1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,520 Well, hey there, listeners. SpringOne is coming up, our annual user conference. It's on September 2 00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:10,560 2nd and 3rd, right quick now, in a couple of weeks. If you're interested in it, you can go 3 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:16,360 to springone.io. It's all online. You can register and attend for free. Now, in this episode, we're 4 00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:20,900 highlighting one of the speakers from there, which we'll get to shortly. So I helped put together the 5 00:00:20,900 --> 00:00:27,400 Agile Leadership Track, which is full of all sorts of great stories and actual users, if you will, 6 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:31,720 people going through how they've changed and improved their organization so that they can 7 00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:36,140 do software better, run their organization and their businesses better. It's a good track, 8 00:00:36,380 --> 00:00:41,720 if I don't say so. But there's also lots about programming, DevOps, site reliability, engineering, 9 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:46,140 SRE, Kubernetes, and all of the stuff you'd expect from a cloud native conference. 10 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:53,280 So again, it's on September 2nd and 3rd. It's online and totally free. If you want to register for it 11 00:00:53,280 --> 00:01:00,260 and attend, all you have to do is go to springone.io. So hopefully, you'll show up there and as an 12 00:01:00,260 --> 00:01:05,480 example, get to see our guest in action. Also, I wanted to add that the quality of the recording 13 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:12,220 here at first is a little shoddy, just for whatever, the usual nonsense reasons. But then it improves 14 00:01:12,220 --> 00:01:17,760 quite a bit, not too far into it. So just put up with the crackliness of it. Well, why don't you 15 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:24,700 introduce yourself? My name is Jen Handler. I am a product management professional. I have been in 16 00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:35,560 product management for more than 15 years. I joined VMware as a pivot with Pivotal Labs, and that's how 17 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:43,840 I came into VMware. I joined about four years ago. I joined as a product manager, actually embedding 18 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:49,380 with teams and building software. And then I moved into a group called Agile Practice Leadership 19 00:01:49,380 --> 00:01:54,960 Enablement, where I was working with leaders of teams to get the best outcomes from their teams. 20 00:01:55,460 --> 00:01:59,960 And now I'm with the services strategy team, which is an internal team that looks after our services, 21 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:07,000 much like products. In that context, what's a service? A service is one of the service offerings 22 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:13,660 that we provide to customers, consulting services, where we help customers figure out how to use our 23 00:02:13,660 --> 00:02:18,080 products, get better outcomes from our products, that kind of thing. 24 00:02:18,620 --> 00:02:23,500 So what does that mean to product manage a service? What's that cycle look like? 25 00:02:24,500 --> 00:02:26,780 So applying product thinking to a service? 26 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:31,480 Yeah, like you're saying you're kind of on the team that's doing that, I presume, 27 00:02:31,580 --> 00:02:36,340 which I hadn't really thought about how you evolve consultative stuff as if it's a product. 28 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:43,880 Yeah. Our team does a bunch of things, but my focus is primarily on applying product mindset 29 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:52,020 to our services. And what this means for me is really thinking about our services like products 30 00:02:52,020 --> 00:02:56,780 and figuring out what are the outcomes that we want from each service offering? Are we maintaining 31 00:02:56,780 --> 00:03:02,960 service market fit? Meaning, are our services continuously in demand by the market and solving 32 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:08,180 problems for customers? What are the indicators that we look for to note whether or not things are 33 00:03:08,180 --> 00:03:12,920 working or not? Make sure that we're measuring those indicators. You know, making sure that we are 34 00:03:12,920 --> 00:03:21,540 enabled internally to be able to deliver the most commonly needed solutions through services to 35 00:03:21,540 --> 00:03:23,880 customers at any given time. 36 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:28,580 I mean, if you were to pick like one thing, or however many you want, but like, what do you think 37 00:03:28,580 --> 00:03:33,860 the primary difference is between like, software product management and service product management? 38 00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:36,180 Like, are there different metrics that you're looking at? 39 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:43,900 For the services, we have like, we do have all these end users, and they're our customers. And we 40 00:03:43,900 --> 00:03:51,260 have, well, I've been thinking a lot about this lately. So this is very timely. We have our end 41 00:03:51,260 --> 00:03:56,960 customers who are paying for our services. And it's possible to think maybe of our users as the people 42 00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:02,880 who are actually delivering our services. So we are working to enable our consultants to be able to 43 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:11,180 deliver really, you know, great services at scale to customers. One of the things that's different for me in 44 00:04:11,180 --> 00:04:19,520 in this role is on a software team, you know, we have a team of dedicated people who are dedicated to 45 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:29,560 developing the product, building, designing, you know, doing the work to actually develop and deliver that product. 46 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:37,540 With service management, we have all of these people around the world, who are actually doing the work of delivering 47 00:04:37,540 --> 00:04:45,620 the thing. And also, we're trying to leverage their thinking, and their smarts and their feedback based on 48 00:04:45,620 --> 00:04:51,420 their experience with customers to improve the way we enable at scale. 49 00:04:51,420 --> 00:04:58,600 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking if there was like a diagram of the layers, it feels like maybe 50 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:04,280 there is, I don't know, the layer, the layer lineup is different for who the end users are and things 51 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:10,240 like that. Like to your point, like, yeah, who you're, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. I like that 52 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:11,480 idea. That is fun. 53 00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:15,760 Yeah. I find it very interesting too. And I find myself thinking about it a lot on weekends and, 54 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:22,700 you know, coming up with new hypotheses, um, for how, you know, how do we effectively measure service 55 00:05:22,700 --> 00:05:29,180 health? Um, there are some obvious indicators like customer experience, like CSAT, and then there are 56 00:05:29,180 --> 00:05:36,820 all these other, you know, potential leading indicators, um, and getting those right is part of the fun. 57 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:41,420 So, so what are the, uh, what are the two talks that you have, uh, you know, you're doing them 58 00:05:41,420 --> 00:05:44,840 with several other people, but the two, the two sessions that you're involved with at Springwind 59 00:05:44,840 --> 00:05:51,260 platform. Yeah. Um, so I'm running a session, a session called what makes a great product manager. 60 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:58,200 Um, and I decided, um, I didn't want to do all the talking. I wanted some other people to help me do 61 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:05,340 the talking. Um, and so I enlisted a little collection of people. Ken McDougal from Kessel Run is going to be 62 00:06:05,340 --> 00:06:10,460 participating in this. And so as Adrian Hensley, who's from the Boeing company and Mike Gresham, 63 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:16,200 who is a colleague at VMware. So, so that's a talk that I'm running. And then I'm in another talk 64 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:23,700 that is around, uh, labs leaders and leadership enablement. One of the reasons that I thought I 65 00:06:23,700 --> 00:06:28,880 wanted to do this talk and I thought we should talk about it is because several times in my experience 66 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:36,800 with this organization, I've encountered customers who don't currently have a product management 67 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:42,340 function or are starting to develop a product management function, or maybe like they're 68 00:06:42,340 --> 00:06:48,980 thinking thing, they're thinking about things that they need that product management could solve for 69 00:06:48,980 --> 00:06:55,040 as a discipline. And, you know, I think it matters a little less what you call the person in title, 70 00:06:55,040 --> 00:07:00,460 but just the discipline of it. Um, and so like literally a couple of months ago, 71 00:07:00,460 --> 00:07:06,200 I was contacted by a colleague who is, you know, custom customer facing, um, right now saying that 72 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:11,520 she was talking to a customer who is just kind of like, you know, very much in the throes of figuring 73 00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:17,480 out whether or not they needed product managers. I think going through the, the experience of going 74 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:24,860 from project to product and, and thinking about how can we get more value out of our software, um, in a continuous 75 00:07:24,860 --> 00:07:30,280 fashion and just thinking about whether they needed this or not. So I thought, let's just like, you know, 76 00:07:30,300 --> 00:07:37,500 keep it really basic. Like, what is it? What is it not for the people who are, you know, maybe not product 77 00:07:37,500 --> 00:07:44,100 managers and thinking that maybe they want to be, maybe they think that, you know, they might need them so that they can 78 00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:48,800 kind of start seeing themselves and seeing whether or not they need this kind of function within their org. 79 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:55,440 They sort of like filter out. I mean, just like you were saying, do, do we need this function in the org or 80 00:07:55,440 --> 00:08:01,600 not? But then, but then also I would imagine, I mean, and tell me if I'm wrong, that maybe it helps identify 81 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:07,000 those latent functions that people are doing. Like if, if you can kind of say like, this is sort of what 82 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:12,780 product management looks like, then, uh, maybe in a positive way, this isn't always positive when people say 83 00:08:12,780 --> 00:08:17,520 this, but they can say, oh, we've been doing that. Yeah. Like it's, it's very, very possible 84 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:22,420 that, you know, if you decide you need product management and I think like product management 85 00:08:22,420 --> 00:08:28,920 is about, it's just, you know, it is the discipline of thinking about whether or not the thing that 86 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:33,920 you're doing at any given time is going to deliver value for the business. It's like, if you're worried 87 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:37,860 about not, you're not delivering value for the business or not making those trade-offs or those 88 00:08:37,860 --> 00:08:43,280 decisions in order to, you know, consistently have people working on the most valuable thing, 89 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:50,980 you might benefit from some product mindset and product thinking, but, you know, it could be what 90 00:08:50,980 --> 00:08:55,720 we're going to do in this talk is we're basically going to expose what are the responsibilities? What 91 00:08:55,720 --> 00:09:02,160 are the qualities of this kind of person? And also talk a little bit about, um, what kinds of like, 92 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:08,500 you know, what roles tend to sort of find their way into product management. I ran a little survey 93 00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:13,080 within VMware and I ran a little survey through my LinkedIn network. And I think Ken is going to run 94 00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:17,700 a little survey through Kessel Run to just ask, you know, before you were a product manager, 95 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:25,820 what was your title? Right. Just so we could see, because a lot of product managers that I know 96 00:09:25,820 --> 00:09:31,480 did not, um, start with that as their title. They started in some other part of the business 97 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:36,540 in some other discipline, but they were kind of doing the stuff or they had a passion for the 98 00:09:36,540 --> 00:09:43,340 stuff that is product management. And then, so, I mean, do you have a preliminary idea of what those 99 00:09:43,340 --> 00:09:48,680 roles look like? Who, who are the, uh, what are the types of people that kind of, not people, 100 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:51,840 but the types of jobs that end up kind of filtering to product management? 101 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:57,560 Yeah. I mean, and so like through our surveys, we found different things, um, because it was 102 00:09:57,560 --> 00:10:03,600 different populations, like not surprisingly than VMware, there were a big, um, a big part of the pie 103 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:09,140 is software developers. And I've personally seen this happen, um, in my time with VMware 104 00:10:09,140 --> 00:10:16,720 and Pivotal Labs. And then out, uh, to my broader LinkedIn network, it was more project and program 105 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:22,800 managers, which is also, that makes a lot of sense to me. I seeded the survey with some titles that I 106 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:29,140 know, I know kind of like overlap a little bit like business analyst, you know, project manager, 107 00:10:29,300 --> 00:10:36,920 program manager, scrum master, um, and designer also sometimes find their way into product management. 108 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:42,200 I have, um, certainly worked with a few folks like that, but yeah, they come from, they come from 109 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:51,680 everywhere. It just takes a certain passion for value. Like, am I working on the most valuable thing 110 00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:57,080 right now? Like if you are super, if that keeps you up at night, um, and you want to get it right 111 00:10:57,080 --> 00:11:01,960 and you want to have the metrics, the measurement, you want to know the outcomes, you know, I think 112 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:03,700 product management may be for you. 113 00:11:03,700 --> 00:11:07,080 Do you, uh, stay up late at night wondering if you're working on the most valuable thing? 114 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:11,760 Yeah, I do. I really do. 115 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:19,140 That, you know, that makes me realize like in, in all the years for quite some time as being kind 116 00:11:19,140 --> 00:11:25,300 of like on the periphery of, uh, following product management, I don't know if like, I have a concrete 117 00:11:25,300 --> 00:11:32,460 idea of the tools of actually finding value, like beyond like, you know, I don't know, really simple 118 00:11:32,460 --> 00:11:39,080 things like making money or like, uh, I don't know in, in the, in the case of government stuff, 119 00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:45,280 right? Like, I don't know, people can file their taxes or not like, like really binary types of 120 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:51,440 things, but how, like, like what, what is the toolkit for actually putting yourself back to sleep at night 121 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:57,800 when you wake up and, and you want to know if, uh, you're focusing people on doing the, the most 122 00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:04,680 valuable thing. Like for example, as an example, right? Like you could say it is valuable for people 123 00:12:04,680 --> 00:12:11,860 to not spend a lot of time filing this government form. They could take five hours to do it. And like, 124 00:12:12,420 --> 00:12:14,500 that's not cool. 125 00:12:14,500 --> 00:12:21,440 Well, or, or, or, or if, or put differently, is it valuable to get the form submitted in the first 126 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:29,520 place? And what we want is for users to have such an amazing experience with that form. It's short, 127 00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:39,120 it's easy that they're like totally doing it. One of the things a product manager needs to do is pull 128 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:45,520 on the strengths of everybody else that they're working with to actually understand what is value. 129 00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:53,400 And so it's, it's, you know, people on the team, um, that you're working with directly for us, 130 00:12:53,400 --> 00:13:00,260 like in our paradigm of product management, um, on software, you know, we think a lot about design, 131 00:13:00,980 --> 00:13:07,120 development, product management, working very closely together to figure out what is the most 132 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:13,940 valuable thing. How can we deliver that in the easiest, simplest way, most efficient way. 133 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:18,780 And can we make sure that users have an amazing experience and they even want it 134 00:13:18,780 --> 00:13:24,840 so that we can get that value. And that's kind of like, so I think product managers need to fit. 135 00:13:24,940 --> 00:13:30,420 They can't do it alone. They like figuring out what is most valuable it takes. And this isn't really, 136 00:13:30,580 --> 00:13:36,220 I don't know if this is a trick. It's just, it takes a lot of conversations and a lot of time with 137 00:13:36,220 --> 00:13:42,660 other people, um, and being very efficient with their time to extract the Intel and the insights 138 00:13:42,660 --> 00:13:48,200 that we need to understand at any given time and make a decision to go forward and say, this is the 139 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:52,820 thing that we need to do now. One way of finding out what's valuable is what does it take to get a 140 00:13:52,820 --> 00:13:57,720 person to finish this process? Right? Like, like we, we may not know what those things are, but 141 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:02,880 once, once, once we get them to finish the process, we've done valuable work, right? Like that's a way 142 00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:07,580 of gauging what, uh, what's, what's useful, which that is good. Cause obviously there's going to be 143 00:14:07,580 --> 00:14:12,440 no value produced if people don't follow the, you know, finish the process. Everything is just a half 144 00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:16,440 done. Like when I try to get my kids to clean their room. So, so that, you know, that, so that 145 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:20,280 reminds me of one of the lines, I forget which abstract it was, but you know, I think you've 146 00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:24,700 kind of hit on it that there's sort of like these lurking, uh, product managers or lurking 147 00:14:24,700 --> 00:14:29,360 functions within the organizations that are, to use another L word, they're sort of latent in there. 148 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:38,220 And, and like, I think, you know, in, in, in your experience, like, does it work to sort of pull 149 00:14:38,220 --> 00:14:44,560 those roles into product management? Like, like, what is that process like of converting people into 150 00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:50,420 product managers? Like, is it, is it difficult or hard or, or how, how do you go about doing that? 151 00:14:50,980 --> 00:14:59,520 Wow. That's a big, hard question. And I, I do think I, I have personally worked with like in my time with this 152 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:05,360 organization and worked with companies who were trying to like, you know, one company that I work 153 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:10,800 with that I'm thinking of right now, try to kind of get a developer or was it a developer or a scrum 154 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:17,660 master? I think it was a developer kind of like juggle the responsibilities of being a developer and 155 00:15:17,660 --> 00:15:25,460 a product manager. And it failed. It is a full-time thing. Like if you want to invest in the work of 156 00:15:25,460 --> 00:15:30,460 prioritizing the backlog, keeping it in sync with the roadmap, keeping it in sync with the strategy, 157 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:36,220 keeping it in sync with the vision in times of change, which is always maybe particularly now, 158 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:41,440 but it's always, it's a full-time job. And also all the communication that goes with that and all 159 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:45,620 the bringing along, particularly in large companies, which are the ones that we tend to work with. 160 00:15:45,620 --> 00:15:50,640 Yeah. It's a, it's a lot of work. And so I think like if an organization is thinking that they, 161 00:15:50,740 --> 00:15:56,180 they do want this and they want to prioritize, you know, this discipline and some attention to this 162 00:15:56,180 --> 00:16:02,040 discipline, they do need to probably create like some space for somebody to inherit the role and 163 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:07,240 the responsibilities. I don't know that you can do kind of product management plus something else. 164 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:14,000 Now I will say a lot of companies do kind of like have the product managers do some of the project 165 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:21,780 management. This is like super common in my experience with smaller companies. It's a little 166 00:16:21,780 --> 00:16:28,600 less common, common with larger companies because, you know, there, there is investment in, you know, 167 00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:34,420 project management, program management as a function capacity. They have people doing the work of 168 00:16:34,420 --> 00:16:40,120 making sure that the trains, you know, keep running and they run on time. Whereas product managers are 169 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:46,500 thinking about, are they the right trains? Are they just like, who's on the train? You know, 170 00:16:46,540 --> 00:16:51,460 what's the quality of the train? What is the composition of the exterior, blah, blah, blah. 171 00:16:51,460 --> 00:16:56,880 This is like a super common pairing though, of disciplines that I see. And it's like, 172 00:16:57,260 --> 00:17:02,700 I think it's problematic for a lot of people who are called product managers to have to, 173 00:17:02,700 --> 00:17:10,240 to manage the two, this sort of project management and the product management. Like it can be a lot 174 00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:17,160 of work to just keep focused and keep in sync with like the backlog, the backlog and the roadmap and 175 00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:26,780 keeping those tight and having the roadmap represent what is most valuable to stakeholders and to the 176 00:17:26,780 --> 00:17:29,040 business. That can be a lot of work. 177 00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:32,400 Yeah. It's, it seems like you're creating two artifacts almost. 178 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:40,040 Yeah. It can be very, it can, it can be very easy to get consumed by let's just hit the next 179 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:44,900 milestone. Let's just hit the next milestone. So let's just, and, and all the coordination and work 180 00:17:44,900 --> 00:17:49,100 and all the, but have you ever been in the role where you have to do project management? 181 00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:54,380 Yes. It's almost, it's actually almost always. It's even, um, at times when I am working alongside 182 00:17:54,380 --> 00:17:59,580 a project manager, all those, the, although, um, those have been some of my happiest days as a 183 00:17:59,580 --> 00:18:05,020 product manager. Like I, I can distinctly remember like a few companies ago when I had a project 184 00:18:05,020 --> 00:18:11,040 manager who I was kind of paired with and I could kind of like, you know, lean on them to make sure 185 00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:16,700 trains ran on time and all like this, you know, the reporting and like, you know, all that stuff, 186 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:24,200 all the communication on like the state of the trains running while I could focus on where are 187 00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:29,640 we going with this product? What's happening next and get ahead so we can start de-risking 188 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:34,160 our development. That's like a super important, valuable thing. 189 00:18:34,500 --> 00:18:37,720 Yeah. Like, as you were saying, I mean, I, I haven't thought about it in this much detail, 190 00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:42,560 but it makes sense that if you have, if you're doing project and product management at the same 191 00:18:42,560 --> 00:18:48,460 time, it's almost easier to get people to like you doing project management. 192 00:18:48,460 --> 00:18:48,900 Yeah. 193 00:18:49,260 --> 00:18:55,700 Right. Because, because you, you, you're very frequently, you can report on meeting goals 194 00:18:55,700 --> 00:19:00,460 and dates and things that people are expecting. Whereas I, I assume when you're doing product 195 00:19:00,460 --> 00:19:06,180 management, probably pretty frequently, you're telling people that something new has come about 196 00:19:06,180 --> 00:19:10,820 and that you have to rethink doing something and things have to change from what they were expecting. 197 00:19:11,020 --> 00:19:12,020 Maybe. Yeah. 198 00:19:12,100 --> 00:19:16,920 You know, at least it comes up. Whereas I guess the worst case with project management is you're 199 00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:22,020 sort of like some other people haven't been delivering on time. Right? 200 00:19:22,220 --> 00:19:24,840 Right. Right. Yes. I guess there's a little bit of that. Yeah. 201 00:19:25,020 --> 00:19:29,140 You're, you're sort of, you're sort of reporting on, on like some other work that's been doing and 202 00:19:29,140 --> 00:19:33,660 you've gathered and reported that stuff because you don't necessarily like manage them. 203 00:19:33,740 --> 00:19:37,600 Right. And you don't also don't do the work. And so you kind of just like a messenger. 204 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:44,280 Yeah, that's true. When you have like distinct functions, like project program, PMO folks, 205 00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:49,160 they have a stake in whether or not like things are running on time and like dependencies and things 206 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:55,840 are connecting, but maybe less, I mean, tend to have less of a stake in like, what is actually being, 207 00:19:55,840 --> 00:20:01,400 you know, developed, but somebody else is focused on that. And that's cool. And that's good. 208 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:05,840 And it's a nice division of labor. The more I've personally been able to 209 00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:12,960 get ahead and think about what's next and think about what risky assumptions we might be making 210 00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:18,180 about the product that we need to do something about before they actually hit us. And we're actually 211 00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:24,420 kind of like incorporating and taking some action, the better off we are. So, you know, that I think 212 00:20:24,420 --> 00:20:29,240 that's been, those are the times when I, I can actually be most valuable with, with, you know, 213 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:34,360 you've got pretty big panels of people on each of these. So how did you go about selecting the people 214 00:20:34,360 --> 00:20:35,540 who would be on these talks? 215 00:20:35,660 --> 00:20:42,860 I thought, you know, what I wanted to do is I wanted to assemble a collection of people who could 216 00:20:42,860 --> 00:20:51,720 sort of paint a very broad picture of like product management, what it is, what it isn't, and provide 217 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:59,160 their stories, which would be not all the same. Like I wanted to be able to share with our attendees 218 00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:05,240 some stories that they may not expect of people who, you know, entered product management and how they 219 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:09,900 got there and what, and what brought them there. And I thought this collection of people could do that. 220 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:15,560 I'm not prepared to share my story in the talk, but I guess I can share it with you. 221 00:21:17,420 --> 00:21:23,380 Which is that I started as a children's book editor. That was my first career. 222 00:21:24,060 --> 00:21:32,320 And where I was pretty much doing product management, my products were books. My product at one point was 223 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,840 the Nancy Drew series and the Hardy Boys series. 224 00:21:36,140 --> 00:21:36,260 Really? 225 00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:44,120 Yeah. I relaunched those for young readers. I didn't know, I didn't know what product management 226 00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:50,140 was at the time. I didn't know that I was doing this, but I sort of, you know, found my way into 227 00:21:50,140 --> 00:21:55,640 product management. And that's, that part is a little bit complicated. But once I was there, 228 00:21:55,640 --> 00:22:02,720 I was kind of like, I've been doing this stuff. You know, I had a few gaps to fill, but, and it was, 229 00:22:02,820 --> 00:22:07,500 it was software. So it was like, you know, the, the medium, the, everything changed except the 230 00:22:07,500 --> 00:22:13,200 discipline and, and the work that I did as a product manager, thinking about, you know, 231 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:20,660 the packaging, the packaging, the positioning, the pricing competitively, the, the users, the read, 232 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:26,720 the customers, you know, in our cases, children's book editors, customers were parents, the, the users, 233 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:34,540 the readers were kids. And thinking about, you know, how can I get a parent to, you know, get excited 234 00:22:34,540 --> 00:22:39,900 about this book and maybe purchase the book or be excited about the child saying, I want that book. 235 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:46,320 You know, all, all sorts of sorts of things that I had to think about then. And I think about very 236 00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:51,500 similar things now. That's exactly how enterprise sales works, enterprise software sales. And I would 237 00:22:51,500 --> 00:22:55,880 work with design. I would work with sales. I would work with production. You know, how can we make this 238 00:22:55,880 --> 00:23:02,460 book? We think it needs to have an antique-y feel for reasons. How can we make that, that in a super 239 00:23:02,460 --> 00:23:09,100 like efficient way at this run, you know, run level? Like we only want to run, you know, 10,000 copies, 240 00:23:09,100 --> 00:23:14,540 whatever. Huh? That's fun. So, so does, does Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys, have they always been 241 00:23:14,540 --> 00:23:20,380 together as sort of like one in-store unit? So did not in store, but you know, like, like, as you said, 242 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:25,320 you manage both of them and I guess they are kind of similar, but have they always sort of been a 243 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:30,960 group together or did that happen sometime over the years? Oh man, here I need to tap back into like 244 00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:36,640 my memory store, but I think like they came from the same company and I'm blanking on the name 245 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:42,900 of the original owner of the franchise, but it was bought by Simon and Schuster. I haven't gone to a 246 00:23:42,900 --> 00:23:49,540 children's bookstore in a while. I have two kids. I think I assembled a lot of children's books in my 247 00:23:49,540 --> 00:23:55,580 time as a children's book editor. And also now there's, you know, Amazon and all that, you know, 248 00:23:55,580 --> 00:24:02,660 stuff. Yeah. And also with COVID. So I don't know where the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew are placed 249 00:24:02,660 --> 00:24:07,980 anymore. Are they, are they in the same universe? Like, do they meet each other or are they separate 250 00:24:07,980 --> 00:24:15,160 in, in separate universes? In my time, I don't think they ever met each other. Oh, that's too bad. 251 00:24:15,420 --> 00:24:19,780 I know, but they totally could. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, they, they seem like there's, 252 00:24:19,860 --> 00:24:23,740 there's not any, any fundamental conflicts between their two worlds that, 253 00:24:25,580 --> 00:24:41,140 I don't know. My, my, my parents loved watching that. So I would watch all of those, 254 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:47,080 the murder. She wrote one, not so much the Magnum PI. I don't know why, but yeah, that's, 255 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:53,160 you know, you, you, I think so far you've come up with a couple things to analogize product 256 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:57,840 management too. They're interesting, right? Like managing, delivering a consultative services 257 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:04,480 and product managing, delivering books, which, which it's interesting. And, you know, especially 258 00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:10,900 the, especially the way I think it's a good analogy, bringing together all those interests of the books 259 00:25:10,900 --> 00:25:17,980 that you have, right? Like as, as you were, you know, going off, you've got the various buyer and 260 00:25:17,980 --> 00:25:23,380 user, the stakeholder and the actual user involved, the parent and the kids. And then, and then, you know, 261 00:25:23,380 --> 00:25:28,840 you hit on something that I think is always interesting and in software, it can be all over 262 00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:34,360 the map, but it's sort of like, not only what's valuable, but like, what is actually possible for 263 00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:40,400 us to produce, right? Like, like, is it, it would be great if we had all of these gold inlaid books 264 00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,400 that were hand illustrated by people, but I mean, that's obviously that's absurd, 265 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:49,480 but that's impossible to deliver. So, so we're not going to do it, which that's a really good 266 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:57,560 example of like, um, you know, just running with that for a moment. Like, yeah, like company says, 267 00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:05,800 or editor or author says, it'll be great if this book has gilded edges and have a leather cover and 268 00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:14,040 all this. Why? Like, do we know that people are going to buy it? Do we know? And oh, and by the 269 00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:19,440 way, when we do that, we're going to have to hike up the price. This, this middle grade book for ages 270 00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:26,760 eight to 12 is now going to be $40. Nobody's going to buy it. So can we do a little bit of research 271 00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:34,700 around this? So the same thing happens software, you're building tractors, whatever it is like 272 00:26:34,700 --> 00:26:40,220 this same conversation happens all the time. Are there phrases like that, that when you hear 273 00:26:40,220 --> 00:26:45,880 you sort of like, uh, so the phrase in this case being like, it'll be great, or it would be great. 274 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:52,640 Like we're all of a sudden the, um, uh, I don't, you know, the, the, the product manager in your mind 275 00:26:52,640 --> 00:27:01,200 starts going like, all right, let's put the defenses in motion. Like I think, you know, sometimes people 276 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:09,640 aren't, um, I think like one of the hardest things for me in my product management career has been 277 00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:17,040 getting stakeholders, certain stakeholders and leaders in the business comfortable 278 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:27,760 with their assumptions and excited about doing something with them, right? Like, um, I think, 279 00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:33,080 you know, I've worked with leaders who are really super smart about the industry and they actually do, 280 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:37,600 you know, we believe this thing needs to have gilded edges, whatever it is. Like we believe that this 281 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:43,900 software needs to do this, this, and this, they might be right, but they might also be wrong. 282 00:27:43,980 --> 00:27:50,180 I can think of one experience, one situation where, um, I was working with a stakeholder who said, 283 00:27:50,300 --> 00:28:01,120 we need to have this app, um, be on an iPad for the people who are using it. It needs to be an iPad app. 284 00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:06,160 It's got to be mobile. This is the thing. And then we said, okay, cool. 285 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:13,040 And went in and observed these people in their process. I'm trying not to get too descriptive 286 00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:19,220 and, um, you know, name and names, but like observed the actual users of this. There was a 287 00:28:19,220 --> 00:28:24,520 current application that we were replacing in their workflow and saw that there was no way 288 00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:29,580 given their current, like the, the thing that they were doing in their process that they could 289 00:28:29,580 --> 00:28:32,420 actually hold an iPad. Right, right, right. 290 00:28:32,420 --> 00:28:39,240 So that was very quick and easy. And I think, you know, what we, our job was to figure out a super 291 00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:46,140 quick, easy, painless way to just eliminate that risk and, and sort of like get ourselves comfortable 292 00:28:46,140 --> 00:28:51,180 with that assumption. And, you know, our approach at that moment in time was not to call out the 293 00:28:51,180 --> 00:28:57,840 stakeholder and say, Hey, assumption, you know, what we say about assumptions. It was just to do, 294 00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:06,340 you know, what we were being paid for, which was to, um, pretty quickly be able to dig into that 295 00:29:06,340 --> 00:29:12,500 assumption and decide whether or not, like, you know, you know, is he right? Is he wrong? Like, 296 00:29:12,860 --> 00:29:16,940 is this actually going to work and, and, and help us actually achieve the goal that we have, 297 00:29:17,020 --> 00:29:21,580 which was not about like the ultimate outcome was not, we have an iPad app. The ultimate outcome 298 00:29:21,580 --> 00:29:27,120 was something else. The iPad was a means to an end. Right, right. It was a feature request. 299 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,760 Yeah. It seems like an example of something you said early on, which is, you know, when, 300 00:29:31,940 --> 00:29:38,920 when you're worrying about providing value, like, like one of, one of the, uh, uh, I'm not good with 301 00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:44,300 my idioms today, but you know, one of the nice reusable patterns that you can follow is like, 302 00:29:44,300 --> 00:29:51,220 um, question assumptions, right? Like, like, I, you know, in lean, there's like the five whys, 303 00:29:51,300 --> 00:29:57,400 which might be, you know, two to three whys too many, but, but you can, you can always kind of at 304 00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,400 least ask one why and maybe two whys to kind of go back, just as you were saying, like, right. 305 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:09,320 Like, why do they need an iPad? Which, which, which maybe even just asking, why do they need 306 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:13,440 an iPad might be sometimes a little too aggressive? Cause it's sort of like, Oh, I don't know. But, 307 00:30:13,780 --> 00:30:18,860 but the other way of asking that might be, well, let's make sure that this would actually work. 308 00:30:19,340 --> 00:30:23,920 Right. Like, and, and you're reminding me, uh, you know, there's, there's a, there's a story similar 309 00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,140 that I like to tell all the time, uh, you know, that I just heard from someone else where 310 00:30:28,140 --> 00:30:32,660 someone wanted to convert, uh, one of our customers wanted to convert all of the recipes 311 00:30:32,660 --> 00:30:37,700 in a commercial kitchen to be on iPads. And like, you know, the team went in instead and they were 312 00:30:37,700 --> 00:30:43,360 like, that sounds great. We're going to go to work on something like to, to phrase it nuancedly. 313 00:30:43,540 --> 00:30:48,740 And instead what they found out is that like, that's a ton of work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, 314 00:30:48,820 --> 00:30:52,760 and, and what, what they found out is that the kitchen staff, they just observed them as you 315 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:57,360 were saying, and they found out that one of the main things the kitchen staff wasted a lot of time 316 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,960 on was like measuring the temperature of mayonnaise, right? Like they had to manually go and like, 317 00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,640 you know, make sure that everything was a good temperature and they had to write it down on a 318 00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,760 clipboard. And then you got to report that thing. And like, it just consumed a huge amount of time. 319 00:31:10,060 --> 00:31:14,900 And so there, you know, I, I guess the, the product manager on that team woke up at night and was 320 00:31:14,900 --> 00:31:20,820 like, ah, an iPad's not very valuable. Like if we could like cut in half mayonnaise measuring time 321 00:31:20,820 --> 00:31:26,640 and make it more reliable, that would be extremely valuable. And so, you know, I, you know, 322 00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:31,260 similar to what you're saying, it's, it's, it's almost like it's, it's good for the, the, the team, 323 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:36,340 the product manager to make sure that when they go into a kitchen, so to speak, or a context that 324 00:31:36,340 --> 00:31:41,160 they're solving problems, that one of the first things that they sort out is like, are we solving 325 00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,220 the right problems? Right? Like, like, are we pointing things in the right direction? 326 00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:51,640 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are we solving the right problems? And I think like in, in the story that I shared, 327 00:31:51,640 --> 00:32:00,840 it was also, um, a really good, uh, collaboration between product management and design. We were 328 00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:08,160 fortunate to have, um, people wearing the hats of design and product management. My role in that 329 00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:14,020 situation was to get this business owner articulating, what are the ultimate outcomes? 330 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:20,780 What are the ultimate outcomes we want from this, um, this product that we're developing? 331 00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:26,280 Designer's job was to go and, and, and then, and then he, you know, he walked back and said, 332 00:32:26,340 --> 00:32:31,240 and here's how we're going to get these outcomes. Okay, cool. Fine. You know, and, and, and take 333 00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:39,160 those notes. Designer was thinking, Hmm, that path to get those outcomes. I'm not sure we need to, 334 00:32:39,300 --> 00:32:43,580 we need to dig into this. We need to do some observation. We need to see what's going on 335 00:32:43,580 --> 00:32:51,460 because there might be a, another way there. And we might be able to take a bigger step than this 336 00:32:51,460 --> 00:32:57,240 business owner is anticipating towards the end outcome. If we don't take the path that he's just 337 00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:03,740 spelled out. So, I mean, all this is to say, like when you do have the, you know, when you're in this 338 00:33:03,740 --> 00:33:08,580 situation where you have the privilege of working with people who are really like fully wearing these 339 00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:13,820 hats, it's really cool. Cause you can like, you know, product management can squarely focus on those 340 00:33:13,820 --> 00:33:20,660 outcomes and are we hitting them and, you know, and inspire and excite the team to figure out a 341 00:33:20,660 --> 00:33:27,640 faster way to get there, but maybe it doesn't have all the answers, right? Like that is where you need 342 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,820 to lean on the superpowers of the other people on the team. Like, I don't know how to build, you know, 343 00:33:31,820 --> 00:33:35,880 build something in a more efficient way. I don't see like, well, if we just pick up these, you know, 344 00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:44,740 two, you know, wires and connect them, you know, like be almost there. You know, I found a thing, 345 00:33:44,780 --> 00:33:49,240 I found a way to achieve the outcome. Kind of like what you, like, you know, in observation, 346 00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:55,960 perhaps like design would have said, Oh, look, there's this really burning important problem to 347 00:33:55,960 --> 00:34:00,900 solve here. That is just checking the temperature of the mayonnaise. And somebody in engineering might 348 00:34:00,900 --> 00:34:07,860 say that it would be super simple to develop some tool to like, I don't know, maybe it's a thermometer. 349 00:34:08,020 --> 00:34:12,060 I don't know. Just like, let's just the engineer, maybe the engineer is just like, Hey, I have a 350 00:34:12,060 --> 00:34:14,740 thermometer problem solved. Right. 351 00:34:14,740 --> 00:34:22,500 Right. And that's, that's super fun. Yeah. And, and, and to, to, to one of the points you're 352 00:34:22,500 --> 00:34:27,180 saying, right? Like still, you know, uh, checking the mayonnaise helps you achieve your outcomes or 353 00:34:27,180 --> 00:34:32,040 running a more efficient kitchen, right? Like, like the, uh, you know, however, whoever you get to 354 00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:39,340 the goal of efficiency is fine. As long as you achieve the goal, you know, so I, you, you're making 355 00:34:39,340 --> 00:34:45,180 me think of one last, maybe, maybe too painfully abstract because I can't nail it down question, 356 00:34:45,180 --> 00:34:49,720 but I was talking with someone recently about, man, what? I can't remember, but they, they brought 357 00:34:49,720 --> 00:34:54,180 up an interesting point that like one of the dangers that people have, you know, there's, there's the 358 00:34:54,180 --> 00:35:01,420 sunk cost fallacy bias thing. Right. And one of the problems that you have when you do a huge batch 359 00:35:01,420 --> 00:35:07,880 of work over time is you kind of like commit to this sunk fallacy idea of like, we've spent so much 360 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:12,360 time doing this that we should just finish it, which in my personal life that comes up all the 361 00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:17,160 time. Right. Which, which, uh, I don't know, which is something, it's interesting to reflect on sunk 362 00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:21,740 college, sunk, sunk fallacy in personal life versus work life, because in your personal life, 363 00:35:21,740 --> 00:35:28,380 it's usually like you're sunking your money that's sunk versus in a corporate context. It's kind of 364 00:35:28,380 --> 00:35:32,880 like over there or somewhere else, but whatever. But, but it sounds like in kind of these, you know, 365 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:40,060 the two switch around the priority situations, right? Like you have to be really good at getting 366 00:35:40,060 --> 00:35:46,760 over sunk fallacy. If only the sunk fallacy of like, I put a lot of thought into this and we should 367 00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:52,840 go do it. How do you, how do you with yourself and other people, how do you observe people kind of 368 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:58,120 to put it in a negative way? How do you get them comfortable being like, oh yeah, let's throw out 369 00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:03,740 two weeks worth of work. So, so for, for example, let's say someone had done a bunch of analysis of, 370 00:36:03,740 --> 00:36:10,900 uh, we are going to have people use, um, iPads, right? Like, so, so we were going to bring this 371 00:36:10,900 --> 00:36:17,040 team in here and we're going to have them do an iPad version of the software. Right. So we have sunk 372 00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:23,940 some resources into that conclusion. Right. And then, uh, you know, as you, in both of our stories, 373 00:36:23,940 --> 00:36:27,720 like someone else comes in and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, there's something 374 00:36:27,720 --> 00:36:32,160 better that we could do rather than just doing your original idea. You spent some time thinking 375 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,600 about that and building it up, but we're not going to do that. At least not yet. We're going to do 376 00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:41,240 this other thing. And that seems like some mind massaging that takes some technique to get people 377 00:36:41,240 --> 00:36:45,560 comfortable with that. There's a lot of mind massaging. Also that product management, 378 00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:52,640 I think does like getting people comfortable with changes and, and yeah, like, so I think 379 00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:57,420 what, what you're saying is, you know, if, if, if you, if you were to have a revelation, 380 00:36:57,420 --> 00:37:03,880 maybe a couple of weeks in that you're going down a path, or maybe like I have joined a situation 381 00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:10,040 and I see things in a different way, you're going down a path. I think, um, you know, what I need to 382 00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:16,800 do, and I, I've certainly been in this situation before is, um, first of all, excite the team 383 00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:22,640 actually doing the work about it. Um, I think I might want to start there instead of like exciting 384 00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:30,320 this picture, but like, typically it's about, you know, you are setting aside a couple of weeks of 385 00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:37,980 work so that you can achieve the ultimate outcome. You're more likely to achieve the ultimate outcome 386 00:37:37,980 --> 00:37:44,200 so that you don't have like, so that you're not having to set aside 10 months of work and have a 10 387 00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:53,220 month sunk cost later. And like pretty much everybody has had the experience of having that 388 00:37:53,220 --> 00:38:00,500 product chip that nobody used. Having it be a shelfware as it were. Yeah. Maybe it took four months, 389 00:38:00,700 --> 00:38:08,880 maybe it took four years. Ouch. But like a lot of people that I've encountered have some war story 390 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:14,280 to tell. So I think, you know, it can be very powerful to like it, you know, when you start 391 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:19,980 having folks tap into those war stories, it's, it's pretty easy to shift people to, you know, 392 00:38:19,980 --> 00:38:24,760 being excited about, yeah, let's pivot now. Let's pivot now because we're seeing some evidence to pivot. 393 00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:30,280 That seems to be always the, um, maybe easiest is, is the good word to use for it. But one of the 394 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:37,240 easier ways to convince people to learn from some new observations and change direction to, to be 395 00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:41,800 agile as it were, that's something it'd be, it'd be, it'd be fun to, to think a lot more about that 396 00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:47,820 because I feel like the idea of thinking out multiple different scenarios or to put it in a 397 00:38:47,820 --> 00:38:53,080 negative way, how could, what are the five ways this could go bad? Right. Like, yeah. Right. And 398 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,900 then, and then the, the other side of that is like thinking about, you know, I, I feel, I feel like 399 00:38:57,900 --> 00:39:03,420 risk management and optionality are like siblings almost. Right. And they're almost like, like the, 400 00:39:03,420 --> 00:39:08,680 the Janice face thing of, of some similar thing where like, you know, the better you do risk, 401 00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:13,820 risk management, the more optionality you'll have. And you sort of like learn after a time that as long 402 00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:20,820 as you have like lots of optionality, things will probably be okay. And then even, I think I'm just 403 00:39:20,820 --> 00:39:27,460 kind of thinking out loud here, but it seems like if you kind of have like a, uh, what's the word 404 00:39:27,460 --> 00:39:32,220 where you've got a comfortable stasis, you're, you've got that sweet spot is the idiom that they 405 00:39:32,220 --> 00:39:37,680 use of, of optionality. You can always kind of like throw a couple of weeks of work away because 406 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:42,000 that's just part of building up and verifying the options that you have. And then it's not even 407 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,440 throwing. Yeah, that's exactly it. Like you probably learn something in those two weeks, 408 00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:53,560 those three weeks, there's two months, you learn something. Um, and that's good. Yeah. It's like 409 00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:59,520 perception change, you know, it's not throw away. Exactly. It's a, it's a step forward. It's a 410 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:06,440 learning. We decided something. Yay. You feel more excited about the direction that we're moving in. 411 00:40:06,740 --> 00:40:10,880 Yay. Like, yeah. So it's a lot of attitude shift. That's interesting. There's always a lot of fun 412 00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:16,260 stuff to learn from product managers. And I, I have a feeling, you know, I've got a, uh, I've got a six 413 00:40:16,260 --> 00:40:21,020 year old and a nine year old, and, uh, there's a lot more product managing of their school life going 414 00:40:21,020 --> 00:40:25,540 on nowadays. And, and I, and I, and I feel like there's a, everything we've talked about could be 415 00:40:25,540 --> 00:40:30,460 applicable there. And, uh, you know, I, I spent, I spent a lot of time also talking with them about 416 00:40:30,460 --> 00:40:35,660 how, you know, cause they're, they're learning to do math and reading and, and they're always saying 417 00:40:35,660 --> 00:40:39,940 they're bad at it. And I still haven't figured out the convincing way to explain the, like, it's not 418 00:40:39,940 --> 00:40:44,700 that you're bad at it. It's that you're learning how to do it. And like, and like learning how to 419 00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:50,580 learning the skill of something, just because you don't do it well for like two days or five years, 420 00:40:50,580 --> 00:40:56,740 it just means you're learning it, which is in that whole other confused abstract area that I'm like 421 00:40:56,740 --> 00:41:00,840 spilling out on the table here is like, it takes that perception shift of just like, no, no, 422 00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:05,140 we spent that two weeks to learn what we should be doing. It's fine. It wasn't a waste at all. 423 00:41:05,620 --> 00:41:09,940 I have an eight-year-old and I haven't figured it out either. Like, I don't know. Product management 424 00:41:09,940 --> 00:41:16,340 for parents is coming out next year. I have not, not figured that one out. 425 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:21,320 Exactly. Well, I'll have to pre-order that. Well, great. Well, thanks for having our wide ranging 426 00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:26,500 expansive thing here. You know, uh, especially thinking about the, the, the composition of the 427 00:41:26,500 --> 00:41:31,740 people that, uh, will be on these two sessions, there'll be an equally fun, wide ranging discussion 428 00:41:31,740 --> 00:41:36,440 of, uh, of what goes on in the product management world. And I think, I think what's especially nice 429 00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:41,440 about them, uh, is that you have people who, uh, you know, have done this in large organizations, 430 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,220 right. And have, uh, have transferred over there where, you know, we managed to drum up a couple of 431 00:41:46,220 --> 00:41:50,620 stories. I guess if you include the Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys, at least three stories. 432 00:41:51,620 --> 00:41:56,000 And I always find that's the most valuable things in these sessions is to hear the, uh, 433 00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,860 the stories, whether they're very small or big that people have gone through. So that's, uh, 434 00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,200 that's what I'll be looking forward to. Let's see the sessions are on, oh, they're both on the same 435 00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:09,360 day on Wednesday, September 2nd. So, uh, I'll, I'll, uh, anyways. So for those two sessions, 436 00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,920 I'll put a link to them in the, uh, the show notes, but it's pretty easy to go to spring 437 00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:18,360 one.io and, uh, you can look them up. There's what makes a great product manager and also 438 00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:23,880 lessons from veteran leaders and the importance of community. Uh, and we haven't really touched 439 00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:28,820 on the details of, of both of those and very much in depth, but they're there for you, dear 440 00:42:28,820 --> 00:42:34,080 listeners to go, uh, check out. All right. Well, thanks. Well, well, uh, thanks for being on. And 441 00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:38,740 as always, this has been Tanzu Talk. You can get the show notes for this episode by going to 442 00:42:38,740 --> 00:42:44,480 tanzu.vmware.com slash podcast. And you can look up all the past episodes. If you go to a 443 00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:50,080 soundcloud.com slash Tanzu Talk as well, and we'll see everyone next time. Bye-bye.