Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators

Hosted by Chad McAllister, PhD

Business Management Marketing CareersInterviews guests

Episodes

Language

EN-US

About the show

Welcome to Product Mastery Now, where you learn the 7 knowledge areas for product mastery. We teach product managers, leaders, and innovators the product management practices that elevate your influence and create products your customers love as you move toward product mastery. To see all seven areas go to https://productmasterynow.com. Hosted by Chad McAllister, PhD, product management professor and practitioner.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

November 9, 2026

617: Test your gut, don’t trust it –the scientific mindset for product teams – with Stefan Thomke, PhD

Experiments to inform product decisions Watch on YouTube TLDR Stefan Thomke, professor at Harvard Business School, and author of The Scientific Mindset: How Thinking Scientifically Drives Better Business Decisions , shares five elements of a scientific mindset, four types of uncertainty in innovation, and three tests of a good hypothesis. Learn why good product decisions are rooted in testing more and assuming less. Introduction When Stefan Thomke studied almost 22,000 online experiments (mostly A/B tests) run by more than 1,300 companies, only about one in five changes made a measurable difference. Half of the changes made things worse. If experienced teams can’t predict the effect of a small change, how confident should any of us be about a creating a new product? Stefan is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he has studied experimentation and innovation for more than three decades. He started as an engineer, learning experimental design to solve a production problem in a semiconductor plant. He is the author of Experimentation Matters and Experimentation Works . His new book, The Scientific Mindset: How Thinking Scientifically Drives Better Business Decisions , completes the trilogy. Stefan was on the show in 2020 to explain how to run product experiments. This time we look at the thinking that decides which experiments are worth running and what you do with the answers. You’ll learn how to find the assumptions hiding in a new product idea using four kinds of uncertainty, how to turn an assumption into a strong hypothesis, and why “customers want this feature” isn’t yet a hypothesis. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Five Elements of a Scientific Mindset Stefan opens with a question: What did you do the last time you didn’t know what to do? He quotes Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you’re the easiest person to fool.” The human brain is a belief engine. We see connections between unrelated things and confuse correlation with causation. To overcome this, we need to think scientifically about decisions. Stefan identifies five elements of a scientific mindset that apply to business decisions: Be a knowledgeable skeptic. Articulate testable hypotheses. Produce hard evidence. Probe cause and effect. Create an experimentation culture, a shared scientific mindset. Skeptics vs Denialists A skeptic is not a denialist. A skeptic is neutral. They look at the evidence with an open mind and want the truth. A denialist starts with a conclusion, picks evidence that supports it, and dismisses evidence that contradicts it. Stefan calls this running the scientific method in reverse. It’s easy to fall in love with a conclusion and only question the evidence that disagrees with us. Product managers do this when they run customer research to validate a solution instead of finding unmet needs. Instead, fall in love with the customer’s problem, not your solution. Test More and Assume Less The greatest danger zone is when you are most confident in your assumptions and under pressure to act. That is the time to test your assumptions. Stefan explains that information is most valuable when it is most surprising. Effective leaders don’t trust their gut. They test their gut. Four Types of Uncertainty in Innovation Stefan sees four types of uncertainty in innovation: R&D uncertainty: Does the product, service, technology, or process work as intended? Scale-up uncertainty: Can we produce it at high volume, high quality, and reasonable cost? Market or customer uncertainty: Are customers interested, will they pay, and how should we price it? Investment uncertainty: How much money and how many resources should we commit? Why Experience and Data Aren’t Enough Stefan explains that while experience and data are both valuable, they have limits. Relying on experience and data too heavily can prevent you from testing your assumptions. It is easy to mistake correlation for causality. Use experiments in addition to experience and data, because experiments can prove you wrong. Three Tests of a Good Hypothesis Stefan describes three tests for a hypothesis: It has measurable variables. It is simple. It can be proven wrong. Wolfgang Pauli would reply to a bad hypothesis with “This is not only not right. It’s not even wrong.” A hypothesis that cannot be falsified is worse than one that is simply incorrect. Stefan gives an example of a good hypothesis, which Kohl’s tested: “Opening our stores one hour later will have an insignificant impact on store revenue.” This is a measurable hypothesis they could test in a subset of stores. On the other hand, “We can take our brand upmarket,” is a bad hypothesis since it is not measurable. Designing Fast, Frugal Experiments Experiments should be: reversible inexpensive, at least until they lead to large commitments at an appropriate level of rigor for how much uncertainty is acceptable. Some product decisions require maximum rigor. Many do not. Pay attention to customers’ actions, not only words. Useful Links Check out Stefan’s new book, The Scientific Mindset: How Thinking Scientifically Drives Better Business Decisions Connect with Stefan on LinkedIn 281: The right way to use experiments to create better products more quickly – with Stefan Thomke Innovation Quote “Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” – Carl Sagan Application Questions Think about the last time you didn’t know what to do on a product decision. Did you rely on experts, data, your gut, or an experiment? Where might your team be running the scientific method in reverse, collecting evidence to support a solution it has already chosen? Which of the four uncertainties is largest for your current product, and what are you doing to reduce it? Pick one assumption your team holds about customers. How would you rewrite it as a hypothesis with measurable variables that someone could prove wrong? What reversible, low-cost experiment could you run in the short term that measures customer behavior rather than customer opinion? Bio Stefan Thomke is a leading authority on the management of innovation and the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. A management educator, speaker, and advisor to global leaders, his pioneering research has inspired organizations across industries to incorporate experimentation and scientific thinking into how they make decisions. Stefan has published more than one hundred articles, cases, and notes, and is the author of four books: “Experimentation Matters” (2003), “Managing Product and Service Development” (2007), “Experimentation Works” (2020), and “The Scientific Mindset” (2026). “Experimentation Works” was recognized by Forbes as one of the top technology books of 2020, as a top business book of 2020 by Inc. and CEO magazines, and became a Top Shelf Pick by Strategy & Business. Stefan received his PhD in electrical engineering and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He grew up in Calw, a town in southern Germany’s Black Forest, and now lives outside Boston. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

November 2, 202636 min

616: TRIZ for product managers, without years of training – with Jay Nakagawa and Bill Reid

AI tools for accelerating TRIZ and JTBD Watch on YouTube TLDR Jay Nakagawa and Bill Reid recap their workshop from the 2026 PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit on combining Jobs-to-be-Done and TRIZ and using AI tools to accelerate their analyses. These tools help product managers eliminate contradictions between competing customer demands instead of settling for trade-offs. Introduction Your customers want it faster, better, and cheaper, all at once. Most product teams pick two and call it a trade-off. What if the trade-off is a contradiction you can solve, resulting in much greater value? I recorded this episode at the 2026 PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit, where that question was answered. Two returning guests join me. Jay Nakagawa is Co-Executive Director of the Society for Artificial Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence (SAICI) and is also the Director of Competitive Intelligence at Dell Technologies. Bill Reid is Vice President at Boulder Imaging and has spent more than 30 years developing products at companies including Ford, GE Aircraft Engines, and GM. He is named on more than 20 US patents. At the PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit, they led a workshop that combines Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD), TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), and generative AI to turn hard constraints into product breakthroughs. Let’s learn a practical, 80/20 way to apply TRIZ principles and how generative AI can speed up inventive problem-solving so you don’t have to be a TRIZ expert. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers TRIZ: A Framework for Solving Contradictions Genrich Altshuller developed TRIZ while working in a patent office. He believed anyone could be an inventor. He looked at patents to study how people solve problems and found patterns that held across fields. His tools include separation principles, technical contradictions, substance-field analysis with 76 standard solutions, and 12 trends of technical evolution. Bill describes TRIZ as a how-to book for solving known contradictions among constraints. Bill and Jay have combined TRIZ with Jobs-to-be-Done and competitive intelligence to identify and prioritize customer needs. AI Tools for Faster TRIZ Analysis Using AI tools can accelerate TRIZ analysis from weeks to minutes. At the PDMA conference, Jay and Bill led a workshop on using TRIZ and Jobs-to-be-Done with AI tools. Jobs-to-be-Done and TRIZ The workshop started with guiding product managers to understand their customers’ Jobs-to-be-Done statements. Bill used the example of a quarter-inch hole. The JTBD statements are to minimize the time to make the hole, minimize damage to the wood, and maximize accuracy. Improving speed leads to increased damage to the wood. That is a contradiction among customer needs. Workshop participants used a contradiction matrix from TRIZ to plot technical parameters corresponding to customer needs. Teams then used the contradiction matrix to brainstorm solutions. Know Fundamental Principles to Evaluate AI Output Analysis can be accelerated using AI tools, but as Bill and Jay explain, in order to know if the output of an AI tool is reasonable, you still need to understand the basic principles behind JTBD and TRIZ. It is still critical to have humans in the loop. Training AI on Jobs-to-be-Done and TRIZ In the workshop, Jay and Bill provided some files to train AI models to use JTBD and the 40×40 TRIZ matrix. Each participant loaded these files onto their own AI tools. The models were then ready to answer questions using these principles such as how a company can make its product more valuable or how difficult each contradiction would be to resolve. Participants described customer objectives, and the AI models used their training to give ideas on how to meet those objectives, using JTBD and TRIZ. Combining JTBD and TRIZ to Identify and Solve Contradictions Solving one contradiction often reveals a new one, which is why a manual TRIZ analysis can take weeks or months. Jobs-to-be-Done identifies customer needs and prioritizes desired outcomes. The TRIZ framework points product managers to possible solutions by eliminating contradictions. Useful Links Watch Jay and Bill’s pre-conference webinar on TRIZ and JTBD, “From Contradictions to Breakthroughs” Download files on TRIZ and JTBD for training an AI model: TRIZ Contradictions Matrix Know Your Customers’ “Jobs to Be Done”, Clayton Christensen Jobs to Be Done LLM-based Extraction of Contradictions from Patents 40 TRIZ Principles Connect with Jay and Bill on LinkedIn Learn more about Jay’s Society for Artificial Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence Check out Jay’s book, The UnConventional Strategist 603: Survive the AI revolution of product management – with Bob Cooper, PhD Innovation Quotes “And suddenly the inventor appeared.” – Genrich Altshuller, creator of TRIZ “Get rid of the box.” – Jay Nakagawa Application Questions What are some contradicting outcome statements for your product? What do you do when your team must make a trade-off between contradicting customer needs? Which disciplines are missing from your team that might hold the solution to your hardest product problem? How do you use AI tool for analysis? How do you ensure AI-created outputs are reasonable? What is your experience with TRIZ and JTBD? What small step could you take this week to learn more about these tools or start using them? Bio Jay Nakagawa is a 25+ year veteran product manager, with a track record of successfully building new products and developing turn-around strategies resulting in high revenue growth. As director of Competitive Intelligence with Dell Technologies, he and his team have been instrumental in providing critical guidance to product management teams providing insights that encompass how to create differentiated offerings to the market. Bill Reid brings over 35 years of experience in all aspects of product development, from start-ups to global corporations like Ford, GE Aircraft Engines, GM, and Covidien. Since 2007, he has led innovation and consulting efforts through his company, Immersed, and currently serves as Vice President at Boulder Imaging, overseeing hardware engineering, production, supply chain, and professional services. Bill is a certified New Product Development Professional, serves on the PDMA board, and holds degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering. He is the inventor or co-inventor on 24 U.S. patents and the author of Immersed in the Cave , a self-published book on innovation. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

October 26, 202635 min

615: How to separate signal from noise in customer feedback – with Kristyn Corrigan

Make the most of AI tools for voice-of-the-customer research Watch on YouTube TLDR Kristyn Corrigan, Principal at Applied Marketing Science, joins me to discuss how product teams can move from drowning in customer feedback to identifying the core needs that drive product decisions. We explore shifting the Voice of the Customer (VOC) from a formal research method to an organizational mindset, the risks and opportunities of using AI in analyzing feedback, and actionable tools like the VOC focus brief to enhance cross-functional alignment and innovation. Introduction Your customers are telling you what they need every day, through usage data, support tickets, sales calls, online communities, and more. AI can summarize all of it in seconds — that’s no longer the hard part. Instead, it’s knowing which needs are worthwhile — what’s the signal to act on and what’s the noise to avoid. To help us answer that, Kristyn Corrigan joins us again. She is a Principal at Applied Marketing Science, where she leads the Insights for Innovation practice. She has more than 20 years of experience helping companies uncover customer needs and turn them into products, and she trains teams to run their own VOC programs. At the PDMA conference, she led a workshop on moving from a pile of customer feedback to the few needs that should drive product decisions. She’s here so we can learn to do that too. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Reframing Voice of the Customer (VOC) Kristyn explains that VOC has shifted from being just a set of research interviews to a comprehensive mindset that leverages the wealth of customer insights found throughout an organization. This includes feedback from CRM data, recorded sales conversations, social media, forums, and support tickets. Product teams need to intentionally curate these sources to ensure the insights inform key product decisions. Kristyn has had success helping salespeople learn to ask voice-of-the-customer questions to help sales interviews provide more valuable insights. Separating the Signal from the Noise in Customer Research With the explosion of data from internal and external sources, product teams risk getting lost in noise. Kristyn discusses the importance of aligning the entire organization on research and business questions and identifying which data sources are relevant. Not all feedback holds equal value so strategic focus is essential. Responsible and Effective Use of AI for VOC Research AI tools like Copilot and Claude can rapidly synthesize and summarize large volumes of feedback, but Kristyn warns they often miss meaningful innovation details and tend to smooth out themes, potentially losing valuable nuance. These tools can’t be used without trained humans guiding the process and critically evaluating the customer needs that AI identifies. Kristyn notes that AI tools are built to affirm the user. AI is good at summarizing and smoothing themes, but innovation lives in the details, so effective VOC can be lost when using AI summaries alone. A customized AI tool built for customer research and trained human analysts can avoid this problem. What is Voice-of-the-Customer? In order to evaluate AI-generated customer needs, it’s important to understand what VOC is. Kristyn defines VOC as a systematic understanding of customers needs or benefits they seek from using your product. That’s very different from the solution that meets those needs. Real-World Example of Finding the Signal in VOC Research Kristyn shares a case study from a time her team worked with an HVAC company. They embarked on an effort to understand feedback related to a specific component of the HVAC system. They explored existing customer feedback on contractor forums, review sites, YouTube, and social media, and used both AI tools and humans to analyze the data. By outlining their research questions and having a clear picture of existing feedback, they were able to zero in on a few important insights: First, in addition to contractors, homeowners were talking online about this product, which provided additional insights about customer needs. Second, the research pointed the team to a specific area of the installation process they needed to explore more. To separate the signal from the noise, the team recognized these needs in the existing data and validated their findings further with traditional techniques like ethnography and interviews. This combination allowed the team to move faster and have more resources for traditional research. VOC Focus Brief For teams that don’t have access to AI tools designed specifically for VOC research, Kristyn recommends using a VOC focus brief, a shared document where teams state research questions, hypotheses, and possible data sources. Next, create an analysis plan and ensure the entire team is well-aligned. Kristyn also recommends developing the VOC brief with others from cross-functional teams and sharing it widely across the organization. Useful Links Focus Brief template Learn more about Applied Marketing Science Connect with Kristyn on LinkedIn 545: A product management case study on unlocking customer insights – with Kristyn Corrigan 413: The Key to Successful VOC in Agile Teams – with Kristyn Corrigan 071: How product managers can conduct Voice of the Customer research- with Gerry Katz Innovation Quote “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway Application Questions How does your organization currently gather and act on customer feedback? What sources are you leveraging, and which might you be missing? If you use AI-generated summaries, how do you ensure that key details and customer nuances aren’t lost in the analysis process? What steps can you take to foster better cross-functional alignment around customer insights in your company? Have you tried creating a VOC focus brief (or similar tool) to align your team’s research goals and information sources? What worked or didn’t? How do you balance speed of insight from AI tools with the need for deep, empathetic human understanding of your customers’ true needs? Bio Kristyn Corrigan helps organizations think differently about their customers. As a Principal at Applied Marketing Science, she has spent more than two decades helping teams uncover the deeper needs behind customer behavior and use those insights to drive innovation, strategy, and growth. She is passionate about building a Voice of the Customer mindset that moves organizations beyond assumptions and closer to what truly matters to customers. Kristyn works with leading B2B and consumer brands to build customer-centered cultures, develop sustainable VOC programs, and turn insights into action. She is a frequent speaker on innovation, customer insights, and AI-enabled research, and serves on the Executive Board of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

October 19, 202618 min

614: Stop starting projects you cannot finish – with Mike Dalton

Prioritize the right product projects – for product managers Watch on YouTube TLDR I’m siting down with innovation expert Mike Dalton to discuss why capable companies overcommit to too many projects and struggle to move any of them forward. He reveals practical frameworks and tools to help product leaders focus on the right projects, avoid resource overload, and deliver more value to both customers and organizations. Introduction Picture a customer calling and asking, “Where’s my new product?” And you don’t have a good answer. That’s the situation a plant leader at Danfoss described being in, before today’s guest showed up. Three months later, on-time delivery was over 90%. Our guest, Mike Dalton, spent 23 years inside SC Johnson, running the P&L for its most profitable business unit, before he set out to answer a key question: Why do capable companies keep moving fifty projects an inch forward instead of five projects a mile? He answered that question at my favorite innovation conference — PDMA’s Ignite Innovation Summit. His books, Simplifying Innovation and Unlocking Innovation Productivity , also provide valuable insights for product innovators and managers. I wanted to have this conversation because every product leader I talk to is being asked to do more with less. Mike’s answer isn’t “work harder.” It’s “stop starting so much.” And to get there, you just need a few tools, including a simple pipeline control mechanism that can meaningfully increase how many projects finish. We’ll learn about that and more. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Problem of Too Many Projects Organizations routinely take on more projects than they have resources for. This leads to spreading teams thin, multitasking inefficiencies, and slower overall product delivery. Mike emphasizes that throwing more resources at the problem is never the answer. Instead, the key is focusing existing resources on a few prioritized projects. Choosing the Right Projects Selecting the right projects to focus on is central to increasing innovation productivity. Mike describes a customer value lens for vetting opportunities, ensuring products are both valuable to customers and profitable for the organization. He warns against ideas driven solely by internal executives, advocating for direct customer engagement to identify high-value unmet needs. Portfolio and Resource Management Mike explores how to balance a portfolio of projects based on strategic importance, risk, and expected ROI. He suggests using resource bandwidth as a limiting factor—most organizations can only run about a third of the projects they attempt efficiently. He recommends zero-based project budgeting and prioritizing projects by return per unit of effort, with less promising projects placed in the backlog or dropped. Improving Project Execution Execution challenges are often rooted in resource overload rather than a lack of project management skills. Mike describes the need for mechanisms like early warning dashboards to track project risks and make sure shared resources are allocated to the most critical initiatives, not just those championed by the loudest internal voices. This fosters focus and better organizational outcomes. Practical Starting Points For leaders looking to address project overload, Mike recommends tools such as a virtual drum for resource planning (with a downloadable resource shared in the episode). Categorize projects as small, medium, and large and determine how many of each size your organization can run at full speed at one time. Monitor total work-in-progress (WIP) to help visualize limits, identify focus areas, and create a foundation for real portfolio discussion and prioritization. Useful Links Clear Winner Accelerator – A cross functional assessment to ensure a clear understanding of your right to win for any opportunity Pipeline Bandwidth Accelerator – A visualization of your portfolio vs your pipeline bandwidth so you know when you can start the next project without derailing those already underway Check out Mike’s books, Unlocking Innovation Productivity and Simplifying Innovation Visit Mike’s website, GuidedInnovation.com Innovation Quote “Most hack away at the branches while few strike at the roots.” – paraphrase of Henry David Thoreau Application Questions How does your organization currently decide which projects to prioritize or pause? In what ways does multitasking or project overload impact your team’s productivity and morale? What tools or frameworks do you use to assess the value of potential projects through the “customer value lens”? How might you introduce more objective resource management or portfolio controls in your product practice? What strategies can you adopt to ensure the most valuable projects receive the needed attention and resources, rather than just the ones advocated by the most influential stakeholders? Bio Michael A. Dalton Managing Director, Guided Innovation Group, LLC Mike Dalton is the founder of Guided Innovation Group and the architect of the AcceleTrak OS, an operating system designed to transform your gated development process into a predictable engine for cash flow. With a career spanning over four decades, Mike specializes in helping technology and industrial leaders apply the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to accelerate innovation flow and drive ROI. Prior to founding Guided Innovation, Mike spent 20 years in leadership at SC Johnson, where he served as General Manager, Product Director, and Plant Manager for their specialty chemicals division the fastest-growing and most profitable segment of the $10 billion portfolio. It was here that he first pioneered the application of TOC levers to the innovation pipeline, proving that winning isn’t about keeping every developer busy, but about moving high-impact projects to market with speed and precision. An industry authority on product portfolio management and innovation productivity, Mike is the author of two Amazon best-selling books: Simplifying Innovation and Unlocking Innovation Productivity. His methodologies have helped organizations cut time-to-revenue in half while significantly increasing the volume of successful product launches. Mike is a frequent contributor to leading publications, including Industry Week, CFO Magazine, and Research-Technology Management. He is a sought-after speaker for industry associations, where he shares his field-tested framework for making new products a predictable source of growth. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

October 12, 202642 min

613: Overcoming the 7 most common weaknesses in product innovation – with Chad McAllister, PhD

Seven mistakes that hold back product teams Watch on YouTube TLDR I’m sharing insights from my presentation at the PDMA’s Ignite Innovation Conference, focusing on how organizations can overcome the seven most common weaknesses in product innovation. Drawing from decades of hands-on experience and the PDMA Body of Knowledge, I detail actionable steps for product professionals to boost their effectiveness and drive better outcomes for their teams and organizations. Introduction Last week, at the PDMA’s Ignite Innovation Conference, I gave a short presentation on overcoming the seven most common weaknesses in product innovation. Today, I want to bring that presentation to you as well. The Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) has been researching product innovation and product management for 50 years. They provides resources for product managers about how the most innovative companies innovate, including the book Product Development and Management Body of Knowledge , which I have contributed to each edition of, including as a co-author on the current edition. PDMA organizes the body of knowledge of product management into seven knowledge areas. In this presentation, I’m talking about what I’ve learned teaching these seven knowledge areas over the past two decades. I train product teams through the Rapid Product Mastery (RPM) Experience . At the end of each RPM Experience, I create a next steps report, including my observations of the team’s weaknesses and how to address them. The teams also list the processes, tools, and concepts they believe would most help them deliver products customers love. In this presentation, I’ll share the most common weakness identified in these reports from each of the seven knowledge areas. Use the personal scorecard I created to follow along and identify your own weaknesses: Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers 1. Product Innovation Management Most frequent weakness: Product managers are acting as project managers. They say, “I used to have interactions with customers, but not anymore.” Recommendation: Re-establish direct customer contact. 2. Strategy Most frequent weakness: Product managers don’t know the strategic objectives or priorities. Recommendation: Make the strategy visible and share the strategic objectives frequently. 3. Portfolio Management Most frequent weakness: Lack of clarity around how projects are selected. Recommendation: Have an explicit and visible method for understanding the criteria for selecting a project. Select against strategic buckets. (Breakthrough, Platform, Derivative, Support) 4. Process Most frequent weakness: A process for building exists, but the front end is missing or undisciplined, and the process gets dropped under pressure. Recommendation: Put a more disciplined front end in front of delivery, focused on discovery and scoping. Validate the solution. 5. Design & Development Most frequent weakness: A thin ideation, prototyping, and validation toolkit is used, with little agreement on which tools are helpful. Recommendation: Build a shared toolkit that spans all three stages — ideation, prototyping, validation — and get team agreement on which tool to use when. 6. Market Research Most frequent weakness: Sales is used as a substitute for customer research, and there is no synthesized voice of the customer. Recommendation: Separate customer discovery from sales and give product managers direct customer contact. Synthesize the voice of the customer for each segment and share it with the whole product team. Keep the language the customer shares. 7. Culture, Teams, & Leadership Most frequent weakness: The culture is siloed and top-down, while the product managers want cross-functional collaboration. Recommendation: Break the silos and build cross-functional teams. 4 Repeated Themes 1. Clear strategy 2. Customer research 3. Supportive culture 4. Discovery process Application Questions Which of the seven knowledge areas does your team struggle with most, and what small step could you take to address it this week? How frequently do you have direct contact with customers, and what could you do to strengthen that connection? In your team, how visible and actionable are your organization’s strategic objectives? What tools or processes does your team currently use for ideation and customer validation, and where do you see opportunities for improvement? How would you describe your organization’s approach to cross-functional teamwork, and what changes could foster greater collaboration and innovation? Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

October 5, 202645 min

612: Why 70% of innovation efforts fail (and it’s not your process) – with Anita Friis Sommer, PhD

The seven missing pieces for successful product innovation Watch on YouTube TLDR Dr. Anita Friis Sommer joins me to discuss why most corporate innovation initiatives fail despite decades of process frameworks like Agile, Stage-Gate, and Lean Startup. Drawing on her experience co-developing the Agile Stage-Gate model and leading innovation at LEGO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 Research Center, Anita Friis Sommer shares practical insights from her new book, Mission-Driven Innovation . She emphasizes that true innovation success comes not from a single methodology but from aligning seven critical organizational dimensions. The conversation covers mission-driven leadership, creating empowering systems for innovation, and how budgeting, governance, and digital enablement play a key role. Introduction Here’s an uncomfortable number: Somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of corporate innovation initiatives never deliver the impact they promised — and that’s after decades of Agile, Stage-Gate, Lean Startup, and other frameworks we’ve thrown at the problem. Our guest today helped create one of those frameworks. And her argument is that the method was never the thing holding your success back. Our guest is Dr. Anita Friis Sommer. She co-developed the Agile–Stage-Gate model with Dr. Bob Cooper, work that earned her the Maurice Holland Award twice. She spent over a decade at the LEGO Group leading sustainable operations at global scale, and today she’s the chief operating officer of the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂ Research Center, where she’s helping turn carbon-capture science into technology the world can actually use. She’s brought all of that together in a new book called Mission-Driven Innovation: How to Lead Technology in a Complex World . She will help you understand what actually determines innovation success and how to add the missing pieces to your organization. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Why Innovation Frameworks Aren’t Enough Anita explains that processes like Agile Stage-Gate introduce helpful structure and flexibility, but simply installing a new methodology does not guarantee repeatable innovation success. The underlying organizational system often inhibits these frameworks from realizing their full potential. Seven Dimensions of Mission-Driven Innovation Anita outlines the seven dimensions that drive innovation success: Mission, Purpose, and Values: A motivating mission rooted in something beyond profit inspires intrinsic motivation and creativity, shifting teams from a fear mindset to one driven by passion. Leadership and People: Moving from command-and-control to servant leadership creates psychological safety and strength-based teams. Strategy and Roadmapping: Complex innovation needs co-created strategies and clear roadmapping, involving more than just top executives in future-oriented planning. Structure and Governance: Modern organizations benefit from empowered decision-making at tactical and operational levels, moving away from classic bureaucratic bottlenecks towards “team of teams” models. Innovation Processes: Effective innovation combines linear strategic oversight with iterative, agile experimentation at the operational level, allowing for frequent learning and pivots. Planning and Budgeting: Dynamic, KPI-driven portfolios outperform static, project-locked annual budgets, enabling real-time reallocation of resources toward emerging opportunities. Digital Enablers: Success requires integrating digital experimentation and AI directly into product teams, ensuring that capabilities, not just technology, are distributed throughout the organization. Useful Links Visit Anita’s website, MissionDrivenInnovation.com Check out Anita’s book, Mission-Driven Innovation: How to Lead Technology in a Complex World Connect with Anita on LinkedIn Innovation Quote “You cannot think your way into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking.” – Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of LEGO Group Application Questions Which of the seven mission-driven innovation dimensions feels most challenging for your organization to align, and why? How does your current budgeting process support or hinder real-time innovation pivots and learning? In what ways could your team’s leadership style become more like a “gardener” and less like a “chess master”? What practices might you introduce to make your organizational values more actionable and intrinsically motivating? How can digital enablers (AI, simulations, transparent dashboards) become integrated parts of your product teams, rather than siloed functions? Bio Anita Friis Sommer is an innovation leader, researcher, and author focused on helping organizations turn promising ideas and technologies into successful products and business outcomes. An Associate Professor at Aarhus University and former innovation leader at LEGO, she co-developed the Agile–Stage-Gate approach with Dr. Robert G. Cooper and has spent much of her career studying how organizations can accelerate product development and innovation. Her latest work expands that perspective beyond individual methods to the wider organizational system required for innovation to succeed. In her new book, Mission-Driven Innovation , Anita shows how aligning purpose, leadership, strategy, governance, innovation processes, and investment can help product and innovation leaders move faster, engage their people, and create both meaningful impact and profitable growth. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

September 28, 202627 min

611: The #1 career decision product leaders get wrong – with Ben Lamorte

Make the career decision aligned with who you are Watch on YouTube TLDR I’m welcoming back Ben Lamorte, veteran OKR coach, to discuss his new book Start With You: Go Beyond Prototyping. Get Clarity Before You Commit . Our conversation centers on how product professionals can use decision analysis and introspection to shift from endlessly prototyping their lives to making bolder, more authentic career decisions reflective of their true selves. Ben shares his personal journey, lessons learned from working in OKRs, and his Identity Blueprint tool for individual career clarity. Introduction My guest today was on the show about two years ago, and he gave us one of the best conversations we’ve had on getting an organization clear on what actually matters. Ben Lamorte, the most experienced OKR coach and founder of OKRs.com, is back, and this time the subject isn’t your company’s goals. It’s yours. Ben has a new book called Start With You: Go Beyond Prototyping. Get Clarity Before You Commit and it makes a contrarian argument for product professionals. We’ve built our careers on prototyping and iteration — test, learn, adjust, repeat. Ben says that’s the right way to develop a product, and the right way to run the first half of your career. But by mid-career, he argues, you’ve already gathered the data about yourself. More experiments won’t help. What you need now is the language to name what you already know, and the courage to commit to it. He’s taken the decision-analysis framework, information, values, alternatives , that he learned from his Stanford professor Ron Howard, and applied it to the question of what you do next with your professional life. And given the pace of change hitting product people, this is a very important discussion to hear. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Personal Reflection on Career After years coaching over 200 organizations on OKRs, Ben experienced a professional slowdown, leading him to apply rigorous decision frameworks inward. When his daughter asked him, “Would you do your work tomorrow if you didn’t get paid?” he began to reflect on personal fulfillment and career direction. This catalyzed his transition from organizational OKRs to helping individuals, especially mid-career professionals, define what truly matters for themselves and make value-aligned commitments. Ben’s New Book, Start with You Ben’s book helps professionals identify their identity capital, which includes experiences, credentials, relationships, reputation, and skills. Using a gardens metaphor, Ben describes how we accumulate different types of identity capital: thriving gardens (energizing skills), spent gardens (skills we’ve outgrown), dormant gardens (skills/experiences shelved away), overharvested gardens (skills depleted by overuse), and undervalued gardens (assets we overlook). He challenges readers to think about their dormant identity capital — a skill or experience from their past that isn’t currently being put to use but could rise up at the right moment. Decision Analysis: Information, Values, Alternatives Ben leverages the decision analysis framework taught by Ron Howard at Stanford — information, values, and alternatives — to empower career decisions. Like a three-legged stool, making a decision requires three legs: strengths (identity capital), values (what you need and want), and career direction (on or off the “menu” of existing jobs). This approach helps product professionals move beyond defaulting to what’s available and design new possibilities tailored to themselves. Get Clarity Before You Commit While prototyping and iteration are essential for product development (and early careers), Ben challenges the dogma of always “prototyping your life.” Making big life decisions is not prototyping; it’s committing. Ben’s book helps people get clarity before committing to a big decision. The Identity Blueprint Ben’s Identity Blueprint is an AI-powered self-reflection tool that synthesizes personal stories into a report illuminating your strengths, values, and undervalued possibilities. It’s designed to help individuals gain visceral clarity before making major commitments, whether shifting careers or reigniting their passion for current work. Don’t Follow Your Passion; Find It Many young people are told to find their passion, but it’s nearly impossible to know your passion before you get good at doing something. Ben’s book helps readers find the things that are meaningful to them and fit with their identity capital. It gives you a framework for bringing your true self into the world. This can lead to finding your passion. Surround Yourself with the Right People Ben says that the most important overlooked part of loving your work is finding the direction that allows you to surround yourself with the people that you want to be surrounded with. The people around you will change you. In Ben’s opinion, it is better to have a job you don’t prefer and work with people you can form good long-term relationships with than to have a job you like but work in isolation or with colleagues you don’t want to be with. Useful Links Listen to 523: #1 change to make OKRs work for you – with Ben Lamorte Check out Start with You: Go beyond prototyping. Get clarity before you commit. Available November 15, 2026. Check out the Identity Blueprint and get a free book Send Ben an email and you may get a free refinement session. Check out Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love Innovation Quote “The job board is not a map of your possibilities. It is a catalog of problems that companies that don’t care about you are trying to solve.” – Ben Lamorte in Start with You Application Questions How have you balanced “prototyping” your career versus making bold commitments? Which stage resonates most with you right now? What identity capital or “gardens” do you think you may be undervaluing or neglecting in your professional life? Do you agree with Ben Lamorte that mid-career product pros should focus less on experimenting and more on clarity and commitment? Why or why not? How could applying decision analysis (information/strengths, values, alternatives/direction) change how you approach major career or project choices? In light of rapid changes brought on by AI, what intentional prototypes, skills, or connections are you cultivating for your own future? Bio Ben Lamorte is the founder of OKRs.com and creator of the Identity Blueprint . He has coached the OKR methodology for twelve years across more than 200 organizations and 20 countries. Ben is the author of The OKRs Field Book (Wiley, 2022) and co-author of Objectives and Key Results (Wiley, 2016) with Paul Niven. Beyond Prototyping Your Life is his third book and the first of the Assertified Series. He holds a master’s degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford, where he later taught decision analysis to graduate students. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

September 21, 202622 min

610: The creator of the Apple Store on valuing serving over selling – with Ron Johnson

Product management starts with loving customers Watch on YouTube TLDR I’m sitting down with retail innovator Ron Johnson, to discuss how he created the Apple Store, the importance of serving customers, and what product managers can learn about creating memorable experiences. Ron shares lessons from decades in retail and actionable takeaways for building lasting customer relationships. Introduction The internet was supposed to kill the retail store. That was the conventional wisdom back in 1999 — physical retail was done, the future was online ecommerce. Then a kid from Minnesota who grew up loving stores sat down with Steve Jobs and built what would become the most productive retail space on the planet. Our guest today is Ron Johnson. He created the Apple Store. Before that, he brought designer Michael Graves to millions of shoppers at Target, and after Apple he took the CEO seat at JCPenney and later founded the retail startup Enjoy. Across three decades he’s learned as much from one very public failure as from a historic success — and he has strong views on what actually makes people love the things we build, and why that matters even more in the age of AI, which is the focus of his book, S HOP DIFFERENT: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius . Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Service Over Sales Ron reflects on how his personal geography due to his upbringing in Minnesota, with its emphasis on kindness and serving the community, shaped his approach to retail leadership. Valuing service over sales was a guiding principle throughout his career—an idea that would eventually underpin the Apple Store experience. Loving Customers as a Service Strategy At Apple, Ron told Steve Jobs that their service strategy would be loving customers. Apple describes this as enriching lives. Ron explains how empowering employees to personalize service, listening to customer needs, and fostering a culture of authentic care created a contagious environment of customer-centered innovation. Empowering Employees to Understand Customer Needs Rather than following a specific sales script, Apple Store employees seek to find out why each customer came into the store and what the gap is between the customer and the thing they want to accomplish. Then, the employee’s job is to fill that gap. Ron describes this process as an act of love, as the employees are securing the customers’ good and enriching their lives. Product Insights from the Store Floor Apple Store employees come to know customers very well, and this knowledge generates many useful ideas for the company. When Ron was at Apple, employees could communicate their ideas directly to him. He met all the store managers, and the store managers met all their employees. This company culture allowed employees to easily share ideas. Ron describes how knowledge from the store floor informed both store improvements and product decisions, like rapidly deploying solutions to issues with the iPhone 4. Prototyping the Apple Store Apple first built a prototype of the Apple Store in their warehouse and used the space to imagine the customer experience in the store. Apple doesn’t directly ask their customers what they think of a new product, because it’s hard for customers to understand new innovations. Instead, they observe customers to get to know their needs and experiences. Famously, Apple values attention to detail, starting with the unboxing experience. Enduring Value of Human Connection When the internet was developed, some people predicted that ecommerce would completely replace retail stores. Ron explains that physical stores remain relevant because they are centers of human connection, community, and discovery. Likewise, he offers optimism about AI’s role in amplifying rather than replacing the need for personal expertise and meaningful interaction. Apple Store’s North Star Metric In the early days of Apple Stores, their North Star metric was growing foot traffic, not just sales, as a leading indicator of long-term success. Ron understood that patience was required to let in-store customer experiences translate into customer loyalty and eventual purchases. Building an Emotional Connection to the Product The willingness of customers to wait in long lines outside Apple Stores showcases the emotional connection they have to Apple products. Being part of that experience provides value to customers that can’t be measured. Useful Links Pre-order SHOP DIFFERENT: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius , available September 22, 2026 Visit RonJohnsonShopsDifferent.com Innovation Quote “All innovation begins in imagination.” – Ron Johnson Application Questions How does your team encourage a culture of service in your product or customer interactions? What feedback mechanisms do you have in place to hear from frontline employees or users, and how do you act on that input? When designing new experiences, how might prototyping environments (not just the product) lead to better outcomes? How do you ensure that authentic human connection remains at the core of your product or service? What metrics are you using to evaluate long-term success, and how might focusing on experience-based indicators change your approach? Bio Ron grew up in Edina, Minnesota — two miles from the first indoor shopping mall in the world, Southdale Center. He went into retail out of Harvard Business School, picking the stockroom at Mervyn’s in Los Angeles over Goldman Sachs in New York City. After five years at Mervyn’s, he joined Target, where he worked with architect Michael Graves to bring good design to everyone. That initiative earned him Steve’s attention and the opportunity to create the Apple Store. He later attempted to reinvent the department store at JCPenney, and though it didn’t go as he’d hoped, he learned more in 24 months of failure than he did in 24 years of success. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

September 14, 202626 min

609: The proven way to get customers to switch to your product – with Chris Spiek

Practical tips for product managers to conduct Jobs-to-be-Done interviews Watch on YouTube TLDR I’m welcoming back Chris Spiek, Chief Product Officer at Autobooks and co-founder of the Rewired Group, to demystify Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) interviews. Chris shares his journey to developing JTBD with Bob Moesta, offers practical tips for switch interviews, and emphasizes the importance of understanding customer struggle to drive innovation. Introduction Eleven years ago on this show , Chris Spiek explained why people buy a Snickers bar, which is a completely different reason from why they buy a Milky Way. The framework was called Jobs to be Done (JTBD), and back then many product managers had never heard of it. Today everyone knows the words, but fewer can actually run a JTBD interview. After this episode, that will change for you. Chris Spiek is Chief Product Officer at Autobooks and co-founder of The Re-Wired Group, where he and Bob Moesta spent more than a decade building Jobs to be Done into a complete product development framework. He co-authored The Jobs-to-be-Done Handbook , his work is featured in Clayton Christensen’s book, Competing Against Luck , and he has helped teams at Basecamp, Facebook, Intercom, Dropbox, and others understand why customers switch to their products. He teaches the switch interview and has built an AI tool that analyzes those interviews. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers JTBD as a Framework to Move Beyond Guesswork Chris shares how his early career in building custom software exposed the difficulty of predicting which projects would succeed. He was building applications for Bob Moesta, who had a incredible ability to understand customers’ problems. Bob and Chris built the Jobs-to-be-Done framework as a systematic method to understand customers’ needs and focus on solving them rather than on building product features. Switch Interviews Jobs-to-be-Done interviews, also known as switch interviews, uncover the reasons customers switch from one product to another. They investigate customers’ struggles, definitions of progress, and the trade-offs they’re willing to make, providing clarity on how to improve products and customer experience. Real-World Examples of Switch Interviews Chris describes how he used switch interviews at AutoBooks, a company that sells accounting software for small businesses. He interviewed current users and asked them why they decided to use AutoBooks software. Surprisingly, they found that many customers weren’t using the software primarily for its automated bookkeeping capability; instead, they had switched to AutoBooks because they wanted to be able to accept credit card payments via invoice without using a third party. This insight allowed the product team to better align their marketing with the jobs the customers were using the software for. Practical Tips for Customer Interviews Chris recommends that product managers practice their interview skills by interviewing a colleague or friend about a recent decision to make a big purchase. Get into the details about what they bought, when they bought it, and the trade-offs that went into their decision-making process. With some practice, product managers can learn to resist the urge to get into talking about technical details of their product and just listen to the customer’s story instead. Chris tells his teams that they can be in either supply or demand mode but don’t mix them. During customer interviews, they’re focused on demand and they aren’t talking about their solution. Chris recommends asking customers for details about their story — take them back to the moment and the place where they decided to make a purchase. One technique that is helpful for this is to tell the interviewee that they can imagine you’re producing a documentary about them, so you’ll ask about very specific details like the weather or exact date. Chris suggests about an hour for a customer interview. If you have the opportunity, have another person in the room to take notes and make observations you may have missed. A small number of interviews is often sufficient. Chris’s team sometimes makes product decisions with just 2-4 interviews. If your organization is new to customer interviews, you may need 10-12 interviews to convince yourself and others that you’ve found a pattern. Analyzing Interviews with AI To accelerate actionable insights, Chris is using an AI tool that analyzes interview transcripts, extracts key motivations, and provides feedback on interviewing technique. Useful Links Listen to the original episode with Chris, 057: Applying the Jobs-to-be-Done Framework – with Chris Spiek Listen to 335: JTBD tips from a veteran practitioner – with Bob Moesta Visit the Jobs to be Done website Check out Chris’s AI tool, JTBD Analyzer Watch Chris conducting real JTBD interviews on Substack Innovation Quote “The struggling moment is the seed of innovation!” – Bob Moesta Application Questions How does your current approach to customer interviews differ from the switch interviews described by Chris? What’s an example of a time when your solution did not fully address your customer’s real struggle? How could practicing JTBD interviews on products outside your industry help your team dig deeper with actual customers? Can you describe a time when you focused on your solution more than the customer’s problem? How do you ensure your team remains focused on solving customer problems rather than just building more features? Bio Chris Spiek started his career as a software developer before turning his attention to what it takes to build great products. In 2005, he co-founded the Re-Wired Group with Bob Moesta, where they developed Jobs to be Done from a footnote in Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma into a complete product development framework. His product development work spans nearly every industry, and his passion for software has led him to work with product teams at Basecamp, Intercom, and Facebook. He is currently Chief Product Officer at Autobooks, a fintech company serving small businesses. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

September 7, 202650 min

608: What’s really holding innovation back — Lessons from 3M and Stage-Gate – with Michelle Jones & Penny Wise

Cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in product innovation Watch on YouTube TLDR Penny Wise, former 3M executive, and Michelle Jones, innovation systems architect at Stage-Gate International, discuss how innovation leaders can navigate uncertainty, balance governance, and build trust in their organizations. They share practical insights from decades of innovation research and experience, preview their upcoming PDMA conference workshops, and discuss ways organizations like 3M foster a culture of entrepreneurship and collaboration. Introduction Two things nearly every product leader wants: the innovation track record of a company like 3M, and a way to govern innovation that actually helps instead of getting in the way. Today I have someone from each of those worlds. Penny Wise is a former executive at 3M, with nearly three decades there — including as president of 3M Canada, as well as a global vice president of marketing. Michelle Jones is an innovation systems architect and senior partner at Stage-Gate International, where she helps organizations measure their new product innovation system against the hallmarks of the best performers and fix what’s holding them back. At the PDMA conference this October, the two of them are facilitating a Leaders’ Roundtable and a Benchmarking Workshop. Today is the first of two conversations. We’ll look at the leadership and governance challenges they’re seeing leaders encounter. Then, in a few weeks, after the conference, we’ll come back to learn what surfaced with the leaders that attended. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Leaders’ Roundtable at the PDMA Conference Michelle and Penny are facilitating a leaders’ roundtable, which will bring together some of the most influential and trusted voices in new product development. They’ll discuss how their teams are managing the many uncertainties of today’s world such as demographic shifts, rapid technological advances including AI, and geopolitical instability. Live Benchmarking Session Stage-Gate International and PDMA have the world’s largest databases on benchmarking in innovation and product development. At the conference, Penny, Michelle, and Dr. Bob Cooper, will facilitate a session that dives deep into benchmarking, focusing on governance of innovation. Participants will assess their organizations’ performance in each benchmark, and the facilitators will introduce emerging practices in benchmarking. Innovation Leadership in Times of Uncertainty Leaders may be tempted to be paralyzed by uncertainty, but Michelle points out that periods of uncertainty also offer the biggest opportunities. Innovation leaders who can operate in uncertainty have the best chance for the biggest rewards. Product innovators are well equipped to help the rest of their organizations deal with rapid change, particularly related to AI. Impact of AI on Innovation Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing both back-office operations and front-end product opportunities. Penny points out that while AI creates a flood of new ideas and synthetic data to mine, it also presents challenges for prioritization and aligning new product efforts with company strategy. Leaders must view AI strategically, ensuring it supports larger business objectives. Penny and Michelle recommend that companies use the Stage-Gate process to test and iterate on their use of AI. Governance in Stage-Gate Michelle describes how leadership and governance have been forgotten in the Stage-Gate process. Over the past few years, all innovation disciplines have contributed to make Stage-Gate more efficient, but in the sprint for speed, the leader’s role has been lost. Michelle has observed that organizations that continue winning are the ones that haven’t set governance aside but instead knit all the innovation methods into a sophisticated governance process. Portfolio Chaos Recently, when talking with companies, Michelle hears that they are experiencing “portfolio chaos.” Product leaders don’t know what’s in their portfolio or how they’re contributing to the overall organizational strategy. An abundance of ideas from AI amplifies this problem when there aren’t governance systems in place to help leaders make good decisions to curate their portfolios intentionally. Innovation Culture at 3M Penny and Michelle describe how the innovation culture at 3M is intentionally designed to support innovation and nurture an entrepreneurial spirit. They use governance wisely, to avoid chaos while not squashing innovation. The company focuses on understanding customers’ needs and building the right products. Like many large organizations, 3M has to balance revolutionary innovations with incremental improvements. Big organizations have no shortage of new ideas, but they must have a solid strategy to decide which ideas move forward and help everyone feel that their ideas are valued. At 3M, anyone can generate an idea, and others in the organization are expected to quickly connect them to someone who can help develop those ideas. They also host open technical poster sessions to facilitate collaboration. A few years ago, 3M and the U.S. Department of Defense swapped Stage-Gate leaders for a year. Both organizations wanted to learn from each other’s strategic challenges, processes, and unmet needs. Michelle describes this as an example of 3M’s dedication to innovation and long-term success. Governance as a Trust-Building Mechanism Governance is a trust-building mechanism. When teams trust their leaders, their performance is accelerated because they know what to expect and have permission to try new things and fail intelligently. Research shows that it is best for product leaders to manage the process and governance with a heavy hand and manage the projects and people with a light hand. Useful Links Register for the PMDA Ignite Innovation Summit . Listeners get 20% off with code PDMACHAD20 . Teams of 3 or more also get a discount when registering. Learn more about Stage-Gate Connect with Michelle and Penny on LinkedIn Watch Michelle and Penny’s webinar, Next Generation New Product Governance Systems Innovation Quotes “As go the gates, so does the process.” – Dr. Robert Cooper “An idea is not an innovation. You have to make a product and test it against all the customer applications. Then when you sell it and customers buy it a second time, then you’ve got an innovation. You’ve changed their buying habits.” – attributed to Art Fry Application Questions How does your organization balance the need for operational efficiency with fostering an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit? What governance structures are in place to ensure innovation projects are both supported and strategically aligned? In what ways could you foster trust in your team? How does your team decide which new ideas move forward, and what mechanisms prevent good ideas from ending up in the idea graveyard? What benchmarks do you use to measure and improve your team’s innovation performance? Bios Michelle L. Jones is a Managing Partner at Stage‑Gate International and one of the world’s leading authorities on architecting and implementing high‑performing, enterprise‑wide new product development and innovation management systems. For more than two decades, she has worked alongside Dr Robert Cooper, Dr Scott Edgett, and hundreds of leading innovators to research, evolve, and deploy the most influential innovation frameworks shaping corporate growth strategies today. Renowned as the foremost expert in tailoring and implementing Stage‑Gate® Hybrid systems, Michelle has led more successful enterprise innovation transformations than anyone else globally. She partners with leadership teams across North America, Europe, China, and South America—including some of the world’s most discerning and performance‑driven organizations— to modernize portfolio and gate governance, strengthen decision‑making discipline, and embed innovation capabilities that scale. Her work helps organizations align strategy, culture, and operating models to unlock sustainable growth and accelerate value creation. Michelle brings a rare combination of strategic insight and practical implementation expertise, grounded in more than 30 years of experience in consulting, R&D management, post‑merger integration, and operational leadership. She integrates change leadership, organizational behavior, and systems thinking to drive adoption, embed new leadership behaviors, and ensure long‑term system durability. At PDMA’s 50th Anniversary Conference, Michelle will lead an interactive workshop on the hallmarks of next‑generation governance—what world‑class gate governance looks like today, how leading companies are elevating decision quality and portfolio performance, and why governance is re‑emerging as the critical backbone of high‑growth, high‑performance innovation organizations. Penny Wise is a senior Marketing and Corporate Affairs executive known for creating clarity and generating momentum in complex environments. Over her career at 3M, she held global leadership roles spanning brand strategy, marketing, new product marketing, communications, public policy, marketing transformation and P&L management, including serving as President of 3M Canada. She is recognized for mobilizing leaders and unifying teams around shared priorities and integrating work across business, marketing, brand, corporate affairs, and communications to deliver enterprise strategy. Penny has led major transformation initiatives, including modernizing marketing systems in a $12B Business Group and guiding the global relaunch of 3M’s brand platform. Her leadership has delivered impactful commercial, reputational, and regulatory outcomes. Penny has been recognized as one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women and is a recipient of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Business Leader of the Year Award. She holds an MBA in Marketing from the Schulich School of Business at York University. Thanks! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source

Is this your show?

Claim this listing to keep it up to date, reach guests who want to pitch you, and manage bookings with Guestify.

Claim this listing

More Business podcasts

Expert In You

Ann Carden

BusinessMarketing

Inspiration Contagion

Holly Jean Jackson

Business

Advisor Advocate — Career Guidance for Financial Advisors

BusinessInvestingInterviews guests