Book Club: Transformed by Marty Cagan

At MillerKnoll I lead the Product Guild, a group of digital product folk from across the organization that meets at least twice a month in service of driving forward the adoption of a product-focused mindset across the enterprise. We support each other, developing and unifying our core competencies within product, and it is also an opportunity for me to harmonize everyone on prioritization, intake, roadmapping and best practices. This summer we did our first book club. While it might feel like a large guild is a better setting for this conversation, I encourage you to do this within your individual product teams - the discussion was illuminating.

Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model is the third in the series by Marty Cagan, but if you haven’t read any of them, you should make it your starting point. All of these books make for great professional book club fodder, as Cagan’s writing is very conversational and easy to consume, but also very structured. He tells you what he's going to tell you, tells you (including case studies) and then summarizes the key points. It is a perfect set-up for a group discussion.

Transformed teaches the reader how companies can move from their current approaches to the product operating model. It teaches the principles of the model, convinces you that it is possible, and inspires you to get there as an organization. This book particularly was written to appeal to those outside of Silicon Valley.

Transformation dimensions

• How you build - small releases, analytics, monitoring (product delivery)

• How you solve problems - assign problems to teams, let them find solutions (empowered product teams)

• How you decide which problems to solve - product leaders need a vision and insight-based strategy (product leadership)

Competencies

• Product Manager

• Product Designer

• Technical Lead

• Product Leaders

Product Model Concepts

• Product Teams - empowered with problems to solve, outcomes over output, sense of ownership, collaboration

• Product Vision - the power of an inspiring product vision, insights, transparency, placing bets

• Product Discovery - assessing product risks, embracing rapid experimentation, testing ideas responsibly

• Product Delivery - small, frequent, uncoupled releases, high-integrity commitments, instrumentation, monitoring, deployment infrastructure, managing technical debt

• Product Culture - principles over process, trust over control, innovation over predictability, learning over failure

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Where is our team and organization falling short in the three dimensions of the product operating model? Where is the most friction between this team and the organization?

2. In which areas have we become too rigid to the process and it is no longer serving us? How we should go back to our product operating model principles instead?

3. Which are the least relevant principles to us as an organization?

4. Do you think of the leaders of design and engineering as product leaders? More or less than the product management leader? Why or why not?

5. Have you previously used the technique of a high-integrity commitment?  Is this a possibility for the next time a stakeholder asks for a date?

6. Have you needed to address objections to the product model in the past? Was that successful? Do you think the scripts provided by the book will be helpful in future conversations?

7. What can you do in your role (individual contributor, manager, leader, etc) to forward the product operating model and transformation in our organization?

For more discussion questions, visit the SVPG site.

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As part of the Chicago product community, I was thrilled to be able to hear Marty Cagan speak last week at an event sponsored by Mind The Product. It was great to hear his candid and relatable answers to the crowd, and glean encouragement on how we can all make advancements, even as we work toward the large transformations. And I was able to fan-girl a little and get a selfie with Marty.

Using Games at Work

Games in a professional setting can bring in new mindsets or help tackle problems from a different perspective. Games within a product team are especially beneficial, as they both develop and capitalize on the psychological safety present.

A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment, fun, or educational purposes. Games can be physical (like sports), mental (like puzzles), or a combination of both (like board games or video games). They typically involve:

1. Rules: Clearly defined guidelines that dictate how the game is played and what players can or cannot do.

2. Objectives: Specific goals or outcomes that players aim to achieve.

3. Competition: Often includes competition between players or against the game itself.

4. Interactivity: Requires active participation from players, often involving decision-making and strategy.

5. Environment: A defined setting or context in which the game takes place.

6. Outcomes: Usually has a clear end condition or way to determine winners or losers.

In a professional setting, those elements are still present but morph a little. Using the work of academics like Johan Roos, Bart Victor, Michael Schrage, etc. who have written about the power of games in solving more challenging organizational problems, you might characterize a game as having:

• Purposeful Design: The game is designed with specific objectives in mind, such as improving teamwork, fostering innovation, or addressing specific organizational challenges.

• Rules and Structure: The game operates within a defined set of rules and a structured environment that guides participants' actions and interactions.

• Simulated Reality: The game creates a simulated environment that mirrors real-world challenges and scenarios, allowing participants to experiment and learn in a controlled setting.

• Engagement and Interaction: The game encourages active participation, collaboration, and interaction among players, promoting a deeper understanding of complex issues.

• Reflection and Learning: The game provides opportunities for reflection and learning, enabling participants to draw insights and apply them to their professional roles.

We play games all the time at work. Pretending is a game. Pretending to have more rules or structure than you normally do creates a game. “Run-throughs” of a presentation are literally pretending the event is happening, but it isn’t. Similarly, time-boxing is pretending there is a deadline when there isn’t.

Games allow different scenarios to be tested - whether in a true simulated reality game or just in a tabletop exercise. We also ask ourselves questions that prompt this kind of thinking: “How would we build this if budget wasn’t a factor?”; “If we could go after any market, where would we go?”; “If you were in charge here, what decision would you make?”

And of course a game allows a structured analysis or post-mortem that might not be available or would be too complex in the real work. The learnings through a game can be just as valuable as the real-world scenario. Many strategy games and simulations we use today have their origin in the military sphere. The defense sector uses strategy games and simulations to train hundreds of thousands of their troops.

By incorporating these elements, games in a professional setting can serve as effective tools for solving challenging organizational problems, fostering innovation, and enhancing overall performance.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

How can your product team incorporate play into their processes and solutioning? Start by auditing what you see at work - where are games already taking place? Then brainstorm how to expand that and apply it to your product team.

Inspiration via your 5 senses

Inspiration can come from a myriad of places, but often we don’t take the time to cultivate it. The author Gretchen Rubin encourages us to understand more about our five senses, and which ones we might be neglecting, as a key to unlocking more inspiration in our lives. She says, “When I started work on my book Life in Five Senses, I hoped that by tuning in to my five senses, I’d find a new source of energy, love, luck, mindfulness—and creativity. But I was unprepared for just how sparked my creativity would get! I found that when I paid greater attention to seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, I ignited my imagination and my desire to create.”

By making intentional direct contact with the world through our range of senses, we can find more inspiration. Sometimes to the key to the mind is through the body. In an extreme case, some folks experience synesthesia, where stimulating one sense can trigger a seemingly-unrelated sense. For example, a sound creates a specific a color. An article simply titled Sensory Inspiration in Avant Arte explains how some artists throughout history have had almost superhuman sensory inputs and responses.

But you don’t have to be super human or call yourself an artist to solicit more inspiration from your five senses. Gretchen Rubin makes the case that just determining your most neglected sense and leaning into it can unlock inspiration. She’s created a 5 Senses Quiz to help folks identify their most neglected sense, and then provides novel ways to engage it. For example, if your neglected sense is smell, maybe find a flower shop to literally stop and smell the roses, or if it is hearing, change up the tone of your phone alarm.

Enhanced inspiration and creativity is not just for those in the design field. Creativity helps with problem solving, cultivating a growth mindset, and empathy - all traits any product team can benefit from.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

Ask your team to take Gretchen Rubin’s 5 Senses Quiz. Compare results. Were you surprised by which sense was most neglected? Do you agree with the results? What are some ways you can “awaken” this sense more in your day-to-day?

Then just share sources of inspiration with each other. Where do you typically turn when you need a boost? A specific site / substack / podcast? A place like a museum or library or park? A person? An activity? Is that with people or on your own? Create a mini-catalog of inspiration for each other.