 Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me today. I think it's just a short intro, you know I'm Simon Tottenham. I'm the Chief of Product Success at SkyJed for UK and Europe and not surprisingly therefore I'm based in the UK. Although as you can see on this slide over my time in product management roles, I've been lucky enough to work with many amazing organisations and fabulous teams across these countries. So it's a real pleasure to be able to share with you today some of my thoughts on the topic of product tooling and how by both recognising and closing the gap we can boost the productivity required to build a much stronger product function. It's a huge thank you from me to the team at Product School for helping to create this opportunity. So you know without sort of further ado I just want to dive straight in. I really like this slide because it's such a great representation for me of how fast product grew at a time in just one country. Now when I saw this stat a number of years back, well clearly as you can see two or three years back, it's just something that's never left me. I've tried to find some updated numbers but even chat can't help me with this one. So imagine what these numbers must look like across the globe, let alone in Sweden in 2023. And I think you know that's just a real segue for me into an easy segue into the problem statement of today that I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts and see hopefully through some of the chat or some follow-up what what your thoughts are and it'd be great to engage on that. You know we've grown so fast in product in such a handful of years but as I've observed in a number of recent years I'm not so sure tooling is necessarily kept up with us. There's lots of things on offer out there but let's just explore that a little bit further. So why don't we introduce this problem to you around the gap in product tooling, you know that's why I'm here today. I was keen to take an opportunity to to share a few of my thoughts on the product tooling landscape and they're based upon the fact that you know I've worked now in various product management roles over the last nearly 12 years I think it must be now. Probably more to be fair because when I got started it was you know it was very new in the UK and since then you know the roles have just moved on so fast of course and I think I was probably already in a product role before I was formally really ever in a product role. There was around 2011 when I first got my teeth into my first product role becoming one of the first product donors at a major UK supermarket brand. I had no idea what it really meant. I had very you know I was very much looking forward to a fresh challenge. I've been operating in a business analysis role and I just didn't feel as if I was getting much in the way of momentum or enjoyment from that but here was an opportunity to do something completely different. The whole point of that introduction to the product you know is that it meant I was immediately sort of thrown in at the deep end and you know I would now frame around what was really seclusion based in terms of the tooling that we were using and probably certainly as I'll explore a little bit deeper here many of us are still using to this day. Everything that we were doing was was all about forming and managing that backlog and then that kind of eat sleep repeat process and focus of getting stuff moved and shipped. I don't really remember that many conversations about value creation or customer insight or what the key results should be that we were targeting and you know it was still nevertheless though a new lease of life and it was the start of a wonderful journey through many varied product roles that I've been lucky enough as I said in the introduction to have over that time. So as these roles matured more into leadership positions in recent years of course your focus changes the lens through which I've been looking at product teams in recent years moved much more from the near to the far a more umbrella sort of aspect view across teams and thinking more strategically about you know what it was the sort end-to-end perspective of what that team needed. What I came to realise was that once there are of course a huge number of different tools and toolkits out there that help the product role to be successful and I just didn't see enough of that kind of support from organisations. You know there's plenty of support for tools that would increase or perhaps measure our output here when it came to that enhancement and step change for the product team specifically but this wasn't a great deal of type for that investment and then you know at least not unless it boosted output again you know or made delivery dates more clear or just created more general visibility and you know that sort of helps to frame the problem state for me that we you know we need to help ourselves more you know we need to help our teams and to help our organisations to understand that there is now a much better way forward and that there is a gap and it's not just for product teams but it's for the overall organisation to be much more product framed and product led in its mindset. You know I'm going to just take us through a number of slides here which are just a journey to paint some of that picture and some of the potential wins that we can target and better outcomes that we can target to the end. For me it's quite simple you know in many of my recent conversations across the network particularly since it moved into a new role and those kind of conversations are much more prevalent in what I'm doing right now. There's a pervading theme at least eight maybe out of ten of those conversations lead back to some kind of statement from whoever it is in whatever product roles that suggests for all of that best will in the world that most of the product managers the product teams are drawn back to base and back to their feature factory. I've lived this myself and arguably far too often there's a great deal to do to craft an environment and a culture that pivots us away from this kind of approach and embraces those opportunities that I think we all hear so much of and we crave about value and about outcome. Product tooling can be a significant driver for that and can underpin a difference in ways of working and thinking. Not only can it do this you know create the potential to unlock in teams that they can be much more value focused and value centric in the way they work can also be a beacon for change for a lot of the other functions around us who might typically drive us much more towards the feature factory mindset. So product tooling can help us to focus on those right outcomes and it can apply the brakes to a more output centric measure of success. But you know I mentioned earlier about how product is is really grown so fast but you have product tools kept pace with that growth. I think we've all got a great appreciation I'm sure from all of the material we read in the conferences we attend etc. I've just how much product management has grown over the last 5 to 10 years and continues to grow and that there's so much great content out there. As we attend more of these sessions in person or online the messages that are all related to best practice to goals to skill sets they continue to enthuse you know go to all these conferences and everybody's absolutely buzzing with the wonderful talks and presentations and content and they demonstrate the pace at which the product space is really pushing ahead. However as this picture seeks to outline you know product tooling becomes a bit of a back marker potentially and struggling to keep up with the pace which is being set at the front. Therefore is that sort of inadvertently beginning to hold us back not least from just some of the points I've already made. We've seen such a significant growth in product roadmap over recent years but that in itself can't provide all the answers to everything a product manager really needs. There are many other tools that also contribute to that overall growth journey but are they all really ticking the boxes that a product manager wants and needs and is looking for. I'm not all together convinced they are. So you know I've written a few blogs in SkyJed recently about how in particular about how product catalogs can become sort of lost to a very different intent and become absorbed by tooling with other priorities. It's clear to me we need a step-changing tooling that supports the core of what product managers are all about and about what we need and that embraces the product's journey through their own lifecycle of those products rather than being something to continue to just add more and more through that feature factory to the product. So as I've just alluded to our product team is being held back as a result because if we are frequently being drawn back into being a feature factory and with a toolkit that's supporting our desire isn't I should say supporting our desired growth is it fair to suggest that it's holding us back a little. I can draw upon enough experiences as I'm sure you can of seeking to drive investment in toolkits to support our growth specifically as a product function. However when that sort of push comes to shove moments the appetite in the budget is rarely in my experience made available for it. You know hopefully that's beginning to change and hopefully you're seeing it change but certainly in my experience there have been some deflating moments a little bit where that hasn't been able to really get the momentum it could. As you get more and more uptake of the role of CPO and as that becomes more widely adopted then perhaps that voice will become louder and the present stronger and therefore the decision making the budget holding moving more directly into the product space. I don't think I've seen enough of this just yet maybe that's a regional thing and perhaps you know maybe we see more of that in certain regions than others. You know and I look forward more to seeing organizations create those environments where that kind of thinking can really thrive. So in the meantime if we're not invested and supported in this manner you know it's inevitable we'll simply be drawn back by default into that world of output and with the tools that are there to underpin that and it often feels like that sort of whirlpool effect and sort of drawing us back into it. So sort of finishing off this little bit of a section. In summary it feels to me like being like the horse with the blinkers on by applying the blinkers to product teams, our vision and opportunity gets narrowed. Yeah it achieves the goal of keeping us focused on shipping and delivering more but what's the cost? I'm going to move on to some of the impact areas a little bit later but for now I would just ask you know that we ask ourselves if this is or if this has been happening in your environment so that you can recognize this then if you do then what could you do differently to seek a much better outcome? So what's the impact of seeing a gap in tooling for product teams? You know I think to affect any form of change we've got to first recognize that that problem exists and you know hope that what you've heard so far does help to support that and if you can relate to it in your own experiences then you know let's take a little bit of a deeper look into what some of that impact is. So I think first and foremost you know challenge us all to say that we've worked somewhere where this question never appeared. What is product and what does it do? It's been a constant theme during my time in products. Not only are we hearing and reading so much about products so are our colleagues from different functional areas and you'd think that would help to smooth the path to a much better outcome but why doesn't it always seem to do that? My take on that is that by having a gap in product tooling where we're sort of fueling the viewpoints with a different agenda. Typically this agenda as I keep saying is about output and it's about the need for more and not so much about how sometimes less is more. If the tooling that we used is measuring output and velocity and throughput etc. then it's keeping us away from more value based measures of success and you know I've watched teams get consumed by that and as great as those measures are in a place that they have not necessarily really help the product team to grow and to thrive. So for me what it does is it further adds and fuels a more fragmented tooling landscape. So when I talk to product managers about how they track the value that they create and often it's all too rare then they're reliant upon the other people and departments and as a result on other tools or other data sources and that creates that fragmentation. So by not having a centralized or single source of truth for your view across all of your products and their product life cycle then we fragment into a world of disparate tools and sources and inevitably that just becomes too hard to maintain and manage that means everyone again gets withdrawn back into the easier spaces, the easier worlds where those kind of tools are in play and you know the overarching result is that strong appreciation of what product management is all about just becomes much harder to achieve. So often there's neither the time nor the inclination to do so and that tooling gap for me as I continue to observe is only fuelling that fire further. I think one of the things which has really been a great part of my journey in recent years is the opportunity to get so close to such talented people in product and arguably this is the single biggest impact area. I've hired so many talented product people over the years and particularly in recent years but I've gradually watched many deflate by the environments created around them which are just not giving them exactly what it is that they were hoping for and looking for. So culture and environment is everything and creating a space where you can continuously learn and develop and most importantly then put that into practice but you know as you seek to do this and you know we've been able to attract great talent of course but however retaining that talent has become much harder our market is filled up with a plethora of amazingly talented and ambitious product people and they deserve an environment to thrive in and part of that environment is about toolkits. So organisational cultures are a key contributor sometimes to holding them back and you know an appetite could change that sometimes rarely materialises and that can again as I've said two or three times now it can help to help us revert to type. So if your environment and culture change has been successful you know I hope you can see how this does unlock sort of greater retention and that you don't have a huge amount of attrition in your teams but you know eventually the direction shift going back to delivery and outputting some of my experience and the team does then begin to deflate and what happens the attrition rates rise and the evidence is there for all to see their facts their things you can't deny and there are always underlying reasons and and drivers for why that's happened. So basically in summary you know you'll lose your talent unless you properly invest in what it is that they want and what it is that they need and tooling is very much part of that landscape. I mentioned about defaulting back to tools with the same old focus so by not seeing and embracing the tool sets which are emerging for product managers the pathway becomes the pathway becomes that very simple default back to all of those usual tools with their as is focal points. My own experiences as I've mentioned far too often have come down this pathway at the core of product development we find all the tools we're used to having around us for a considerable amount of time now and these tools typically and often promote an agenda of delivery and service and they lead us back into that sort of narrow blinkered output focused environment. The worst part of this for me is is that it defaults us back into that same old thinking it becomes almost too like pushing water appeal it's too hard to push against so as a result we're effectively stifling an opportunity for growth for product managers and for teams as a whole and you know I personally find that such a shame it's a key it's a key part of the reason why I chose to focus on helping to evangelize this message now through what I've chosen to do with my career at the moment and you know and that's about the need to invest in product teams and to listen to what it is that they're looking for give them those toolkits allow them to to trial and learn and grow and develop those toolkits that will give a greater effectiveness and presence to the product role. I think that's ultimately where it's all about it's you know a different level of effectiveness for product teams I'm very passionate about this and how is hopefully you can pick up on and you know I've watched the energy spill from product teams who feel like they're absolutely truly able to make a difference in what they do where they've got that investment that empowerment and all of that motivation who wouldn't want to do that and part of the that landscape for them to be able to grow is to do so with a basis of fantastic tooling to help them. So you know following on from that last message this is really about opportunity so in this area this sort of segment of a few slides I've talked about awareness about deflation about defaulting back to the as is the underlying driving factor is about that output focus and one which really impacts product teams so significantly and where you know one key impact is in that tooling position so when you're advocating something different it's not it's not often only is it really you know a hard slog to prepare and articulate your message it's also some time consuming that I feel some of the impetus can be lost there's you know that's such a shame and I you know have enough experience of it that I thought now what could I share with you that would help to clear the path for you well for me it's pretty much down to being able to invest the right amount of time in your product strategy and I don't just mean the strategy for your products but the strategy specifically for your product function and how that is to move forward and how that's going to grow so you know too often we look at these objectives as something of a side initiative and that means a small percentage of time is going into it the day job will always be there to haul you back so to make it happen define some roles which are specifically aligned to this and hire or succumb to these positions for a period of time now you'll you'll meet some challenge and push back from others of seeing the value in those activities perhaps but remain firm remain focused and the values are absolutely there in helping for you to drive more towards a product led organization that in the way that everyone thinks and operates it's across everybody here but it's upon us in product to to help to promote something which is which is new because old habits and practices take some breaking so if you're going to find a silver bullet and I'd say tooling is right up there in the silver bullet list it you know this can tangibly demonstrate the impact of me being more product led in the mindset and the actions across the entire organization and what kind of challenges does this create as a result for us well I've mentioned earlier about the deflation in product teams and the attrition it creates as an example to build upon you know I once worked in a space where we tried really hard to promote a different understanding as to what product was and is and we sought an endeavour to build a culture and a pin by learning and development by freedom for talented product managers to express their abilities and as a result attrition was the smallest across the entire department however over time this this just couldn't be sustained and we were always being hauled back into the promises of output and delivery mindset dates costs etc and and this began to outweigh the sort of true reason for our purpose so the creation of consumer and organizational value diminished you know as this happened and noticed the attrition rates begin to rise and this shouts loud for me for the right environments and cultures and having the right tooling in place to demonstrate the intent of the overall organization to invest in the product space and that should be as I keep saying considered a key contributory factor to some of the attrition you get so investing your product tooling in teams or someone else will attract your talent into an environment that has what you don't have I mentioned a little bit earlier about how soon and how much is the usual sort of return to size everything cost everything and make a promise around everything I've observed plenty of product managers who have no problem with this and solidify their own positions with it as almost their own operating model for me they're not the product managers of today of 2023 and beyond and it's something to be aware of and make sure you have a plan to address tooling again and everything that goes with it it's something of a barometer for me as to how you're shaping up as a team if you have a team who's seen embrace that opportunity you'll be less focused on cost and date and more about creation and measurement of value so if you can select tooling that will both simplify and power that strategy you know don't make it feel like an overhead or an unnecessary use of time if you do I promise you you're on the verge of falling back into those old ways of thinking and operating so allow the tooling to be your your magic wand your bag of you know magic gold dust whatever it is but it's something which can really light up that journey for you one of the great and sort of simplest opportunities that comes with tooling focused upon product is making sure you become the first to know about any issues and opportunities so if you set your tool kits up to trigger and inform you when something is degrading or improving well that's placing product front and center it demonstrates that you have your finger on the pulse and that you know and will diminish that sort of reactivity approach all the time you know too often I felt often like I was the last to know or our teams were the last to know so by the time the issue reached me it had been through so many hands inboxes conversations and then my role was pretty much expected to just fix it or deliver a solution that some others had already decided that's not allowing me in my opinion to be the best product manager I can be and I completely think that it's limiting my ability and the team's ability to make the right recommendations and the right decisions about the journey for the product so if your tool kits are highlighting risks and issues for you that's great i think that you know first and in addition if they're also highlighting areas of growth then you've got a great opportunity to make decisions and divert resources to further improve those growth growth areas you know the agility in that is really empowering and engaging and rather than just keeping on shipping the next thing and reacting to fix the next issue now you have the ability to make decisions and pivot and embrace those growth opportunities this is where it's at in the product space so don't you know over engineer it simplify it and make it effective with the right tool kits that you need in your product space so i'm going to wrap up and just go through a couple more slides to finish off and think about what what the wins could be what do great outcomes potentially look like well yeah i can't deny that this statement we've all heard it many times before has been at the forefront of lot of my leadership message in recent years you know don't get me wrong there are projects there'll always be projects they won't go away but if we allow projects to be the only other main show in town we'll again lock ourselves back into a time and cost conversation scope and requirements will be the driving force and without fail everyone loves to have their say when it comes to scope yeah it is sort of effectively gives everyone an opportunity to wear a product hat then reduces the effectiveness i think from what i've seen of those actually in product roles in the teams i've said you know for many years now we're a product team we build products which have a life and we focus less upon delivering products that are all about just the cost and the time the other projects if you like easy to say pretty tough to execute so product tool it can help us again you have mentioned that's all the the wise and the impacts earlier on about this but the clue is in the title it's a product management toolkit not a product product management tool and or a project management tool i should say so embrace it for what it stands for and for the opportunities it creates to power up your people your practices your teams and ultimately then to allow you to just continue to build better and better products so grasp this opportunity with both hands allow tooling to be the vehicle which triggers and supports it you know too often we get trapped in the near everything that's happening now um and you know the the opportunities the ones that are more proactively highlighted by your tooling so they can allow us to ideate to innovate and to think more into the future into the middle and the far and this the point here is that this that the opportunity doesn't have to just be in the changes you can make in your next iteration it could be a pivot in your focus you could be you know rewiring the medium or even the longer term roadmap you've got your finger on the pulse and that's powered by tooling that you can look at every minute of every day and is helping you as you refine it to um you know quickly identify and make quick decisions overall i mean i could do a full session i think on on the simplification of the tooling landscape now i was at an event recently where a lot of the attendees were chatting about returning to old tools when they go back to the day job um and but a few talked about a situation where they had too many tools and often those tools were selected by other functions so as a result they were struggling to understand the intent of what their now overall tooling landscape looked like um they weren't sure really where they should be placing a lot of focus on in their time so the learning for me is that via maybe more integrations more consolidations we could significantly simplify the tooling landscape and with key product management toolkits at the center of this experience they sort of become the centerpiece of the union if you like so finally and you know i just want to return to the point referenced earlier with the opportunity to enhance the product role um and the role that we should be playing in organizations um using toolkits specifically designed for product and teams has the ability not just to answer the many challenges i outlined earlier can fundamentally raise the bar for the role of product and ensure that others more readily understand you know what we are here to do and indeed what we're not here to do because i think sometimes that is is too often missed i'm a firm believer in it's all about the team and everyone targeting common goals but in product we can't wear every hat and everyone else shouldn't try to wear our product hat i'm sure you get that intent there are boundaries in roles that help to make our teams much more effective you know when i was very much immersed in those roles i saw how well this worked we were a tight team we solved everything together we all had our input and we definitely benefited from knowing the boundaries though between our roles cooling again can help us to define this and in the space i'm now working i really value that product managers can give complete visibility via the tooling to all their all other roles and all the users without feeling like their work across the product lifecycle is is being overly compromised by per se too many fingers in the pie so you know these tools are out there to benefit us um and it's really a great opportunity for us to get out there and to embrace them so they're my thoughts for today um it's amazing how fast the time absolutely flies by thank you for taking the opportunity to to listen to some of my thoughts around the product tooling landscape and and the difference that it can make and some of the things we need to watch out for um a little slide at the end here just to say um who i am again and to to open up that if you'd like to get in touch please do it would be a pleasure to further the conversation with you and learn about some of the the challenges and the opportunities that you're facing when it comes to your product tooling landscape all the very best good look