 Hey there, my name is Malte. I'm super excited to be here today to talk about it's time for modular product management thanks for product school for hosting this amazing event and inviting me and Before I dive into the details. I would like to give you a few facts about me So I'm the co-founder CEO and Cpo at AirFocus. We're the world's first flexible and Modular product management platform more on this a bit later And I'm a product enthusiast myself. So I love building product and user experiences And this is also how I stumbled across the problems. We are solving today and I'm also a father of two. So I have a three and a half year old daughter and a five months old son and Yeah, let's dive into the details. So what are we gonna talk about today? We're gonna talk about the challenges of product management in delivering real value And I'm gonna list a few of the things that we found in one of our recent surveys very interesting stuff then we're gonna look at What is modern PM? super briefly just a few hot takes on Yeah, what defines and a good approach to product management and then we're gonna look at the accelerated needs for modular product management tools and Then surprise surprise. We're also going to look at Airfocus and I will show you around the product on a little walkthrough So let's start with the very first topic the challenges of product management in delivering real value So here are some brand new stats from our latest state of product management survey so the biggest problems and you see in the headline here that We identified six core challenges, but like not all of them or most of them are not really new They're essentially confirming what we all know, but I still think it's super helpful because it shows you again like what you should think about and where you should put the focus and if that's not Happening in your job right now. You should maybe Try change that and find ways to get back to the to the essences So what are the biggest challenges? So 33% of the People that we surveyed said that they struggle defining a strong and well communicated product strategy So that makes complete sense Product management is an ardent and science and you want to be strategic especially in a world where there's so much competition and so much knowledge freely available So you want to be strategic in what you do? and you need to most and most and foremost like bring stuff together from from all these different areas be it customer feedback be it strategic insights that you have be it Additional things that other people in your company might contribute to to the strategy. So you need to bring it together and write it down then secondly 32% reported that they're really struggling Communicating roadmap and decisions and aligning people around at the product roadmap and the company and product goals Thirdly 30% of the people stated that they are struggling understanding what the customers want and This makes like I actually think this number is much higher, but let's say that let's let's see people Don't talk enough to customers and then sometimes they don't listen well and it's not because they're Stupid or they don't try hard. It's just super difficult and you need to develop a skill to to actually Listen and then understand what is meant and this just takes time and and and you also need to dedicate time and we see A lot of our customers and to be honest also us internally at air focus struggle with this a lot all the time I mean, it's it's it's really a big big problem and it's not new So 29% of the people state that they need to become more efficient at delivering more features more rapidly And this is one that I would like to understand a bit better, but not on this talk today So I know that many product managers are stuck at feature factories where they're expected to pump out more and more features But I'm really convinced that it should be more about the outcomes and a bit more on this on one of the next slides but you want to be careful not and just looking at the number of features and the Velocity when when looking at Like what you eventually want to achieve here. So 26% name the communication and alignment of different stakeholders as a core challenge and Again, this makes total sense and I will show you a screen that I really laugh that summarized what product management actually is and it this gives you Like clear indication Why this is such a such a hot challenge and Then equally sex 26% struggle like prioritizing the right initiatives on the roadmap level and then One level lower What opportunities to focus on? Yeah, and this is air focus core competence territory We started as a prioritization tool a few years back and we really really really Try to understand a prioritization and I completely get that like prioritization and road mapping Those are the the two biggest challenges of PMs and really all of the product teams Struggle with it in one way or another But yeah, like to me the surprising thing here is the Not so much surprising it's more like the Highlight topic here that these teams struggle with with the product strategy and and all the underlying topics so Let's start by defining Modern product management, I think that's that's very important that we all have like a a combined understanding of what modern or good product management is so first and foremost, it's about understanding the importance of outcomes over outputs So it's less about building features and more about delivering products that solve real-world problems and Also as part of our state of product management report we I defend identified that 40% state that growing needs To become more outcome focused So I think there's realization now that this is important and that you need to move away from feature factory thinking and Like getting that getting to a real outcome driven product management approaches is it's not easy But more and more teams are going that direction So then the second point of modern product management is to invest in discovery and experimentation so Ask any PM and they will tell you that they should focus more on talking to users and understanding the problem the markets then run experiments around different solutions and Coming back to that Challenges part on the previous slide really working on product strategy and bringing it all together So what we also see is that there is still a transformation between waterfall approach to this truly agile approach which includes continuous discovery and A lot of the teams they claim they are agile, but we also see a lot of fake agile or Stuff in the middle, which is not always bad. It really depends on the company and the situation But I think there's now mutual understanding that An agile approach to tackling problems is the way to go So the fourth point here is product first so this move to product-led growth Strategies and this is very close to to to product management in in that you try to build user experiences that really are built around the product and not so much around like sales and marketing so product-led growth essentially is a business methodology Which user acquisition expansion conversion and retention are the the primary drivers and They are all driven by the product itself. So the product is is doing all of that heavy lifting and to to sum it up a product-led growth product or Business is actually able to to just live with the product you could probably pause CS sales marketing all of that and If it's a really awesome product with self-serve built in you will be able to to survive with it in in a list Little thought experiment, of course So yeah, and I guess our studies is all about product-led growth and the realization of companies and PMs that that this is a trend that's here to stay and Yeah product teams need to put more focus on on on how to get there. So Let's talk about the accelerated need for modular product management tools that fit your uniqueness. So this is like my special topic that I I have been thinking about for years and That is really close obviously to also what we do here at F O goes and and and what what I'm driving here as the CEO and CPO and As a side note like covert has really accelerated all of this like previously we were all in the office all the time and we were able to Do magic on whiteboards and do and and and be able to align ourselves on on on coffee dates and all of that And this has all changed with with covert I don't want to go into the details because I think we're not only all sick of covert, but we're also sick of covert Literature and covert tips and so on. At least I'm speaking for myself so in order to achieve that modern state of product management that I outlined a bit earlier and in order to make sure you can define and communicate this clearly Articulated product strategy you you need a structured way of doing product management and a dedicated product tool that helps you create a single source of truth and Why modular you will learn a bit later But before we dive into what a product Modern product stack is let's look at What product management actually is all about and this is the slide that I referred to a bit earlier. I love this slide It's I could actually explain it to my mom. She immediately would get it so product management is the section of customers technology and business and I and I actually will print it out after this meeting and Put it on the walls here because it's so elegant and it's it's giving you focus, right? like you're here in the middle and your job is to look at all these elements here and Moderate and and make decisions that that account for this complexity Yeah, and in order to accelerate innovation and in order to create compelling products and drive revenue You you need to bring all of that together So how do product teams solve these problems today, so I know many of you probably already on a bit of a more modern stack, but a lot of product teams still work like this so they have these complicated Excel spreadsheets where they have they build self-built prioritization formulas and where they try to manage the entire backlog and the roadmaps and Pre-COVID they were also doing stuff like putting stuff on post-it notes here on the side So you see this I'm not saying it's it's bad or anything. It's just not as efficient and Effective in today's world and since you have to be so fast in innovating and Producing value for your customers and you can't just afford to lose time and focus and and and Create all that waste by by not having tools that are up-to-date and this was also confirmed by our State of product management survey So 43 percent of PM state that a dedicated PM tool is the answer to most of their challenges So it makes sense if you don't have a tool It's like trying to drill a hole with a hammer and you will eventually fail and Coming back to the challenges again like you want to be strategic and you want to create that space to collaborate around the problems and Feedback and prioritization and road mapping and you simply can't do that in in Jira and this Be sad the Excel spreadsheet You need a home for your product team to collaborate with the team and other stakeholders in other departments and make product management and inclusive science or art depending how sophisticated you work and You you want to make sure that it's an inclusive Workflow and that people get the chance to give feedback and be part of your product workflows so that's why product tools have become so important and as they help provide a space for for problem-solving and Yeah, this is how we see product management And and and how the product tool Should function in the in the broader space. So Sorry, I think the my my camera is overlapping the left text here. So it says feedback here on the left So essentially this feedback and data on the left that is Surrounding your company and it's constantly flowing in and Then there is a product management tool in this case effort was in the middle That it's kind of taking all these inputs and making sense of it and putting it together be it strategy prioritization Linking feedback to your product items through insights road mapping obviously and then this continuous discovery That you do from when stuff arrives To taking it through the opportunity pipeline to then handing it over to Delivery and making sure you're actually building the right things in solving the right problems so it's a it's not really a linear flow from the left to the right, but there is also like Feedback loops in here like you launch stuff you get get feedback you Inform people who have given feedback about a certain thing. So It's a cycle that obviously also makes sense in in when you when you apply hr thinking here and Going now back to the point of modularity We learned as part of our survey that product managers Half of the product managers state that product management tools have poor usability and that they do not fit their unique team needs and this was really good for me to see because We believe here at Africa goes that companies and products are very different and unique and that also the way companies work And Very often make sense and there's not always a best way of doing things There are some things that you can Apply and that you should apply but sometimes there are very good reasons why company work and behave and are structured the way they are and we are not big fans of and Having a rigid and strict System that says hey, there's one way of doing product management now Adapt with your company and your products to this workflow We think it should be the other way around a software should adapt to your needs and it should Kind of be empathetic and try to understand what problem are you trying to solve right now? And just give you solutions for this very specific problem And then when you need more you just build on top of of of this and this also leads to Increased usability and a better user experience because you can start super slim for example just with a roadmap and then When you need more like an advanced prioritization system or feedback management and insights You just build on top of it and you will see that very soon in the demo How this can actually be done in Africa, of course So what is important in a product tool? It needs to adapt to your unique workflows and it needs to be able to grow with you when you scale it needs to be easy to use and Friendly and it needs to be inclusive. So you want to make sure that other stakeholders and other product teams Can work with it and especially when organizations become more complex and you maybe have multiple teams multiple products Dependencies and that go across departments. Maybe you have a whole lot of Pms and multiple head of product management and then a CPO on top of it Maybe you want to create very specific views where you bring stuff from multiple groups on to a portfolio view like all of that is Important and it helps including other people and Our thinking is if you if you're inclusive and you bring people together you will make less mistakes and you will Generate these awesome insights that help you move ahead So let's now jump into the demo So air focus is the home for a product and the people who built them and we are the first modular product management platform Everything you can do with air focus and you can do it your way because your way in most cases makes sense so you can sign up for a free trial on our website and When you now go into the product You will see that you find your team name here in the URL. So in our case, it's boom dot air focus calm So you see since we're Germans, we are super funny here with the with the name and we took the famous Video conferencing tool as an example here. So I hope the laughing is going on right now on your side. So This is your air focus team and this is where you have Multiple workspaces and in this case, we have a boom feedback workspace, which you will see a bit later This is the place where you manage all your feedback and where you can link it to your product work And then we have the room video platform workspace, which we will now look at so This is now the workspace and a workspace essentially consists of items it consists of Different fields and in efforts, we don't have a million systems fields that we force upon you You will only see the fields that you need to beat your objectives your road map lane your labels some prioritization criteria and Aside from the items and the fields we have this concept of views So you have different views like the stable view a prioritization chart a road map even a release plan that allows you to create better Release documents and then the fourth component of air focus are apps and apps are essentially these little Super tools that help you solve very specific product management problems And I will talk about these in a second, but let's like first go back to this overview here The table this is usually used as a product backlog, but everything is customizable You can have as many views or as little views as you want it's up to you and your workflows and We have a great bunch of templates that you can pick from when you when you create your first workspace So one of the most powerful apps here at air focus is the priority ratings app and this essentially gives you Custom factors in this case value effort and revenue and it gives you custom criteria that underlie these factors So value consists of reach and impact and you also see that they are measured in different units And you have team effort as one of the only effort criteria. We also have revenue and Yeah, when you fill out these ratings here, you see that our system Calculates a priority score and this priority score helps you essentially make better decisions or gives you guidance kind of like a North Star and Tackling this this a very Interesting topic of prioritization right like you obviously prioritize always on multiple levels So prioritization is not just hey You have a prioritization scoring system like this one and then you go through the scores and then you get a prioritization score and done You just build the things with a high score this is not how it always works and it depends a bit on the on the stage that you are in and Especially such a prioritization system makes most sense when when you know already what the problem is when you have identified rough or Detailed solutions of how you want to solve it and the list is just too long Right, this is a problem that we all face the list of things that you know You need to build and you kind of have specked out is just too long And then it makes sense to put stuff through this prioritization framework but on a higher level obviously you want to have some other prioritization projects processes around What objectives you actually want to do and we're now entering okay our territory and I could talk about this for for hours Which I'm not going to do right now, but essentially The important takeaway here is that prioritization happens on multiple levels Obviously, you want to get your mission and vision right then you want to have the right company objectives Then you want to break these objectives down into team objectives as you can see here and then When you know all of these Opportunities here and apics and features they Kind of pay into into these Objectives and you still have too many then a prioritization system like this is super super helpful because it gives you guidance on all the views and let's say you have now put all your apics here through this prioritization framework and you have this Squat list of Opportunities you can then go to your priority chart which shows you the quick wins and the don't do's and obviously the high-value high-effort project here and if you Scroll over these items you will find that the push notifications actually is a quick win here and you can then Click on it and find the details here again, and then you can make design then you can make Decisions around when you want to tackle this so you see this one is right now in design and Maybe you want to put it back into discovery because you learn something or you actually want to move it to development So this gives you this bird's-eye view to make better product decisions and then obviously You have the roadmap and we have different visualizations to create roadmaps and product timelines and on this Board view here, you find a now next later roadmap for your initiative or initiatives or opportunities and Of course, there are different ways here to to visualize all of that data, right? Like we have display options that you can actually also save on the view Don't want to go into details here But you can also show all of these items in a very simplistic non-swim lane way and you can In a very customized customizable and user-friendly way decide actually what you want to to show here to To to to bring the message across and to do proper communication of your of your roadmap and all of these views here in Africa's you can easily share with others and Going kind of from road mapping to actual release planning we have a very powerful timeline view which allows you to do drag-and-drop and create dependencies with these very user-friendly and if interactive animations here or actions and you can create milestones and Again change how you want to visualize all of that and It's really up to you how you want to visualize this release plan before you then share it with other stakeholders in your organization and Since we don't have unlimited Time for this call. I'm just give you like a super rough Overview about other apps that we have so we have priority poker which is a collaborative way to do these prioritization ratings so Just because I think this is a seven it doesn't mean that seven is the best number for this specific cell here so what you could do is you could spin up a priority poker session and invite other stakeholders to give their inputs on whether this should be a seven or whatever and Our system will then suggest an average that probably is better than the seven that you have here if you have smart people in the meeting And you can play priority poker in an asynchronous or synchronous way so in a live session or whenever people have time and then again overview about the little Super tools that we have here. We have the item mirror app and this is a Super powerful tool for bigger teams that have a lot of complexity Essentially, you can create multiple workspaces and show items from one workspace in the in another workspace and then do magic there and this really helps to foster cross workspace collaboration and Then we have a feedback amps app, which will be soon renamed to forms app Essentially, it gives you a form on the workspace or the item even on share links that allows you to collect feedback from from other people beat your co-workers or just your customers who access your share link and Yeah, like the the other app that is super powerful here is the insides app and I will show you in a second how it works and Just to finish off what you can do in an effort goes workspace. We have very powerful integrations into your Jira Trello asana as your DevOps shortcut get up Zapier and so on and so on and with two-way sync and advanced field mapping and you can essentially Connect any tool that you already use and build workflows that make sense for you So Let's go back to the home view where you find all your workspaces and I mentioned the feedback workspace in the very beginning So the feedback workspace is a place where you can centralize all the feedback that arrives from the front channel be it your inner calm maybe manual notes from a sales call maybe something that a Marketing guy added by the chrome extension doesn't matter you can send stuff to this inbox and then what you want is that the product team or the product managers go through this feedback and Categorize it so you kind of define the status and whether this is relevant and When something is relevant, so let's take this one that was sent over by a CS agent via the our intercom integration you Can go into the specifics of this conversation that our CS agent had with the with the customer and you can highlight the relevant parts here and then link it To an item that you have already on your product workspace So you remember that we were looking at the push notifications a bit earlier so this customer feedback is now linked to the push notifications item and You are now informing The product discovery and the strategic approach to product management by linking customer feedback To product work and you now find that this specific customer feedback here is now linked to the push notifications and There are also a few other feedbacks that have already been Linked so they are currently for insights here and You can also find this number here and it gives you guidance and quick access to to the feedback when you're trying to understand This opportunity or this specific solution that you're building here Yeah, this is super powerful and we have dedicated feedback integrations and more to come That help you put feedback handling on autopilot and it essentially gives you a much smarter way to Yeah, like Give your customers and users a Seat on the on the on the table right because they are using the product on a database And they know a lot of stuff and you want to make sure that you're listening and understanding what they need and that you're making All these insights part of your discovery and product strategy Yeah, so Obviously, there's a lot more to the effort goes product management platform And I would really recommend to sign up for a free trial and check it out and experience all the modularity that comes with fields views and apps and If you have ever any questions, we have a few very helpful Things here and you can always talk to our people here at afro course. We usually respond within five minutes so Going back to the very presentation Thank you all for listening to this Webinar and you can scan this QR code right now to sign up for 40-day trial or you can simply go to afrox.com and If you want to learn more and if you want maybe sign up for our newsletters and Look at our resources Like the ebooks around product management, product decision, road mapping, product growth and so on and so on so Thanks again, and have a great day. See you soon. Bye. Bye