 Hello everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join me here today with product school My name is Mark cookies. That's right cookies like warm chocolate chip cookies. You might leave out for Santa Claus I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you something that you might have never thought about After all part of the fun of product is seeing correlations across unrelated industries, especially if you spot them early Throughout my years as a product coach and mentor I've realized that the core of the role is really solving problems collaboratively and That this is accomplished using many universal soft skills Frequently found in global and in good leaders Military leaders are often revered as being exceptional. So what can we product managers learn from them? So today I'll share with you a peek behind the curtain of military doctrine and I promise not to ask you for any push-ups along the way We'll start with diversity and identity Everyone wears a uniform and operates as a single unit, but Bringing your authentic self often brings out your best self and that best self is the one who's going to bring out the best of a team We'll then walk through some of the US Army values and while these may be specific to the army I assure you that all of these branches of service uphold similar virtues I wouldn't be surprised if the same ethos were shared around the globe as well. I mean, they're quite universal like most product principles in my opinion We'll close by discussing how I a product forward mindset benefits more than just product managers Thinking like a CEO like someone who is invested in the business and its outcomes Will provide about a broader perspective as you solve the problems you encounter So who am I? I'm Mark and this is the closest thing to jumping out of a plan. I've done in the past decade If you have a chance to visit secluded islands in the Philippines, I highly recommend it I'm currently loving the product life of Peloton I started my product journey at Capital One after spending some years in technology I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I always wanted to be closer to our customers and the business Influencing decisions rather than just receiving requirements The right opportunities opened up and I never learned to look back You know, I also spent three years in the army as you might have guessed by now I was planning to spend more until an injury unfortunately limited my career potential But it was a blessing in disguise It enabled me to study two of my passions business and technology and opening a new future that I'm happy to share with you all All right on to diversity and identity So what comes to mind when you think of the military? For most it's a uniform Everyone shares the identity of their unit and their organization But the group is made of individuals Each individual offers a unique contribution to the group Everyone you meet in life knows something which you do not and So for the group to be at its best the individuals need to be at their best Bring your authentic self to the party and everyone will have a good time, you know Some struggle with imposter syndrome. There will always be someone faster stronger smarter and that's okay You do you and bring your breasts. Sorry. You do you and bring your best self You know during my time in the service one of the students at language school really struggled to learn Arabic No matter how hard they tried they couldn't get rid of their thick southern drawl and I You know and they they felt personally ashamed by it, you know the late nights of studying books and recordings wasn't helping However, this this person truly embodied southern hospitality We organized a barbecue together on a beautiful day where everyone was required to speak Arabic Good food friends a few refreshing beverages really put everybody at ease and Instead of being embarrassed to speak with an accent this personally find this person finally embraced it You know, we all had a laugh because we never heard anything like it before But we found that it made the the speech for this person much more fluid and natural They finally stopped worrying and started learning, you know eventually tutoring other Arabic students and so By helping this person overcome their obstacles the organization more broadly than benefited through their contributions Paying it forward and improving the team If you can find a team with whom you can be your best self All right, so we're going to kick off the army values with loyalty and When we discuss loyalty, I'm not referring to blind obedience if I ask you to jump I don't expect your response to be how high although as a product manager clarifying requirements is always a good practice The army would describe it as bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution country and unit For us this means this really correlates to the the mission or the vision of the organization The company itself and your immediate teams as a product manager You are the champion for of the vision for your area within the company. You are the CEO of your products Bringing the business perspective and the questions to the agile teams You need to be confidently committed to the goals of the organization so that you can excite others to join you Yes, there may be some cheerleading involved Yes, you can fake it until you make it. That's okay But remember that the mission and values help answer the questions you didn't know you had Especially when it comes to user experience An example of this, you know during my time at capital one I was amazed by our commitment to the character and personality of you know our digital assistant Might have heard of it This was a reflection of our company and needed to represent the values of capital one to change banking for good And so once we built out the conversational capability Almost every part of the company wanted to start using it for everything, you know, wouldn't it be cool if marketing could be more interactive with a chatbot? Could we have a chatbot help fill out an application for a new account? Would a chatbot do a better job of collecting past due payments? And from a strictly financial standpoint, you know, there is potential for any of these to help the bottom line However, we always referred to our missions and values Will this help the customer? Will this help them make a better financial decision? Will this provide peace of mind knowing that we have their back? Will the customer see us as a partner working together to improve their financial future? If not, there are other viable solutions to those problems You know embracing and evangelizing the mission of the organization really helps everyone contribute to the company's future So next up is duty Fulfilling your obligations do as you say and say as you do But this speaks to more than just completing your tasks for the day Duty also refers to your commitment to the team If you're lucky enough to be part of an empowered product team your successful collaboration will drive impactful outcomes for your business To quote Marty Martin Kagan founding father of modern product management, you know solve hard problems in ways customers love yet work for the business and So your duty also applies to helping customers and users It isn't enough just to provide a solution It has to be a solution that the customer finds more attractive than any other alternative So we which is tough because the technology landscape is more competitive than ever before Software is no longer finished these days only iterated And so new features are being released multiple times per day Teresa Torres has a new book out continuous discovery habits Which provides frameworks for getting customer input weekly and how you can bring them into you know How you can bring these customers in to help co-develop useful features faster? And so speaking of faster one of the great side effects of a successful agile team is the acceleration of the flywheel When big goals are broken down into kind of smaller independent deliverables, you know, this can begin a tighter feedback loop You learn what is or is not working very quickly Which allows you to incorporate feedback and adjust quickly Teams will find a rhythm and often exceed their own expectations And you know the faster you can incorporate this customer feedback the sooner you can solve their problems in ways which they love Which also speeds up the pace of delivery with your agile teams improving team morale there as well So Speaking of customers, you know respect is very crucial It's it's obvious that you'll want to maintain a professional courtesy with your peers, right? And we're all good friends here What might always be as obvious is your understanding and awareness of all segments of your users So when you have deep knowledge of your products, you might know all of the available features In fact, you should know all of the available features Any problem that arises you know exactly where to find the solution But can you say the same for your users, you know, certainly there will be some enthusiasts But can all of them easily use what you've built? This is why frequent customer feedback can be invaluable Always always always gather usage data and track the first-time experience Slice the data along segments that make sense for your business You know also once upon a time I was working on a really cool new way for our customers to interact with our products And we expected it to be a big hit with a 35 and under crowd because you know, this was the most tech savvy in our opinion A few months and many features later. We started noticing something we didn't expect our net promoter scores while good with our target demographic were Outstanding with older users The convenience of our experience was intuitive in a way that we had not expected for them Leading to sincere appreciation, you know, and so we started incorporating an even more diverse set of users in our feedback loops, right? Which then led to a consistently high net promoter score for the product throughout, you know, my time there So don't judge a book by its cover nor should you Ignore an available demographic in your MVP as you try to kind of minimize that scope You never know when you might find your most enthusiastic users So next up is selfless service and as the name implies it's putting others before yourself and any personal aspirations for recognition A product manager cannot be successful all by themselves The role is deeply collaborative Working together to overcome any obstacle really So from an agile perspective, I've always viewed this as servant leadership, right? Or the idea of making forward progress through helping others achieve their goals, which also happened to be your goals I Have the utmost respect for engineering teams engineering teams are the ones who make our products and business dreams a reality and This is why I often go out of my way to get them whatever they need to be successful You know help those who help you Bring the coffee bring the doughnuts do what you need to but keep your teams happy And so it's also a good opportunity to reflect on your duty as a product manager You know being the glue that binds everyone. There are many expectations for you to fulfill It's not easy If you've taken the certified scrum product owner course, it helps you prepare for the product owner role Which is just a fraction of the product management role, right? I won't list it all out here today since that would likely take far too much time But if you are interested Marty Kagan is someone who I look to for wisdom in this space Inspired is his book for individual contributors And new product managers He also has empowered more recently which is more for like the director level the manager or the the coach of other product managers Which is still a great read to kind of gather more perspective and more refinement on the subject He also has a lot of great info on his blog and Silicon Valley product group Definitely worth following because he'll kind of give you a pre-read of some of his materials before they get published I'm jumping back in I'll say another example of selfless service in the civilian space is Jumping on the grenade when needed And so what I mean by that is that you know, even when we have the best intentions Conversations can be difficult when something goes wrong We want to avoid repeating the mistake in the future But this can also lead to some finger pointing which always puts people in an uncomfortable and a defensive position So Ask yourself whenever the conversation kind of you know gets tense like do we really need the answer to this right now? There will always be time for a root cause analysis or a retrospective at a later date But what is the decision that needs to be made right now and how do we get there now? So it might You might just jump in with sorry everyone. I should have had an alert created for the scenario We'll add it to our agenda for the next grooming session What can we do now to restore service or what can we do now to solve the problem? What can what is the action we do now to to help move progress forward? You know, and so like was it actually your fault that something went wrong it honestly doesn't matter Solving the problem matters preventing the problem in the future matters But no one will think negatively of you for putting the customers first and trying to get them help as quickly as possible Which you know, this provides a nice segue into integrity, you know doing what's right legally and morally And in this day and age ethics seems to be a weekly headline in technology, you know data security use Sharing monetization all of which can be easily misinterpreted This is where strong company values should help drive your approach and your strategy You know at capital one when the California Consumer Protection Act passed CCPA We had a decision to make You know updating our systems to comply would take a tremendous effort You know, do we try to minimize that scope and get there faster by applying these policies only to California customers? I mean that would meet the requirements of the law Or Instead we could extend this data protection to all of our US customers and sort of position ourselves as being more pro consumer rights It was more work, but it better aligned with our customer first mission, you know to do what is right And so as a product manager you have immense control over the user experience there are Some things that you might not want the user to do Such as unsubscribing from your platform as an example You could make it harder to accomplish that task Which would likely provide a desirable impact for your retention numbers But is that the right thing to do? This is known as a dark pattern, right? And so many consumer organizations in Europe have raised legal concerns with Amazon over this practice And to be fair, I'll provide Amazon's response, which was you know that the information we provided in the online Cancellation flow gives a full view of the benefits and services Members are canceling Right. I won't comment one way or the other ongoing litigation, but in my opinion it is better for your users to leave with a positive experience and ideally Leaving some feedback to help you understand what led to their decision Unhappy users are often the most vocal so it should be easy to find something there Another point under the category of doing what's right could be not taking shortcuts and so Defining MVP or minimum viable product is a balancing act You need to quickly learn what works for your target users it won't be perfect and It won't be polished and that's okay Document your assumptions and the weaknesses of your MVP and if it's successful consider yourself lucky You will need to balance sort of new features and scaling alongside the resilience of your product It's too easy to focus on the new and shiny and looking towards ambitious growth goals But you know forgetting to address the the known weaknesses of your solution could be a problem But on the other hand if you wait until MVP is like robust and perfect It'll take far too long and it'll take too much investment for you to learn whether or not this solution is even worth pursuing All right This leads us to our next value personal courage and as a product manager, we must be comfortable taking calculated risks The bigger risk is not taking any risk if you subscribe to Mark Zuckerberg The digital world changes very quickly Features which differentiated a product yesterday have become expected today And so how will you find out what can surprise and delight your consumers tomorrow? You know you experiment and you will fail and that's okay Many people will support you with the the most kind words of encouragement like fail fast But they should also add and to learn from it, right? The biggest brands in tech who lead innovation are estimated to only succeed in 10% of their experiments It's easy to point to something like Google plus circles and call that failure, right? This social network attempt flopped relative to Facebook But it also provided a learning opportunity for networking and collaborating, right now G-suite is a market leader in professional collaboration software Because Google took risks, you know Google was not afraid to try to launch a competitor in a highly crowded space of Twitter Instagram Facebook and others And so what is the goal of an MVP? In my opinion, it's to combat risks, right to quantify a gut feeling to Demonstrate that an idea will or will not work, you know and both outcomes are valuable And so Marty Kagan calls out four types of risk Value Will the customer use this right or do they already have another solution to their problem? Usability can the customer easily figure out how to use it or is it too complicated? Feasibility Can it be built with the reasonable amount of resources or is it too complex and viability Will this work for our business or will we lose money and impact our reputation? You know and don't try to solve all of these at once right focus on the risk that makes the most sense for your situation And instead focus on gathering good meaningful data, right? Take a chance and try something new safely And so The last value we'll talk through today is honor and on paper. I will admit This one makes the least amount of sense, right? So the army defines it as living up to the army values meaning that you Value the values which include the value of valuing these values Yeah But if you consider the role of product manager, it isn't to specialize in one or two skills, right? data analysis business analysis Marketing design Engineering, you know front-end engineering back-end engineering individual psychology social psychology economics monetization All of these could independently provide satisfying careers But the product manager is expected to know enough of each area To make key decisions when needed, but also to know when to bring in the experts The successful product manager is an expert collaborator They need to respect their peers and their customers You know fulfilling their duties as they Seal selflessly serve their teams, you know, they must have the courage to challenge the status quo They must have the integrity to do the right thing and of course be someone who is loyal to both users and the mission of the business It's not easy But it has been and continues to be the most fulfilling role I've ever had in my career And notice that at no point did I declare that you need to have a background in business or in engineering to become a successful product manager You need to be an open-minded Problem-solving collaborator who is motivated to get things done And so the the last topic I'll cover today is thinking like a product manager And you know how you don't need the title to start expanding your perspective And so this is a list. It's not by any means a comprehensive list It's not the be-all and end-all as mentioned earlier. We just don't have enough time to go through everything But hopefully this is enough to get the gears turning and potentially inspire some of you to seek more Thinking more intentionally about the business and its customers will lead to solutions which support the business and its customers You know, it's a win-win And so I'd I'd also highly recommend whatever possible to quantify, right? Your gut feeling may have an impressive winning streak But data is paramount for making business decisions, you know, as Sherlock Holmes would say data data data I cannot make bricks without clay And so first, you know, get to know your business Where does your business make money? What are the costs or cost drivers which impact profit, right? How and where is the business? I'm sorry. How and where is the product sold? You know who buys it hint hint it isn't always the user could be a parent could be a caregiver It could be a vendor procurement manager who will never touch your product It could be a gift-focused business with you know clients around the world And so it Gets into you know getting to know your customer But then also, do you do you offer support and service for your product, right? You know, what what options does a user have to seek help when they need it and when things go wrong? You know, are there any special considerations that you need to be mindful of for the business such as, you know Privacy security regulatory, you know all of the above Those could have meaningful impacts to scope of the efforts that that you undertake and so Yeah, get to know your customers as well, right? Who are they both? Demographically and also, you know kind of getting the broad brushstrokes of the statistics and the data of demographics But also go deep with user personas. I've found them to be incredibly helpful and useful for not only Better understanding the problem, but also better communicating Who our teams are serving and solving for? And think you know, why do your users, you know use your products, you know What problem are they solving and what's the next best alternative for them? You know and also get to know your users through the through usage data, right? So you can you've got user experience specific data So, you know, what what are people doing with your product and how are they interacting with it, right? Which features are being used frequently and which ones are not being used as often, right? Is there a common pattern that emerges, you know revealing an opportunity to optimize? The flip side would be financial metrics and you know things that can more directly impact the balance sheet So how many people are using it? How frequently, you know, what's the churn rate? What's the acquisition cost for each user, you know, what's the average order value depending on, you know, the product that you've got? But, you know, as you explore both the user experience and the financial side of things Keep in mind any trends that develop over time And so speaking of trends You should also be paying attention to your industry, right? So who are the key competitors? You know, what are their respective strengths and weaknesses? Have they announced any goals or ambitions, right? And so would that direction either help or hinder your business? You know, what are the broader trends in technology, right? So, you know, are there new ways to solve existing problems that, you know, might not have been considered before? It all admit this was a lot And you do not, I repeat, you do not have to be an expert in all of these Would be nice, but unrealistic, at least in the early term So, but what you need is kind of the awareness and understanding of all these factors And likely more so that you can very intuitively grasp the impact to the business As you explore different solutions while working with, you know, design, engineering and your other groups to solve problems And with that, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join me here on this beautiful day for this conversation I hope this broadened your perspective and inspired you to think about elements of your professional setting in a new way If you happen to be a military veteran, I hope this reaffirmed the immense value which you provide in a corporate setting And, you know, I'd like to extend a thank you to product school for organizing this event I wish you all the very best much success, however you choose to define it and wherever that journey may take you Thank you