We have worked with many companies that have shifted their way of operating to become Product-Led. The most common approach is to transform into operating by the Product Model as described in Marty Cagan’s books “Inspired”, “Empowered”, and “Transformed”.
In this blog, we want to list the eight most crucial leaps of transformation that are needed to succeed with that transformation. These are hard-earned lessons from working closely with young, modern, agile startups and scaleups, as well as from transformations of companies that were previously Customer-Led or Sales-Led.
Watch on YouTube
If you prefer to see a video instead of reading a blog, watch this YouTube video. Here, Jimmy Janlén and Jan Grape summarise these eight crucial leaps of transformation in this video, and explore some of them in more depth.
They also describe the difference between being Product-Led versus other strategies, and the typical journey from being a startup, scale-up to achieving flow and becoming value-driven (and common challenges).
Leap 1 – Ownership & Mandate
One crucial shift is to level up the Delivery Teams to Product Teams. A Product Team is not a feature factory; they are responsible for building products that serve our users, which drive long-term results for the business.
Let’s assume they have the basic capabilities to build, deliver, and deploy their features, as well as to monitor production, etc.
Now we need to extend their scope and mission and define:
- Long-term responsibility for what? (Problem domain? User experience?)
- How do they measure success?
- Build what for whom? The “whom” needs to be real users, real people!
Furthermore, we need to ensure the team feels clarity on their decision mandate, and that they have the autonomy and authority to…
- Choose which problems to solve (within their mission)
- Choose how to solve them
- Own and shape their own roadmap
Leap 2 – Invest in platforms and tooling
For our Product Teams to be able to execute on their mission, to learn about the needs of their users, explore different options and solutions, to deliver smoothly and to be able to care for deployed features and owned data, we need to make it easy for our teams to do…
- Prototyping
- Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment
- A/B Tests
- Set up environments
- Measure user behaviours
- Monitor production
- Roll-back
- etc
We do this both through investment in tooling, and through services offered by internal “enable & support” teams, aka Platform Teams.
Leap 3 – Encourage risk-taking
If we expect our teams to take ownership, dare to be innovative – we need to establish a culture where calculated risk-taking is encouraged. We need to invest in tooling, automation and architecture that make experimentation easy and safe. And we need to encourage our teams to allocate calendar time for this deliberately (not to get lost in delivery mode only).
This leads to more innovation, faster learning in the team and higher motivation.
An anti-pattern is to have “Innovation Teams”. We want innovation to happen in our Product Teams, where the knowledge is and the magic happens.
And we want teams to experiment with both their product AND their Ways of Working.
Remember, when we “fail” early, we reduce risk, thus making the cost of learning minimal.
Leap 4 – Fuel with learning loops
For the team to make responsible decisions on a daily basis, to learn how shipped features have been received and how they are used, and to figure out where to invest in improvements and experimentation – we need to fuel learning loops.
We should always look for opportunities to shorten the feedback loops, whether through automation, reducing the number of middlemen between the team and their real users, or through tooling.
And the team should look for untapped channels such as customer service, social media reactions, etc. Anything that can help them gain faster, better insights into the impact of their work.
Leap 5 – Layers of Supportive Leadership
Teams aren’t only empowered by platforms and tooling, but by the support and trust that leadership offers. In a company that operates by the product model we have shifted from hierarchies of managers directing others through Command & Control, pushing down pressure and micro-managing work into something else, far more powerful.
Layers of supportive leadership, i.e. leadership teams that support and coach the product teams. That sets direction, offers feedback and guidance. Who facilitates priority negotiations and are ready and standby to address and resolve organisational blockers when the team’s resources aren’t enough.
Leap 6 – Clarity on expectations on the teams
Being an autonomous, empowered Product Team doesn’t mean that you are free to do whatever you want. We all coexist in the same ecosystem and we need to ensure that we play nice together, work towards the same overarching goals and that we don’t create sub-optimal solutions or ways of working that sabotage for others.
Therefore, it’s important that we clearly communicate the set of expectations we have on the members of our Product Teams, i.e. they are expected to…
- Offer transparency (communicate plans, progress, risks, etc)
- Measure impact metrics and act on insights
- Be a good citizen
- Align their roadmap to business goals
- Contribute to cross-company strategic projects
- Teamwork, i.e. think, plan, do, deliver, reflect – together
Leap 7 – Strategy reflected in topology & architecture
Our strategy can’t be reflected only in OKRs, Yearly Business Objectives or Quarterly Strategic Initiatives – strategy also needs to be reflected in how we have mobilised our talented people into teams, our Team Topology.
We need to make it a habit to review and challenge our team topology.
- Are we set up and prepared for the upcoming strategic goals? Do we have the right teams?
- Do we need to shift capacity? Spawn new teams? Split existing? Shift hiring focus?
- And how will changes to team topology impact our architecture?
- What architectural changes are needed to empower our future teams?
Leap 8 – Reward desired behaviours
If we want teams to develop a sense of long-term ownership for the success of their product, we can’t simply reward short-term thinking, that focusing only on the deadline in front of them.
No, we shift to “Celebrate results, and reward behaviours!”
“Rewards” come in many shapes…
- Salary
- Promotion
- Recognition
- Influence
- Positive feedback
- … and social status
In the video, we suggest an exercise where you investigate which leadership behaviour traits are rewarded in your organisation.
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Infographic poster
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