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Rituals of Product Teams with Angad Singh
48:36 with TreehouseI'm excited to share some key rituals of product teams and how to manage them with Coda. I hope the talk is valuable for anyone who wants to improve their craft as a PM.
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[MUSIC]
0:00
Well, hey again everyone, Giul here and
welcome to rituals of product teams.
0:07
It's my pleasure to
introduce Angad Singh today.
0:12
Angad is a product manager and
a former founder.
0:16
He has helped to lead the core product
team at Coda, my new favorite tool,
0:19
for the last two and a half years and
0:24
has gotten to work on just about
every aspect of the product.
0:26
Previously, he founded a startup
that built an automated note taker,
0:30
he built an automated note taker, rather.
0:34
And the company was acquired by Evernote
where Angad worked on Evernote for teams.
0:37
He got his start in product
management while taking classes at
0:43
the Stanford D School and working at
startups like Fitbit, Down to Lunch and
0:46
Motion Math.
0:50
In his spare time, Angad has been getting
to know Chicago with his wife and
0:51
two dogs.
0:56
Everyone please welcome Angad.
0:57
>> Okay,
1:00
I think maybe let's just get started
assuming that everybody can still hear me.
1:00
Maybe a great place to start would
be to just hear from a few of you
1:06
who are able to respond in the chat.
1:10
We'll be excited to hear what
brings everyone in the session.
1:12
Maybe what you're hoping to get out of it.
1:17
Obviously, I'm happy to tell
you more about myself and
1:19
some of the things that I
prepared to talk about.
1:21
But throughout the course of
the talk wherever possible,
1:23
I'll try to pivot a little bit and adjust
to whatever people are most curious about.
1:26
So, I will make time for questions.
1:30
I'm happy to stay, for
the next 45 or so minutes,
1:33
try to answer as many
questions as possible.
1:36
But if if anybody's interested,
we'd love to hear in the chat what brings
1:38
you to the session and how I can
help you get the most value from it.
1:43
With that, I'll Introduce what I
had planed to, I guess, talk about.
1:48
So, my goal for
1:52
this talk is to go over some of the most
common concepts in product management.
1:53
Many of the things that as you're
transitioning into a career like product
1:57
management, you might encounter or
you might even need to learn and
2:01
get better at and
I'm happy to kind of be your guy.
2:05
If I'm assuming that many of
the people in this audience don't yet
2:08
have much experience with that,
but of course,
2:11
happy to take on more
advanced questions as well.
2:13
And then even if you're not really
interested in product management,
2:16
I think the second point here is,
any kind of technical role,
2:19
you're probably going to
work very closely with DNS.
2:21
And so, this this talk might
give you a good sense of what
2:24
kinds of things you might
expect to kind of encounter.
2:28
How do I best work in
an environment like that and so on.
2:32
And then the third thing,
which is sort of, I think,
2:35
my big takeaway from this talk,
is the importance of rituals.
2:37
I think every team has rituals.
2:40
Some teams know what their rituals are,
some teams don't.
2:42
But if you're very intentional about what
your rituals are as any kind of team,
2:44
I think you can have a much more
effective working relationship.
2:48
You can build better things together.
2:51
And so my hope is to kind of enlighten you
a little bit about the power of rituals,
2:53
if that's not something
you're already familiar with.
2:56
And then kinda just give you some ideas
that I employ in my own day to day life,
2:59
but also give you some inspiration
from other teams as well.
3:04
With that,
let me just pause to see if there's any,
3:09
no looks like there's no
chat has come through.
3:12
So I'll just kinda follow
along with my agenda.
3:14
And then again, I'm happy to make time for
for questions at the end.
3:17
Great, so, here's kinda what
I had in mind for the doc.
3:24
I'm gonna quickly introduce myself and
spend just a few minutes talking about
3:26
Coda just cuz I spend probably six,
seven hours of my day inside of Coda.
3:31
Working on the product, but also that's
what I use to do all of my PM work.
3:35
Maybe with the exception of a few other
tools, happy to talk about what those are,
3:39
I think probably 90% of my work
day is spent inside of Coda.
3:43
So I'm happy to talk about it,
show you all the ins and
3:46
outs many of the things I've worked on.
3:48
And then, there's about five different
rituals that I collected just from my day
3:50
to day life, that I think would be
pretty good as a starting point for
3:54
what you might encounter,
working on a product team.
3:58
And just some some of the rituals
that I've designed my workflow, but
4:02
also happy to talk about some
other tools that people use.
4:05
And then I'll end with some examples
from other teams that I know of that I'm
4:08
inspired by, and then leave time for
questions at the end.
4:11
So that's sort of a rough outline for the
doc and I'll try to leave this up most of
4:14
the time so that you're kind of following
along where we are in the talk.
4:18
But again, just to kind of go
back to this idea of rituals.
4:22
I love this quote from Ben Gordon.
4:24
He's a very iconic VC and was on
the board of Amazon for a very long time.
4:26
Yeah, he talks about how every company
has a small list of golden rituals.
4:32
They're named, every employee knows them
by the first Friday and they're templated.
4:36
And so, just really keep this idea in mind
of, what are the kinds of rituals that you
4:40
use on your teams or
on the teams that you've worked on?
4:44
And how can you be more intentional in
designing those as you go about your
4:47
careers.
4:51
Awesome, so, quickly to introduce myself.
4:53
My name is Angad Singh.
4:56
I'm a PM at Coda.
4:57
Just sort of a brief background.
4:59
I grew up in India.
5:01
Ever since I was a kid,
I loved creativity and design.
5:03
And I also got into
programming very early and so
5:06
got really excited about building things.
5:08
And I think more than that, the act of
programming I really enjoyed the process
5:11
of designing and thinking about
products and experiences for people.
5:14
And I didn't really at that time know
that there was such a job called product
5:18
management, but this idea of going through
the process of building something,
5:21
I just fell in love with it.
5:24
That also is what convinced me to
come to college in Silicon Valley.
5:26
I just was inspired by
people who build things.
5:31
And in college I came across this
whole school called the D School,
5:34
which I'd never heard of.
5:37
It's the place where people learn design,
but people go from all disciplines,
5:39
all walks of life, come together and
work on difficult problems together.
5:44
And that process just felt
like really inspiring,
5:49
to see people's creativity come out and
ideas get connected from different places.
5:52
So, that was a really great sort of
formative experience in my background.
5:56
And that's also where I really learned how
to think about different disciplines and
6:00
what they bring to the table.
6:03
So, before I was kind of this kid who
was doing everything on his own, but
6:04
here I realized that different
people can have different strengths.
6:08
And in particular that my strengths
are more on the design and the PM side.
6:11
And that's kind of where I really
started to work with different teams and
6:15
learn about what it's like to
be a PM in the real world.
6:18
Again, I'm happy to answer any
questions about any of this.
6:21
After college,
6:25
one of the great experiences that I got
a chance to have was, started a company.
6:26
So, straight out of college decided to
take the leap and start my own startup,
6:30
which was a really, it was definitely
a very big learning opportunity,
6:35
great experience.
6:39
I was able to get some
great investors on board,
6:41
one of my professors on board as
an advisor, and then built a great team.
6:43
That's something that I was most proud,
6:47
of was the people that I was able
to convince to join my team, and
6:49
what we built together over those,
like two or three years was really fun.
6:52
We ended up building
this app called cassette.
6:57
Which you use to record your meetings.
6:58
So this is five years ago,
before transcription and
7:00
subtitling and so on, as we've seen.
7:04
We built this recording app you just
bring with you, you turn it on, and
7:06
it would record your meetings, and
it would transcribe them for you.
7:09
And then in addition to transcribing, you
could do other things like highlight and
7:12
share that with your team or
search across all conversations.
7:16
And that quickly became fairly popular and
lots of people started to use it.
7:19
And actually only a few months after we
launched, we got a pretty interesting
7:23
offer from Evernote and ended up
ended up getting acquired by them.
7:27
I spent a little while working at
Evernote, but really that's also where I
7:31
fell in love with thinking
about how teams work together.
7:35
And that's when I came across Coda.
7:39
So that's where I've been for
the last two and a half years,
7:41
I work on a product called Coda.
7:43
Again, I'll talk about Coda in a second.
7:45
But what I love most about working at Coda
is this idea of building, building blocks.
7:47
It sounds fun to say, but
7:52
it's actually also just really awesome to
think about how you can build things that
7:53
enable people to do things
that they couldn't do before.
7:56
I feel like every day of my job,
I'm like, the most inspiring parts
7:59
are hearing about people who didn't have
the ability to do something before, but
8:02
then as a result of something
that I worked on or made,
8:06
even if it's something really small,
they're able to do it now.
8:08
And I think just that feeling again
of empowering people of creativity
8:12
coming out, that's really awesome.
8:15
And then lastly, just outside of work,
I have two small dogs,
8:17
you might actually hear
them sometime on this call.
8:20
So, just wanted to say, in case in case
that interrupts us just for a second.
8:22
But yeah, I just recently moved to Chicago
and my wife and I really liked it here.
8:27
So happy to hear about any other
recommendations that you have from
8:31
Chicago since I'm new here.
8:35
Awesome, let me check if there's any
questions or anything in the chat so far?
8:38
All right.
8:44
Looks like, nope.
8:46
All right.
8:47
So let's keep going.
8:48
I hope I'm looking in the right place.
8:50
Okay, looks again.
8:53
Great, cool.
8:55
So, quick intro about Coda.
8:57
So, Coda is a, you'd like to say,
it's a new doc.
8:59
That's a new dock surface.
9:02
Actually, I'm using Coda right now.
9:02
So, you might have recognized that you
don't know this product from somewhere
9:04
else or if you use Coda,
you might recognize it.
9:07
But it looks a bit like a mix of all
the different productivity software that
9:09
you might have used between a document and
slide deck or
9:14
I will see some more use cases
that do more with data, but
9:17
really Coda is a surface that
blends all that together.
9:20
And so, it's a place where you can kinda
just in a seamless way, move between
9:24
the different types of modalities
that we're used to thinking about.
9:28
And really what makes Coda as
special is these building blocks.
9:32
And I'll maybe spend a few minutes
explaining what these building blocks are.
9:35
I think it's a lot easier to just show
them rather than to talk about them.
9:38
But these building blocks, I think,
9:41
are really the the power that allow you
to take something that looks more like
9:43
a document that feels like authoring
a document and go all the way to
9:47
actually building something much,
much more like an application.
9:50
With that,
let me actually like the Treehouse course.
9:53
So, Treehouse has helped us build
an awesome course about Coda.
9:57
It's a really brief intro
about the The product.
10:00
I think if any of you are interested
in learning more about Coda,
10:02
that's probably a great place to go.
10:05
And again, I'll share this link
again at the end of the talk.
10:06
But it's out there, Gilbert on our course.
10:09
And I think it's a great summary of how
to sort of get started with this tool
10:12
that I spend all day in.
10:16
But even maybe a much more short summary
just so that everybody's on the same page
10:17
of what I work on day to day, and then
we will go some more specific examples.
10:21
This is a tool I work on,
it's called Coda.
10:25
Probably the easiest place to go see
what's in here in Coda is to press
10:27
the Explore button and you'll see a bunch
of different types of building blocks.
10:30
This is really what we mean when we
say building blocks that are available
10:34
inside of Coda.
10:37
So everything from templates, to more
like text and media oriented things,
10:38
as well as tables for
doing data, and so on.
10:43
And then connecting to other apps,
importing data from other apps, and
10:46
then really going into interactivity
with buttons and so on.
10:49
So these sort of five categories I think
are really good way to sort of get
10:52
an overall summary of
what you can do in Coda.
10:56
So again, just getting started into the
text and media category, I could start by
10:58
just saying, I wanna put, I don't know,
let's see I wanna put a file.
11:02
I can drag your file, I can actually
attach a file inside of this document I'm
11:06
seeing the way to attach it.
11:10
Or I can directly just drag in
a file from my computer into here.
11:11
So I could start to build something that
looks much more like a rich website or
11:16
something like that.
11:20
But really, you get some very
unique things many services still
11:21
don't have a way to do checklist.
11:26
So you can now insert a checklist, check
items off, make sub tasks, and so on,
11:28
really simply much like
authoring a document.
11:32
So again, this should really just
feel very similar to other things
11:34
that you might have used like a notepad or
something like that.
11:37
But really, I think the power of
it when you're working in a team,
11:40
it does start to come out like,
I can actually invite people or
11:44
mentioned somebody, hey,
what is the status of this?
11:47
And assume that they will get
a notification, and so on.
11:49
So, that's really in the text and
media category.
11:52
I think this is also really fun
when you can embed YouTube, and
11:54
other kinds of media into your doc.
11:58
I'll show you examples
of that in a second.
12:01
But then, going more towards things
that you might have seen in sort of more
12:03
task tracking, or even just spreadsheet
[INAUDIBLE] applications, you can
12:08
start to bring in kinds of things that you
might expect not to see in a document.
12:13
So this is for working with data, for
example, you can start to do something
12:18
that looks much more like a Kanban board,
Trello board, or something like that.
12:22
Where you can start to manage your tasks,
simple things like that.
12:26
But you can really go, sky's the limit,
with this type of stuff.
12:30
You can start adding fields that
you care about, like a due date, or
12:33
something, or maybe you wanna do
a slider for how hard something is.
12:38
And then you can really start to see
some of the unique things that Coda has
12:42
to offer.
12:47
And then again, I won't have too
much time to go into Coda, and
12:48
I don't wanna spend all
my time talking about it.
12:51
But really, there's a lot of interesting
things around pulling in data,
12:52
for example, pulling in your emails into a
document, or your calendar, or your Slack.
12:56
And sending out things like pushing
a GitHub PR from inside your doc.
13:00
You can really build some
really awesome workflows.
13:05
And then that's the last thing I wanted
to talk about here is we have an awesome
13:07
library of templates.
13:10
So if you see here, there's hundreds
of templates that have been
13:12
built by us at Coda, as well as people
within your team can build them, and
13:15
then there's a whole gallery
that I'll talk about later.
13:18
But you can really easily just drag in
something that seems interesting, and
13:22
just try it.
13:26
So as an example, here's a really
simple project brief template.
13:27
It doesn't even have anything fancy in it.
13:30
But it could still be really helpful to
have an overall structure that someone's
13:31
created of how you should explain
your project to somebody, and
13:35
there's just these five or six things.
13:38
And again, this is a great thing that
you might think about as a pm is,
13:40
okay, how do I create a process
that I can repeat over time?
13:45
Then other people can use.
13:50
And then what are the kinds of things
that are important to make sure we
13:52
hit every single time.
13:54
So in this case, when you start a project,
you wanna explain the idea, you wanna talk
13:55
about how it ties into the company goal,
what's the problem we're solving?
13:59
How are we gonna measure it and so on?
14:02
And in this particular team's case,
I would consider this a ritual, right?
14:04
So they've created this format
that they want everybody to use.
14:07
That's what it means by being templated,
14:10
is gets repeated every time that
somebody needs to do a project.
14:12
You don't have to think how
should I explain this idea?
14:16
You just say I'm gonna drag
this project overview and
14:18
get get a really good summary out for
other people to consume.
14:21
Awesome, I think that's pretty
much all I'll say about Coda and
14:25
then kind of just show it
as part of my workflow.
14:27
But I'll stop to check if there's
any additional questions so far.
14:29
I see, I think I'm looking at
the right place now, awesome.
14:36
And I'm seeing some comments but
sounds like so far people are all good and
14:39
excited to learn about some of
the hardware skills and products, awesome.
14:43
Great, so with that, I'll spend the next,
14:48
let's say few minutes talking
about five different rituals.
14:50
So these planning until reflecting are
five rituals that I came up with that I do
14:54
pretty often, that are easy to understand.
14:59
And again, for the harder questions,
I'm happy to stick around, and
15:02
I'll show you just exactly how I do them.
15:06
Obviously, this is a sort of
summarized version of them, and
15:08
I'm happy to take on some
of the harder questions.
15:11
But hopefully, this will give you
a good sneak peek of what it's like.
15:13
So what I did for
15:16
this exercise is I picked a feature that
I worked on recently, which is dark mode.
15:17
So in Coda, we recently shipped dark mode,
I worked on that feature.
15:21
And dark mode is something you
might know from other apps.
15:24
So I thought it would be really easy
to understand what I'm talking about.
15:26
You don't need to know too much about Coda
to know what it means to work on a dark
15:29
mode feature.
15:32
But let's say that you are somebody that
works at Coda, whether you're a PM or not,
15:33
but let's say you're a PM and
15:37
you're interested in this
feature called dark mode.
15:38
And maybe not everybody
understands that the same way.
15:41
And so one of the things that we really
like to do at Coda is we run quarterly
15:44
planning.
15:47
So every quarter,
the whole company comes together and
15:48
talks about what we're gonna
work on over the next quarter.
15:50
And one of the rituals that we've built in
as part of that is writing one feature.
15:53
And so for any project that we're
thinking about starting or funding,
15:56
all we're gonna do is write us a quick
one pager very similar to what I was just
15:59
showing you on the previous page,
where we talk about what is this feature?
16:03
Why are we thinking about building it?
16:06
What are some of the tricky things,
and so on?
16:07
And so here, I've just created a very
simple summary of what you might see in
16:09
one of these one pagers.
16:13
Somebody has written, I want to build
dark mode across mobile and desktop.
16:14
These are the four or
five reasons that you might wanna do it.
16:18
And then here, this is an example of
the embeds that I was talking about.
16:20
What they've done is actually embedded
in their tweets that we've seen from
16:23
customers where lots of people
are asking for dark mode and
16:27
in particular somebody put a gift.
16:30
And this is really nice in Coda, which
you can actually even hide the tweet, or
16:32
retweet it, and so on,
other things that you can do on Twitter.
16:35
Because this is not just an image but
live tweet.
16:38
For example, you could go here, and
quick respond to the customer, and
16:41
ask further questions.
16:44
But yeah, so
16:46
I think one thing that I really wanted
to call out is this expected impact.
16:46
I think it's really important
before you build a feature,
16:49
think about what you
expect to see from it.
16:52
And this is, I think,
the kind of thing that as a PM,
16:55
you might be expected to do all
the time as you're prioritizing what
16:57
are the things that are gonna
have the most impact?
17:01
What are the things that align
the most with the company's goal?
17:04
And in particular, at Coda,
17:06
we recently had a huge focus on
focusing on simple use cases.
17:08
We used to work a lot on more
complex advanced use cases, but
17:12
we felt like we also really want
people to use Coda for simpler things.
17:15
And so as an example, somebody might say,
hey, some people really like using dark
17:19
mode when they're taking meeting notes or
writing their to do list.
17:23
And so, for those types of people,
17:26
Coda would be the place that they
would start using for simple things.
17:28
Because they weren't doing that before
as a result of not having dark mode.
17:32
That's a really simple example,
but that's kind of a one pager,
17:35
what it might look like.
17:38
Again, for each of these rituals,
17:39
I've called out what other tools that I've
seen in other previous jobs, people using.
17:41
And so it's not really just about using
Coda, but it's more about the ritual.
17:45
So you could do this in, for
example, in slides or even sheets.
17:49
I've seen sheets being used where
people just create columns for
17:52
each of these types of things and you just
have to go right in like some bullets.
17:55
Obviously, it gets hard to do things like
this or putting media, specs, or marks, or
17:58
things like that.
18:02
But one other fun thing that I
wanted to share with Coda is,
18:04
sometimes you send out these write-ups,
and you send out a long writ-up and
18:06
you have no idea if anybody's read it.
18:10
And so one thing that I love doing in Coda
is to do this thing called a reaction,
18:12
where I'll just put in
something that looks like this.
18:16
And you can see how quickly I just made
it, I just type slash reaction, and
18:19
chose an icon.
18:22
And now I have this button down here, and
18:23
this is a ritual that everybody
at Coda is familiar with.
18:25
Or if they're not,
you could just say hit this button.
18:27
And so the idea is that as people
are done reading the write up,
18:30
you can put at the bottom, and
that way people start to press it.
18:34
And you have an idea even in
the meeting or something,
18:37
how many people are done reading so
that you're ready to talk about it.
18:39
And it's really helpful just to get,
sometimes you just feel like you're
18:42
putting things out there as a PM that you
don't even know if anybody's reading.
18:45
And it's really, really simple button or
I would say a ritual of seeing of just
18:48
indicating that you
finish reading something.
18:52
I think it actually just adds a lot
of power in the day to day dynamic of
18:55
how you work.
18:58
And this is again an example
of what I mean by rituals and
18:59
being thoughtful about them.
19:02
I'll pause there,
if there's any questions,
19:04
otherwise we can move on to the next
ritual, which is prioritization.
19:07
Just check into the chat.
19:11
Okay, it looks like nothing so
far, but again,
19:13
feel free to keep dropping in
your questions as I'm going.
19:15
And again, I'll make time for
questions at the end as well.
19:18
Awesome, so
let's move on to prioritization.
19:22
So one thing I would say is
many people would say, PM,
19:24
your biggest job is to prioritize.
19:27
Because the list of things that you can do
or want to do is almost always larger than
19:29
the list of things that
you are able to do.
19:34
That you have the resources to do, or
that your team is interested in doing,
19:36
and so on.
19:40
And so I think it's really important to,
as a PM work with your company,
19:41
with your team,
to think about what are the priorities?
19:45
And I think that's something that,
again, you can do a simple version, but
19:48
that's something you just keep
getting better at your whole life.
19:51
And that's probably one of the biggest
steps that you do as a PM.
19:54
But one particular tool that you can use,
19:57
or I would say ritual that
many teams use is something
19:59
that's called either product spec or
product requirements document, PRD.
20:02
These are kinds of terms that get used.
20:06
And what will usually happen is people
will describe the kinds of Nothing,
20:07
let's say we have decided
to work on dark mode.
20:12
What specifically are we talking about?
20:15
What are the things that
are the most important?
20:17
What are the things that
are not that important that we
20:20
can even consider not doing right now?
20:22
And then in what order would you
roughly think about doing this?
20:24
So this is not again,
not individual tasks,
20:28
not the things that each person
is working on and so on.
20:29
But maybe even before the project is
started, to make sure that everybody's on
20:31
the same page about what kinds
of things are being worked on.
20:35
Again, so you don't have to use Coda for
this, you could use,
20:38
I've seen people use Docs and Evernote.
20:41
We used to use Confluence, ironically.
20:43
And then also some people just do
this directly inside of Figma,
20:45
where they might have a certain
handful of marks inside of Figma.
20:48
And then you can just kind
of as a team go in there.
20:51
And so you don't have to create
over a process or anything.
20:53
You can just go in there and say, okay,
yeah, this stuff seems the most important.
20:56
Like we use yellow stars and
red stars, sometimes Figma.
21:00
And then here's, I think a more
organized cordial way of doing it.
21:02
One thing I do think you'll run into
even as an engineer or some other role
21:08
that's working on a product team is, is
these terms that sound really meaningless.
21:12
P0, P1, P2, but for some reason we use
them and everybody kind of adapts to them,
21:16
because I think they do
convey something useful.
21:20
So P0 usually means like the most
important, and then P1 and so on.
21:23
So you kinda go down from there.
21:27
In this case, what I usually like to do is
call out what I mean by P0, P1, and P2.
21:30
Because I think for everybody P0,
P1, and P2 mean something different.
21:34
Just as an example,
at Coda we also track our bugs.
21:38
And in the case of bugs,
21:41
a P0 means, drop whatever you're doing and
do this right now.
21:42
And P1 means, we would like to do
this before the next build goes out,
21:46
which in all cases is every day.
21:49
So it's like, you don't need
to drop what you're doing, but
21:50
you do need to fix this today.
21:52
So that it gets done before tomorrow.
21:53
And P2 is like we should fix this but
we don't have to fix it today.
21:55
And then we usually also use P3 for that,
21:58
which is like it'd be nice to
fix this someday and so on.
22:00
But in this case for this spec,
I've just really called it out here.
22:03
I like the idea of being very
clear about what I mean.
22:05
And you don't have to
go too much in detail.
22:09
In this case what I've said is,
for this feature,
22:10
P0 are things that we
absolutely cannot ship without.
22:13
Like if we don't have these things,
we cannot ship the feature.
22:16
P1 is a must have.
22:19
You could still ship without them,
22:20
but you can't really say that the project
is done until you've done these things.
22:22
And then P2 is kind of a nice to have.
22:26
And again, this is not really an exact
example of what I've done in the past.
22:28
But it's just to give you
an idea of what kinds of things.
22:31
So as a really simple example, I said,
22:34
actually this is just making
the dark mode itself work.
22:36
You need to wait for
users to turn it on and off.
22:39
If you don't have that you
might not be able to ship.
22:41
And then it should also work on Mobo.
22:43
And maybe you might have people that say,
I don't agree,
22:45
Mobo is not a blocker for launch.
22:48
So this is a great way
to have that discussion.
22:50
Is to say, actually Mobo feels like a P1,
right, not a P0.
22:52
That's the kind of discussion that
might come out of a document that
22:54
looks like this.
22:57
And so here I've added some other
things like, we've charts in Coda.
22:58
And so if charts don't flip, that doesn't
look great cuz it still hurts your eyes.
23:01
And so those are the kinds of things
that I've added to these P1s.
23:05
And then maybe in the future we could do
things like more custom themes that that
23:08
users could create.
23:11
But in this case I've just said,
that's a nice to have.
23:12
But probably we're not gonna do them.
23:15
One other thing I wanna call out is,
is I've added an image column,
23:17
which I was just kinda indicating.
23:19
And that can be really helpful in making
sure that everybody knows what they're
23:21
talking about.
23:24
Everybody knows what it
means when we say auto mode.
23:24
It's like, on your computer you
have the light, dark and auto,
23:26
do you wanna match that?
23:29
So that's that's a helpful thing.
23:30
And then in here I've also added
a very rough concept of size.
23:32
And so you might do it as a T shirt size,
like small, medium, or large.
23:35
In Coda we have these
things called scales.
23:38
And I just use a three point scale
here again to kind of do a small,
23:40
medium and large.
23:43
And this isn't again a great
place where you're not really
23:44
costing individual tasks.
23:46
But as a PM, you're also gonna
be working with an eng partner,
23:47
an engineering manager, or
a tech leader, or something like that.
23:50
And you wanna just go through
with them and say, hey,
23:53
what's the rough size of
each of these things?
23:55
Maybe you can have a more
precise definition like this.
23:57
Sometimes what we use is
small as two days or less.
24:00
Medium is two weeks or less,
then large is larger than two weeks,
24:02
something like that.
24:06
And that really gives you a sense of, if
this thing is actually a three point task,
24:07
then it doesn't feel like we need
to block launch on it and so on.
24:11
That's really simple example of
what a PRD or spec might look like.
24:14
Again, I just created a few columns.
24:18
You can obviously customize this for
your own use.
24:19
And I'm tempted to do
questions in a second.
24:23
But I wanted to show one unique, for
24:25
every one of these features I wanna show
one unique Coda thing that I love using.
24:27
So one of the things that we use at Coda
a lot is called the Sentiment Tracker.
24:31
And that's what I have down here.
24:34
And by the way,
24:35
you can add that really easily in
Coda by just typing slash sentiments.
24:36
So you don't need to know
how to build it yourself.
24:39
But the idea is, any kind of document like
this, you wanna send it out to let's say,
24:41
15 different people.
24:45
You wanna hear what everybody has to say.
24:46
But you don't necessarily have
time to meet with everybody or
24:47
to have everybody talk in
a meeting going around the room.
24:50
And so
here I'm just gonna come in and say,
24:53
I'm very excited to use this feature and
24:57
everything looks great, right?
25:01
Now, I do that.
25:05
And then we have this button, this
checkbox here where you can check this.
25:06
And the idea of this
is to not bias people.
25:09
So while you're writing your sentiment,
25:11
you can't see what
everybody else has written.
25:12
But once you check the box,
25:14
you can quickly see what
everybody else has written.
25:16
Again, you don't need to go around
the room, you didn't get biased for
25:18
everybody else.
25:20
But you can still uncover
what the issues are.
25:21
For example, perhaps somebody has talked
about how there might be issues with
25:23
a spec that's here,
we might be under estimating and so on.
25:28
And that's really helpful to surface
what kinds of concerns people have.
25:32
And then you could just spend your
meeting time talking about that
25:35
instead of just doing this exercise.
25:38
Or you're actually offended
to talk about the takeaways.
25:39
So this is something I love doing.
25:41
I think almost every meeting at
Coda has a sentiment tracker in it.
25:43
Even just for your weekly check
ins we just do sometimes.
25:46
How's everybody feeling?
25:50
How's everybody's weekend?
25:51
Also helps you here [INAUDIBLE].
25:53
Sorry about my dogs.
25:55
But yeah, this is a really simple example
of where, it's really just a table and
25:56
a checkbox.
26:00
But what you can do is to kind of create
a kind of team to join that I think
26:01
gives everybody a voice,
builds connection and so on.
26:06
So this is an example again
to motivate the idea of,
26:10
why intentionally designing rituals
can help you run better as a team.
26:13
And I'll stop again just a second for
questions.
26:17
All right, let me switch to the Q&A,
is what I'm being told.
26:20
I see in the, there we go.
26:27
Awesome, a second.
26:30
All right,
do you use RICE score to prioritize?
26:33
I think everybody works differently.
26:37
So RICE is, I think it's like Reach,
Impact, Confidence and Effort.
26:39
This is like a pretty common
thing that many PMs use.
26:42
I personally never use them,
but I've seen people use them.
26:45
And I think that's a decent way to do it.
26:47
I think it doesn't incorporate everything.
26:50
For example, it doesn't incorporate
your company's strategy and
26:52
other things like that.
26:55
Sometimes we're very willing not to work
on things that we think are high impact,
26:56
because our customers are asking for them.
27:00
Because we really want our product
to go in a different direction.
27:02
And our customers don't
even know about that.
27:05
So that's an example, sometimes when we
pick up things even though our customers
27:08
are not asking for it.
27:12
But again,
these things are very much like,
27:13
when you start out you can start
by trying to play by the rules.
27:16
And then over time you can go
experiment and improvise as well.
27:20
So RICE is a perfectly great way to
start if you've never done it before.
27:25
It's a great way to rank features.
27:30
Do I mark it,
let's see how do I mark this done.
27:33
I'm just gonna leave them in there.
27:36
Laura's question.
27:37
You as a PM always make one pagers or
27:39
do other people in the team bring
them to you or consider you to do?
27:40
Yeah, that's a great question.
27:43
So at Coda we don't like to think
of ourselves as a PM led company,
27:45
we think everybody has equal voice.
27:49
And so very often one pagers
get written by others.
27:51
We can help people write their
one pagers if they want.
27:54
For example, sometimes people want
data to be part of their one pager.
27:57
Just say look, 20% of users are using
this feature and it's not very good or
28:01
something like that.
28:04
And so that's a great place
where PM can help them.
28:06
Or just to tell the story tied
to the company's strategy.
28:08
But by no means it's just like a thing
that PM should just monopolize.
28:11
I think it's actually a great sign in your
culture if other people feel empowered to
28:15
take on these tools.
28:19
And that's kinda what I mean.
28:20
This is not just a talk for PMs.
28:21
But if other people feel empowered,
28:23
as an example there's a really technical
feature, like a rewrite of some something.
28:25
Or even performance improvements
that PMs don't know, but
28:29
might be low hanging fruit or
not, or whatever.
28:32
It's like a language, you can just write
something out in a particular format that
28:35
everybody knows and understands.
28:39
And so I think one pager just as
a tool is a great way to do that.
28:41
And I don't think you
should limit it to PMs.
28:45
I will say one other thing,
I think the idea of the one pager,
28:48
the goal of it also is in the same spirit.
28:51
It's not so
that PMs can convince other people, but
28:53
it's sort of to put the decision
making power in other people's hands.
28:55
It's to say that,
28:58
every engineer in my team is sort of
part of the decision of what we work on.
28:59
But then again engineers, for example,
29:04
aren't spending all day
talking to customers.
29:06
And so as a PM my goal is to help
them sort of see why we might work
29:08
on something, even if they haven't
heard it from a customer directly.
29:11
But at the end of the day, really again,
29:15
putting the decision making
power in the hands of the team.
29:16
So that people don't feel they're
being told what to work on, but
29:19
rather they're choosing what to work on.
29:22
Awesome, is the customer feedback
mostly used as backup or rationale, or
29:24
what is driving the new feature?
29:28
I think that's not necessarily true.
29:30
I think sometimes you build a feature
just because a lot of customers
29:32
are asking for it.
29:35
I think dark mode is a great example.
29:36
It's a feature that we've known about for
a long time.
29:38
Many of us including myself,
have always wanted it internally, but
29:41
there's been a lot of customer feedback.
29:44
And I think we've been kind of
putting it behind other priorities.
29:46
But the customer feedback,
the volume of it continuing to increase,
29:49
probably the biggest reason
why we ended up working on it.
29:53
On the other hand, I think there might
be many features where customers don't
29:56
even know what to ask for them.
29:58
For example, I showed you integrations.
29:59
And the first time that we built them,
30:01
I don't know if we had a lot
of customers asking for them.
30:03
Or they were more like, this is driven
back or something more like that.
30:06
And I'm happy to go on.
30:09
I'm also paying attention to the time.
30:10
Looks like we don't have
too much time left.
30:12
So I'll come back to, let me just try
to finish the next three rituals.
30:13
And then we'll leave at least five or ten
minutes at the end for questions as well.
30:17
Awesome, great.
30:22
So the next feature I wanna
talk about is tracking.
30:23
No matter what kind of team you work on,
even if you're working by yourself,
30:25
you're gonna benefit from having someplace
where you're tracking what you're
30:29
working on, what everybody's working on.
30:33
But especially if you have more than one
person, it can be really helpful to make
30:35
sure that things, for example, no two
people are working on the same thing.
30:39
Everybody knows how their work like, they
unblocked somebody else's work, and so on.
30:43
And so, here's a really simple
example of a task tracker.
30:46
This is a kinda task tracker
that I use every single day.
30:49
Actually, let me just
make one small change.
30:52
So this is something that I do all
the time in all of my projects,
30:54
is I'll build something
that looks a lot like this.
30:57
These are actually the exact
statuses that I use.
31:00
So for example, most tasks will
start out here as needs, PM,
31:02
I'll make sure that they're
clear enough and so on.
31:05
And then they'll kinda move up this chain,
then go through design and
31:08
if they need design.
31:11
And then the designer will
market is ready for dev,
31:12
which means that they're ready for
an engineer to pick up.
31:14
And then a dev market is in progress,
in particular, in this case,
31:16
maybe this task gets done, and
I'll talk about that in a second.
31:19
The other thing I like to do in Coda is
like we have this idea called grouping,
31:22
where you can group something, and
so I'll often group tasks by person.
31:26
And so that way, when we do our weekly
stand ups or daily stand ups or something,
31:29
we can just go by person and say, hey,
what's going on with your in progress?
31:33
And this person, I'd say, my task is done.
31:37
And so you can very quickly say,
okay, this task is done.
31:39
And you'll see that it moves
up to the done category,
31:41
this section actually was here.
31:44
And then maybe this person is
ready to pick up another task,
31:46
so maybe they go in here and
they say okay, I'll work on this one.
31:50
And so they marked this as in progress.
31:53
This is the kind of thing that I'm
doing a lot as a PMs, very often,
31:55
I'm sharing my screen.
31:58
And I have a tracker, we're using that to
keep track of everything so that I'm not
31:59
pinging people randomly on email or Slack
to say, can you also do this or that?
32:03
There's an order to how we
are going through things.
32:07
I have the ability to kind of,
for example, within the ready for
32:10
dev tasks to kind of reorganize them
with the sort of the things that I
32:13
think are most important to do first.
32:16
And then we often use, for example,
commenting to get more clarification,
32:18
as well as to say, hey,
also make sure to keep an eye on this, or
32:22
watch out for that, something like that.
32:26
This is a very simple version
of a task tracker, but again,
32:28
you don't have to use Coda.
32:30
People use JIRA, is a very commonly
used tool in the PM, product team space.
32:32
Asana is also getting popularity, and then
GitHub has some version of fast tracking.
32:37
Because many people work
in engineering teams,
32:42
they often end up using GitHub issues.
32:44
This is again, a really simple example,
but I think this idea of grouping is
32:47
something that over time have evolved,
and it's worked really well for me.
32:50
I've also created some new statuses.
32:53
So as an example, I'll show you some of
the statuses that I have in here, and
32:55
this is again, my actual status tracker.
32:58
But one thing that we have for
example is design PM.
33:00
Is when a designer has something
that they wanna talk to me about,
33:02
I'll often encourage
them to mark this year.
33:05
So that when we do our next one on one,
33:07
we have a list of all the tasks
that we need to talk about.
33:09
And that's a really great way that we
can take something that needs design,
33:11
then designing, then becomes design PM.
33:15
And then say okay, I think we've made
a decision on this, it's ready to go for
33:16
dev, something like that.
33:21
Great.
Now I'll just keep rolling so
33:23
that we can catch up on time a little bit.
33:25
The next one is cadence, and
cadence is really just another word for
33:27
the rituals or repeated patterns, or
even just how do you run your processes?
33:31
And a very important part of
cadence is running meetings.
33:36
And no matter how much you dislike
meetings or what kind of team you work on,
33:39
they're gonna meet at least once a week or
something like that.
33:43
And I think the more effective
that you make your meetings,
33:46
the less people hate your meetings,
the more value you can get from them.
33:48
And so I like to say the more intentional
you can design your meetings,
33:51
the more value you get from them.
33:54
And so this is again another example of a
ritual that I have in almost every meeting
33:56
that I run.
34:00
And again, you don't have to use Coda,
you can use email slides,
34:00
people use all kinds of
things to run their meetings.
34:04
But in particular, again,
I use Coda for everything.
34:07
This is a very simple topic tracker,
and so the idea is every time you
34:09
come in here, you can add a row,
somebody can say add a topic.
34:14
And it's added to today's date, and
34:18
I can say,
are we feeling good about the lunch?
34:22
And so what I've done in this is just
basically created a way so that it's not
34:27
the loudest person in the room is
the one who's talking about everything.
34:31
But rather, there's a process,
34:34
there's a little bit of a system
of adding a question in here.
34:36
And it seems like a little
bit of overkill, but
34:39
there's a lot of other benefits as well.
34:41
So for example, once we actually
start talking about this topic,
34:42
we can add notes here.
34:45
So we can say this is a great idea.
34:47
And you'll do this in every meeting echoed
as we take the notes for the topic itself.
34:49
And then when we're done with the topic,
we can actually mark it as done and
34:54
then it goes away.
34:57
And so again, you just have this
running list, every time we meet,
34:57
we just talked about these topics.
35:00
And the last thing that
I've added here is voting.
35:02
And again, this is a great thing
that we love doing at Coda,
35:04
is people can come in and vote.
35:06
And so if I vote on this topic,
that means it's gonna rise to the top and
35:08
everybody in the team has a vote.
35:11
And so again,
you don't sit in a meeting and
35:13
talk about what one person wants to
talk about, you sit in a meeting and
35:14
talk about the most number of people
in the room want to talk about.
35:16
And so in this way, many companies'
PM set the agenda of the meeting, but
35:19
here you can kind of create a process by
which that's all made transparent and
35:22
democratic.
35:26
And so everybody in the room can set
the agenda of whatever they really wanna
35:27
talk about.
35:30
And so again, if there's no votes,
we can sort them by, for
35:31
example, let's see, what I have in here
is, it's sorted by ascending order,
35:34
what questions are added first, and so on.
35:39
But yeah, voting is a way to kind of say,
let's talk about the things that's most
35:42
important, not the first
person to speak up.
35:45
And then lastly,
35:48
I think one very common thing that
you'll see in many teams is reflecting.
35:48
It's really important to
at least every quarter,
35:52
or when a project is over to go back,
and say, what can we learn?
35:54
How can we do things better?
35:58
And really, there's a lot of tools for
this, again, we use Coda for this as well.
35:59
But one very simple example of this,
you might find much more interesting ones.
36:03
But I built a really simple form for
this exercise,
36:07
an exercise that we do call start,
stop, and continue.
36:10
And so you could see, I come in here,
and I say start, I don't know,
36:12
meeting less often, or I guess,
stop meeting every day as an example.
36:18
And I've made this as a form
because I want it to be anonymous.
36:24
I don't want people to know unlike
the previous examples, who has added it.
36:28
And I think sometimes that can
make you feel more open and
36:31
more sort of just able to say what's on
your mind without feeling like there's
36:34
some kind of accountability or something.
36:39
And so, I could press Submit.
36:42
And then down here I have all the feedback
that's been submitted so far.
36:44
And at the end of the meeting,
36:47
you can imagine after people actually
taking the time to write the questions,
36:48
we can then say, okay, what are the things
that people think we should start doing?
36:51
I like that one, and other people come in,
and like them as well.
36:55
And then, this could actually lead to
a really good discussion around what
36:57
are some things we could do differently
as we keep going on this project,
37:01
as we work on our next project?
37:04
Let's see about time.
37:06
Looks like there's no questions in here so
far, so I'll keep going with one more
37:08
of these pages, and then we can
kind of make time for questions.
37:12
So one last thing I wanted to show
is I think every team has rituals.
37:17
You don't have to just follow my rituals.
37:20
I think if you become a student of rituals
or if you start to see what other people
37:22
are doing, you really see there's a lot of
rituals out there that you can learn from,
37:26
that you can adapt more so
than just replicate.
37:30
You can adapt them to your own context.
37:32
But one thing that I really love about
Coda is we have this thing called
37:34
doc [INAUDIBLE].
37:37
And so, you can actually
just go to docgallery.com,
37:38
it will give you a list of
different docs like this one,
37:43
where you can see this is from Figma.
37:48
The VP of product of Figma has talked
about how they used to have a start
37:51
meeting at Figma that
wasn't running very well.
37:54
And then the doc stock,
37:56
all those things, he's written a pretty
thoughtful blog post here about it.
37:57
But unlike a different blog post, it's
actually comes with almost a template.
38:01
So you can actually just copy this
doc by clicking this button and
38:04
create your own version.
38:06
And this is an attractive,
you can for example,
38:07
interact with his doc
to see what it's like.
38:10
But so this is a great resource, if you
just go to docgallery.com to see what you
38:13
can learn from different teams and
their rituals.
38:17
And I just put together a quick collection
in here of my favorite other rituals
38:20
that I didn't really get to
talk about that you do as a PM.
38:24
So user research is a really
common example, and
38:26
a friend of mine actually at Baghdad,
put together this doc.
38:29
And then there's a bunch of things here
even about your personal productivity, how
38:32
to run a good off site, and then maybe how
to collect good feedback from customers.
38:36
People have put in a lot of thought
into designing these rituals.
38:39
And so you can really learn a lot from
watching other people do the rituals.
38:42
I did create a page for Q&A, but I think
people are just using the hop in one.
38:47
So let's just stick to using that if ever
you can add your question again there.
38:50
And I just wanna plug again and
maybe I'll copy and
38:55
paste this link into the chat
in case people are interested.
38:57
There's the Treehouse course Coda.
39:00
Happy to answer any more questions
about Coda, as well as about any topic.
39:03
Let me stop sharing my screen so
that you can just focus on the Q&A.
39:07
And thanks, everybody for
joining and adding questions.
39:12
Cool, so let's see.
39:16
Got Mason's question,
question, and question.
39:18
So Mason has another question,
I'm going bottom to top.
39:21
Is the cadence meant to be used
at meetings that are specifically
39:24
geared to the feature in question?
39:28
I think cadence can be at different
levels, you can build your team or
39:30
your company cadence for your own purpose.
39:34
So as an example, at Coda, we have
about 100 people here at Coda and so
39:37
we have project cadence meetings.
39:41
So every Monday for example, I meet
with every project that I work on and
39:43
talk about our goals for the week.
39:46
But we also have company cadence meeting,
39:48
so we talk about as a company
every Friday, what got done.
39:50
We used to do this meeting twice a week,
but then, as the company kept getting
39:53
larger, we felt like we were spending
a lot of time meetings, and so
39:56
we've really adapted our cadence.
39:59
But you can really think about what
cadence you want that works for you.
40:01
As another example, we have the PMT
My Coda has a bi-weekly meeting, so
40:04
we meet Every Tuesday and
Thursday, and we spend.
40:08
Thursday is actually just doing
a sentiment, like I just showed you,
40:12
where everybody just shares what's
going on, how are they feeling.
40:15
And just make time to discuss
what's helpful to each person.
40:18
And then on Tuesday, we use actually
the topic tracker that I showed you,
40:22
where people can just make time to get
feedback from other PMs on their projects.
40:24
And so they spend 30 minutes, people say,
hey, I'm working on this project and
40:28
they add a topic.
40:31
And then other people can vote on it and
40:32
then they can just spend that 30 minute
time to get feedback from other people.
40:33
So you can really design that
cadence around the specific team or
40:37
company that you work at.
40:40
For example, if you work in a small
startup, then your project cadence and
40:42
your company cadence
might be very similar.
40:45
So just looking at particular contexts and
just be intentional about that.
40:48
Hi, are there YouTube tutorials of this?
40:52
I'm guessing it's about Coda.
40:54
Yes, there are a lot of YouTube tutorials.
40:55
Like I said, we have a Treehouse course
that Gil developed, but we also have
40:58
a treasure trove of learning content that
our learning designers at Coda have built.
41:02
So in particular, Maria is this awesome
educators work Coda for the last three or
41:07
so years.
41:12
And she gets a lot of compliments and
I think she has her own fan following, but
41:12
she's put together a lot of
really awesome videos short,
41:17
long of how to get into Coda.
41:20
I think probably the best place,
let me just make sure this link works.
41:22
Is just to go to coda.io/learn and
that's gonna bring you to a doc,
41:25
that's like your learning doc.
41:29
And you can make your
own copy of this doc.
41:30
And that's a very structured, actually
let me share my screen really quickly.
41:32
This is the quota learn doc.
41:40
And this is what it says,
it's got the YouTube video right here.
41:42
But then in here, you actually have
a bunch of YouTube videos and it's just
41:45
structures like, there's 20 or so short
videos here that you can learn and watch.
41:48
And so, this is a very simple
handheld kind of guide.
41:53
Yeah, we love using video as a way of
helping people learn how to do more
41:56
with Coda.
42:00
So if that's something you're
interested in, that's awesome.
42:00
But here's the most undervalued yet
important skill.
42:04
Yeah, that's a good question.
42:06
I think, personally something that
I've really learned over the last
42:07
couple of yours that I didn't even realize
beforehand, was this idea of alignment and
42:10
that's something we think
a lot about at Coda.
42:14
So alignment is, for example, like the
visual that my manager gave me was imagine
42:16
15 people paddleboarding,
everybody's going in different directions.
42:21
People are moving very slowly, versus
imagine 15 people sitting in a rowing
42:25
boat and everybody's rowing in the same
direction, you can go so fast so far.
42:29
And so I think that idea of
convincing people over time,
42:33
not just like the viewer idea, but over
time convincing people to all agree on
42:36
some idea whether it's your idea or not.
42:40
That's a very interesting process and then
I can have a lot of impact on any team is,
42:42
everyday at Coda I really feel like
we're all pushing in the same direction.
42:47
And so if I go to a meeting at Coda,
I really can often see that, what that
42:51
person is working on is in some way
multiplying the effect of what I'm doing.
42:55
Is in some way pushing me forward.
42:59
Again, when you when you feel like you're
a part of a team that's very well aligned
43:01
in that way,
that's a really awesome skill.
43:04
And I think that's
a really awesome feeling.
43:06
And I think that's a skill that PMs really
should be thinking about and can develop,
43:08
is to be the people who are responsible
for building alignment in your company
43:12
to make sure everybody's
seeing things the same way.
43:17
Even if they don't fully agree,
everybody's committed to following
43:19
the strategy that the team has decided
on because that's how you're going to be
43:23
the most effective,
instead of stretching yourself too thin.
43:27
And then knowing your product and
engineering team can't build everything.
43:30
How do you make hard scoping choices a PM?
43:34
I think that's a great question.
43:36
So I mean obviously this is probably the
most difficult thing that PMs do and so
43:37
there's a lot that other
people have written about it.
43:41
I would encourage you to read it.
43:44
I think some things that I can share
from my own experience that are unique,
43:46
especially in Coda is,
43:49
we take a very democratic
perspective as I said to doing this.
43:51
And so, usually what we do is
we'll have a planning process or
43:53
recorder, we have a list of
things that we wanna work on.
43:57
But then we use our tool in the ways that
I showed you like sentiment and so on,
43:59
to get feedback from
a large group of people.
44:03
The team that I work on is probably
about 30 people at this point.
44:05
And we still feel like we can have
an effective discussion with 30 people
44:08
because we use asynchronous tools like the
ones I showed you to collect input to make
44:11
sure everybody's voices being heard.
44:15
And you can build some pretty
advanced things in Coda.
44:16
Sometimes what I do is this, it's an
example that you might have seen an Excel
44:20
and so on, but
you make it really nicely in Coda.
44:23
Is like a funding tracker,
everybody gets $100.
44:25
They can spend it on a new
feature they want, and
44:28
different features cost different amounts.
44:30
And so that kind of indicates how big
your features are more expensive.
44:31
And then people, you can also invite
people outside of your team, for example,
44:34
sales or customer support, and give them
all these $100 of Monopoly money and
44:39
have them allocate the budget
to different projects.
44:43
And that's how, as an example,
you can get input from a lot of people.
44:46
And that's often how
we make our decisions.
44:50
Obviously, we know that people,
for example engineers may not be,
44:52
like I said earlier,
talking to customers all the time,
44:56
but as a PM your goal is to still
help them fill in that gap.
44:59
So if they're not aware of what
customers are talking about, as a PM,
45:03
you're gonna tell them that and then hope
that they will still come to some kind
45:07
of conclusion that's not just
based on their own experience, but
45:11
is focused on what's the best thing for
the team to be working on.
45:14
Be checking the depth on a daily basis
when they're working on a feature or
45:18
do you find that you get better results
we let them run and check last week them?
45:21
That's a great question.
45:25
I personally think there's
no right answer to that one.
45:26
I think every project that I do, so
one of the rituals that I have is,
45:30
every project that I start
on I have a project kickoff.
45:34
And so once we've gone through
the planning process and
45:37
everything we've decided that
the project consists and
45:39
these are the people that are working on
it, I'm gonna have a kickoff meeting.
45:41
And one of the things that I love to
ask them that kickoff meeting is,
45:45
what's everybody's preferred cadence
in terms of meetings, slack, and so on.
45:48
And so I've had projects where engineers
tell me that I would prefer to
45:52
meet every day.
45:56
For example, before COVID, we had a team
where people had already started to move
45:57
remotely and we had a team where all four
of us were working on this project and
46:01
everybody was in a different office.
46:04
And in particular,
two of them were working from home.
46:06
And so they said,
46:08
it can feel pretty lonely to be working
on a project called the anti Nazi,
46:08
the people I'm working with because
I'm no longer working from the office.
46:12
And so I would actually like
to do a daily stand up and so
46:15
we ended up doing a daily stand up.
46:18
While there are definitely other
projects people are like, I have kids,
46:19
I work odd hours, and
so the once that week.
46:23
I think most projects we do,
we do keep the once a week meeting.
46:25
And so the once a week is just right for
me and
46:28
I don't want it any more often than that.
46:31
And so we'll end up adjusting to
the group and decide accordingly.
46:33
Do you also have rituals on talking to
customers or getting feedback on them?
46:38
Yes, I think there's a lot
of great rituals for
46:40
getting feedback from customers.
46:43
Let me show you one really good example.
46:44
I think this is one of the examples
that I linked to in the doc.
46:48
But I found this really inspiring,
and so here we go.
46:51
So there is an email app called Superhuman
that you may or may not have heard of.
46:55
But the founder of Superhuman wrote a blog
post a few years ago about how they built
46:59
an engine to measure the product
market fit of their product.
47:02
And there's a lot here, don't think
I'll be able to summarize in a minute.
47:05
But one thing that they ended up doing is
they ran a survey that they would send,
47:09
it's like a four question survey.
47:12
They would send it to their customers,
a random sample of customers, and
47:13
they would ask questions.
47:17
I think the questions were here.
47:18
So do how can we improve Superhuman for
you?
47:21
What type of person do you think
would benefit from Superhuman?
47:23
And so on, but I think the biggest
question to them was famous for is,
47:26
how would you feel if you could
no longer use Superhuman?
47:29
Very disappointed, this is the question.
47:32
So how would you feel if you
could only use Superhuman?
47:34
And then they had these three options,
very disappointed, somewhat disappointed,
47:36
not disappointed.
47:39
And so again, they put a lot of
thought into what they this out.
47:40
What they do to analyze this thought.
47:43
But I think one thing that's really
awesome is the amount of thought that went
47:46
into this and
how it was the right thing for them.
47:49
And you can obviously build,
for whatever you are imagining,
47:51
whether it's in Coda or not,
47:54
you can build the right tools are just
there to help you through that process.
47:55
But you can really build the right process
that can kinda show you that feedback.
47:58
Another thing that we use very often
is user testing or user interviews.
48:03
And so again, I have some rituals
that I use for those too,
48:07
happy to answer more if
there's more questions.
48:11
I think we're almost out of time,
but I did put in my Twitter and
48:14
my LinkedIn links in the talk.
48:19
So happy to give people that again.
48:21
Feel free to send me a DM or something and
I'm happy to answer any questions.
48:24
That's my Twitter.
48:30
And really appreciate all of you
joining and thank you for your time.
48:31
Hope that was helpful.
48:35
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