Description

As a community, have we gotten better at product leadership? The answer depends on who we ask and what we use to measure  performance.

In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, Sean and Paul pose the question to Richard Banfield, VP of Design Transformation at InVision. “A lot depends how much you are able to distance yourself from the day-to-day work and take a bigger picture viewpoint,” he responds. “If you’re in the weeds every day, it’s hard to believe that we’re making progress because those daily challenges haven’t necessarily gone away. But if you take a step back and look at the entire industry, you can see we’ve got better at a bunch of things.”

Richard’s Recommended Reading

Loonshots: How To Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall.

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About Richard

Richard’s curiosity for product design and leadership has led to four books on these topics. As well as being co-author of Design Sprint and Product Leadership, Richard also authored Design Leadership and Enterprise Design Sprints.

When he’s not writing, speaking or teaching, he is VP of Design Transformation at InVision.

Previously, Richard was the CEO of Fresh Tilled Soil, an international product design agency. Over the past two decades, he’s delivered design and product work for hundreds of companies like Intel, GE Healthcare, Tripadvisor, Walgreens, FedEx, LendingTree, Time Warner Cable, BWIN, Ritz-Carlton, Harvard University, MIT, Hubspot, Intralinks, and Vertica. Prior to running Fresh Tilled Soil, he was a founding partner of Acceleration (now a WPP company).

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Description

For today’s product leaders, it’s not enough to have technical proficiency or apply the right techniques. These skills are necessary to be sure – vital even – but no longer sufficient by themselves. Effective product leaders deliver even more. To make and implement effective strategy decisions, product leaders need buy-in from key stakeholders. In a role that brings great responsibility but little direct authority, product managers need to build rapport throughout their ecosystem. With rapport comes the trust required to influence the many people in our domain and involve them in delivering solutions for customers.

In this episode of the Product Momentum Podcast, product management expert and leadership consultant Roman Pichler joins Sean and Paul for a behind-the-scenes deep dive into the role the softer skills – specifically, empathy – play in effective software product management. Empathy, Roman says, means recognizing that the human aspect of our job is really at the core of it – no longer just a ‘nice to have.’ Empathy is the capacity we have to understand each other’s feelings and needs, perspectives, and interests.

Roman’s Recommended Reading

The Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, by Melissa Perri.

Making Strategy: Mapping Our Strategic Success, by Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann.

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About Roman

Roman Pichler is a product management expert specialized in digital products. He has more than 15 years’ experience in teaching product managers and product owners, advising product leaders, and helping companies build successful product management organizations.​ 

​Roman is the author of four books, including the newly released How To Lead In Product Management, as well as Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age, Agile Product Management with Scrum, and Scrum. He is a prolific blogger, with more than 140 posts available on his popular blog for product professionals.​ 

​As the founder and director of Pichler Consulting, Roman looks after the company’s offerings. This keeps his product management practice fresh and allows him to experiment with new ideas. Roman is based in Wendover, near London, in the United Kingdom. 

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