Transcript
Transcript: Enabling Product Teams to Deliver User-Centred Products and Services
[00:00:00 Animated video. A small avatar of Ayushi Roy waves. Text on screen: Enabling Product Teams to Deliver User-Centered Products and Services; With Ayushi Roy. Energetic music plays throughout video.]
[00:00:07 Ayushi Roy walks on screen into an office setting. A whiteboard is set up beside her. Text on the whiteboard: Leadership for Product Teams.]
Ayushi Roy: There are five key ways that leadership can support product teams.
[00:00:11 Text on the whiteboard:
- Clear Vision
- Clear Feedback
- The Right People
- Insight into Policy and Practice
- Empowering Product Teams
Ayushi Roy: First, by providing a clear vision. Second, by providing clear feedback. Third, providing the right people. Fourth, providing insight into policy and practice. And fifth, empowering product teams. Let's dive into each of these a little bit further.
[00:00:27 A group of colleagues are gathered around a boardroom table. Text on the whiteboard: Organizational Goals! Overlaid text on screen: Clear Vision.]
Ayushi Roy: Leadership can support product with a clear vision. It's very useful for product managers to know where the organization at large is going. It's helpful for leadership to provide a vision to product teams to rally around and provide them with key questions that they can look to answer.
[00:00:42 Text on the whiteboard: Why are we here? Where are we going?]
Ayushi Roy: Why are we here? Where are we going to be in five years, or in 10 years?
[00:00:48 A group of colleagues are gathered around a boardroom table, working together on their laptops. Text on the whiteboard: Vision. Ayushi Roy walks on screen.]
Ayushi Roy: This kind of clear visioning between leadership and product teams allows product teams to plug into the organizational mission and the organizational vision as they do their work, instead of constantly asking for permission about whether their team's vision is the right vision that ties in to organizational goals.
[00:01:07 Ayushi Roy is seated at her desk. Overlaid text on screen: Clear Feedback.]
Ayushi Roy: The second way that leadership can support product teams is by providing good and clear feedback.
[00:01:13 The Product manager and a colleague are seated together in a comfortable setting, having a discussion.]
Ayushi Roy: Product managers need feedback on their vision. They sometimes may even need a push to be ambitious.
[00:01:17 Ayushi Roy is seated at her desk.]
Ayushi Roy: They often will need questions when people don't understand what they're talking about or how their team is doing. And that kind of prodding coming from leadership is really, really helpful to shape the direction of a product team and a product manager.
[00:01:31 Text on the whiteboard: Product managers can't afford to lose sight of the big picture.]
Ayushi Roy: Product managers also can't afford to lose sight of the big picture.
[00:01:36 A Product manager sits at a U-shaped conference table and speaks to their colleagues. A slide projector points at a screen. Text on the screen: Organizational Vision. A colleague raises their hand to ask a question. The Product manager appears to think about the question.]
Ayushi Roy: They need to be challenged when they're straying from the organizational vision and organizational goals. And this sort of feedback is exactly the kind of position leadership can take to support the growth of products and product teams.
[00:01:49 Ayushi Roy speaks to the camera from her home office. Overlaid text on screen: The Right People. Other colleagues join from their home offices in a virtual group meeting.]
Ayushi Roy: Third, leadership can support product teams by providing the right people. It's important for product managers to be team players, and for their teammates to be the kind of cross functional players that would serve product work well.
[00:02:03 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting. Other colleagues are seen working from their desks. Overlaid text on screen: Insight into Policy and Practice.]
Ayushi Roy: A fourth way that leadership can support product teams is by providing insight into policy and practice.
[00:02:09 The Product manager is seen looking at a computer circuit board and thinking about a problem. The manager turns and looks at a checklist superimposed with a set of scales. She comes to a solution, does a fist bump, and smiles as the two images come together with a plus sign. Text on screen: Technology; Policy Change.]
Ayushi Roy: Most problems can't be solved with technology alone. In fact, policy change is often needed to meet the public's actual needs. Product managers are perfectly positioned to see where policy and technology collide, particularly if leadership provides that policy insight.
[00:02:26 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting. Other colleagues are seen working from their desks.]
Ayushi Roy: Product managers need leadership to help them set and fulfill a strategy for driving that policy using the products that they've built.
[00:02:34 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting. Text on the whiteboard: Empowering Managers; Ask Questions; Take Initiative; Push Boundaries.]
Ayushi Roy: The final way leadership can support product teams is by empowering product managers. Product managers need to be able to ask hard questions, take initiative, and push boundaries.
[00:02:47 The Product manager and their supervisor are seated together in an office setting, having a discussion. They shake hands in agreement.]
Ayushi Roy: They need to be able to constantly deliver that value without asking for constant permission. And leadership needs to provide them the space to do just that. Product work is hard work, and there will be mistakes,
[00:02:59 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting.]
Ayushi Roy: but mistakes have to be okay, and leadership has to be okay endorsing failure that allows for greater learning.
Beyond leadership support, product teams also need supportive teammates.
[00:03:12 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting. Text on the whiteboard: Enabling Product Teams to Deliver User-Centered Products and Services.]
Ayushi Roy: There are four key ways that a good team can support good product work.
[00:03:17 Text on screen: 4 Ways to Support Product Work:
- Respect
- Good Collaboration
- Patience
- Alignment.]
Ayushi Roy: There is respect, good collaboration, patience, and alignment.
[00:03:23 Text on screen: Unsupportive Actions:
- Managers create all the momentum
- Managers fill in discipline gaps
- Not including team members or stakeholders
- Losing morale with sponsors.]
Ayushi Roy: There are key ways that teams don't support good product work. First, by requiring product managers to create all the momentum for a team. Second, by having product managers fill in on discipline gaps. Third, by not bringing people along, both within the team, as well as adjacent stakeholders. And fourth, by losing morale when executive sponsors are unhappy with the product team's work.
[00:01:36 A Product manager sits a conference table and speaks to their colleagues. A whiteboard shows a pie graph. A colleague voices an idea. The Product manager smiles approvingly.]
Ayushi Roy: Some of this might feel obvious, but it's really important for teammates to support in the ways that they can for product work to be successful, as well as to win the trust of leadership to create that empowered space.
[00:03:54 Ayushi Roy speaks from an office setting. Text on the whiteboard: Enabling Product Teams to Deliver User-Centered Products and Services.]
[00:03:59 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]
[00:04:06 The Government of Canada wordmark appears.]
