I recommend going into each interview with a mindset of accurately knowing what your users experience. When you ask 'why' questions amongst the scenarios a user shares with you, you will begin to peel back the onion of reality for each user. They will take note and feel heard. Even when you think you know the answer, ask your users why they do or say things. The answers will sometimes surprise you. Never say "usually" when asking a question. Instead, ask about a specific instance or occurrence, such as "tell me about the last time you. Another good practice to follow is to keep historical records about how you made decisions. What data patterns and use cases led you to make particular decisions?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Pay attention to nonverbal cues. Be aware and capture when body language and emotions occur in the context of the conversation.
• And don't be afraid of silence. Interviewers often feel the need to ask another question when there is a pause. If you allow for silence, a person can reflect on what they've just said and may reveal a deeper insight, share an example, or tell a story.
• Gather facts, not opinions. Ask 'why' to get the juicy bits of what's really going on for your users. Don't ask 'Would you…?', Ask 'When was the last time you have…?'. Other good examples are:
• Ask: "Why do you need to____…?"
• Ask: why is ____ vital to you?'"
• Or, Ask: "why is ____ such a pain point…?’"
• Or ask, 'What are the most significant limitations you are struggling with?'

BEST MOMENTS

‘‘Your goal is to listen and learn, not to inform, impress, or convince your customer of anything. Avoid wasting time talking about your own benefits because it will cost you time, which you can use to learn about your customer.’

‘Clear communication can lead to good relationships and can show your leadership acumen. Follow-through reinforces that you are serious about your partnership and are a leader of your product and career.’

‘After you and your users dig into each question, recap what you heard to verify you heard them accurately. Ask if there are next steps that are important to them. You may not satisfy the subsequent steps, so connect them with contacts who will follow through.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Commitment to your professional evolution by developing a powerful operating model requires intent. How you change the interactions with your internal and external stakeholders influences the consistency in your achievements. I'll talk about how two specific books and their authors have helped me consider what to incorporate into my systems and why I would consider changing my operating model.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Have you ever been so inspired by a book, podcast, or speaker because the topic resonated with who you are and want to be more of in the future that you began to act on that idea or feeling?
• You may have even begun taking action. Writing down critical points of what you heard and jotted down a list of ways to keep that feeling in motion and move in that direction of change.
• Dedication to follow through is the ultimate challenge, turning that inspired feeling into a habit long enough to become a practiced pattern, ultimately bringing the initial feeling full circle into a reality.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I don't know about you, but I already have a life of habits that make up how I operate. If I want to add a new way of operating, I must first work out how to harness that feeling and turn it into an endured action.’

‘Choosing to 10X yourself to that higher level of operating is how you unlock your next level of thinking and freedom.’

‘Pay attention to what inspires you to be more of your authentic self.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does experience mean for users, employees, leaders, and companies? Some companies are beginning to think about the interconnectedness of business, users, and communities. What does that mean and how can businesses evolve to change their ecosystem and opportunities, to create a shift in how employees think about their role in an organization?

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT

Andy Hagerman Pt 1

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT WITH ANDY

• Andy Hagerman's LinkedIn profile
• The Design Gym website
• Free Download: TDG's Customer Discovery Toolkit
• Free Download: TDG's Innovating For Growth Facilitation Card Pack
• Book mentioned: Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara
• Book mentioned: Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andy Hagerman and Heather talk about how powerful the business and user outcomes are when co-creation and co-design are implemented into an organization. You can expect to learn how important debriefs are after each customer conversation and how they can inform next-level decisions, and alignment with stakeholders.

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lack of stakeholder alignment and commitment are the 1 and 2 reasons why programs delay, break down before reaching the desired achievements, or fail altogether.

Your internal stakeholders can assist with your success when you build partnerships with them and include them as part of your extended team. When I look back on the products I was building, I always had a smoother experience getting my product built or orchestrating a pivot when I kept my stakeholders in the loop from the beginning.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Are you getting your stakeholders involved from the beginning of your project and keeping them socialized about what you are doing? Or do you throw requests 'over the wall,' asking for their commitment and alignment?
• Do they fully appreciate why you are asking for their alignment and commitment?
• Do they understand the value you are creating for customers and their business?
• Why should they commit to you and your program?

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT

Episode 04 - Coming soon!

Guest Andy Hagerman: A conversation about implementing co-creation and co-design into your operating model to deliver customer value.

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Join the community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is about building customer trust and knowing what information you should collect so that your customers feel that you understand them well when you meet with them for specific results

Doing your homework to create a profile of each customer's relationship with your company means you need a 360 view of each customer. Listen to this episode for my tips.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• By running this activity with 15+ customers, you will begin to see data patterns.
• That data can help you determine if your roadmap has user-centric decisions about what to fix, potential new additions to your product to stay relevant, or what to retire that will surprise and satisfy your customers.
• The ripple effect is that your business will grow in the right direction, as forecasted, or even exceed your expectations.

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT

Check out Episode 03 - What no one tells you about stakeholder alignment

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'll dissect what you can do now to begin forming a profile of your product. Including where to gather indirect and direct information about what your users think of your product, and why both perspectives are powerful.

Then I’ll get into what’s essential when building relationships, who can round out the profile of your product, how to know when to engage with your various stakeholders, and why any of those activities are worth performing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Know how to build a profile of your product
• Use my go-to methods for engaging with sale teams and customers
• Learn how to turn customer feedback sessions into useful data
• Formulate a pitch that is grounded on solving user-centric needs

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs & workshops

EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT

Check out Episode 02 - Why customer profiles matter

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Join the community on Mighty Networks

Find me on Linked In

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to The Product Game Plan – a podcast for enterprise product managers. You’ll learn how adopting soft skill methods can expand your existing professional operating model. In order to have a consistent data-driven roadmap, stakeholder alignment and commitment, and knowledge of your funding priorities.

You'll discover how to gather customer insights to build or evolve your product to solve customer problems, why relationships matter for getting anything done, and finally, what to pitch to secure product funding so that your customers have what they need to run their businesses.

I'm your host, Heather J Smith, with over 30 years of experience innovating start-up and fortune 500 companies as a product manager and leader. I'll bring on guests who actively use these techniques to share why their methods work to make their businesses prolific and inspiring. I'll also deliver some workshop-style episodes to give you my proven techniques, habits, and tips for modernizing your professional work so that you can accomplish more with less friction.

Follow The Product Game Plan on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.