00:03 – some of the lessons that i’ve
00:04 – learned over my career but it’s very
00:06 – very easy for
00:07 – teams to veer off the path away from
00:10 – outcomes towards output
00:11 – it’s very easy to veer off the path of
00:14 – experimentation uncertainty and trying
00:16 – to nail down something that is certain
00:18 – which is
00:18 – in many cases look at this shiny thing
00:21 – that i’ve built
00:22 – and so trying to embed that into your
00:25 – day-to-day
00:26 – um check-in with the team i think so
00:29 – anyway you’ve got these squads
00:31 – how do you actually make sure you’re
00:32 – building something that people actually
00:34 – want
00:35 – so yeah i mean that’s a that’s a big
00:38 – question
00:39 – um and it’s it’s really challenging i
00:42 – think i think this is
00:44 – you know making sure you’re shipping
00:45 – value to customers is the
00:47 – it’s one of the defining aspects of
00:49 – whether you’re not gonna be successful
00:50 – as a business
00:51 – um i mean that’s that’s like are you
00:54 – well suited as a business to do
00:55 – to do that and all those stuff there’s
00:56 – lots of other questions but one of them
00:58 – is generally
00:59 – are you solving a core customer problem
01:01 – is
01:02 – one of the great challenges of product
01:04 – product development look our focus is
01:07 – and my focus has been for a long time um
01:10 – i i spoke previously it’s all about
01:12 – focusing on the outcome
01:14 – and not focusing on output that’s the
01:16 – that’s the key
01:17 – um it’s very natural as human beings
01:20 – that we want to focus on
01:22 – the output and not the outcome and one
01:24 – of the reasons for that is output is
01:25 – certain if you
01:26 – if you apply effort you’ll get you’ll
01:28 – have something to show
01:29 – for it in terms of that you know it
01:32 – could be
01:33 – whether it’s a new page that you’ve
01:34 – created whether it’s an experience
01:36 – enhancement thing you’ve done whether
01:37 – it’s a new feature
01:38 – that’s available on your on your
01:40 – platform you’ll have something to show
01:41 – whether that thing matters or not that’s
01:43 – the question right and so the
01:44 – outcome is always way less certain and
01:47 – we have a natural information as people
01:49 – to want to you know shy away from that
01:51 – uncertainty towards something that’s
01:52 – certain
01:54 – you have to be relentless in that focus
01:56 – on the outcome
01:57 – and that outcome could be whether it’s a
01:59 – commercial outcome that you’re trying to
02:01 – achieve by a meeting a need or a
02:03 – customer need itself
02:05 – you know that’s where your focus has got
02:06 – to be so for me
02:08 – trying to ensure that you’re shipping
02:09 – value it’s all about
02:11 – focusing on the outcome um and
02:15 – and then you know if the outcome is
02:17 – customer related
02:19 – ah yeah so you sort of threw that in at
02:21 – the end but it sounds like the most
02:22 – important thing
02:23 – so you you know what goes in the top of
02:25 – the funnel
02:26 – is a whole bunch of things you’ve got
02:28 – opinions you’ve got sales people walking
02:30 – back saying
02:31 – you know they’ll come on board if you
02:32 – actually develop this feature
02:34 – uh you know you you know that sales
02:36 – people are always dragging in between
02:38 – you know bits of roadkill they say that
02:40 – this is definitely the one that’s going
02:41 – to
02:42 – break the you know it’s really going to
02:44 – the company will break out
02:45 – you’ve got opinions around particular
02:46 – things and then you’ve got disciplines
02:48 – and customer
02:49 – so how how are you feeling the top of
02:51 – the funnel and then how are you triaging
02:53 – that to get to this
02:55 – output that’s actually used by a
02:57 – customer
02:58 – used by a customer yeah sure or even
03:01 – valued
03:02 – valued by a yeah yeah so
03:05 – we um the general the general approach
03:07 – and i
03:08 – alluded to this before with you know we
03:10 – have a strategy we have a set of okrs
03:13 – that that then outlines um you know
03:16 – here’s some some measures we’re going to
03:18 – try and deliver over the course of the
03:19 – quarter
03:20 – and those measures reflect progress
03:22 – towards an outcome or an objective
03:24 – right what we take from there is trying
03:26 – to understand
03:27 – what are the various opportunities there
03:29 – are to better serve the customer in a
03:31 – way
03:32 – that’s going to drive that particular
03:33 – key result and
03:35 – getting an understanding of that is all
03:38 – about trying to get
03:39 – under or inside the head of the customer
03:42 – and there’s a lot of ways to do that
03:45 – and you know you have to you want to use
03:47 – all the tools you’ve got your disposal
03:49 – sales people they are one of the tools
03:51 – yes they have
03:52 – they’ll have a lot to say that
03:54 – oftentimes will be focused towards
03:56 – a feature and a solution and they’ll
03:57 – tell you about the solution
03:59 – i mean one of the things is to try and
04:01 – step back from that and say well hang on
04:02 – what’s this solution actually trying to
04:04 – achieve
04:04 – and refer back from that some of it is
04:06 – talking to those sales people all those
04:07 – customers support people
04:08 – and just taking on the journey to say
04:10 – hey when you talk to your customers
04:12 – next time they come up with a solution
04:14 – can you ask why they want to do that and
04:16 – actually try and work with your customer
04:17 – support team to drive better customer
04:19 – insights on the
04:21 – the why for the customer as opposed to
04:23 – what they want because
04:24 – you know if you ask a customer what do
04:25 – you want they’ll ask for you know
04:27 – classic saying i want a faster horse not
04:29 – i want a
04:30 – motor vehicle so it’s about trying to
04:33 – use
04:34 – as many of the avenues that you’ve got
04:37 – to get customer insight and that can be
04:39 – you know talking to customers watching
04:41 – customers engaging with customer support
04:43 – team as i’ve said you can
04:45 – um and in fact you can do that yourself
04:47 – you know one of the things i used to do
04:49 – a little bit of secret to get onto our
04:50 – zendesk and start seeing what customers
04:52 – are saying and trying to understand
04:54 – what’s going on for them uh and again
04:57 – you know
04:57 – use your sales people they have a lot of
04:59 – insight they’re coming to customers all
05:01 – the time
05:02 – but what you need to do is you need to
05:03 – bring that back to try to understand the
05:05 – customer’s motivations trying to
05:06 – understand their needs
05:17 – okay so that’s a discipline to actually
05:19 – just basically look at it through the
05:20 – lens and i guess what are using customer
05:22 – interviews for that or
05:24 – yeah so there’s a mix i mean the way
05:27 – the way you know uh structured it and
05:30 – the way we’re structuring it and while
05:31 – it’s the framework we’re using is jobs
05:33 – to be done
05:34 – um we at seek
05:37 – out a thing called a mental model which
05:39 – is a more detailed deep dive than jobs
05:41 – to be done into very
05:42 – difficult tasks and that that is
05:44 – essentially that mental model is
05:45 – essentially a shared understanding of
05:47 – the customer
05:48 – and what is put against that mental
05:50 – model the evidence that used to
05:51 – construct that at
05:52 – customer interviews uh customer support
05:55 – insights
05:56 – um you know experiment data behavioral
05:59 – data on the platform like
06:00 – basically any data point you can get
06:02 – about the customer is used to help build
06:03 – out that shared understanding of how the
06:05 – customer
06:06 – thinks facts their motivations what
06:07 – they’re trying to achieve et cetera et
06:09 – cetera
06:09 – so is a mental model an intersection of
06:12 – you know demographics slash personas
06:14 – and job to be done is that is it so yeah
06:18 – i mean you could segment the mental
06:19 – model
06:20 – based on the different personas um but
06:22 – really it’s just a more detailed view
06:25 – of jobs to be done you’re getting down
06:27 – to very discreet tasks as opposed to a
06:29 – job you know a job is
06:30 – a manifestation of multiple tasks it’s
06:31 – like subtasks and sub-sub-tasks it’s
06:33 – really really granular
06:35 – and it just essentially represents a
06:37 – shared understanding of the customer how
06:40 – we
06:40 – understand the customer’s motivations
06:43 – and what they’re trying to achieve
06:44 – through
06:45 – in this particular you know task