyzer, where he helps large organizations innovate for the future while managing their core business.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about product leaders using legal resources. When and why should product VPs, CPOs, and other senior product roles involve legal resources? While that question is directed to executive team roles, I expect product managers will also discover how legal resources can be wisely leveraged. Joining us is Ryan Lewendon, partner at the Giannuzzi Lewendon Law Firm, helping founders navigate growth and reach their full potential. He has helped several brands grow and overcome obstacles, especially consumer product companies. This has included successful exits with acquisitions by companies that include Coke, General Mills, Boulder Brands, Bacardi, and more. I’m looking forward to learning from his experience.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are discussing crowded product categories and the challenges when trying to enter them with a new product. For context, we’ll use the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) category, which is indeed crowded. Joining us is Jeroen Corthout, co-founder of Salesflare, the simple yet powerful CRM.  This is a topic I’m close to as I have been evaluating CRMs to keep track of the guests I have on this podcast as well as the companies I have the pleasure of helping to improve their product management and innovation. In full disclosure, Salesflare gave me a license to use their CRM at no cost. For this episode, what I’m interested in is what Jeroen learned entering such a crowded market.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about when to use or not to use Agile for your product projects. Products need to get released quickly and correctly, creating more value for customers. Is Agile the answer? Maybe, but the details matter. To explore the topic with us, Mark Madsen is here to share his experience. He has built and led project organizations in a variety of companies, including Lego, Saab, and Danfoss. He has seen the conditions needed for Agile to work well and when it doesn’t.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  How do you figure out what your customers want? Stop and think about it for a few seconds. Is your product work based on what Sales wants, what an Executive or other HiPPO wants, what your competitor is doing, some insights gained about your customers, or something else? While we all have constraints, insights about the people using our products and the needs they have help us develop better products. To explore getting customer insights, Mike Mace is with us. He leads market strategy for UserTesting, which is a firm that helps you experience what your customers experience, getting human insights within just a few hours to help you design and deliver exceptional products. Mike has a long history in product work, spending a decade at Apple, helping Silicon Graphics, then contributing to growth at Palm, as well as assisting other organizations to be more successful with their products. He is going to help us learn how to quickly get customer insights for our product work.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Tom Leung is the Director of Product Management at Google Health and was previously at YouTube. He also hosts the Fireside Product Management podcast. This is a special episode of the Product Mastery Now podcast as Tom is interviewing me. He invited me as a guest on his Fireside podcast. We had a great discussion and I wanted to share it here as well. We covered several topics, with a focus on recommendations for overcoming challenges organizations and product leaders encounter developing products customers love. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about listening. How would you rate yourself as a listener? I consider it a superpower for product managers and innovators, because proper listening is a key way to learn what customers need. It is also a behavior of those gaining influence in their organizations. To help all of us better develop this superpower, Christine Miles joins us. She is the author of What Is It Costing You Not to Listen: The Power of Understanding to Connect, Influence, Solve & Sell. For three decades, Christine has been helping organizations improve by applying human skills to drive results and build cultures of empathy. Teaching people to listen differently has been a big part her work.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about senior roles that contribute to innovation, specifically the role of CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Product managers and leaders interact with many people in their organizations, and knowing how to leverage professional relationships is important to success. Joining us is Steve Orrin, CTO at Intel. Steve orchestrates and executes customer engagements in the federal space, overseeing the development of products to address challenges in government enterprise, national security, and other federal areas of focus. He has a reputation as an industry leader, leveraging a history of delivering results in Innovation, Intrapreneurship, and Entrepreneurship. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about change. The very nature of our work as product managers and leaders creates change—we change existing products to make them more valuable to customers and our organization, and we create completely new products, which causes change to occur at many levels. Your work demands that you are competent leading change. To help us learn how to better manage the change our product projects create, Brendon Baker is with us. He has helped organizations across several industries navigate change created by large transformation projects. He is also the managing director of the firm Valuable Change Co and author of the book Valuable Change: What You Need to Know to Ensure Your Change Pays Off. I appreciate his personal mission statement, which is “Help Change Leaders Drive Real Value.”

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how your organization can more effectively innovate, using precious resources wisely to create new value. We may not talk about your organization by name, but what we will learn together will certainly apply and help you. Joining us is Kapil Kane, the Director of Innovation for Intel China. He is also the founder of GrowthX, a corporate startup accelerator. His experiences have helped him integrate the advantages of large organizations, like Intel, with the scrappiness and agility of startups, and we get to benefit from the insights he’ll share with us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today I’m inviting you on a reflective journey of discovery—a journey to consider your why—which I call your purpose. I revisited this myself a few years ago and found more deeply understanding my why was personally inspiring and provided clarity to me for how I should spend my time. To help us, we have the why expert with us, Frankie Russo. Through his Russo Capital firm, he has developed a portfolio of companies across multiple industries, including technology, advertising, marketing, automotive, music, agriculture, publishing, and finance. He believes your why is important to your success and how you think about success. He has written about these concepts in two books, first The Art of WHY (2016), and just recently, his second book Breaking WHY: Hacking and Rebuilding Strategic Emotions for Authentic Success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This is a special podcast episode, sharing an important discussion from The Everyday Innovator 2020 Summit. The Summit brought together 24 experts who spoke on topics for product managers and product VPs. Many of the topics are truly timeless and this speaker, Keith Hawk, impressed the Product VPs who attended with his sales and organizational leadership experience.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about go-to-market planning and what is involved in planning the launch of products. Helping us learn about this is Karthik Suresh. He is a technology product leader who has led teams as founder, early hire, and executive at companies including Facebook, Craft.co, and KCG holdings. He studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon and business at the London Business School. Now, he is the co-founder of Ignition, which has helped organizations launch more than 200 products. Ignition is the world’s first go-to-market platform for managing all stages of the product life cycle.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about product pricing, specifically the best practices for pricing B2B software products. Joining us is Chris Mele, who has spent his 25+ year career in software products, with much of that time as a pricing specialist. He is the Managing Partner at Software Pricing Partners, which focuses on helping software companies develop better pricing strategies. The company has helped IBM, Dell, Cisco, HP, McAfee, Microsoft, and others.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about what product managers should know about the future of leadership. By the nature of the role, product managers are leaders, as they must influence others, and many product managers will be in senior leadership roles in the future. Consequently, we should be looking at what it takes to be an effective leader now and in the future. Joining us is an expert who tracks the trends influencing the future of leadership—Anne Loehr. She is a leadership speaker, trainer, and coach, and  frequently writes on leadership topics. Her journey into leadership began as she owned and managed hotels and safari companies in Kenya, dealing with many crisis management situations, including facing down lions, severe weather and floods that carried away equipment, and transforming employees from different tribes to succeed together.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to clearly communicate the value of a product to customers. Specifically, we will learn about a 7-part framework for marketing communications. Joining us is Dr. J.J. Peterson, whose PhD is specifically about the validly and effectiveness of this framework, which has been used by tens of thousands of organizations. He is also the Chief of Teaching and Facilitation at StoryBrand, a Nashville-based company that helps organizations across the globe clarify their messages so their organizations will grow.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how Lean Startup can be used at large organizations. To tackle this topic, Jim Euchner is joining us. He has helped many large companies implement innovation practices including Lean Startup and has written the book on the topic, titled Lean Startup in Large Organizations. He has served in executive positions, responsible for innovation, at several large organizations and is the co-founder of the MIT Innovation Laboratory. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about transforming a struggling company to excellence by applying product management disciplines, including R&D principles, innovation process, and more. We’re discussing a business novel that shares these topics in an engaging and practical way, titled Winning Innovation: How innovation excellence propels an industry icon toward sustained prosperity. Joining us to discuss the transformation to excellence is Norbert Majerus, co-author of the novel and returning guest on this podcast. He joined us previously in episode 212, discussing Lean-driven innovation for product managers. Norbert spent 40 years at Goodyear, driving R&D and innovation excellence. Now he is a keynote speaker, teacher, and consultant, sharing his expertise with others. I appreciate him sharing some of it with us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about what product managers and leaders should know about intellectual property (IP) protection. Some organizations have a robust IP protection system that is part of their product management and development process while IP is an afterthought for others. What do you need to know about IP?  Let’s find out. Helping us is Rich Goldstein—a patent attorney, entrepreneur, author, and speaker who helps people protect and capitalize on their valuable ideas. He also authored the American Bar Association’s book on IP titled The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent. He originally studied electrical engineering at Stony Brook in New York, a highly rated engineering school.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about being a better facilitator. The ability to get a group of people to work together, exploring a problem, coming up with ideas, making a decision, and more is a valuable capability for an organization. It is also a great capability for product managers and leaders. If you are not good at this yet, this discussion is perfect for you. If you are already an accomplished facilitator, I’m sure you’ll find some insights as well to be even more effective. Our guest to help us with this topic has prepared many senior leaders, VPs, and CEOs to be more effective facilitators. He is an executive coach and started his coaching business, Essential Communications, in 1990, and also hosts the podcast “The Look & Sound of Leadership.” The list of companies with names we would all recognize where he has helped to improve leaders is too long to go into, but know he is the person behind many senior executives. His name is Tom Henschel.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are dissecting how a product came into being, examining it from initial insight through product development and to launch. Joining us is Mark Adkins, co-founder and CEO of LeanMed, a medical device company for the medically underserved regions of the world. He is also an adjunct professor teaching product innovation for the University of Pittsburgh and has served in many product management roles.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about creating disruptive products that challenge existing industries. A classic example of this is the digital camera that disrupted the film industry and contributed to the collapse of Kodak. Disruption occurs when we think of how a problem can be solved in a completely different way. It is typically accompanied by new technology or the application of technology in a novel manner. Our guest is creating disruption in a very old industry—insurance. His name is Konrad Heimpel and he is the VP of Product for GetSafe, based in Heidelberg, Germany.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about radical product thinking, which is a mindset and process for innovating smarter. Our guest, Radhika Dutt, will help us understand radical product thinking. She is an entrepreneur and product leader who has participated in four acquisitions, two of which were companies she founded. She has built products in industries including broadcasting, media, advertising, technology, government, consumer, robotics, and wine. She also teaches entrepreneurship and innovation at Northeastern University. She cofounded the Radical Product Thinking movement of leaders creating vision-driven change, along with authoring the book Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about using a modified version of Scrum for hardware projects. Many teams have tried adopting Scrum for developing hardware products, not always successfully. This is such as big topic, we have not one but two guests to help us with it—Dorian Simpson and Gary Hinkle. They think they have the answer for applying Agile principles to hardware projects, and they call it the Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) Framework. Dorian has a deep background in product development, starting in engineering and then moving to business leadership roles.  These include roles at Motorola and AT&T along with dozens of companies as an innovation and product development consultant. He’s also the author of The Savvy Corporate Innovator, which is about applying Agile principles to idea development in organizations. Gary also has an extensive background in product development with senior roles at SAIC and Tektronix. He has held R&D leadership roles and founded Auxilium in 2002 to help companies improve their R&D and leadership practices and transform their new product development using Agile practices.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about measuring innovation effectiveness in organizations. To help us is the person who has written the book on the topic, Innovation Accounting, Esther Gons. Esther is the CEO of GroundControl, an Innovation Accounting software platform to help corporate ventures with the development of new business models. She has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and mentored several hundred startups.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are revisiting one of the best tools for product managers, Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD). Our guest has been applying JTBD to help SaaS companies sell better, retain more, and avoid 6-figure go-to-market mistakes. His name is Aggelos Mouzakitis, and his company is called Growth Sandwich. JTBD will help you regardless of your industry or if you are a SaaS provider or not.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the product-led organization. We have seen many organizations in the last few years move the product group and product roles to more prominent positions, putting clearer focus on creating great products for customers. To help us explore this topic is the founder of Pendo and the author of the book, The Product-Led Organization: Drive Growth by Putting Product at the Center of Your Customer Experience. You likely already know his name, which is Todd Olson, who joined us previously in episode 185.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today our guest is sharing the steps for successful digital transformation. He is Howard Tiersky, author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. He founded FROM, a digital transformation agency, which has won over 100 awards for user experience design, including for their work redesigning the Avis app which is now ranked by J.D. Power as #1 in the industry. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about using experimenting and testing to create products customers love. To help us with this topic, Alex Mitchell is our guest. He is Director of Product at Kin Insurance and founder of The Modern Product Manager, which provides resources and courses for aspiring product managers. He also is involved in other organizations, lending his product expertise.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about methods for prioritizing product features. Joining us is András Juhász, a product manager for Smartly.io, a social media advertising company. He wrote an article on six methods to prioritize product features, and we’ll talk through some of them.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the journey from product manager to product officer or product VP. Henry Latham, the founder of Prod MBA, is with us to share his experience and insights. He has been a product manager and managed a variety of product teams in multiple countries. At Product MBA, he helps product managers and owners accelerate their career by teaching them how to build great products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about lessons learned in product management. Lending her insights is Eleanor Hasler, Senior Product Manager at Impala, a travel company making it simple to sell hotel rooms. She has had a variety of product roles and has some tips to share with us. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about prioritizing product features. Helping us is someone who’s been prioritizing customer feedback professionally since 2001. His name is Kareem Mayan, and he is a co-founder at Savio, a company that simplifies collecting, organizing, and acting on customer feedback . He is a serial entrepreneur and previously a product manager and software developer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the 7 habits of creative people. For such a discussion, we need a truly creative person, and that is why Nathan Phillips is with us. He is cofounder of Technology, Humans And Taste (THAT). Nathan leads the development of a proprietary collaborative methodology, which invites diverse and unfamiliar collaborators to co-create innovative concepts, leveraging AI to supercharge ideas.  He’s also a best-selling author and Emmy award winner, on top of it all!

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today we are talking about how we design organizations for innovation. Joining us is Dr. Ben Bensaou. He is Professor of Technology Management and Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management at INSEAD. He has also served in roles at Harvard, Wharton, and Haas business schools. His research centers on innovation and how organizations innovate. His recent book, Built to Innovate, shares a proven system for building innovation into an organization’s DNA. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Special Episode From the 2020 Summit This is a special podcast episode, sharing an important discussion from The Everyday Innovator 2020 Summit. Our guest is Ash Maurya. He has been a favorite repeat guest on the podcast and also spoke at our Summit in the Product VP track on the topic of continuous innovation. As this was a Summit presentation, the format of the show notes below are a bit different. BIO: Ash Maurya is the author of two bestselling books, Running Lean and Scaling Lean, and is the creator of the highly popular one-page business modeling tool, “Lean Canvas.” Ash is praised for offering some of the best and most practical advice for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs all over the world. Driven by the search for better and faster ways for building successful products, Ash has developed a systematic methodology for raising the odds of success built upon Lean Startup, Customer Development, and Bootstrapping techniques. Ash is also a leading business blogger and his posts and advice have been featured in Inc. Magazine, Forbes, and Fortune. He regularly hosts sold-out workshops around the world and serves as a mentor to several accelerators including TechStars, MaRS, Capital Factory, and guest lecturers at several universities including MIT, Harvard, and UT Austin. Ash serves on the advisory board of a number of startups and has consulted to new and established companies. INSIGHT: Love the problem, not your solution.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about applying Agile and Lean development practices to product projects that are not purely software-based. Our guest is Brian Cohn, who began his career with roles in optical engineering and mathematics. For the last 10 years, he served as the Lean Product Development Specialist at Danfoss and has recently co-founded Aspire Innovation, a group that applies a business acceleration model to help organizations be more innovative.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about a key challenge with product innovation—the change innovation necessitates. If there is no change, there is no innovation. Helping us understand change and how to properly navigate it in an organization is David Schonthal. He is an award-winning Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management where he teaches courses on new venture creation, design thinking, innovation and creativity. He has also been a practitioner of entrepreneurship and innovation for over 20 years, including a decade working at design firm IDEO. Also, one of his early jobs was product manager at Arthur Andersen.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about markets and customer insights. Great product managers understand their customers and know how to gain insights about their unmet needs. Darshan Mehta is our guest to help us explore this topic. He is the Founder of iResearch.com, an insights platform to quickly and affordably extract insights from consumers worldwide, and ConnectQik.com, an app for instant connections and engaging interactions.   In addition he has taught at The George Washington University in Washington D.C., at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and at other universities.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about the journey from software developer to product manager and some key challenges encountered as a product manager. This journey was made by our guest, Liron Lifshitz-Yadin. She is the VP of Product at Tel Aviv-based Lightrun. She enjoys being a mentor to new product managers and has gained vast product management experience.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how market segmentation is done and how it impacts product pricing. To help us with the details, a product strategy and pricing expert is joining us, Dan Balcauski. Dan is the founder of Product Tranquility, a consulting firm based in Austin Texas. He has 15 years of experience in managing multiple products throughout different life cycles, from start-ups to publicly traded multinational enterprises.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how organizations can better support innovators and improve their innovation capability, taking a systems perspective. The work product managers and leaders do is the life blood of organizations, creating innovations that drive revenue and contribute to a sustainable organization. To help us do this even better, we have an expert guest, Dan McClure.  He is a systems strategist and agile product manager who helps organizations envision and create high impact innovations. He has over 30 years of hands-on experience shaping systems-level initiatives that combine business and technology.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about change. Innovation itself means making change happen. Changes also come from external sources, with the COVID pandemic being an example of huge causes of change. Our guest, Jonathan Brill, is here to tell us how to survive through and profit from radical change. He was the futurist at HP, making strategy recommendations, and continues to help organizations prepare for the impacts the future brings. He also has written about the framework he uses in his book Rogue Waves.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about what may sound like fundamentals of product management, but many product managers have misconceptions about these key topics.  To help us with this is Grant Hunter, who co-founded with Steve Johnson a peer community and coaching group called Product Growth Leaders. I’ve been a participant in the community for a few months, and recently I noticed Grant posting articles on key topics that will help you as well. Grant is a product coach and strategy advisor who helps companies and product organizations get more market-focused in their products and strategies. Previously, he was a trainer at Pragmatic Marketing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  What would you do if you were the first product hire in a rapidly growing company? Our guest, Kenton Hansen, was in that position at Roll20 three years ago. The company now has more than 9 million users on its platform, providing the best of tabletop gaming in an online environment. Kenton is now the Product Director at Roll20, and over the last three years, he has built the product management and UX processes and teams the company uses. We’ll talk about what that journey was like and what he has learned.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about how to understand what provides value to customers by giving them what they need to solve a problem or complete a task. Clayton Christensen described this as the job to be done. It is a topic our guest, David Duncan, knows well, as he co-wrote the Jobs-to-be-Done book Competing Against Luck with Clayton Christensen and has more recently written The Secret Lives of Customers: A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior. Dave is a managing director at Innosight, where he helps leaders of organizations create customer-centric teams and innovation strategies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about a recent study that gives us insights into what’s going on in product management and product management teams. For several years, our guest has conducted the Study of Product Team Performance. The one for this year was rather different as it reflected on the impact of the COVID Pandemic, which we’ll get into in just a moment. Returning with us is Greg Geracie the CEO of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management training, consulting, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. I’ve known Greg for several years, as we both volunteer with PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: We are about to have an important discussion on how to communicate in a way that makes people remember what is important. That is communicating to influence others and build networks to help you accomplish your product objectives. Helping us do that is our guest, Tina Frey Clements. She believes that a company’s success is directly related to the engagement of its people. She excels at moving businesses forward and motivating and growing talent. Her experience has been in many areas but has emphasized the automotive industry, with treks at BMW, Volkswagen, and Mini. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about conjoint analysis, which is a tool you can use to make informed decisions about what customers value and what they will pay for. If you have to make decisions about what features to include in a new product or the next version of a product, what price to charge for a product, or what the impact on market share will be by introducing a new product, then this discussion is for you. To learn about Conjoint Analysis, we are talking with Patty Yanes, a market researcher who has led numerous research projects that resulted in new insights about customers and a deeper understanding of their needs. Patty is with Applied Marketing Science (AMS), a firm dedicated to helping product managers with market research. AMS was founded by an MIT professor and is well respected for the work it does.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about making better product decisions that create customer value using the data you already have. A PR person contacted me about a company that received the 2021 Products That Count award in the Operate category. The award recognizes products that help product managers and are pushing for better ways to accomplish work now and in the future. The company is Indicative and they help product managers leverage insights based on data already in their data warehouse, build their product roadmap, optimize user engagement, and reduce churn. I’m interested in learning more about this area in general because it brings together several important aspects of product management—the customer journey, data science, data-driven decision making, and reduced time to market. Our guest is Jeremy Levy, the CEO of Indicative. Jeremy, thanks for joining us!

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This is the Product Mastery Now podcast. For seven years it was called The Everyday Innovator, but I recently changed the name to better reflect our mission, which is to help you become a Product Master, creating products customers love. A common question I am asked is, How can an organization speed up its product development? One way is what our guest is sharing with us today, the 3 Ps of Lean Product Development—Pipeline, Practice, and Process. His name is Steve Stucky, and he has over 25 years of experience applying lean product development. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Welcome to the Product Mastery Now podcast. You may know it as The Everyday Innovator, but after seven years of interviews, I have changed the name to better reflect our mission, which is to help you become a Product Master, creating products customers love. Our guest today is a 30+ year innovation and technology journalist. He has authored several books on innovation and is the CEO and co-founder of Innovation Leader, which helps changemakers at large organizations deliver real impact. He’ll share the challenges innovation leaders are facing and how to overcome them. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product improvements and product innovation too frequently suffer from accomplishing less than we want. The urgent is often in the way of the important. If you want to get the important work done more of the time, you’ll find OKRs (objectives and key results) helpful. Also, if you’ve tried OKRs and didn’t like them, this discussion will help you too. We need an OKR expert to learn more about this, and joining us is the woman who wrote the bestselling book, Radical Focus, that tackles the use of OKRs and startup culture with an eye to getting the right things done. Her name is Christina Wodtke, and she is a lecturer at Stanford, sharing insight into human innovation and high-performing teams. She has designed products with LinkedIn, Zynga, Yahoo! and many others, as well as founding three startups, and the online design magazine Boxes and Arrows.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this discussion we address what it means to properly incorporate UX (user experience) into your product work. This is not merely making things look right. This is deeply understanding the user experience that creates greater value, beating competitors and delighting customers. Joining us is Mark Baldino, UX product design expert and co-founder of Fuzzy Math, which designs software products for companies. Mark has 20+ years experience implementing human-centered design to solve difficult problems.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are discussing how to price products, helping you avoid common mistakes and sharing steps to make your pricing smarter. Our guest is Ajit Ghuman. He is the Head of Product Marketing at Narvar, an enterprise-grade customer engagement platform for retailers. Ajit is an expert in software pricing and his book, Price to Scale, covers an end-to-end approach to packaging & pricing for high-growth technology companies. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this discussion we are learning more about the power and use of Jobs-to-be-Done with Bob Moesta. Bob is an innovator, entrepreneur, and the co-creator of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to investigate consumers’ motivations and decision-making processes. He also co-founded the Re-Wired Group, which helps companies repeatedly innovate and reliably predict success. He is also a Research Fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. Bob has had amazing mentors and many accomplishments. I’m sure you’ll find this discussion valuable.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this discussion we share ideas and experiences for getting more benefits from product management and how you can help with that, regardless of whether your organization supports product management or not. To help us with that is someone who has made it happen, increasing the visibility and effectiveness of product management, in different types of organizations. Her name is Monika Murugesan and she is Vice President of Product Management at Sentient Energy. She focuses on portfolio roadmaps, innovation, strategy, and customer success. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a valuable tool for product managers and innovators, and there are different thoughts on how to actually put it into optimal practice. Our guest, Jay Haynes, is helping that problem by creating the first and only JTBD software for product, marketing, and sales teams. He founded THRV (pronounced Thrive) to make that happen. Also, Jay has three decades of innovation experience and has helped Microsoft, Dropbox, eBay, Twitter, American Express, Oracle, Target, and others.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The name of this podcast is changing to Product Mastery Now, to better reflect our purpose of helping product managers becoming product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love.  The 2020 State of Agile Report found that only 5% of organizations have never used Agile practices. Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology and there is a good chance you are using it. The move to remote work last year impacted how teams work, including their use of Scrum. To learn about these impacts and other tips for improving the use of Scrum, Howard Sublett, the CEO of the Scrum Alliance, joins us.  The Scrum Alliance is a member-driven nonprofit trade association that supports the Agile movement. They have trained and certified over a million people and provide a vast community for Agile practitioners to interact. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The name of this podcast is changing to Product Mastery Now, to better reflect our purpose of helping product managers becoming product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love.  In this episode we discuss the obsessions of everyday innovators, as that is the language our guest uses to describe mindsets and actions that make us better innovators. You already know why this is important—because better innovators and product managers are more likely to create products customers love.  Our guest knows a lot about this as he is the founder and CEO of five tech companies and a frequent keynote speaker. Interestingly, he started his career as a jazz guitarist. His name is Josh Linkner. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast will soon be known as Product Mastery Now. The name is changing, but the purpose is the same—helping product leaders and managers become product masters, gaining practical knowledge, influence, and confidence so you’ll create products customers love. The future of work is changing for many people. We saw some changes accelerate as a result of the pandemic, and others have already been in motion. The changes will impact product managers and innovators. Our guest, Matt Coatney, has studied the future of work as it is also related to his interests in the future of AI, automation, and other applications of technology. Matt has 25 years of experience bringing advanced technology products to market in a variety of industries and for some of the largest global organizations, including Microsoft, IBM, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, Deloitte, and HP. Use this discussion to help you consider how your work will change in the near future.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, instead of me interviewing a guest, I’m being interviewed. Mike Belsito, co-organizer of the INDUSTRY conference for software product managers, interviewed me a few weeks ago for an INDUSTRY webinar. We both found the discussion very valuable and I’m sharing it with you on this podcast as well.   The topic is: Are your misconceptions about product management holding your career back?   Product management has a longer history than many people realize, dating formally back to the 1930s. The first professional association for product managers that is still in existence, PDMA, began in 1976. While the discipline is not new, several misconceptions exist about what product management is and what product managers do. In this discussion, I’ll help you find the best place for you to contribute to creating products and services customers love so your career will take off.   Check out the Virtual INDUSTRY conference coming up on April 20 and 21 by going to industryconference.com. I’m not receiving any commission from INDUSTRY, just recommending it because it is good.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am changing the name of the podcast to Product Mastery Now. The new name is coming soon. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Mastery Now. The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  This episode has two of my favorite things. First, our guest is discussing how he got started with Jobs-to-be-Done and how you can use this valuable tool yourself. Second, he is also the co-founder of Product Collective and the co-organizer of INDUSTRY, the conference for software product managers. INDUSTRY has a virtual conference coming up on April 20 and 21 and it is worth checking out by going to IndustryConference.com.  Our guest is Mike Belsito. Before his current work, he had a number of product roles and experiences, giving him insights that can help us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am changing the name of the podcast to Product Mastery Now. The new name is coming soon.  You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Mastery Now. The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  I expect you’ll find this episode very value because it is focused on how you can get better at making products, which is a topic important to all product managers and leaders.  I am joined by Heather Samarin and Vidya Dinamani, the co-founders of Product Rebels, a product management leadership training company. They have enormous experience in product management and delighting customers through product-market fit. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast will soon be changing its name to Product Mastery Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Mastery Now. The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  The role of product manager is shifting, and you can position yourself for future success if you know how it is shifting. Our guest has some unique insights about this as he is the founder of Product School, a large community of product managers. His name is Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, and he’s here to share the shifts that are emerging and how you can prepare.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is getting a new name—Product Masters Now. The name officially changes in a few weeks, but I want you to know it is coming. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now. The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  Effective product managers are good communicators and can get team members aligned to meet the objectives of a product.  However, that is easier said than done. Knowing a few simple tools to create team alignment, getting everyone on the same page, makes a big difference in your success and the success of your products.  To help us with those tools, Dr. Stefano Mastrogiacomo, a project management professor, consultant and author fascinated by human coordination, joins us. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is getting a new name to better reflect our objective here—helping product managers become product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now.  You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks, and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now.  Product managers are in a perfect role to become senior leaders and part of the C-suite. Your role is in the middle of the work the organization does, giving you insights that few executives have, which is why you should become one. To prepare for that, you need to adjust your mindset, stop doing certain things, and start doing other things.   Our guest, Evan Roth, is an expert on this as he has coached many product executives. We first met way back in episode 102 after a product VP and coaching client introduced me to him. Today, he’ll help you prepare a path to leadership roles. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In a few weeks, the name of this podcast will be changing to Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming. If your player is like mine that lists podcasts alphabetically, it will be displayed further in your list of subscribed podcasts as the first letter of the name is changing from “E” to “P.” The logo will look the same—just the name is changing.  To be a better product manager, it is worthwhile to examine organizations known for their product management capabilities. Amazon is such a company. In this episode we are joined by not one but two product professionals who built much of their career at Amazon—13 and 15 years. They are Colin Bryar and Bill Carr. They document the process Amazon uses to create successful products in a book titled Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon. And, they are here to share their insights with us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is where product leaders and managers become product masters. That has been our purpose from the beginning, and it is why I’m changing the name of the podcast to Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now. If your player is like mine and lists podcasts alphabetically, it will be displayed further in your list of subscribed podcasts, as the first letter of the name is changing from “E” to “P.” The logo will look the same—just the name is changing to Product Master Now. How much do you think about the user experience of your products? The entire user experience? I know I have put my focus in one area and neglected other aspects of the user experience—for example, the functional experience with the product, while perhaps ignoring the onboarding aspect or the customer support aspect. Even if you argue that such areas are someone else’s responsibility, I believe you, as the product manager, have important insights for improving these areas.  Our guest, Elizabeth Ferrao, has a practical framework for quickly evaluating UX called First Time UX, or FTUX, which is an acronym for a 4-step process. She’ll take us through the steps and an example so we can understand how to apply the framework.  Elizabeth is the founder of Product Mindset, a product consultancy focused on FTUX and onboarding.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is getting a new name to better reflect our objective here—helping product managers become product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks, and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now. You are in store for an enriching discussion with someone who has more experience delighting customers than most of us will ever see. You’ll learn a few important tools along with deepening your understanding of what it means to create products customers love. Helping us with this is Chip R. Bell, who has been ranked for six years in a row as one of the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service. Bell has appeared on multiple TV networks, and his work has been featured in several prominent publications.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  As we move into 2021, the name of this podcast is changing to better reflect our objective here—product managers become product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now. Product managers must communicate their ideas to others in ways that are clear and solicit feedback. Using visuals to help communicate information can be very helpful. Visual tools can make information easy to understand and also place it in context. When it comes to visual information, Amy Balliett is a leader. Her visual communication agency has created thousands of successful information campaigns for Fortune 1000 clients. She speaks on and teaches visual information concepts whenever she can. Today, she joins us so we can understand how simple visual tools can make us better communicators.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  As we move into 2021, the name of this podcast is changing to better reflect our objective here—product managers becoming product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now.  You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks, and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now.  This is the final episode in the series on a product management body of knowledge. Every-other-week starting in episode 307, we have explored the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) guide to the body of knowledge for product managers and innovators. PDMA is the longest running professional association for product managers, existing since 1976. We end the series by discussing product innovation management, which is the knowledge area for maximizing the return from product innovation through application of sound management practices throughout the product life cycle.  Our guest is Jerry Fix, a global Product Management professional who has successfully launched numerous products. He has significant experience managing global organizations to develop and support products and guide the commercialization of products and technologies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is getting a new name to better align with its purpose of helping product managers become product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now.  You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks, and it will show in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now.  Today is a discussion with a listener who contacted me after hearing episode 304. I sent an email to listeners who are subscribed to receive the show notes in their email box that said, “If you thought your job as a product manager was building products right, think again. In this discussion, Ken Sandy shares why the job of a product manager is not building products right but building the right products.” I admit, I did phrase that to be intentionally thought-provoking. A Chief Product Officer of a global company responded to that message and we began discussing the responsibilities of building the right product and building it right. It’s such an important topic, which is why I invited the CPO to this episode. His name is Narasimha Krishnakumar, and he is the Global CPO for Wind River, a cloud-based IoT company, and he is also an advisor and a product consultant to startups and new ventures. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podcast is getting a new name to better align with its purpose of helping product managers become product masters. That new name is Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming in a few weeks, and it will show up in your podcast player not as The Everyday Innovator but as Product Masters Now. This is another episode in the series on a product management body of knowledge curated by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). If you are unfamiliar with PDMA, it is the longest running volunteer-led professional association for product managers, existing since 1976. I’ve been publishing this series every-other-week, starting with episode 307, which was an introduction to the body of knowledge. Today we cover topics related to culture, teams, and leadership, which are essential to forming and maintaining an innovative environment that enables, encourages, and rewards product management and innovation processes and practices. Our guest is Dr. Teresa Jurgens-Kowal, founder of Global NP Solutions, which helps individuals and organizations learn, adopt, transform, and sustain innovation. Previously, she worked in R&D, process technology development, and as an internal innovation expert at ExxonMobil Chemical Company.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: It is a new year and this podcast is getting a new name. In a few weeks, the name will change to Product Masters Now. You don’t need to do anything to keep listening, but I want you to know the name change is coming—The Everyday Innovator will be renamed to Product Masters Now.  Chief Product Officers (CPOs) have many responsibilities, such as mentoring product managers, defining product strategy, leveraging cross-functional resources, developing products to meet an expected schedule, and more. They use tools to help them with these responsibilities. Joining us for this episode is a CPO who shares some of the tools he uses, including roadmaps, metrics, and OKRs. He knows a lot about tools as he is the CPO for Betterworks, a provider of enterprise OKR and performance management software. His name is Anup Yanamandra.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This is fourth in the series on a product management body of knowledge I’m doing every-other-week. We are exploring the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) guide to the body of knowledge for product managers and innovators. If you are unfamiliar with PDMA, they are the longest running volunteer-led professional association for product managers, existing since 1976. We started in episode 307 with an introduction to the body of knowledge, explored strategy in episode 309, portfolio management in 311, development process in 313, and now we are discussing Design & Development Tools. These are tools that are used in a product process to move from idea to market-ready product. Our guest is Carlos Rodriguez, who is an associate professor of marketing and quantitative methods and also the director of the Center for the Study of Innovation Management (CSIM) in the College of Business at Delaware State University. He recently published a book, Product Design and Innovation: Analytics for Decision Making. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: How does an R&D Product Line Director lead the development of products and help to mentor product managers? That’s what I wanted to know when I talked with our guest, Shankar Achanta. He has had a number of engineering product roles at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, which designs and manufactures products for the power industry. Shankar shares several tools for getting ideas for new products along with practical tips for how product managers can frame their ideas and gain support from colleagues as well as leaders. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This is another episode in the series on the product management body of knowledge I’m doing every other week. We are exploring the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) guide to the body of knowledge for product managers and innovators. If you are unfamiliar with PDMA, they are the longest running volunteer-led professional association for product managers, existing since 1976. We started in episode 307 with an introduction to the body of knowledge, explored strategy in episode 309, portfolio management in 311, and today we are discussing Product Innovation Process. These are the processes and tools for making a product real. Our guest is Jean-Jacques Verhaeghe, who authored the new chapter on process in the PDMA body of knowledge book. He has many years of experience in a variety of senior product roles and is now serving as the Research, Development, and Innovation Program Manager for the Minerals Council in South Africa, with a focus on Digitalization, IoT, AI, and Technology Research.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  You’ve heard it before, product managers need empathy. One way we talk about empathy in our role is “walking in the customers’ shoes,” meaning that we understand the customer, the problem they need solved, or the job they want done. Indeed, product managers who use empathy wisely are more likely to gain customer insights that others miss, leading to products that create more value than competitors and products that customers love.  Clearly, empathy is important, but not all product managers have gained this skill, and others are not using it correctly.  Our guest, Rob Volpe, will help us use empathy better. He is the CEO of Ignite 360, a consumer insight firm, and a self-proclaimed Empathy Activist. He uses his years of experience in marketing research and promotions to help organizations launch and position better products, including at Kraft Foods, Wild Planet Toys, Pepsi, Sprint, Target, Pinkberry, and many others. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This is the next episode in the series on a product management body of knowledge I’m doing every-other-week. We are exploring the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) guide to the body of knowledge for product managers and innovators. If you are unfamiliar with PDMA, they are the longest running volunteer led professional association for product managers, existing since 1976. We’ve had an introduction to the body of knowledge in episode 307, explored strategy in episode 309, and today we explore portfolio management.  Our guest, who also authored the portfolio management chapter of the PDMA BoK book, is Steve Atherton. Steve has over twenty years of professional experience in product management and related roles for some of the world’s largest industrial technology companies. He currently serves as the senior product manager for Fujifilm’s inkjet technology integration group, which designs and produces Nano-technology products for industrial applications.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Dr. Joseph Michelli is a returning guest, having previously brought us insights for creating incredible customer experiences with products and services in episodes 147 and 251. Much has changed in 2020. It is not the year we expected. The adversity has created a need for resilience. Some product managers have responded to the challenge, making pivots and finding value where it had not previously existed. Many organizational leaders have learned on the fly how to navigate the challenges. We can learn from the leaders who have been successful and that is what Joseph will help us with. He talked with over 140 global business leaders, includes leaders at Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Feeding America, United Way, Verizon, Southwest Airlines, and many more. He compiled the timely lessons-learned in a new book, Stronger Through Adversity.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I started a new series to explore the Product Development and Management Body of Knowledge. While it has since been updated many times, this is the body of knowledge I discovered in 2007 that led to many ah-ha moments for me as a product manager. It gave me a framework for integrating what a product manager does, and I have since taught it to many other product managers.  Every-other-week we are exploring one of the 7 knowledge areas. Today we are discussing strategy. This is the foundation for product managers as organizational strategy impacts product strategy. By aligning the two, we create more value for the organization and accelerate our careers in the process.  Our guest is Dr. Allan Anderson, past chairman of PDMA and the person who led the development of the first and second editions of the Body of Knowledge. He has had a long career in product management, primarily in food products, and is professor emeritus at Massey University New Zealand. He also joined us two weeks ago, providing an overview of the entire Body of Knowledge. Today, we focus on strategy.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Our guest says that organizations need pirates. These are the people who make entrepreneurship a legitimate part of the business. They are the innovators and transformers. Pirates design value propositions and business models that scale.  Our guest’s name is Dr. Tendayi Viki, Associate Partner at Strategyzer, helping companies innovate for the future while managing their core business. He has written three books, and his latest book is Pirates In The Navy: How Innovators Drive Transformation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: In 2007, I studied for the New Product Development Professional certification from PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. I wanted to learn what PDMA, the longest running professional association for product managers and innovators, said about product management. Seeing how they organized the many aspects of product management and made connections between them was a huge ah-ha moment for me. I saw my work more clearly and holistically. I found it so helpful, that after earning the NPDP certification, I created a virtual training program to help others learn the body of knowledge as well and earn the certification. Coupled with a PhD in Innovation, that is what got me started teaching product and innovation management. PDMA’s body of knowledge is updated every three years now. It reflects relevant practices, tools, processes, and concepts that the best organizations use based on the most credible research and the deep knowledge of expert practitioners. This is the start of an 8-part series to explore the Body of Knowledge. I’m publishing the series every-other week, with interviews on other topics in between. Each part of the series is with one of the 7 authors who contributed to the second edition. Today we are joined by Dr. Allan Anderson, past chairman of PDMA and the person who led the development of the first and second editions of the Body of Knowledge. He has had a long career in product management, primarily in food products, and is professor emeritus at Massey University New Zealand.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Would you like to get more done? Product managers are pulled in many directions, and if you are like others, you struggle to get the most important things done, let along everything you are asked to do.  Our guest knows a lot about this. He was an intrapreneur in large organizations. He got tired of being “busy” all day and having little to show for it. When he started his own company, he needed to learn how to actually work, and what he learned was how to get twice as much done in half the time. That is something I want, and I bet you do, too.  He is still involved in innovation, as he co-founded Collective Campus, a corporate innovation accelerator. His name is Steve Glaveski and we discuss his system for getting more accomplished in less time. He also has written about the system in his recent book, Time Rich. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Not many product managers get involved in naming products, and that is a mistake. If you were involved during the initial idea work and problem solving—creating a product concept that fulfills customers’ unmet needs—then you have valuable insights for the product name. You can be a great brainstorming resource to help Marketing or a naming consulting.  That is, if you know the attributes of a great name, how to avoid naming mistakes, how to use a creative brief, and how to effectively brainstorm. Those topics and more are in a new book titled Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick. The author is Alexandra Watkins and she joins us to discuss many of these topics so you can become a product naming champ.  Alexandra has created names or renamed many brands and products you would recognize, including the Wendy’s Baconator. She has many great tips for us that take the mystery out of naming. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I’m often asked by product managers on their journey to product master what books they should read. I have a new one to recommend. It covers a broad perspective helpful to less experienced product managers all the way to those who are leading other product managers. It covers:  How to think like a product manager, How to have influence in an organization, Several specific tactics that extend from idea through product launch, and A plan for structuring your career growth.  The book is The Influential Product Manager and it was written by our guest, Ken Sandy. Ken has over 20 years of experience in technology product management. He served as VP of Product Management at online education companies, MasterClass and lynda.com, and is currently an advisor for startup and scale-up companies.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The only thing better than hearing about how an organization improved their product management and innovation capability is sharing it with The Everyday Innovators! I was talking with Teresa Jurgens-Kowal about innovation culture and she shared some work she recently did with an organization that is building their ability to innovate products. The company is a B2B software developer. She took them through exercises to explore their work styles and better align their styles to the execution needed using the Innovation Z model. We discussed the tools to do this. Teresa is the President of Global NP Solutions. She has a PhD in Chemical Engineering and has advised several organizations, helping them grow by improving their new product development capabilities.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  When I’m working with a group of product managers to help them move towards product mastery, I always ask them to introduce themselves by sharing what they love about product management. Among the numerous answers, in the last year the most frequent response is to create value for customers. Many product managers also aspire to create their own group to accomplish this, whether it is as an intrapreneur inside an organization or as an entrepreneur founding their own company. Product managers make the best founders. To explore what being a founder involves, I had a discussion with Ryan Frederick. He is a product manager and founder and now helps software companies build great products. He has put his lifetime of experience into a book titled The Founder’s Manual, and we discuss the key strategies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this discussion we visit two topics—one to help you be more successful personally and another to help your organization be more successful. The first examines five behaviors to be a better innovator. The second is breaking through barriers in your organization that limit innovation and the effectiveness of product managers. Our guest for this discussion is Scott Anthony, a Senior Partner at Innosight, based in the firm’s Singapore office. If you are unfamiliar with Innosight, this is the innovation consultancy created by Clayton Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation and Harvard Business School professor. The insights that Scott shares with us are from a new book he co-authored with a title that is perfect for this podcast—Eat, Sleep, Innovate. As Everyday Innovators, we see innovation opportunities each day, and that notion is conveyed well in the Eat, Sleep, Innovate title too!

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This is our 300th episode. The podcast started in January 2015, and we have not missed a week. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing it with others! The purpose of the podcast has not changed—to better equip product managers and leaders for more success. Some Everyday Innovators have shared how listening has helped them—doubling their salary, finding a new job after not interviewing for many years, moving to a different industry, gaining a better appreciation of customers, and more.   To mark the 300th episode, I asked past guest Steve Johnson to join me for a completely unscripted, off-the-cuff discussion. We had no specific topic or questions in mind, and the result is a free-flowing discussion about changes with product management we are seeing and changes we want to make.  I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  If you work with other people, and I think that is just about all of us, you are going to love this episode. People are either extroverts or introverts. For everyone leading a team or working in a team, you can improve the team performance by improving how introverts and extroverts interact. To help us improve team performance, I went to the person who has spent her professional life researching, writing about, and speaking on introverts. That is Dr. Jennifer Kahnweiler.   She helps organizations harness the power of introverts. Her recent book is Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces: How to Unleash Everyone’s Talent and Performance. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Dr. Paul White is a psychologist, author, speaker, and leadership trainer who “makes work relationships work.” For the past 20 years, he’s improved numerous businesses, schools, government agencies, and non-profit organizations by helping them:  Create positive workplace relationships and improve staff morale. Eliminate the cynicism, sarcasm, and lack of trust that often are associated with traditional employee recognition programs. Overcome the obstacles to help staff communicate authentic appreciation to one another. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Are you taking steps to make yourself more valuable to your organization or the next organization you want to work with? Arguably, all the topics we address on this podcast are about career development, helping you improve in product management and innovation. However, occasionally we focus on the topic head-on, and with the impact of the pandemic on organizations, creating opportunities in some cases and hardship in others, now is an important time to discuss making yourself highly employable, or as our guest says, forever employable. What is interesting is that our guest is now offering career advice after becoming known as the Agile Product guy who helps organizations build better products. You may know him from his past books, including Lean UX, Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking, and Sense & Respond. His name is Jeff Gothelf and, as a product guy, he will give you the 5 activities for being forever employable.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product testing is about more than determining if a product functions properly or not. A larger perspective, and one that our guests shares is Customer Validation. We discuss how to use the various types of product tests, including alpha, beta, and delta tests, to judge product performance, customer satisfaction, and areas for improvement. Our guest is Luke Freiler, CEO and co-founder of Centercode. Luke has spent most of his career improving product testing. Centercode is a Customer Validation solutions provider that helps tech companies bring products to market.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Do you and your product teams have the characteristics required for success? The Product Team Performance study has been identifying the characteristics of high-performing teams since 2012. Of the 31 factors found through the studies, I discuss five of the most significant ones with Greg Geracie, principal researcher. Greg is the CEO of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management training, consulting, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. I’ve known Greg for several years, through his work on the ProdBOK book, which is the The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge, as well as our mutual involvement in PDMA and AIPMM professional associations for product managers.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The experience that customers of our products encounter impacts the value they find in our products. The customer experience is intertwined with customers’ perceptions of value. To explore customer experience, I talked with two people who design the customer experience for theme parks, zoos, museums, and other venues. Part of the conversation is about a recent book they wrote, The CEO’s Time Machine, which uses historical innovations and a story about careful listening to create new innovations for a fictional company. We share useful insights to help innovators in a more personal context in this interview. That is because my guests include the Chief Creative Officer at Creative Principals, Geoff Thatcher, and Designer, Zoe Thatcher, who is his daughter. Consequently, it was fitting for my daughter, Kaitlin, to join me as co-host for this episode.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I hosted a virtual summit in April this year (www.theeverydayinnovator.com/summit) and I met many wonderful people. One introduced me to her Slinky Dog metaphor for product management and a methodology called FAST goals. She calls FAST goals a winning methodology as it enables you to win, solving problems and creating value for customers. It connects what you need to accomplish with how you will accomplish it along with the why for taking specific actions. In the discussion, we role-play using FAST to solve problems I have had as a frequent traveler — something most of us are doing far less of now but will return to eventually. Her name is Jeannine Siviy. She has been a software and systems engineer, contributing to and leading product development for several organizations, including Kodak and the Software Engineering Institute. She is currently the Director of Healthcare Solutions at SDLC Partners.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product managers are doers. We make change happen. We are mini-CEOs after all, right? Here is the big difference between being a product manager and a CEO; CEOs actually can make change happen. They have the authority to do so. Us product managers, no so much, and yet we are doers and we still bring about change. We have to sell our ideas, overcome roadblocks, and get others to join our cause. It helps if we love the work we do. Our guest is going to help us accomplish these things. She is a doer herself, with a history of helping organizations create technology products to solve problems, including being a Product Manager Director at IDEO, Senior Director of Innovation at Autodesk, and a Mentor at Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Leaders Program. Most recently, she has codified the steps for being a doer in an organization in her book, Start Within: How to sell your idea, overcome roadblocks, and love your job. Her name is Karen Holst and she’ll share some of these steps in this discussion to help you excel as a product manager.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Times change, trends start, and trends die. Remember those friendship bracelets made of rubber brands? They were so popular with students that many schools prohibited them because they became a source of distraction. A few months later the trend was dead. Sometimes a smart product concept is created but the market is not ready for it — the timing is off. The trick is recognizing when market conditions change and the product concept should be dusted off and tried again. It is easy to miss the changes. Our guest, Jerry Abiog, had a new opportunity for an old product because of how COVID-19 has impacted restaurants, but he almost missed it until a chance encounter with a restaurant owner while walking his dogs. Jerry has led growth and strategy for various startups and co-founded Standard Insights where he also serves as CMO.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In 2012 I read a book titled, Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. It’s a book that spoke to me. It tied together many of my experiences and I helped me put them into a framework. It shared the need to get out of the office and learn from actual customers – something I had found vital but that I did not always practice on projects. Finding this book also made me aware of Steve Blank, its author. Later, like many of us, I learned about Lean Startup thinking from Eric Ries and found threads to adjacent thinking that was in the Startup Owner’s Manual. It made sense to me later when I read Steve Blank saying that Eric Ries is his best student. Consequently, I think of Eric Ries as the create of Lean Startup and Steve Blank as its father. Steve is someone I have wanted to discuss innovation with for a long time and this interview fulfills that dream. I hope you enjoy it!

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Part of the path to becoming a product master is developing as a leader. Leaders of product management need agility, influence, trust, empathy, and motivating vision. And, those are the topics our guest, Roman Pichler, explores with us in this episode. Roman is a product management expert specializing in digital products. He is the author of several books, including his latest, titled, How to Lead in Product Management. His popular blog is also available as a podcast and both are simply named Roman Pichler.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  A Design Sprint is how you can solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. That is also the subtitle of the groundbreaking book called Sprint. The Design Sprint became popular at Google a few years ago, which is also when Sprint was published. More recently, I am seeing product managers using Design Sprints in organizations to create new product concepts, resulting in realistic prototypes in five days. One of the original contributors to the Design Sprint methodology is my guest, John Zeratksy, who co-authored the Sprint book. He was also a guest two years ago, sharing how product managers can make better use of their time, in episode 210. Not just as a practitioner, but as an original creator of the Design Sprint, John takes us through the 5 phases of a sprint: Map,Sketch,Decide,Prototype, andTest.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  There is much to learn from a good product story; how an insight leads to an idea, which becomes a product concept and grows into a business case resulting in developing a new product that is launched and grows through the product lifecycle. Personally, I also enjoy learning from industries I’m unfamiliar with. So, when I discovered a new beauty brand that is in the formation process, I was excited to talk with its founder, Ginger King. She is a chemist with previous senior management roles at several large cosmetic companies. Her first product under her own brand, FanLoveBeauty, is a lip balm. There is a lot you can learn from this interview beyond elements of the product journey. This includes how to speak with passion about your own product — something Ginger does well.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  My guest is changing how companies innovate and he is doing it with a 5-step process. You’ll hear the details in the discussion, but the five steps are called: sourcing,curation,discovery,incubation, andtransition. He created this process as an Army Colonel and former director of the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, where he deployed a record 170 new products. He was leading innovation in the challenging environments of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefields. Now he is improving innovation effectiveness in companies. He is also working with Steve Blank on a book to capture and share the innovation process. But, you can get the key insights now, long before the book is published.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Some of the best product management lessons come from unexpected places, and I enjoy finding them. This interview is a perfect example. Current Resident is the name of a creative video production group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I think of them as video storytellers. Effective product managers are also storytellers. So, I wondered how much of their video creation process would be similar to product management processes and what new insights they might provide product managers. To explore that, I found Patrick Shelton, a partner and director at Current Resident. He has a deep love for both narrative and entrepreneurship — who better to discuss his craft from a product management perspective.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Last year I was at a product management conference in Orlando and the keynote speaker discussed leadership at Disney. It got me interested in how Disney innovates. A few months later I found out about Duncan Wardle, who was the Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney for many years. He led the team that helped Imagineering, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar and Disney Parks to innovate, creating magical new storylines and experiences for consumers around the globe. Now he is a keynote speaker and also deliverers workshops and ideation forums to companies around the globe. We discuss a lot of topics about creating an innovation capability in a company and creating products customers love. I most enjoyed the customer research examples he shared for getting insights that lead to more valuable products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  After hosting the 2020 virtual summit for product managers and product VPs, I’ve been asked many times for my lessons learned: what made it great, what would I do differently, what advice I have, what I learned about launching a product, etc. Consequently, after answering several of these questions individually, I realized others would find value in the lessons learned as well. That is what this podcast episode is about. It’s not my usual discussion format. Instead, I review the lessons learned from myself and my team that created and launched the summit. By the way, if you still want to benefit from the incredible strategies and tips the summit speakers shared, along with the exclusive materials my team created, click here for 24+ expert masterclasses from top-of-their-field experts.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Are you an innovator? Not every product manager is, but I think the good ones need to be. Innovation is most frequently described as a process that brings something new into existence, creating value for others, such as customers. Our guest shares that innovation is really about people and those who are good at it have a different mindset. While process is important, innovation needs the right people involved. The discussion covers a lot of ground as Chuck Swoboda, retired Chairman and CEO of Cree and a pioneer in the LED lighting industry, shares his 30 years of experience with us. We discuss the mindset he wrote about in The Innovator’s Spirit that people use to make the seemingly impossible a reality, examples of innovation at Cree, how to find and hire innovators, using Brutal Truths to improve anything, and why Steve Jobs was right when he said customers don’t know what they want.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  If you work in a medium to large company, your CEO wants the organization to be more innovative. All the surveys about such things tell us this is the case. If you are in a smaller organization or on your own, you still care about innovation. But, how can you bring about more innovation, or let’s face it, in some cases, anything that looks like innovation? In some form, this is what company leaders have talked with me about the most in the last year — incorporating more innovation into their work. It is something we especially need now. I believe a key paving stone on the path to better innovation – aka, more products customers love — is adopting an experimentation mindset and conducting fast low-cost experiments. And that is what our guest, Dr. Stefan Thomke, Harvard Business School professor and researcher, is discussing with us. He is an authority on the management of innovation and the use of experimentation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This episode is about pricing. A lot of product managers are not very involved in pricing decisions. If you are one of them, you should change that. Our guest, Ben Malakoff, learned how to price products and in this interview he shares what you’ll need to know to be part of pricing decisions, increasing your influence. Ben has held several product management roles and is now the senior director for sales operations at FiscalNote.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Innosight is an innovation management consultancy founded by Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson. Mark has a new toolkit for visionary thinking that leads to breakthrough growth, which he writes about in his book, Lead from the Future. The foundation of the toolkit is “future back” thinking, which we talk about. Mark is also the author of the previous books Dual Transformation and Reinvent Your Business Model and the McKinsey award-winning Harvard Business Review article “Reinventing Your Business Model.”

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The Everyday Innovator Online Summit recently ended. It was April 8-10, 2020. The speakers were absolutely incredible! Twenty-five top experts shared their strategies, practices, and tips to help product managers and product VPs gain higher performance and get more success. You can still get the wisdom they provided. Ruben Gonzalez was our motivational keynote for the Summit. He was so good, I wanted to share the discussion with you as well, The Everyday Innovator podcast listener. I won’t be sharing other sessions from the Summit, but I think you’ll find this one inspiring. Even though we recorded it before concerns of COVID-19 dominated the news, it’s a message you need to hear now. Ruben's incredible story takes people’s excuses away and fills them with the belief and inspiration to face their challenges and fight for their goals and dreams. People buy into what Ruben teaches because they can relate to him. In this discussion, Ruben will inspire and equip you to win. Whether achieving victory in the Olympics, in business, or in life, the same success principles apply: focus, discipline, integrity, teamwork, leadership, overcoming your fears, and committing to excellence.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Instead of a normal weekly interview I’m sharing with you 24+ brand new video interviews with world-class experts. They will share their strategies, experience, and secrets to help you excel in product management. I’m calling it The Everyday Innovator Summit and it is entirely online. You only need your computer, smartphone, or tablet and an internet connection. The Everyday Innovator Summit is FREE to attend, but you must register. Also, it is soon — April 8-10. You won’t want to miss it. FREE Online Summit for Your Product Management Success Register at… >>> www.theeverydayinnovator.com/summit My team and I have worked on this Summit since late last year. Given our current circumstances, many online workshops and events have popped up in recent days. This is not one of them. The Summit is something I have been anxious to bring to listeners of the podcast and it takes time to create a valuable experience for you. If you like the podcast, you'll love the Summit.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Listeners have heard me share the purpose of this podcast… this is where product leaders and managers make their move to product masters, learning practical knowledge that leads to more influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love. Our guest is helping us with the influence part. As we must build and use influence to be effective, what we say matters. And, Daniel Stillman will tell us how to design conversations that matter. He is an industrial designer turned conversation designer. I really enjoyed our discussion and hope you do to.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  One of the most powerful tools available to product managers and innovators is, wait for it… reframing! We use it in two primary ways. First, to help us solve the right problem. Second, to take an existing innovation and apply it in a more valuable way. The story of Wisk is one of my favorites, which we discuss in this interview. Our guest is a master at reframing, teaching organizations how they can use this powerful approach. He also shared the tools of reframing in his book, What’s Your Problem, published by Harvard Business Review. His name is Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg and he has helped innovators across the globe. His contributions to innovation earned him the recognition as a “top 20 International Thinker.” Get ready for some reframing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  What is holding you back from greater success, from achieving what you want, from getting what you deserve? Now, this is not an infomercial for some new self-help fad. Instead, it is a grounded discussion about how you are holding yourself back and how to change that — to enable your success. Keep listening as Dana Wilde, host of The Mind Aware Show podcast and author of Train Your Brain describes practical ways to make your brain work better for you.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  There are different types of product managers. Not all product managers think they are building the future, but if they don’t do it, who will? I think product managers are the best equipped for building the future, but that can sound like a daunting challenge. If it sounds that way to you, keep listening as the founder of TrendHunter, Jeremy Gutsche, shares what you need to do to help your organization build the future. TrendHunter.com is the world’s largest, most popular trend community, leveraging big data, human researchers and AI to identify consumer insights and create new opportunities for the world’s most innovative companies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I enjoy learning about innovation and product management from companies that have been successful with it. I have investigated some success case studies in the past about LEGO, Wikipedia, IKEA, TripAdvisor, and Dyson. These and others are also used by our guest to describe Fearless Innovation, which is also the title of his new book. He is a repeat guest, having shared in episode 219 how Cisco innovates. He is also the Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Programs for Cisco. I expect you’ll find the insights from the case studies helpful.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Have you noticed leaders in your organization sound and look different from other employees? It’s not always true for all organizations, but leaders often talk differently — they are optimistic when they speak, they ask insightful questions, and they tend to focus on what is most important. To explore the topic of what leaders sound like – also known as, how to talk like a leader, I spoke with Tom Henschel, a professional actor who is now an executive coach. He works with clients primarily on achieving the look and sound of leadership. He’s a communication skills coach and has been running his company, Essential Communications, since 1990. Before that, Tom got his start as a professional actor after attending The Juilliard School and going on to perform in over a hundred plays and episodes of television. He was also a successful director and university teacher. He also has a monthly podcast, “The Look & Sound of Leadership,” which is a permanent member of the “What’s Hot” business podcast section on iTunes.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Have you been part of a Design Thinking or Design Sprint activity? I’ve used both approaches to explore customer problems, consider solutions, and create early prototypes of solutions. They’re great activities. But what happens after creating prototypes? These are intensive experiences, in the 2 to 5-day range. After they are over, what happens? A lot of times, the answer is not much. Creating a project to turn a prototype into a new product takes a lot more work. Our guest knows how to help. Douglas Ferguson is a human-centered technologist with 20+ years of experience. He is president of Voltage Control, an Austin-based workshop agency that specializes in Design Sprints and innovation workshops and formerly worked with Google Ventures. He’ll tell you what to do after the Design Sprint ends.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  You need to be using customer communities in your product management work. I was told that SEMRush, makers of a digital marketing platform, had created one of the most effective international communities — one that was not only valuable to product managers to learn about the needs of customers but also one that customers and influencers wanted to join. To explore how they build and use communities, I spoke with the Head of Global Marketing, Olga Andreinko. She currently leads all SEMrush branding across 50+ countries. In 2018 she was recognized among the 25 most influential women in digital marketing by TopRank. Most importantly for us, she shares her experience creating online and face-to-face communities in ways that specifically help product managers be more successful, creating products customers love.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Do you have a good idea for a product? As an Everyday Innovator, I’d say the chances are pretty good. Do you try to develop it yourself? What about joining forces with the company you work for? Or, a third, and very profitable option, is to license it. To explore licensing from the perspective of an Everyday Innovator with a good idea or from that of a company being pitched, this is the discussion for you. Even if licensing is not something you see in your future, you’ll find this discussion interesting. It is with Stephen Key, the world’s leading expert in licensing consumer product ideas. He is a repeat inventor, holder of numerous patents, and coach to people wanting help to license their product ideas. In addition to licensing, we discuss validating ideas, removing risk, and intellectual property concerns.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Like many product managers, my path to product management was rather accidental. After leading software product teams for 10 years, I discovered the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). This is the oldest professional association for product managers and innovators, building the body of knowledge for us for over 43 years. Yep, the product management discipline is not nearly as new as many people think. It has its roots back to 1930 formally at P&G and informally, longer than that. PDMA was where I first discovered frameworks and tools for product managers. It was a huge ah-ha moment for me, connecting and providing meaning to aspects of work that I had been doing. So, given PDMA’s impact on my career journey, I was so pleased when they told me that this podcast is the first, and so far only, they recommend for product managers and innovators. To talk about how they help product managers, I invited one of the leaders of PDMA to discuss the value of the professional association. Joining us is Mark Adkins, Vice Chair of PDMA. Mark is also the CEO and founder of LeanMed, a medical device company dedicated to bringing essential treatment to underserved parts of the world through innovative technologies. Every time I talk with Mark I am inspired and I hope you find this discussion does the same for you.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A CEO I worked for used the strategy to “create a plan for the plan.” When it appeared we were getting stuck trying to create a plan for the next big thing, he would tell me to schedule a meeting to make a plan for the plan — a meeting to discuss what would need to go into a plan since we don’t yet really know what the plan should be. It was a good strategy for taking action and moving forward. Our guest, the exceptionally well-known Steve Johnson, has a similar tool for product projects called the Planning Canvas. It is an organized canvas consisting of six categories for creating a product plan. I think you’ll find it helpful for your planning regardless of where you are in a project — the beginning, developing, or launching.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Turns out if you ask 50 different people what marketing is, you’ll hear 50 different answers. That is what our guest did to investigate what people think about marketing and how it fits into the work product managers do. Our guest is Jill Soley, a Silicon Valley strategic product and marketing executive. She currently leads Product Management at Obo, where she is working on agile product management software that aims to reduce the high failure rates for new products. She has two degrees from MIT and a ton of practical experience. Listen to understand the basic definition of marketing, marketing roles that may have resources useful to product managers, and how product managers can make better use of marketing resources. Also, we talk in the beginning about Jill’s experience developing the Adobe Creative Cloud — lots to learn just from that.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: There are a lot of people working on medical devices today. It has been a hot area now but I thought it would be interesting to talk with the CEO of a medical device company that started more than 100 years ago, in 1913. That is a company with four generations of history. The current CEO is Julie Charlestein and the company was founded by her great grandfather. The company is Premier Dental Products. Julie is well-respected in the industry and has served on dental medicine boards for several universities. We discussed a recent product they brought to market — one my dentist likely used on me recently – and how they went from initial idea to a successful launch.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This was an extra fun discussion to have because it gave me an opportunity to share some important insights from f2f interviews I have done but have not talked about much or ever on this podcast. It is also a special interview, as a leadership coach and friend, Russel Verhey, interviewed me for his podcast, Advance Leadership Conversations. Please check that out using your favorite podcast app by searching for Advance Leadership Conversations. In the discussion, you will learn: How this podcast started — it’s a great story if you haven’t heard it.Why Bob Tiffin of Tiffin Motorhomes focuses on customer service.How a software company flipper learned to build great teams.The most unusual McDonalds I have visited that puts customers first.Tips for talking with anyone.Tips for finding motivation.Tips for entrepreneurs with a product idea and what they should do first.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: You, your group, your company, and many other companies likely share a similar problem. It is a problem that is slowing both your success and organizational success. Our guest phrases it as not maximizing the goal impact of your project portfolio. I phrase it as merely doing too many projects for the resources available and not focusing on the projects that will make the most difference to the organization. My guest has a four-part framework for improving this and he shares it in this discussion. His name is Mike Hannan and he has helped many organizations more quickly create value for customers and themselves by applying this framework.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Do you like proverbs? I do. Proverbs are short general truths or pieces of advice. They can be a source of wisdom, which is why I read from the Bible book, Proverbs, most nights while I was in college. I was seeking wisdom. Proverbs come from many sources and some become common sayings, such as “measure twice, cut once” — wisdom for carpenters. Or, “look before you leap,” which is something many parents have shared with an impetuous child. I may have heard that one a few times myself. I also love innovation proverbs, and I found a book full of them. It’s titled, The Innovator’s Book: Rules for Rebels, Mavericks and Innovators. The author is Dr. Max Mckeown, an award-winning author and artist who seeks to make complex ideas practical for the real world. His research focuses on how to increase the successful adaptability of individuals, teams and organizations. We discuss a few favorite proverbs from the book.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Do you feel your time and attention being pulled in too many directions and what you want to get done is not getting done? I sure do. For me, focus has been getting more challenging as I am taking on new projects to help more product managers. I’ve needed to step back and do some meta work to better organize my time. This includes putting into practice what I learned from this interview — a discussion with Nir Eyal about the research he did to help him tackle the same issues. He synthesized what he learned in his latest book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Nir joined us the first year of this podcast, back on episode 030 to discuss how we can build habit-forming products. He is a writer, consultant, and teacher at the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. I love talking with him because he always has new insights for me. I needed this interview and I bet you do to.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Organizations are developing robust data science capabilities, adding the role of “data scientist” to their ranks. As the importance of data science increases in organizational strategy analysis and operations, it is also impacting product management. Product managers are being asked to work with data scientists. We are still at the forefront of this and figuring out how product management and data science intersect. To explore the topic, we are joined by two past guests who have been working at this intersection. In episode 117 Felicia Anderson shared how she was building a product management council at Piney Bowes and in 055, Rich Mironov shared how product managers can navigate organizational challenges. For the past year, they have been helping product managers work with data scientists. If this topic isn’t impacting your product work yet, it will in the future. This is information you need.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I have often discovered new insights about developing and managing products when talking with someone in a different industry than I normally work in. So, when I had the opportunity to talk with the creator of Dave’s Gourmet, a specialty foods company, I jumped at it. They make a wide range of products including Gourmet Pasta Sauce, Hot Sauce, Condiments and Spices. Dave Hirschkop is the founder and creative force behind Dave’s Gourmet. He joined us to discuss how to go from idea to award-winning food product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Everyday innovators see innovation opportunities frequently — making products better, improving processes, creating a new product, and solving problems. The word innovation can be phrased as “in-a-new-way.” It is a good reminder that we are making something new that did not previously exist. That means making changes, and most groups and organizations struggle with change. For innovators, that’s a tension — we are about making change while the organizations we work in are largely about resisting change. To help us understand how to help people make changes with us, I invited Dr. Barbara Trautlein to join us again. She is an Organizational Psychologist who has helped many leaders and organizations get better results by navigating change. She is also the creator of the Change Intelligence, or CQ, system, which she teaches others and wrote about in her best-selling book Change Intelligence: Use the Power of CQ to Lead Change That Sticks.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Our guest for this episode is Montie Roland. Montie used my online training course to prepare for, and pass, the New Product Development Professional exam, earning him the NPDP certification from PDMA, which is the oldest and most established professional group for product managers. After passing, he contacted me to discuss providing training to product managers in his company. This is a topic I always enjoy because I love helping organizations improve their product management capability and helping product managers further their skills and how they work with each other and the product team. As I talked with Montie, I also learned about his background, became fascinated by his experiences, and knew he had to join us here to share his stories and knowledge. Montie has pursued an entrepreneur path, building his own company, and an intrapreneur path working in an established company. He is a mechanical engineer with a ton of design experience. We talked about his experiences, including the pros and cons of working for yourself vs working for an organization.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: You have a lot of tools to help you learn about yours customers, such as customer visits, interviews, and surveys. One of my favorites is ethnography. I find some of the best insights, insights that competitors may have missed, come from observing customers. One form of this is called web ethnography and an expert at it, as well as other customer research tools, is Bill McDowell. He is a research practitioner, conducting customer research for a wide variety of customers in his role as COO of Accelerant Research. In this discussion, Bill breaks down the steps for putting web ethnography into use.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: During each podcast episode, I always share that this podcast is… “where product leaders and managers make their move to product masters, learning practical knowledge that leads to more influence and confidence so you’ll create products customers love.” That’s an important relationship: knowledge, influence, and confidence. We need those three things to be successful creating products. So, it’s not surprising that when I saw an article on the Mind the Product blog titled, “5 Tips for Product Managers Who Want to Influence Quickly,” it caught my attention. The author is Bridget McMullan, and she is here to discuss how we can quickly influence others whom we need to support our product ideas and plans. She is a partner at Upfront Work, a product management consultancy, and has spent more than 10 years developing and manufacturing innovative consumer products with Fortune 500 companies, including Foot Locker, Craftsman (Sears), Johnson & Johnson and others.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I bet you use data to support your suggestions. But guess what–you are probably not using data well. By itself, data does not communicate what we want others to do. Instead, it needs to be wrapped in a story — sort of a data-story sandwich! The person who knows how to do this is also one of the most recognized communication and persuasion experts around. We first talked with her back on episode 76 about how to structure your communication to make it easier for others to support your ideas. Her name is Nancy Duarte and she has been featured in numerous publications including Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company, and Wired. She is the person behind numerous TED talks and keynotes, helping people prepare for important presentations. Today we discuss the concepts from her new book, Data Story: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Dr. Joseph Michelli joined us a couple years ago in episode 147 to tell us how to create a great customer experience. This is his area of expertise and he has helped many organizations make better customer experiences. He is known by his many books examining the companies that are the best at this, including Mercedes-Benz, Starbucks, Zappos, Ritz-Carlton, and others. Now, his latest book examines one of the new economy unicorns, Airbnb and the book is titled The Airbnb Way.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Every company is wanting faster innovation, yet they often have systems that actually slow and limit innovation.  The framework and systems needed are a topic of a new book written by our guest, Katherine Radeka, and titled High Velocity Innovation: How to Get Your Best Ideas to Market Faster. The foreword to the book was written by the SVP of Product Design and Engineering at Keurig Dr Pepper, who shared that this book is for you “If you strive for more relevant innovation or want to outpace your competition.” That’s a good endorsement, and in our discussion, Katherine shares her innovation framework to make that happen

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Influence and persuasion is a core competency of successful product managers. It is also something that most product managers want more of — influence. You need it to get others to support your ideas and plans for improving products and making great new products. You also need it to make a larger impact on the organization. To make that happen, you need to understand and apply the six principles of influence. The person you would want to talk with is Dr. Matt Barney. He has over 25 years of experience leading the science and technology of leader development in senior global roles at multinationals such as Infosys, AT&T/Lucent Technologies, and Motorola. He is also the only Ph.D. Industrial-Organizational Psychologist to earn the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer certification, demonstrating his expertise in influence and persuasion. And that is why he is talking with us now, so you can improve your influence and have more impact on your organization.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The author of The Secret Product Manager Handbook, Nils Davis, joins us to discuss his tips for better presentations. He knows a lot about product management and communication, leveraging his experience as a tech writer before becoming a product manager. I expect you’ll enjoy the discussion and find tips you can put into immediate use to better influence through presentations.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  What was your last performance evaluation discussion like? Did you get the raise you wanted? What about a promotion negotiation? I’ve messed that up more times than I want to admit. I expected my work to speak for itself. I wasn’t actively managing my career. For product managers, you can think about managing your career like you would a product, navigating a path that best positions yourself for recognition, raises, and promotions that you deserve. That also means you are able to work on the projects that most interest you, participate in training opportunities, attend conferences, and get other resources you want. A properly managed career gives you control. To share how you can better manage your career, Farnoosh Brock joins us. After starting her corporate career at Cisco, she has become an expert on career management and growth as well as a personal coach who has helped many people build their careers. She shares valuable and specific tips so you can better manage your career.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: If your go-to tool for generating ideas with a group is traditional brainstorming, it is time to learn some new tools. Ideation tools are specifically for generating new ideas, such as ways to create additional value for customers, how a problem could be solved, or exploring directions for radical innovation. Some ideation tools can be used alone, but most are intended for small groups. In the discussion, you will learn several tools, including: SCAMPERBrainstormingMind mappingStoryboardingBrainwritingSix thinking hatsSWOTPESTLEDelphi

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This interview is about making better use of our time as product managers and it is with John Cutler, Product Evangelist at Amplitude. For the sake of time, let’s get right to the interview.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I’m someone who enjoys learning from books. I often find great tips I can apply from a good book, and that is just what I have for you. We are discussing a valuable new book titled Testing Business Ideas. It is full of practical experiments we can do as product managers to help us with problem-solution fit. These are experiments to find evidence for the hypotheses we have made and help us think more deeply about the assumptions surrounding a product concept. The book describes 44 different experiments along with why each is used and how to use it. It will be a very important book to be on your bookshelf and refer to when you need an experiment. The lead author is David Bland. He helps companies all over the world find problem-solution fit using lean startup, design thinking, and business model innovation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Many of the product leaders in companies creating integrated hardware/software products I’ve talked with this year are looking at ways to speed up their development process and add agility. So, I asked around who has the best experience with this and was referred to our guest and author of the book Scrum for Hardware, the first authoritative book on this emerging movement by the same name. His name is Paolo Sammicheli. He’s a licensed NLP Business Coach specialized in Scrum, Kanban, Design Thinking and Lean Startup, helping organizations uncover better ways of building products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Our discussions here all about helping product managers become product masters and being a product master means we also need mastery over our minds — what many people call our mindset. That is why I asked a mindset master, and my personal mindset coach for the last year, to be our guest today. His name is Dr. Nima. When I started mindset work, I thought it was a complete waste of time. It did not resonate with my mental wiring as an engineer. But, I started seeing value, which is what we talk about. Dr. Nima has had a busy schedule and he stopped into a coffee shop for us to talk. Consequently, there is background noise, but the discussion is worth putting up with it.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: During the month of July, 2019, I have been sharing some of the most favorite and valuable discussions from the first 100 interviews. I’ve added one more for the first week of August that is not to be missed. It was originally episode 071. —- This discussion is about Voice of the Customer (VOC). When it comes to VOC experts, there are only a handful of people that match the experience of my guest today, helping hundreds of companies with VOC research and training many more practitioners. His name is Gerry Katz. He is also the author of several published papers on the topic, a contributor to professional books, guest lecturer at MIT, Harvard, and other top schools. During the interview, you’ll hear us discuss: what VOC is and is not,the 4-step approach for using VOC, andtips for conducting VOC interviews.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: During the month of July, 2019, I’m sharing some of the most favorite and valuable discussions from the first 100 interviews. If you haven’t come across this one yet, it will make you a better communicator! It was originally episode 055. --- In this episode, I’m talking with the creator of an entire category of product innovation – one that significantly changed how I think about the process of innovation. Clayton Christensen said his approaches “bring discipline and predictability to the often random process of innovation.” The category of innovation is known as ODI, Outcome-Driven Innovation, now associated with Jobs-to-be-Done, and it was created by Tony Ulwick. When ODI was published in the Harvard Business Review, they declared it one of “the ideas that will profoundly affect business as we forge ahead in today’s complex times.” Tony also authored the best-selling book What Customers Want, explaining how the jobs-to-be-done framework is transformed into practice with ODI.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: During the month of July, 2019, I’m sharing some of the most favorite and valuable discussions from the first 100 interviews. If you haven’t come across this one yet, it will make you a better communicator! It was originally episode 055. — Rich Mironov is a legend in the world of product management. He is the founder of Product Camp, a collaborative unconference for product managers and marketers that has spread across the world. He also is the author of the book The Art of Product Management: Lessons from a Silicon Valley Innovator. Today he provides full-time and short-term product management direction to technology companies. While our discussion is in the context of software product management, much of the insights apply to product managers in any industry.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: During the month of July, 2019, I’m sharing some of the most favorite and valuable discussions from the first 100 interviews. If you haven’t come across this one yet, it will make you a better communicator! It was originally episode 010. —– Ash Maurya is the author of “Running Lean: How to Iterate from Plan A to a Plan that Works.” Educated as an electrical engineer, he worked in software development before founding his first company, WiredReach. He is now the founder and CEO of Spark59, which equips entrepreneurs to succeed by providing tools, content and coaching. I discovered his work when I was looking for additional information on the Business Model Canvas – a popular one-page approach to creating a business plan. I wanted a canvas to help me formulate a business model for a product and I discovered Ash’s Lean Canvas and Lean Stack tools that help entrepreneurs, startups, and product managers create products customers want.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: In this discussion, our guest, Jonathan Soares, shares his tips and tools for working with product teams. Jonathan is the CEO of Agency Labs, a group that creates custom software, apps, and websites. He has good experience applying tools to help product development teams work better.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Decision-making is part of every product manager’s toolkit. Think about what it would mean to have effective guidelines or laws for better decision-making. You could make simple decisions more quickly and decisively. You could have a more solid defense and reasoning for complicated decisions. You would also have less fatigue and stress related to making decisions. Those are important benefits of better decision-making. To help you create guidelines, our guest has learned the art and science of decision-making in a variety of high-stress and fast environments. He started as a design engineer and then moved to Wall Street to be a trader. He has placed his insights for decision-making into the book titled, The Laws of Trading, A Trader’s Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone.   His laws address issues in several categories, including: Risk,Edge,Costs,Technology,Alignment, andAdaptation. We discuss several of these.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: When I started this podcast I created the Product Mastery Roadmap that describes the path from product manager to product master. I’ve used it as a guide to the topics we explore here. Recently I updated it to better reflect the journey I have seen many of you and your colleagues taking towards mastery, focusing more narrowly on what is most important so you can progress more quickly. A pivotal element of this journey is the influence you have in your organization — influence to get others to support your ideas. Recently a fellow listener expressed this well when I asked him about how this podcast has helped him. He told me that “I have helped create a monster” because he now gets everything he asks his company for — that he has virtually zero barriers and almost no questions asked. That is influence. My guest has a different term for it, which he calls Innovation Capital. It is a concept he deeply explores in the book he co-authored by the same title. Innovation Capital is what you can build up over time that makes it easy for others to support you when you want to do something new. It consists of three components: Who you are,Who you know, andWhat you’ve done. In a sense, this is a personal brand building and is seen in the best innovators in all size organizations. For Everyday Innovators on the path to being a product master, this is one of the most important discussions you need to hear. I hope you enjoy it.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: ust about every organization I have worked with this year wants more agility in their product management processes. They want to get new products to market faster and release enhanced versions in less time. Product managers and leaders are feeling the pressure. To discuss practical ways to add agility and flexibility, our guest from episode 177 is joining us again, Colin Palombo. Previously, he shared how to create a hybrid agile stage-gate process. This time we get into even more specifics. Most organizations have some form of a stage-gate or phase-age approach to developing products, and for good reasons. After listening to this discussion, you’ll have ideas for adapting and improving your process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product roadmaps are one of the best-known tools and also the most misused by product managers. We have talked twice before with Bruce McCarthy, co-author of the book, Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty, to learn how to make roadmaps work for us instead of against us. The first time was in episode 169 (www.TheEverydayInnovator.com / 169), which was right after he wrote the book. Then we talked a year later, to see what he had learned since writing the book– episode 226 (www.TheEverydayInnovator.com / 226). This time we talk about the role of roadmaps in portfolio management. In the process, we discuss what a portfolio is, how portfolios can be created and managed, and how to construct a roadmap for a portfolio.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I love innovation stories of how a product came into being or was made more valuable. Our guest, Giles Lury, loves them too. So much, that he has written books with innovation stories, including his most recent one titled Inspiring Innovation: 75 Marketing Tales to Help You Find the Next Big Thing. Giles has worked on numerous innovation projects, leading to some major successes and, not surprisingly, the occasional failure. He has some good stories to tell.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Performing at your best requires a lot of mental dexterity. Product managers need every edge we can get to beat the competition and create successful products. To be at your best, you must also consider your health, and our guest, medical doctor Gus Vickery, is the go-to person for this. He is an expert at getting your body and mind performing well and his book Authentic Health provides the actions we can all take. He also goes further, helping individuals hack their health for even great performance. Optimize your health and use it to your advantage as a product manager and all aspects of your life.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Would you be interested to know what start-up founders with successful exits of up to $1.2B have in common? I know I would, because start-up founders share similarities with product managers. Indeed, many founders also take on the responsibility of product manager for their business. Our guest, Michelle Duval, shares the first 20-year study of what successful entrepreneurs and business builders do share in common. Further, the research has been applied to intrapreneurs — those Everyday Innovators in organizations who are striving to create more value for customers. The study is called Fingerprint for Success. Listen and learn what qualities are needed for your success. Also, you’ll hear about an assessment you can take in a few minutes to help you identify your key strengths.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: How should leaders actually lead innovation? This is a topic we explored back in episode 149 with Dr. Mike Mitchell, teacher and researcher for the Center for Creative Leadership. Then he was conducting research on the topic and discovering what organizational leaders need to do differently when they are involved with innovation projects. Now he has finished his research and has published a book with the findings, titled Supporting Innovators: Trust, Purpose, Partnership. The subtitles are the three areas where leaders need to approach innovation differently than they are used to, and they are also the three topics we discuss: TrustPurposePartnership  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: More and more product managers and innovators are bumping into IoT, the Internet of Things, as part of their current or future product roadmaps. I’m seeing a convergence of product forms. In the past, we may have categorized a product as being digital, physical, or service. Now it is more common to see all three categories associated with a product. Further, more of you have been asking for me to bring on an IoT product expert, which is why Daniel Elizalde is joining us. Daniel is an IoT product coach who helps Product teams develop an IoT product strategy. He has over 18 years of experience in managing the lifecycle of IoT products across several industries. He also has trained numerous product professionals through his consulting practice, online courses, and his popular course at Stanford University. In the discussion we cover: What is and is not IoTChallenges with IoT productsThe IoT Technology StackSix decision areas for product managers

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product roadmaps are frequently used badly, almost as handcuffs for product managers. A year ago we explored roadmaps and how they should be used with Bruce McCarthy. At the time, he had recently co-authored the book, Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty. Since writing the book, Bruce has been busy helping companies improve how they use roadmaps. I wanted to find out what more he has learned in the last year, which is what this discussion is about. We cover: What a product roadmap isWho the roadmap is forThe pitfalls of roadmapsThe inputs needed to create a roadmapHow to organize a roadmapHow to prioritize product features

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I’ve been looking forward to this discussion with Greg Satell since hearing he was working on a new book, titled Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change. Greg is an innovation author we first met back in episode 126, when he shared predictable patterns in different types of innovation. Now he is talking about how to create a movement around a product. A movement turns a valuable product into a super valuable sensation. Such products often appear to be overnight successes that come out of nowhere, but they are actually the result of the proper combination of actions that can lead to cascades (he’ll explain that) creating transformational change. There are many examples, but I remember when Toms Shoes became a big thing — it was like suddenly, everywhere you turned someone was talking about Toms Shoes. Greg will tell us how that happens and what is needed to make it happen. That’s something Everyday Innovators should be aware of.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Many of the companies I have worked with this year want to make their product development and management capability more agile. They sometimes express their current process is too linear, rigid, and heavy as well as not providing the shorter time-to-market they want. Most often they are using something that is of a stage-gate nature, but being more agile doesn’t mean throwing away a stage-gate framework. However, it does mean adopting agile philosophy and processes. This is what our guest, Mike Cohn has been doing for more than 20 years — building high-performing software development teams and organizations through the use of agile and Scrum. He’s worked with startups and some of the largest organizations in the world and has valuable experience to share with us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A lot of new products are announced at trade shows and other events, such as CES for consumer electronics, International Builders Show for construction materials, and the National Association of Music Merchants for all things musical. For many product people, participating in their industry trade show each year is one of the most important things they do. The real pros who know how to launch products at trade shows are the ones who know how to compete for attention in noisy and crowded environments. It’s a real skill. They quickly capture interest and generate opportunities. Consequently, they have knowledge and experience Everyday Innovators should have as well. Which is why I spoke with one of the handfuls of people who large brands trust to announce their products at trade shows. She is Amy McWhirter, corporate event host, emcee, and trade show presenter. Her superpower is engaging audiences in an authentic way that creates connection.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Are your products not generating the revenue they should be just because you didn’t price them right? Pricing is a key concern of not only product managers and leaders but also the executives of organizations. Knowing the right price for a product is a challenge, especially if the product is new to the market. But, how to you determine the right price? If your pricing strategy resembles a dart board, there is a better way. You just need to know the steps and what data to collect to determine the right price. Our guest, CEO and co-founder of ProfitWell, Patrick Campbell, is a pricing pro and he shares the steps to determining the price of any product. Before founding ProfitWell, he served as an Economist at Google.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This is a listener requested episode. Several Everyday Innovators have asked, “What are the qualities of a good product manager?” While many listeners are already good product managers, a little self-reflection from time to time on your strengths and how to be an even better product manager is valuable to your career as well as to those who you work with. One listener put this in a different light and asked who should not be a product manager. I thought that was a really insightful question. So, the following discussion addresses both topics:  qualities of a good product manager and who should not pursue a career in product management. To help us explore these topics, our guest is Marc Abraham, coordinator at ProductTank and author of the book My Product Management Toolkit: Tools and Techniques to Become an Outstanding Product Manager.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I love hearing how companies improve their innovation capabilities and foster a culture of innovation. Anytime I hear such stories, I always find lessons for how other organizations can also improve their capability. In my experience, this best occurs by enabling the largest number of employees to participate in innovation activities. More employees thinking and acting like innovators results in more innovation for the organization. Cisco has had a program for the last four years that is built around an Innovation Challenge and Innovation Centers. It grew out of work with startups that expanded to Cisco employees. To learn about this, our guest is the Managing Director of the Cisco Innovation Centers, Alex Goryachev. Alex enjoys turning disruptive concepts into emerging business models. He has a good cross-functional background for doing so, serving in senior roles in product development, marketing, finance, and sales.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Two spheres of capabilities are needed for product managers to be successful. One is competency in the processes, practices, and tools of product management. That is where I spend much of my time helping product managers and teams. The other sphere is competency in what is often called the soft skills and aligned with leadership. It is this sphere that many people find more difficult to master, especially those of us from technical backgrounds. But, without these competencies, you are severely limiting your potential. My passion is inspiring and equipping product managers and leaders. To that end, this is one of the most important discussions we have had yet on this podcast. At one point in the discussion with our guest, my passion for helping you and other product managers came out in the form of a few tears. Hopefully, that will make sense when you hear it. My guest is Paresh Shah, who is pursuing his passion of helping engineers transform into innovators, intrapreneurs, and inspiring leaders. Paresh taps into his experience as a mechanical engineer, Harvard MBA, serial entrepreneur, leadership coach, and other roles to inspire you to future-proof your career, innovate more efficiently, and advance faster.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Many companies have faced disruption. Of course, Uber and Airbnb are the poster children of disruption, but there are many more. Kodak was displaced by the digital camera. Blockbuster’s physical doors could not stay open in the face of Netflix’s virtual service. Borders Books failed in the wake of Amazon. Some companies have also managed to continue in the face of industry disruption, such as Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. What companies, both big and small, established and startup, can do to avoid disruption is the topic of this discussion. Our guest is Dr. Thales Teixeira, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and research of digital disruption. He has a new book examining disruption titled Unlocking the Customer Value Chain. We discuss how value is now being created for customers.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Figuring out what your customer wants and needs from your product or service is the heart of product management. That is the beginning of how we create products that customers love. And, there are tools to help you do that. In this discussion, you will learn about a tool that has been available for a few years, but I rarely find product leaders and managers using it. It’s called the Value Proposition Canvas. We explored the concept of value proposition back in episode 123 with Alex Osterwalder. Now we talk with his co-founder Alan Smith. Together they started Strategyzer, which may be best known for their award-winning books Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design and related training. Alan is a multitalented designer and UX professional. He loves building tools to help drive strategy and innovation in organizations, which makes him a great person to talk with us, Everyday Innovators. The Value Proposition Canvas consists of two sides: customer segment profile, andthe value map 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Let’s face it, the smartest people don’t all work in your organization. The thought has been shared by many leaders, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and is originally attributed to Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and UNIX contributor. He said, “The smartest people in the world don’t all work for us; most of them work for someone else.” To benefit from the creativity of smart people who are external to your organization, you need a way to find and attract them to contribute their brain power. There are time-tested ways to accomplish this, including traditional open innovation, incubators, and startups. Another approach is a partner program. Ford Motor Company has used this approach for decades. By continuously learning and improving, they are a leader in the approach with answers for others considering a partner program. To explain how their system works and tips for implementing a partner program, Ed Krause joins us. He is the Global Manager External Alliances Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford Motor Company. He has global responsibility for developing cutting edge technology and competitive advantage for Ford by developing relationships and collaborative projects involving universities and partner companies. Anyone interested in open innovation or a more formal partner program will find this discussion valuable.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Recently I was helping the product leaders and managers in a large non-profit organization improve their performance. When we discussed the use of MVPs, minimal viable products, one question asked was if the MVP approach applies to services. The answer is yes, and our guest shares an example that led to a new recycling business. The MVP approach, or if you prefer, the MVE for minimal viable experiments, is a significant philosophical shift for some people. It means doing the minimum needed to learn what creates value for a customer–aligned with solving a problem or satisfying a job they want done, before creating a complete product. I think of it as a series of small, fast, and inexpensive experiments that help us learn what a product should be. Our guest is Abdo Riani, serial entrepreneur and founder of StartupCircle, which connects successful entrepreneurs with rising founders to help them move their ideas and businesses forward with actionable and relevant advice.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The principles of Lean-Driven Innovation lead to more value for customers and faster value capture (e.g., revenue) for organizations. The principles can be applied to any industry, but for our guest, they grew out of the R&D and product development practices at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Our guest is Norbert Majerus, who was the Lean Champion in Innovation at Goodyear, where he worked for nearly 40 years before recently retiring. Now he enjoys sharing his experience with others. He captures much of the practices he learned in his new book, Lean-Driven Innovation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Many product managers and product marketers are using surveys incorrectly. We like surveys because they are relatively quick and inexpensive compared to other tools, such as customer interviews. While they can help us confirm what we think are the needs of customers and provide customer experience information, they are not something most customers look forward to participating in. My guest has a different experience. He creates surveys that not only have insanely high response rates but that actually create more loyal customers. Imagine that–surveys as a tool to make loyal customers. He is Matt Champagne, researcher, university professor, author, serial entrepreneur, and most importantly a survey and feedback expert. He has implemented systems in more than 600 organizations to drastically improve customer retention, learning, and performance. We discuss his 9 Principles of Customer Feedback. Get Matt’s infographic that helps to explain the system.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: How would you like to get more done this year? That begins by getting more done today and our guest has the four-part framework for making that happen. This is not just another time management approach, but what the creators and authors of the Google Design Sprint found to be the practices to get more done. Our guest is John Zeratsky co-author of Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, He previously wrote the New York Times bestseller Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, which describes the Google Design Spring process invented by Jake Knapp. By the way, Jake is the other co-author of the four-part Make Time framework we are about to discuss in detail.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: o you know which customers are most likely to stop using your product in the next month? Or, what actions your best customers take with your product when they start using it? With the right data, product managers not only know the answers to such questions, but they also know what actions to take to keep customers and a whole lot more. This is the area of predictive analytics and our guest is Brian Brinkmann, the VP of Products for a company involved in the revolution of business intelligence tools, leading to greater predictive capabilities. That company is Logi. Brian is the perfect person to learn predictive analytics from because he is also a classic product manager, recognizing the value of customer interactions along with predictive data.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  If you have ever thought that a project you worked on had too much drama and unnecessary conflict — that the project should have been easier for everyone involved — then this episode is for you. We explore how to have less stressful projects by using Projectopia, our guest’s 8-step method project planning. With this method, he says you can crush your big projects; and you can do it without stress, and with clarity, direction, and efficiency. In addition to our discussion about how to use Projectopia, you can get a free guide… >>> Just click here for the free Projectopia Guide Our guest is Andy Rosic, currently the Innovation Product Manager at Home Depot, mentor to startups, and former founder of software companies.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Could it be that innovation is simple? I did say simple, not easy. The two words are often confused. A completed activity can be viewed as simple when the processes involved are known. No one that has been on innovation projects would say it was easy. The activities and processes that allow us to uncover a customer problem or invent a new technology, develop solutions, and ultimately launch products customers love are challenging, but they are not a mystery. We discuss them on this podcast frequently. Several frameworks exist to help make what is certainly not easy approachable and ultimately simple. Our guest shares a 9-part framework she used as a Fortune100 Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer. With it, you might see how innovation can actually be simple. Our guest is Amy Radin, a nationally recognized thought leader on how to deliver innovation for sustainable, business-changing impact. The framework we’ll discuss is also the topic of her new book, The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company.s

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Do you lead a product team or are you part of a team that should improve performance? I’ve been helping product teams and groups of product managers accomplish that — get higher performance. When I ask them why they need to improve performance, I typically hear one of four answers, with the most common being to create more of a customer focus. I also wanted to hear from product VPs and Directors that I haven’t worked with yet. So, I contacted several and received answers from 91 product leaders. You’ll find the results not only interesting but also valuable, as you will hear how other product professionals think about improving their teams and what is most important to your performance. For example, should you focus on revenue or customer value? To help me share the information, I am joined by our guest from episode 174, Colleen Knuff, a Senior Director of Product Management. But this time she is interviewing me, taking the role of host. In addition to the reasons product leaders give for improving team performance, we also discussed: why this podcast is named The Everyday Innovator,where I developed my passion for helping product managers and teams improve their performance, andthe value of personality assessments.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: You are in for a delightful and important discussion with our guest today. She was named a Top 100 Leadership Speaker for 2018 and is here to tell us how we can have a happier workplace. Is there anyone who doesn’t want that? Maybe you are the 1 in a million person who says my workplace is happy enough, it provides all the enjoyment and contentment I need. But, for the rest of us, I bet you would… Appreciate feeling significant in your organization,Knowing the work you do truly matters,Being in an environment that feels safe and one where you belong, andComing home energized, not worn out after a rough day. We spend more of our waking hours at work than anywhere else. Those hours should be great, even awesome. Let’s find out how to make that happen with Kris Boesch, the CEO of Choose People, a group that helps organizations build extraordinary workplace cultures.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Do you participate in launch planning, or what may also be called go-to-market planning? In some organizations, product managers are directly involved, but not always, and that is a waste. You’ll hear why in this discussion, along with six elements addressed by a go-to-market strategy: Defining the target marketCreating a compelling reason for customers to buyDetermining the pricing strategyCrafting the positioningConducting competitive analysis, andPreparing to launch. Discussing go-to-market strategy is repeat guest, Mike Smart. He is a product management practitioner and founder of Egress Solutions, which helps companies implement product management best practices that build and launch successful products. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: What happens when you or your organization has more than one product to manage? It’s hard enough managing resources to sell and improve one product, but throw another one in the mix and see what happens. Or how about several more products? Managing all those products is a challenge, and frankly, few organizations do it well. They use portfolio management to provide some order to the chaos, but for real order and reasoned decision making, my guest has been teaching people for the last decade to use Dynamic Portfolio Management. His name is Roger Warburton and he is a co-author, along with Steve Kay, of the recent book titled, Dynamic Portfolio Management: The Bargery Fabrics Case. Roger and I have both had the pleasure of teaching at Boston University, full-time for him and part-time for me. His integration of project management, product management, and strategy makes him the right person to learn proper portfolio management from. In the discussion, Roger shares the: History of portfolio management,Challenges companies encounter with traditional portfolio management,Implementation of Dynamic Portfolio Management, andRoad mapping for portfolio management. As product managers take on more responsibility and become product leaders, you’ll need to know how to construct and manage a portfolio and the best approach is Dynamic Portfolio Management.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:   Product managers and leaders can have a dramatic influence on an organization. Our influence extends beyond the revenue generated by the products we help create. We have an uncommon perspective in organizations as our work requires significant cross-functional interactions and knowledge of other functions. The combination of our capabilities and experience means we should be part of transformations in our organizations, improving what is in our sphere of influence from our group to the entire organization. My guest is co-author of the new book, Leading Transformation, was also the Executive Director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, and is now the CEO and co-founder of Uncommon Partners. He is Kyle Nel and he shares some great insights in this discussion, including: how to envision the future by literally using science fiction,using story and narrative to influence others,turning barriers to innovation into allies, andpersonal transformation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I am wrapping up a 3-month road trip through the Northeast of the U.S., allowing me to meet many innovators and product managers. I had a few experiences, including visiting Niagara Falls, that rekindled an interest for me in historic innovators, including Nikola Tesla, often thought of as the person behind how electricity is created and distributed. I went looking for a Tesla historian that could help us understand this innovator and what we as modern innovators and product managers can learn from him. My search led me to award-winning author, Bernie Carlson. Bernie wrote Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age and is well recognized for his research on Tesla as well as other historic innovators. He is a professor and the Director of Engineering Business Programs at the University of Virginia. In the interview you’ll hear about Tesla and what we can learn from him, including: navigating creativity,understanding illusion and storytelling to sell your ideas,which modern innovator shared characteristics with Tesla, andthe balance of invention and business skills innovators need.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This podcast is named The Everyday Innovator and I call the people who listen Everyday Innovators. That has meaning. Everyday Innovators see the world a little bit differently. We actively look for problems and unmet needs, recognizing that those are opportunities to create value for customers. Our mental wheels are constantly spinning, thinking about how we can make existing products better and create new products that wow customers. In short, where we find our most energy and satisfaction is creating products that customers love. So, when I saw a new book titled, Deliver Great Products That Customers Love, I knew I had found a kindred Everyday Innovator and I asked him to talk with us. The author of the book is Valerio Zanini. He has created products and led product teams for Fortune 500 companies including Cisco and Capital One, advised several small and medium businesses, and founded a Product Innovation, Design Thinking and Agile coaching practice called 5D Vision. He also has an awesome Italian accent, which you’ll hear in a moment.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  There are several thousand product managers on LinkedIn and many of them are women. However, I noticed that few product VPs are women. About the same time, I attended a “Women in Product Management” panel at Rocky Mountain Product Camp, moderated by Shaughnessy Speirs. Afterward we discussed how few product VPs are women and how it would be valuable to have a panel discussion focused on women in senior product roles. Shaughnessy ran with the idea and organized another panel a few months later for a conference called Denver Startup Week and I had it recorded to share with you. Four leaders joined the panel. Shawna Barnhart, Product Management Leader and Former VP of Product at Artifact UprisingHolly Vezina, Director of Product at APR ConsultingJenn Dearth, Product at StediAnn Koerner, Adjunct Professor of Product Management at DU and Former VP of Product at GutCheck Our moderator, Shaughnessy Speirs, has been a product manager in several software organizations with depth in agile software development and business analysis. This is a longer discussion. The panel responds to Shaughnessy’s questions for the first 30 minutes and the remaining time they respond to audience questions.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I have a special episode for you. I believe that as product managers and innovators, we have a responsibility to help prepare the next generation of innovators. I’ve explored this topic in a few past episodes and it is time to do it again. So, this episode is about encouraging you and providing you with ideas for helping future innovators. For this discussion, I traveled to a study room on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I met with a new student, 17-year-old Kyle Markland. While being accepted to MIT is a significant accomplishment itself, what Kyle is known for is his robotic video tutorials. He is a kid teaching kids. His story is an inspiration to Everyday Innovators, as we can also encourage an interest in robotics and other STEM topics, as well as innovation in general, by sharing our experiences.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I’m still on my road trip of the northeast U.S. and made a stop in Bristol, Pennsylvania. What took me to this small town was a video series called The Small Business Revolution. This is a reality show where small businesses in small towns get help from business experts, and I have become a groupie, visiting each town where the series has been made. Season three was just launched and you can find it along with the previous seasons on Hulu or at www.smallbusinessrevolution.org. Product managers and innovators are the heroes of companies, creating products customers love, and in turn generating revenue that pushes the economy forward. That’s what being an Everyday Innovator is all about. And, small business owners are the heroes of small towns. I love the stories that this video show examines, and the story behind its creation also has good lessons for Everyday Innovators. The show is produced by Deluxe Corp and I caught up with their VP of Public Relations, Cam Potts, to discuss the making of the show.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Creating a new product starts with excitement and the thrill of doing something different. The launch of the product is surrounded by cheers. For many product managers, it is the best part of their work. But between the project start and the launch is where the hard work occurs. It is the messy middle, full of rocky terrain that is woefully underestimated and misunderstood. The Messy Middle is also the name of a new book by my guest, Scott Belsky. Scott is the chief product officer of Adobe and founder of Behance, the leading creative network used by more than 12 million professionals. Scott has guided many teams through the messy middle of new product projects and ventures. In the interview, we’ll address a few of the topics from this book, including: Build your narrative before your product,Make one subtraction for every addition,Do the work that needs to get done—even if it’s not your job, andIdentify what you’re willing to be bad at.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I am on a road trip through the northeast of the U.S., talking with innovators and product managers. At the encouragement of a friend, I took my two kids to visit The Henry Ford, a museum of innovation near Detroit. It was created by Henry Ford as a tribute to his friend Thomas Edison. It’s an amazing place to learn about things I love — inventions and innovations. I’m bringing you a small slice of it in this episode, discussing a few innovators with a focus on three: Thomas Edison,Steve Wozniak, andSteve Jobs. My guest is Dr. Kristen Gallerneaux, Curator of Communications and Information Technology at The Henry Ford. Kristen is responsible for the development of collections and experiences relating to computing, sound, broadcast, graphic communication, office equipment, photography and motion images, and other such areas related to technology. She is also an artist, with her media being sound. She recently released a new book from MIT Press titled High Static, Dead Lines: Sonic Spectres and the Object Hereafter, which is a literary mix tape exploring boundaries in sound, culture, and belief.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I’m currently on a tour through the northeast of the US, visiting product managers and innovators. On my way, I stopped in Minneapolis and found an incredible innovation case study at Deluxe Corporation. You’ll hear from Chris Clausen, Executive Director, how this company that is more than a century old is avoiding being disrupted by embracing innovation. He’ll share: why they had to innovate,how they discovered the new product and market opportunity,how they decided what to build and what to buy to make the product a reality,that the innovation was viewed by many in the organization as cannibalizing their main business, much in the same way as Kodak viewed work on digital cameras as cannibalizing their core business, andhow they used customer testimonies to sell the innovation internally. It’s a fabulous story with many lessons. The written summary of our discussion is at www.TheEverydayInnovator.com/194.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Being a good product manager requires a diverse set of skills, including communicating, influencing, design, technology, product process, and business acumen. New product managers and not-so new product managers have lots of opportunities to make mistakes. When you can, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others. That is why I invited Cole Mercer to join us and discuss common mistakes and how to avoid them. Cole has a very popular course on Udemy for people wanting to get into product management or who are brand new to it. He also is creating training on LinkedIn Learning for new product managers. I also want to tell you about the fastest growing conference for software product management. It is coming up soon, Oct 2-3, 2018 and you still have time to register. It’s called INDUSTRY and they have several product experts (many you will know from listening to this podcast) lined up to share their experience. Everyday Innovators can register for the conference for 30% off. Just use the code EverydayInnovator when you register. Find all the details at www.INDUSTRYconference.com. Now to the discussion for avoiding product management mistakes.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Creating products customers love. If you are like most product managers and innovators, that is your motivation to do great work — the work of product management. It is our common thread and a distinguishing characteristic of Everyday Innovators. Every day we are looking for problems we can solve in ways that create more value for customers. That means we have to understand customers’ problems, what they want to accomplish, what they want to avoid, and how they want to feel. When we are doing our job really well, we know our customers better than they know themselves. Part of that job is asking customers questions – the right questions that help us discover information that ultimately leads to products they will love. This is an area Rachel Wynn knows a good deal about. She is a product manager and communication expert I met at Rocky Mountain ProductCamp in Denver, Colorado. She joins us to share her guidelines for asking great questions, which are organized into a framework of three areas, which she calls: Grace,Bias, andPivot.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Creating products customers love feels like juggling a whole lot of balls at one time. It can be chaotic. It’s also a good bet that people on your product team, and most certainly in your organization outside the core team, have different understandings of what the product is about. It’s a real challenge to keep everyone on the same page. The tool that brings order to the chaos is vision. The product vision is like the guiding northern light for the product team, keeping everyone moving in the same direction. It is the responsibility of the product manager to create and share the product vision. Yet, it is not easily done. Very few great product vision examples exist. Thankfully for us, my guest knows how to create product vision and has done so many times. He is Jon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive. Jon’s expertise is from driving innovation through design thinking from his work designing hundreds of digital experiences with organizations in a variety of industries.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product managers need to be high achievers and many are. They are the driving force that discover unmet needs customers have, creating value through their product work. The work is both demanding and fulfilling. To be a high achiever, you can learn from those who already are. High achievers have some things in common. Knowing how they think and what they do can help you. My guest, Arthur Carmazzi, wrote the book on high achievers, titled The Six Dimensions of a Top Achiever. Arthur is the founder of Directive Communication Psychology and is ranked among the top-10 leadership thought leaders by Global Gurus. In our discussion he shares six dimensions of top achievers: Failure-proofDisciplineMotivationPersuasionVisibilityFinances  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  UX is a hot topic and for good reason. The right UX skills on a product team can make the product more successful. The wrong skills waste money and time. Many product managers and leaders make mistakes when adding UX roles to their product teams — but you won’t be one of them because of this discussion. My guest shares the common mistakes and how to avoid them. He organizes UX skills into three categories: research, interaction design, visual design. Using the right skill at the right time during the development of the product is important. Otherwise, you’ll encounter the square peg in the round hole problem and no one is happy with that. My guest has been a product manager and is a UX specialist with more than 15 years of experience. He has built UX teams from scratch and now helps organizations build and manage successful teams. His name is Sam Horodezky.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Learning how to best work with a product team or organization requires taking the right action and avoiding mistakes. Your opportunities to a make a good first impression are limited, so you need to make the most of them. Most product managers will work with a new team from time to time and many will change organizations. It turns out the tips for managing these transitions also apply to your daily work – tips to help you be a better product manager. To explore transitioning well, Gavin Feuer joins us. He is now a senior product manager for T-Mobile, recently making the transition from Amazon. Gavin brings a strong entrepreneurial mindset to the role of product manager, which you’ll hear in the interview. His Amazon colleagues shared that his superpower is the ability to “think big.” He’s happy to help people who have a really big idea think more deeply about it. He also is a volunteer mentor to undergraduate students at the University of Washington, always willing to take on the right motivated mentee that is new to product management.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: To be a great product manager, do you also need to be a great actor? No, but there are lessons from acting that will make you a better product manager. While I have no acting experience, not even school plays, I have talked with several actors who became business coaches. It was not an obvious career path until I learned from each of them how their acting skills transferred to skills others need off the stage. They apply practices from acting to help business professionals and leaders. So, when I saw an article in Mind the Product titled, “Oh the Drama! What Product Managers can Learn From Actors,” I eagerly read it. The author, Alison Kemp, shared seven areas where acting techniques can help product managers, which she called: Thinking on Your FeetHigh-Performance TeamsCreative Thinking and InnovationActive ListeningPausingStorytelling, andIdentity I asked Alison to join us to discuss some of these techniques. It proved to be a fun and insightful discussion with important tips for product managers and innovators. Alison is the founder of Switchvision, which helps clients become more effective communicators, presenters, and interviewers by applying techniques from business, theatre, and psychology.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: We have a great topic for this discussion, addressing a question several Everyday Innovators have asked before, which is… “How do I get my manager to pay for product management training?” My guest will share the right and the wrong ways to get your manager and organization to support your professional development. He is Matt Burns, an HR executive and winner of Canada’s Most Innovative Use of HR Technology award.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: What products do you use that you love? Think of a product that you are glad to tell other people about. You share how it helps you solve a problem or get a task down. Or, maybe how the product makes you feel. It might be your phone, a perfectly balanced and beautifully designed pen, a pocket knife that makes you feel just a little more self-reliant, or, in my case, the Paragon induction cooktop that allows me to make perfect omelets my wife and kids rave about. Great products are ones that we love. They create emotions in us that go beyond satisfaction, extending to true delight. Creating products that customers love is what product management is about, and also just happens to be the central theme for all of you who are Everyday Innovators. It is why this podcast exists and is the focus of this episode. I explore the topic with Todd Olson, co-founder of Pendo, a capability for creating product experiences customers can’t live without. Before starting Pendo, Todd was VP Products at Rally Software and has been a co-founder for two other companies. He was also recently announced as an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year finalist. Todd knows a lot about developing software, founding and building companies, and creating products customers love.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: If you have ever had to explain what you do as a product manager to people you work with, you are in good company. Most product managers find this necessary. Further, the role means different things in different organizations. The leaders of your organization may have a perspective of the role that is not really accurate, or as I have seen more often, they don’t understand the leverage the role provides them. In this discussion, we explore what organizational leaders need to understand about the role of product manager. But, we don’t stop there as product managers also need to have a clear understanding of the needs of the organization. This discussion will help you better talk to the leaders of your company about your role and to understand your very important role more deeply. To discuss the topic, I invited Kirsten Butzow to join us. She is a product veteran, serving as VP Product Management at Person and Blackboard and has held other product roles. Now she is a product coach for Pragmatic Marketing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Experienced product managers benefit from what they learned from previous successes and failures. That experience is valuable. However, they can also pick up some bad habits along the way. Some bad habits may be from a lack of knowing better but others come from routine and a “this is how we do it”-sort of mentality that too often develops over time in many organizations. The first step to correcting bad habits is recognizing them and my guest is helping us with that. She is Alicia Dixon, senior product manager at Hilton. Alicia is involved with mobile and digital product innovation. Further, she volunteers for ProductCamp DC and shared aspects of our topic at recently at ProductCamp Silicon Valley. Also, both Alicia and I have found value in product management training and certification. I began the interview asking her about this, as she currently has five product management certifications, which is more than anyone else I know. We both share the value we have found in earning certifications and why we encourage others to earn them as well. It has something to do with “ah ha” moments.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product management is a highly cross-functional role. Product managers work with product teams, R&D, engineering, marketing, finance, and others, but the one group that is most often discussed, especially in B2B organizations, is sales. You’ll hear about it at product management meetups, such as how a salesperson keeps asking a product manager to do product demos for customers or how the sales team won’t sell the existing product but some feature that hasn’t even been discussed yet. This creates tension between sales and product managers, but it can also be a very positive relationship. Salespeople can get product managers access to companies for customer site visits and other customer research. They can be a source of earlier indications of a new trend forming or an old trend changing. To understand how product management and sales can work better together, Ian Moyse is here to discuss the topic with us. Ian has a technical background with a product mindset and a passion for sales. He is currently the Sales Director for Natterbox, a UK-based Cloud Telphony company. He also received the UK Sales Director of Year award from Institute Sales & Marketing. He shares what sales wants from product management and how the two functions can work well together.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: In this discussion, we bring some mature thinking to the topic of maturity. The product life cycle consists of five phases — introduction, growth, maturity, decline, and retire. Successful products make it to maturity, and if properly managed, can generate profit for your organization for a long time. However, managing maturity comes with many challenges that are not present in the earlier stages of the product life cycle. My guest helps us understand the issues and how to avoid them. She is Janna Bastow, co-founder of ProdPad,  and co-founder of Mind the Product including MindTheProduct.com, ProductTank, and ProductCamp London. ProdPad creates tools for product managers for road mapping, backlog management, and customer feedback.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Today’s topic is the product management of APIs — application program interfaces that enable software systems to share information and interact. In the past I have thought of APIs as a part of a software system. It’s another activity on a project schedule to complete in the process of creating a software system that needs or provides an API. Our guest convinced me to think differently about APIs–to think of them as a product and to manage them as such. He has been involved in a few API projects, currently working for Ford and creating an API for Lyft (and others) that will be used by autonomous vehicles. Our guest is Bryan Hicks, senior product manager at Ford Motor Company. He has also worked at SAP, AT&T, and has been an innovation consultant. Even if you are not a software product manager, I expect you’ll find the discussion valuable, particularly in examining the different categories of customers for a product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product management and innovation is about creating value for customers by solving a problem they have. We accomplish this through a tangible product or an intangible service. Done correctly, we have a proper product-market fit — a product that satisfies the needs of a specific market. Finding the correct product-market fit is the tricky part. It is also the topic of my guest’s book, titled The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback. The other is Dan Olsen, an entrepreneur, consultant, and Lean product expert. Dan has worked with a range of businesses, from small, early-stage startups to large public companies, on a wide variety of web and mobile products. Prior to consulting, Dan worked at Intuit, where he led the Quicken product team to record sales and profit.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This is where you make your move from product manager to product master. A product master means having the influence you want and need to drive product strategy. Product masters are leaders. You make that move by listening to this podcast. And I appreciate that you are because organizations need you — product masters. This discussion is focused on another tool to help you become a product master and accelerate your career. It is a study group approach you can facilitate with a group of product people in your organization. My guest calls them Group Directed Learning experiences. He has been using them for years and found them to be a very effective way to learn and apply new concepts. It is also a tool I have been using for many years with groups. It results in personal ownership of what is being learned and real behavior change that increases performance.  It is actually how I met my guest. He participated in a public study group I facilitated for product managers and then brought the approach to his organization. He uses it each year as part of the training for new product managers. My guest is John Spero, a chemical engineer who has worked in research and development, operations, and business management for several companies and in several industries. He is now at Praxair. He is a certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) from PDMA and a certified scrum master from Scrum Alliance.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Many medium to large organizations are adopting agile practices, such as the use of Scrum. Some are having more success with the adoption than others. Most of these organizations are also using some form of stage-gate for the development of new products. When done right, stage-gate reduces risk, reduces time to market, and increases the return on innovation investment. For the more than 80 percent of U.S. companies using stage-gate, the idea of replacing it with agile is often not warmly embraced. Instead, a hybrid agile stage-gate process is a more reasonable place to start. My guest, Colin Palombo, has been helping organizations using stage-gate to move to a hybrid agile stage-gate process and enjoying many benefits for doing so while keeping the framework they are familiar with. It’s a win-win. Colin is a managing partner and co-founder of two innovation consulting firms — Innovation Framework Technologies and Bizmotion. I met Colin at the annual PDMA conference and enjoyed his insights for making stage-gate more agile. I hope you do as well.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This is where you make your move from product manager to product master. That is the move to being a product leader in your organization or the organization you want to work with. Being a leader involves creating vision and providing meaning to those you work with. It is the topic of Fred Kofman’s new book, The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership. Fred is a leadership development adviser at Google and former vice president of executive development and leadership philosopher at LinkedIn. He earned his Ph.D. in advanced economic theory at U.C. Berkeley and taught management accounting and control systems at MIT for six years before forming his own consulting company and teaching leadership workshops for major corporations and 15,000 executives. Sheryl Sandberg writes about him in her book Lean In, claiming Kofman “will transform the way you live and work.” We discuss: Why organizations loseHow organizations can winThe 3-part framework for creating a meaningful culture, andHow product managers can deal with conflict. If you are on the path to being a product master, you’ll appreciate Fred’s genuine approach to becoming a leader.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A new book by O’Reilly Press discusses product management for B2B software applications. It’s titled Building for Business. Much has been written about product management and the development of software products, but little that specifically addresses the characteristics of the B2B environment. The authors join this episode to discuss how product management is different for enterprise software products, including: Differences in consumers from B2B and B2CThe impact a direct sales team hasHow the scale of enterprise customers impacts product workThe need for effective collaborationUsing organizational knowledge The authors are Blair Reeves and Ben Gaines. Blair is a Principal Product Manager at SAS Software and has previously held senior roles at Demandware (now a Salesforce company) and IBM. Ben is a Group Product Manager for Adobe Analytics and previously managed digital analytics at ESPN.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  How do you know what products you should build? What products will delight customers? The answer isn’t a mystery and has been expressed by numerous past guests. One that stands out is Ben Brenton, Chief Innovation Officer at Snap-on Tools, who shared that he takes their product teams to meet with customers four days a week. That is the recurring theme–time with customers to understand what will delight them. It is often expressed as voice of the customer, or VoC, research. My guest has put VOC into practice with great results. She is the Senior Director of Product Management for TeamMate and an award-winning product manager. We discuss VoC tools and the specifics for how product managers can use them, including: Contextual interviewsBudget-minded usability testing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: To be a successful product manager you need several competencies. We tend to be “T-Shaped” people with capabilities in several areas and much more depth in one area, such as development, design, research, etc. Product managers early in their career focus on learning the skills to get the job done — the technical skills of product management. Only later you might realize those skills are not enough and that the so-called “soft skills” are what really make the difference. Learning those skills sooner results in faster career growth, which is why I invited product manager and author Matt LeMay to join us. He recently wrote the book, Product Management in Practice: A Real-World Guide to the Key Connective Role of the 21st Century. Matt has helped build and scale product management practices at companies ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 50 enterprises. In the interview, he explains the CORE connectivity skills successful product managers need. CORE is an acronym for: Communication,Organization,ResearchExecution

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: One of the things I enjoy doing is teaching product and innovation management university courses. My students often are in a leadership role in their organization and I’m helping them with product innovation. When we discuss examples of innovative organizations, Apple is a popular choice. It’s also a good choice. They provide many lessons, such as the power of trends, why focusing on fewer products is better than scattering your efforts, the advantages of controlling an ecosystem, and the benefits of the fast-follower strategy. So, when I was at a product conference and met the person who helped orchestrate Apple’s original product process that is still used today, you can understand why I was excited. This was my opportunity to learn first-hand what Apple was struggling with and how the new adopted product process helped them. That person is John Carter. In addition to Apple, he has been a valued advisor to Cisco, Dolby, HP, IBM, Xerox and others. In addition to innovation, he has a strong background in engineering and was the co-inventor of the BOSE Noise Cancelling Headphones. I asked him to join us and discuss the creation of the Apple product process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Organizations are striving to get better at innovation. They know their competitors are doing the same. However, not everyone is having success with their efforts. One more recent popular approach is using Design Thinking, but like any innovation approach, it has to be properly integrated into the organization or it won’t have the desired impact. A new book addresses this, titled Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Can Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions. I interviewed both authors to find out more. Thomas Lockwood has a Ph.D. in design management and is a thought leader at integrating design and innovation into business. Edgar Papke is a leadership psychologist, author and recognized expert in business alignment, leadership and organizational culture. They decided to find out what highly innovative companies that were significantly utilizing design thinking were up to, and if what they were doing would provide valuable insight into how any organization can use design thinking to produce change, drive new ideas, deliver meaningful solutions, and influence their culture to be more innovative.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: We can learn a lot from examining the journey of a product and this interview looks at the product story of Badger Maps, the market-leading route planning app for field salespeople. I spoke with Jimmy Hooker, the Head of Product at Badger Maps, to get the story. He’s been with Badger since the beginning, where his initial responsibilities were designing and implementing the web app front-end along with designing the mobile apps. Since then, he’s taken on product management, managing the marketing website, SEO strategy, and analytics. He’s passionate about product and obsessed with making useful easy-to-use tools. From the discussion you’ll learn: Sources for product ideas,How to validate your plans for solving the customers’ problem, andWays to form the vision for a product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: My 12-year old  son recently got a belt sander.  My son is making a bookshelf and has a lot of sanding to do. The belt sander will do the work quickly. It is the right tool for the job, but only if it is used properly. The powerful motor and rapidly moving belt also makes it a beast. If it is not properly handled, it can do a lot of damage to the person using it and anything around it. I showed my son how to use it correctly and we discussed what can happen if he doesn’t use it the way he should. That is the thing with powerful tools. Used properly they are a valuable aid. Used incorrectly, they can cause a lot of pain and turmoil. Road Mapping The same applies to a frequent tool product managers use — the product roadmap. The traditional use of a roadmap nearly guarantees that product managers will get damaged in some way, like mishandling a belt sander. Think about it. A roadmap requires you to keep your promise even after you have learned that the planned features are no longer needed. Well, at least you kept your promise, but you built the wrong thing. Or, you do the right thing and not add features, breaking your promise you made by putting them on the roadmap. While the roadmap is one of the most frequently used tools by product managers, it is also one of the most unsafe. But, the traditional way of using roadmaps doesn’t have to continue. To discuss how they should be used, the author of “Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty,” Bruce McCarthy joins us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: My mission is to inspire and equip product managers to have greater influence in their organizations and over product. I call this helping product managers to become product masters, and that is what both this podcast and the training I provide are about. Helping you make that move from product manager to product master is explored in this episode by considering: Various perspectives on product management,Responsibilities of the role, andHow Agile practices are impacting the role. Joining me for this discussion is Steve Johnson, who previously shared in episode 115the 6 types of expertise product managers need. Steve has been working within the high-tech arena since 1979 with experience in technical, sales, and marketing positions at companies specializing in enterprise and desktop hardware and software. His market and technical savvy allowed him to rise through the ranks from Product Manager to Chief Marketing Officer. Before founding Under10, his product management consulting company, he was a Pragmatic Marketing lead instructor for more than 15 years.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The last interview, episode 166, was a panel discussion with innovators at companies using Value Innovation to discover what customers really want before building a product. The panel participants talked about a 10-step process they used. This discussion provides details for each step as well as where additional resources are found. To learn the 10 steps, I invited Dick Lee, the founder of Value Innovations and a long-time practitioner of the Value Innovation method, to talk with us. The 10 steps in Value Innovation are: Define project mission and objectives,Define value chain and identify the most important customer (MIC),Develop “as is” and “best in class” value curvesConduct contextual interviews to uncover unmet needsDevelop “to be” value curve,Review “to be ” value curve with the MIC,Modify “to be” value curve,Define value proposition,Determine how to deliver the “what,” andConfirm with MIC that the “how” is compelling

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:   As product managers, our natural inclination is to solve problems. The Value Innovation Process teaches us how you get to that solution is just as important as the solution itself. The 10-step process involves asking simple questions in a structured way to get to the heart of who your customers are and what problem you are looking to solve for them. Once those elements are in place, it’s much easier to determine what the solution will be and how you will deliver it. This episode has several guests who will share their experiences with the Value Innovation Process: Dick Lee, who literally wrote the book on the Value Innovation Process.Ed Wolf, a product manager at Caterpillar Trimble.John Chattaway, a product manager at Bobcat Doosan. In the discussion you will learn: What the Value Innovation Process is.How it’s being used at Caterpillar Trimble and Bobcat.How businesses and customers benefit from following the process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The role of product manager formally dates back to the 1930s with its start at Procter & Gamble, but it has only been in the last few years that the role has become much better known. As the field has grown, a few annual surveys to were created to provide insight into the role. One that I follow is the Product Management Insights report, which was just published by Alpha. I interviewed the report’s co-author, Nis Frome, who is also co-founder and head of content at Alpha, a company that provides on-demand user insights platform for product teams. Nis is also the editor of Product Management Insider and co-producer of the This is Product Management podcast. We discuss: how people move into the role of product manager,the key activities product managers are involved in,the responsibilities of the product management role,where they get their ideas for product features, andhow they spend their time.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: One of my early product experiences began with user observations. I spent a week with customers, observing them in their environment, learning what they needed to accomplish and the obstacles they encountered. By the end of the week, I was walking in their shoes.  It was the start of what became a very successful product. The use of qualitative research, such as observing customers, is a powerful resource for product managers. It was used successfully by Hyundai to design the second-generation Santa Fe, a crossover SUV. The person who was responsible for consumer insights and product strategy for the Santa Fe at the time was Heather Kluter. She is an innovator and decision engineer working with large companies to help them think bigger. In the discussion, you will learn: The benefits of ethnographic researchWhy very small market segments are useful (only 10 people for the Santa Fe research)Working with internal and external culture differences

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: One of the skills you need as a product master is customer and market research. We explored this earlier with Gerry Katz in episode 071. It was an episode several listeners really appreciated and I have invited Gerry back to share more of his expert experience with market research. Specifically, he discusses market research mistakes product managers too often make, including: Confusing qualitative with quantitative research.Talking to the wrong customers.Asking customers what they want.Not separating needs from solutions to needs.Translating customer vernacular into company-speak.Hearing only what you want to hear.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: When I ask product managers why they got involved with product management and what they want from the role, a frequent answer is to have more influence. This also ranks as most important out of all the reasons for being a product manager. Does that ring true for you as well? Product managers with more influence are able to accomplish more — creating better products for customers that they value. Product managers with less influence may be treated like gophers — asked to go do this or go do that. Such product managers are more reactive than proactive. If you are like me, there is little that sounds fun or rewarding about that. Indeed, we need influence. To help us get it, I invited Tom Henschel back. He joined us in episode 137 to share a tool for talking like a leader, which is part of increasing your influence. This time he shared a model for having more influence called the Five Influence Strategies. In the discussion, you’ll learn how to use the components of this strategy, which are: Build credibilityInvolve people activelyFrame ideas for themPresent compelling evidenceCustomize your communication

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Back in episode 110 we learned about FirstBuild, the innovation lab of GE Appliance. It allows them to test ideas and solve problems that would be considered too small or risky by GE Appliance. They have built a platform that is fueled by an open community of consumers and problem solvers. What would happen if that capability was used by other companies to tackle any type of product concept? That is what Taylor Dawson is discovering. When I talked with him in episode 110 he was the Product Evangelist for First Build. Now he is the CEO of Giddy, who is providing a First Build capability to any large company. That is like being able to create a successful innovation lab overnight without actually building one. This also means that Giddy will be deepening and rapidly increasing their own learning started at First Build. That makes them the leader for the rest of us to learn from. Specifically, in this discussion you will discover: Why it’s important but almost impossible for large organizations to innovate like a startup.The advantages of an open innovation lab.What makes the FirstBuild innovation lab a success — which are ideas to help your organization be more innovative.The benefits of leveraging Giddy for increasing product success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Fundamentally, product managers should be driving success for their organization. We do that by providing customers value. The source of that value may be, and perhaps should be, closer to our core capabilities than is often thought. The toy company LEGO found this to be true, only after being on the brink of bankruptcy. Other companies have also discovered this principle, which is something my guest calls innovating near the core. My guest this week, David Robertson, explored this in a book-long case study of LEGO, called Brick by Brick:  How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. In his recent book, The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation, he studies other companies who have won their market using a similar approach. David is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he teaches Innovation and Product Design. He is also the host of the weekly radio show on SiriusXM called “Innovation Navigation,” where he interviews world-renowned thought leaders about the management of innovation. In the discussion, you’ll learn: Why almost all of LEGO’s product innovation efforts resulted in millions of dollars lost.What action turned LEGO around and produced growth.How companies have innovated close to their core to create market success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: No one and no organization has a perfect record when it comes to releasing new products into the market. Failures are frequent — around 40% or so depending on the industry — and they happen at small companies, big companies, and experienced companies, including Pepsi. In this episode, you’ll learn a simple and profound concept that every product manager and product marketer must understand. And, this is an easy one to get wrong. Even Pepsi got this wrong when they created a new product called Crystal Pepsi. The simple part of the concept — don’t confuse your customer. The profound part — when introducing something new or making a change, give your customer a reason. My guest to explain this concept is Kyle B. Murray, the Vice Dean and Professor of Marketing at the Alberta School of Business. Kyle studies human judgment and decision making. His research uses the tools of experimental psychology and behavioral economics to better understand the choices that consumers make. He is a co-author of an article explaining the mistake Pepsi made with Crystal Pepsi. When I read the article I recognized how important the concept is to product managers and contacted with Kyle to tell us about it himself. In the discussion you will learn the: Reason people didn’t purchase Crystal Pepsi.Solution to the issue so you don’t make the same mistake.Examples demonstrating the solution.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Every week I’m involved in virtual meetings and the same is true for many Everyday Innovators. If it’s not yet true for you, virtual meetings are almost certainly in your future as more teams become virtual. Facilitating virtual meetings and making them productive takes specific skills that product managers should know. With these skills, you can run virtual meetings that don’t waste people’s time and that build trust and cohesion in the team. To learn the right skills, I have the perfect guest as his company is all about facilitating virtual meetings. He joins us to share his “Six How’s of Great Meetings.” His name is Dan Hoffman and he is founder and CEO of Circles, an online service that provides guided video peer groups to foster deeper conversations for impactful continued professional learning and personal growth. Dan is also a serial entrepreneur, previously the founder of M5, a pioneer in cloud communications, which ShoreTel purchased. He is regarded by colleagues as down to earth, completely approachable, and one of the brightest guys you will ever meet. In the discussion, you will learn the Six How’s of Great Meetings, which are: Culture,Conversation,Presence,Participation,Agendas, andFacilitation

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode you’ll learn about some of the big ideas in product management to help you make the move to product master, specifically: The difference between building the product right vs. building the right product,Challenges of working with development teams,How to assemble a roadmap,Release planning, andThe benefits of first using divergent thinking followed by convergent thinking. My guest for addressing those topics is Suzanne Abate, a seasoned product coach who has developed hundreds of digital products for clients and helped dozens of startups go from idea to execution. She is the Co-Founder of The Development Factory, an LA-based product consultancy, and Chief Product Officer of 100 Product Managers, a free online resource and weekly podcast for new and aspiring product managers.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Several listeners have asked about medical device products and I searched for someone with deep experience in this area. I realize most of us are not involved with medical devices, but there is much any product manager can learn from the upcoming discussion. This ability to learn from product managers in different industries is one of the things I most enjoy about this podcast. We have a lot in common regardless of the industry we work in. The topic of this episode is pricing. It is a frequently asked about topic and I have a great guest to help us understand the components of a pricing strategy and how to price a product. My guest is Mike Lawless, who has over 25 years of experience in medical devices, starting as a mechanical engineer. For more than a decade he has been helping to create medical devices for a variety of organizations through his own company, Lawless Consulting. In the discussion you will learn the: Challenges of creating a high-volume manufactured product,Importance of prototyping and testing to failure, andBenefits of using parallel problem-solving and development.

The topic of this episode is pricing. It is a frequently asked about topic. Determing the proper price for a product  impacts profit potential and sales volume expectations. I have a great guest to help us understand the components of a pricing strategy and how to price a product. He is Tim Smith, author of five books on pricing, Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Economics at DePaul University, and founder of Wiglaf Pricing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A few months ago I was contacted by a product manager, Areo Wong, who works in Hong Kong. He described himself as a “newbie” with about one-year of experience. He has been struggling to learn what the role of product manager was really about. After trying a few different approaches to learning more, he took a very creative path. He decided to interview 30 expert product managers and create a virtual summit of the insights shared on the interviews. This would help him rapidly learn and provide an opportunity for other younger product managers to do the same. I thought it was a great idea since my work is all about helping product managers know what they really need to know. So, I eagerly accepted his invitation to be part of his Product Manager Summit. More recently, I was discussing his experience as a product manager and what he had learned so far. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: The discussion coming up is about the state of 3D printing for prototyping and additive manufacturing. 3D printing is evolving quickly with the capability to print in a wide variety of materials. Also, post-processing capabilities, such as metal-plating plastic printed parts, are creating new opportunities for ergonomically correct parts. 3D printing provides significant efficiencies and competitive advantages. I discussed the state of 3D printing and additive manufacturing with industry veteran John Bailotti. His background couples engineering, manufacturing, financial research, marketing, business development, and leadership, providing a valuable perspective in helping companies adopt additive manufacturing.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This may just be the most important interview yet. While it does not directly deal with product management concepts, it does deal with success concepts. The upcoming discussion is about a book The Muse called the number-one best career book available. The book is Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life. I discussed the key concepts of being more self-aware with Insight author, Dr. Tasha Eurich. Tasha is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author. She has helped thousands of leaders and teams improve their effectiveness through greater self-awareness. In the interview she shares two categories of self-awareness and how we can be more self-aware. It’s an important topic because greater self-awareness means greater success. I’m certain you will find this to be a very important discussion.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: How organizations can improve their product performance and overall performance is as important to product managers as it is to senior leaders. Making improvements has become more challenging as the business environment for most organizations is changing more quickly and contains greater uncertainty than in the past. Organizations that better respond to these changes can create a competitive advantage and one way to accomplish that is through Strategic Agility. Dan Montgomery is a practitioner of Strategic Agility and shares with us simple and practical tools in this interview. He is also the co-author of The Institute Way: Simplify Strategic Planning and Management with the Balanced Scorecard. He has helped several organizations create strategic plans and add agility.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This interview should be a fan favorite as many people have emailed me asking what executives want from product managers. My short answer is that executives and senior leaders want product managers to be thinking and acting more strategically towards the objectives of the organization. However, there are a lot of specifics to discuss, and this interview does that. My guest structures the discussion around three stages of organizational growth, which he calls the early stage, adolescent, and well-established. What executives need from product managers differs with each stage. Sharing these insights with us is Scott Propp, a former Fortune 100 executive and all around product guy. Today he serves organizations on a short-term basis, helping the executive team identify the right high-value product opportunities that yield the maximum return.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The state of innovation in organizations is unsettling. Executives overwhelmingly point to innovation as the growth engine for their organizations yet actual innovation performance is underwhelming. There are several factors contributing to the issue and one of them is the way innovation is led. The reality is that most organizational leaders don’t really understand innovation or know how to lead it. Well, that is about to change with this interview. The Center for Creative Leadership conducts original research, with findings to help leaders be more effective. New research conducted by Mike Mitchell found that leading innovation requires a different approach to leadership. This research explains what leaders need to do to effectively lead innovation. Mike joins me to discuss what is needed to lead innovation and what product managers need to know as well. Mike has a Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology with a focus on Organizational Leadership. His focus is on what it takes to successfully contribute to, and lead, innovation in an organization. He is a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I love it when listeners suggest topics to explore on this podcast. One of those is win-loss analysis. This traditionally is considered a sales tool to understand why a customer chose or rejected a product. However, savvy product management groups recognize it as vital analysis for improving products and the customer experience. To explore the topic, I talked with Mike Smart who teaches organizations to conduct win-loss analysis from a product management perspective and also manages the entire analysis for organizations. He is a product management practitioner and founder of Egress Solutions, which helps companies implement product management best practices that build and launch successful products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product management is about creating value for customers through the capabilities a product or service provides. That extends beyond actual features and encompasses tangible and intangible dimensions of value. Typically, when creating a new product, we start with a core set of features. Early on this may be a minimum viable product — which I rather think of as the minimum valuable product — a product that provides an acceptable amount of value that catches customers’ attention. Over time we add more capabilities to create more value, but that is still not what we are striving for. We need to create a whole product — adding other elements to the customer experience that solves a complete problem and creates a great experience. The best person I know of to learn about creating an exceptional customer experience is Joseph A. Michelli. He is an internationally sought-after customer experience consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on the customer. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives. He is known by his many books examining organizations that create exceptional customer experiences, including Mercedes-Benz, Starbucks, Zappos, Ritz-Carlton, and others. The audio occasionally dropped out during recording, but it’s nothing that gets in the way of the insights Joseph shares.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Design is increasingly an aspect of product management, not just product teams. More of us are familiar with user experience and its impact on design, but where does design really begin? Every true user experience expert I have talked with about this has the same answer and that’s with the user of the product or the person with the problem that we wish to solve with a product. How we actually get insights from users can be the difference between product success and failure. To explore the right way to get insights, I talked with Brian Baker at the First User Group, which is a strategic innovation firm providing business strategy and cutting-edge product design in digital, consumer electronics, and consumer packaged goods. He has delivered over 100 products to brands we would all recognize and it is likely we have encountered one or more of his products.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: A competency on the path from product manager to product master is leadership. As product managers and innovators, we rarely have any actual authority. For example, we can’t fire and hire employees. What product managers do have is influence, and it is this competency that allows you to motivate others to support your ideas and plan. At the core of leadership is influence. This interview explores how you develop influence and become a leader. My guest is Ken Lane, principal coach at Summit Catalyst, where he provides senior executive coaching and helps organizations with strategy development and implementation, change management, and executive team development.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Product managers need to think more strategically to expand their success. This is what executive teams want from their product managers, and this interview with my guest is a great case study for thinking strategically and reshaping an entire organization. What if you could create a new product that significantly increased the visibility of your brand – making it top of mind for your ideal customer – resulting in new sales and increased brand equity while at the same time creating a rich market research platform? Oh, and if that isn’t already enough, do real good in the process – transforming your organization’s brand from traditional corporate America to one of the good guys – a company doing genuine good for people that further attracts your ideal customer. That is what Deluxe Corporation has done with the creation of the Small Business Revolution – Main Street, a TV series spotlighting the importance of small business in American small towns. The show is hosted by Robert Herjavec, known for his work on Shark Tank, and Amanda Brinkman, the Chief Brand and Communications Officer at Deluxe.  I talked with Amanda to learn more about the creation of the show and its impact. Amanda is a veteran brand and creative visionary who is drawn to purpose-driven marketing and brand transformation. Her work is currently turning around Deluxe Corporation, a 100-year-old company. What she is accomplishing is phenomenal and contains many lessons to inspire product managers and innovators. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Product management is the economic engine of society. It drives value creation. Without products, whether they be a tangible item like consumer goods, such as toothpaste, a service such as Uber, a checking account, or any other product form, the economic system we enjoy would not exist. It is through innovation — the creation of new products — that value is created for customers and for organizations. Because of that, your role contributing to product and innovation is vital to not just your organization but to society. While your role is critical in this value creation, it also gives you unique insights into your organization — insights that equip you for an even larger role if you wish. This role is creating a more valuable organization. You can go from building better products to building a better organization. Phrases like organizational improvement, performance improvement, quality management, and performance excellence are used to describe such transformations. My guest has been helping organizations make performance improvements for many years. He seeks to inspire and lead people and organizations to achieve organizational excellence. And don’t think this is just about improving the bottom line — organizational excellence is creating a positive work environment along with being a responsible contributor to the community. His name is Adam Cohen. I hope you enjoy the discussion and learning how product managers and innovators can have a larger role in organizational performance.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: This episode focuses on platforms — a topic I haven’t discussed yet on this podcast. An effective platform strategy is important for growing organizations as well as those that are starting. There are different perspectives on platforms and this interview primarily explores digital platforms. My guest is Larry Keeley, a strategist who has worked for over three decades to develop effective innovation methods, based in science and analytics. He is President and co-founder of Doblin Inc, an innovation strategy firm known for pioneering comprehensive innovation systems that materially improve innovation success rates and innovation return on investment. Doblin is now a unit of Deloitte Digital. Larry is also the author of the book Ten Types of Innovation, the Discipline of Building Breakthroughs, which you’ll hear us talk about towards the end of the interview.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Our work is the work of innovation. A few years ago I heard the word innovation expressed as in-a-new-way. It’s a helpful phrase to remember that the very nature of innovation means doing something new — something we have not done before — something in-a-new-way. This puts us at the center of change. The very nature of our work as product managers and innovators is change. We often need to help others we work with understand why change is required. It is a skill we can learn and my quest calls it Change Intelligence. She wrote the book on the topic, Change Intelligence: Use the Power of CQ to Lead Change That Sticks. She coaches business leaders, teams, and product managers to effectively lead change in their organizations. She is also a highly sought-after speaker for leadership and change keynotes all over the world. Her name is Barbara Trautlein. There are three primary change styles. Listen to identify your individual change style and how you can more effectively work with others who have different styles.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Creating a successful product requires a diverse set of skills and one of them is properly validating a product concept. One form of this is market validation — understanding what a market segment values in the form of a product that solves a meaningful problem. To explore the steps for conducting market validation, I spoke with Bryan Elanko, who works on strategic planning and commercialization initiatives for National Oilwell Varco. Bryan has worked in the oil and gas industry for almost ten years across various design, engineering, and management roles. In one of these roles, he implemented NPD systems to drive increased collaboration and innovation, which makes him a great guest for you, the Everyday Innovator. I hope you enjoy the discussion.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  The topic of this episode is crisis management — meaning a crisis that threatens the reputation of a brand or product. When a crisis happens that involves a product, the product manager is expected to help with the issues. Also, as you take on more leadership responsibilities, it becomes more likely, if a crisis occurs, that you’ll be part of the team helping to manage the problem. No organization wants to be in a crisis, but when it happens, people who know how to respond are highly valued. To learn more about managing a crisis, I spoke with Jim Parham. Jim is the Chief Operating Officer at Hirons, an advertising and public relations company based in Indianapolis. He is also a lead Crisis Communication Manager and fondly known by customers and employees as the Professor, in part for his deep thinking as well for teaching part-time at Indiana University. He brings a background in journalism and senior leadership of large organizations, including serving as VP of Marketing. I hope you are not involved in a crisis management situation, but when it happens, knowing what Jim shares will help you be proactive instead of reactive.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Much of the advice we’ve been told about being successful as a product manager and innovator is logical, earnest… and downright wrong. My guest, Eric Barker, explores the science of success. In his book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric reveals the science behind what actually determines success and—most important—how you can achieve it. Eric also has a popular blog by the same name as his book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, that also shares science-based answers and expert insight on how to be successful. Much of the insights can be summarized as: Know yourself and pick the right pond. This means knowing your strengths and working in an environment where you can frequently use your strengths. This and more is summarized below and discussed in the interview.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Have you noticed leaders in your organization sound and look different from other employees? It’s not always true for all organizations, but leaders often talk differently — they are optimistic when they speak, they ask insightful questions, and they tend to focus on what is most important. To explore the topic of what leaders sound like – also known as, how to talk like a leader, I spoke with Tom Henschel, a professional actor who is now an executive coach. He works with clients primarily on achieving the look and sound of leadership. He’s a communication skills coach and has been running his company, Essential Communications, since 1990. Before that, Tom got his start as a professional actor after attending The Juilliard School and going on to perform in over a hundred plays and episodes of television. He was also a successful director and university teacher. He also has a monthly podcast, “The Look & Sound of Leadership,” which is a permanent member of the “What’s Hot” business podcast section on iTunes.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  This podast is your home for making your move from product manager to Product Master so you can BEAT the competition. There are four levels, which spell BEAT, toward product mastery — Build your base, Earn professional certification, Apply deep dives, and Transform the organization. The fourth level — transform the organization — is the topic of this episode. At this level, product managers go from building better products to building a better organization. This is a role product managers are uniquely equipped for and are the best resource for organizations that truly want to improve. Someone who has helped several organizations be better, specifically those in health care, is Dr. Gene Beyt. Gene is a medical doctor who now works with organizations as a healthcare designer, educator, artist, and creative director. He has a simple mission — to put human needs and well-being at the center of all that we do.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  I love hearing how companies are creating successful products that provide customers value, which is the topic of this episode. Gordon Stannis, the Director of Design and Strategy at Twisthink shares their approach to developing innovative solutions for their Fortune 500 clients. Gordon started his work as an industrial designer and then moved into product development and management roles. We discuss the process Gordon uses for creating innovative products, and he shares the product journey of a tool for competitive swim coaches as an example of the process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: My discussion is with Dave Oventhal, who has spent over twenty years in various product development and marketing positions, including product planner, product marketing manager, and product manager, and has led product management teams in various industries. He has extensive experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research and has been directly involved in hundreds of product development projects. He has served as a chapter president for the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) — an organization I also recommend to product managers. And, he has a doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in strategy and innovation.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: I am a student of approaches for innovation – how ideas are conceived and turned into valuable products and services. However, my guest introduced me to a new line of thinking — an approach to innovation I had not previously been exposed to and for that I’m thankful. I now have another tool in my innovation toolbox and you will too after hearing Scott Bowden share how innovations throughout history can provide modern ideas and help solve problems we face today. After spending nearly 20 years at IBM, Scott is now traveling the globe to investigate and share how historic innovations provide lessons for the modern-day innovation practitioners – you and me. Scott shares several examples of historic innovations and I hope you find them as interesting as I did.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Lean Startup or Stage-Gate? More often organizations are not choosing one or the other but taking the “and” option and integrating both into their product processes.  The challenge is how to get them to play nice with each other and gain the benefits of each without losing something in the process. To discuss this topic I turned to a well-experienced product manager and innovator who mentors young entrepreneurs as well as large companies, showing them how to put Lean into practice and align it with other methodologies, including Stage-Gate. My guest is Mark Adkins, president of Smart Hammer Innovation, a management consulting business that helps companies apply best practices to Innovation Management. He is also a part-time professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Medical Innovation. Mark shares how Lean Startup works best in the front end of Stage-Gate, enhancing an organization’s product process.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  As product managers and innovators we are often at the center of change because our work involves creating something new, which itself is change. Further, we need to persuade and influence others to change their perspective and embrace our ideas for building better products. Sometimes the change is small, like a new feature to a product, while others it is large, like acquiring another company. Adding change management tools to our product management toolbox is wise, which is why I am bringing you the one and only creator of the Change Planning Toolkit. He also wrote the book, Charting Change: A Visual Toolkit for Making Change Stick. And, he is a recurring guest. Back in episode 024 he discussed five keys to developing an innovation culture. His name is Braden Kelley. In addition to being a speaker and executive trainer, he has helped numerous organizations increase their revenue and cut their costs through the creation of innovative strategies, organizational change, and improved organizational performance. I am glad to welcome Braden back to discuss change with us.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  In this episode, we are talking about sales people and how product managers can improve their work with sales people. For some product managers, sales professionals are a source of tension, maybe because they overpromise and make product commitments without first coordinating with product management. For other product managers, sales professionals provide access to customers and help arrange problem-discovery interviews. They are an ally to product management. Regardless of your working relationship with sales professionals, there is room for improvement. To explore this topic you would be hard-pressed to find anyone better than my guest, Keith Hawk. Keith has incredible street cred for this topic as he worked in a technology support role early in this career, working with sales professionals and product management. From there he served as the Director of Technology Support, Director of Marketing, VP Customer Support, and recently retired from his long-term role as the Senior Vice President of Sales for LexisNexis, a multi-billion dollar organization with over 10,000 employees. Keith has a very rich background in the information industry and he has played a broad role in the development of LexisNexis as a company. He is also the author of the book Get-Real Selling: Your Personal Coach for REAL Sales Excellence, which greatly influenced my thoughts on the function of Sales.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode: Back in episode 121 I had the pleasure of talking with Richard Banfield, one of three authors of the new book Product Leadership. Then, in episode 125 I spoke with Martin Eriksson, who also is a co-author of the book. So, it seemed only proper that I make this a true trifecta by interviewing the third co-author, which is Nate Walkingshaw. I was especially eager to do this after Richard told me that Nate is the smartest product person he knows. Nate has some firm opinions on product teams and how to structure teams to work well. You may have seen his thought-provoking post on Mind the Product titled, “Agile Died While You Were Doing Your Standup.” In our discussion, we touch on concepts from that post but dive deeper into team structures and needs for modern product teams. Nate has started successful companies in the medical and fitness markets and has had many product experiences. Later he became the Chief Product Officer for Pluralsight, the largest providers of online technology learning, where he built a user-centered product team. In 2016 his role expanded to Chief Experience Officer where he oversees Development, Content, and Product Marketing.