The Pulse of Productization
A collection of news, insights, and product leaders we admire
I recently had a conversation with one of my CEO clients about how best to help the senior leadership team embrace a new product innovation idea. This CEO was frustrated that the team seemed resistant to the changes the innovation would require and was wondering how to proceed. We discussed two options: asking the team to collaborate on a business plan for the new product, or, providing them with a concrete plan and asking them to implement it.
Innovators know that expecting and embracing imperfection is a necessary ingredient of developing and launching a successful product. Recently, I was reminded of this while working with a client who was preparing to present their MVP to the sales team. Their main concern – was it ‘too basic’? Their demo, although lacking a visually interesting UI, was fully functional. Knowing that an MVP does not need slick aesthetics, we encouraged them to begin using the MVP in sales conversations to demonstrate the breadth of their offerings and to begin getting customer feedback. At the meeting, the CEO began the presentation with one of my favorite quotes by Reid Hoffman -
Fear accompanies business model transformation and product innovation because these activities introduce ambiguity into your normal business operations. But to productize successfully, organizations must learn to face fears associated with change. In this four-part series, we outline our LEAP method for overcoming the fear that gets in the way of successful productization. LEAP stands for:
Informed by the neuroscience of mindfulness, the LEAP method has helped clients and our team find the courage they seek to innovate and transform.
When services firms choose to pursue a productization strategy, they can face many challenges. I’ve seen companies fail because they didn’t have the right skills, poor product-market fit, or they under-invested in go-to-market. Another significant challenge is changing the organization’s behavior and culture to be more product friendly. Consider this:
Most professional services organizations deliver their expertise through one-to-one customized interactions. When these organizations decide to grow through productization, they need to learn how to deliver expertise at scale.
I can’t believe that three years have passed since we launched Vecteris at the Women in Product Conference in San Francisco back in 2018! So much has happened and this seemed like a good moment to stop, reflect, and celebrate.
One of the unexpected gifts of the pandemic has been our launch of (virtual) peer groups of Product Leaders. At least once a week, we get the chance to convene small groups of product leaders to discuss their challenges and share experiences. We cover a variety of topics such as how to better catalog and use customer feedback or how to reduce custom development. A very frequent topic is talent. Especially, how to attract and retain good product talent when you are not a tech company.
It is so much easier to innovate new products or services when we stop trying to be perfect.
Organizations that struggle with new product innovation typically don’t fail because their leader isn’t a visionary. It’s not that the team isn't creative or smart. It's because, as humans, we favor routine. Innovation takes most of us outside our comfort zones and often requires new skills and behavior change.
