Decision Time

In this episode I sit down with Ansh Kanwar from Reltio. We learn about the role Reltio plays in helping some of the biggest companies in the world solve a critical, but under-rated, challenge - making data usable to build great applications. Ansh also talks about his philosophy on time management, prioritization and one of the keys to his success as a product and engineering leader - evolving with the times.

In this episode Nilesh Patel - CPO of WEKA - breaks down his 3 pronged philosophy on great product work. And, Nilesh describes the complex work WEKA is undertaking to power highly intensive data applications.

Ok everyone, hold on to your seats because in this episode we get a glimpse into how product work happens at Amazon. Corliss Collier - Head of Product, Research and Science- Amazon Seller Satisfaction & Insights - shares her perspective on leadership. One notable insight is the velocity at which product teams at Amazon are able to move.

In this episode we speak with Octavian Tanase - Chief Product Officer for Hitachi Vantara. The episode features a unique perspective for incoming leaders. Octavian describes the concept of letting the organization influence him, as he looks to merge the best of his leadership style with the ideas and identity of his new team.

In this episode Artem Kroupenev - VP, Strategy at Augury - drops a bucket load of wisdom. Most interesting is his point of view on defining product market fit. It's not the only way to define it, but it's a good one. Artem also talks about Augury, and the innovation they're bringing to the IoT space. Whether you're in IoT, or trying to find your way to PMF this episode is worth your time.

In this episode I chat with Bill Waid - Chief Product and Technology Officer at FICO. We learn about the many capabilities of the FICO team, notably its forte in decision support. But, what stood out the most is Bill's philosophy on team management, and the value of making explicit the connection between company goals and individual PM accomplishments. Bridging this divide isn't just critical to ensure work is done in service of strategy, but calling it out is also necessary to drive motivation and morale - a subtle, but often overlooked quality of objective setting.

In this episode we speak with Hans Fischmann - VP, Product at Vericast. Hans covers two critical topics all product leaders should note - (1) the value of great communication in building successful products, and (2) velocity as a KPI but not as in its often thought about definition (ticket velocity). Thinking of velocity in the greater context - speed to sales - helps to shape the narrative for product development in more strategic terms.

In this episode we sit down with Will Doolittle who is building BevSuite - a vertical SaaS platform focused on the spirits industry. A great episode to check out especially for those folks in the early stages of the tech journey. A particularly noteworthy topic Will and I touch on is the role of willingness to pay in decision making - i.e. having the conviction that solving a pain translates to someone paying for it, not just using it!

In this episode we chat it up with Alvin Cho - VP of Product and Engineering & Head of Developer Experiences, Digital Innovation & Transformation at Fiserv. Alvin describes how he gets in the trenches with his team when it comes to big and new ideas; this time spent together carving out the problem and defining the right solution is akin to operating like a Pirate ship - deep water, small vessel and lots of holding hands. This approach has lots of benefits, not the least of which is the osmosis effect on empowering knowledge transfer, and enabling his members to make independent decisions. This is important because Alvin needs to shift into operating like a well oiled Navy carrier where alignment is critical. Alvin can start to focus a bit more on narrative development and strategy, while his team keeps moving in the right direction but without the in trenches presence.

In this episode we sit down with G Shah, Chief Product Officer at Carelon – one of the biggest healthcare companies in the United States. G gives a textbook case study in the value and approach to injecting decision-making rigor, consistency and transparency into a product organization.

In this episode we speak with Amol Borkar - Head of Computer Vision/AI products at Cadence Design Systems. Amol and his team are responsible for products many of us don't touch and feel directly, but power much of the technology many of us consume on a regular basis

In this episode with speak with Alex Klug - Head of Product, Data Science & AI at Hewlett Packard. We learn about the work HP is doing to enable the data science community. Notably, Alex describes how his team uses time as a key ingredient in decision making. Instead of scoping a project and then suggesting how much time it would take, Alex goes the extra step to look at time as the mechanism to determine how something can be built to validate early hypotheses and prove value.

In this episode we dive into the world of Know Your Customer solutions (KYC) with Danielle Ferry, Managing Director of Product Strategy at Moody's Analytics. Notably, Danielle and I discuss the virtues of an experiment based approach to product strategy and discovery.

In this episode we speak with Ben Kaplan, who heads up product at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Ben discusses the role clinical operations play in digital development to help make the patient journey better. And, he describes the challenge in building a platform that takes into account the nuance of different service lines, while ensuring a common set of features that facilitate scale.

In this episode I speak with Harsh Singh - Global Head of Cloud Product Marketing at VMware. Harsh talks about two important ingredients necessary for great decision making - building trust internally with partner teams, as well as continuing to meet customer expectations during a large scale business transformation towards a SaaS based model.

In this episode we speak with Jan Foo, Head of Enterprise Data and Analytics Product Management at VMware. Jan talks about the internal side of product management - leveraging internal data and tooling to empower the organization. Notably, Jan discusses how VMware's transformation from perpetual to SaaS business models serves as a key ingredient to product decision making at VMware.

In this episode we speak with Arun Nagarajan - Chief Product & Technology Officer at Evolve. Arun discusses the virtue of understanding how ideas and features fit together, before deciding what to build. Notably, understanding which features act as enablers to other features, and which act as blockers helped Evolve to figure out the best path to improving the customer experience.

In this episode we learn what it takes to make decisions when your portfolio includes both software and hardware products. Daniel describes his decision process for ensuring his team takes the portfolio into account. And, Daniel shares how he frees up his own time while creating opportunity for his team.

In this episode we speak with Justin Anovick - CPO of Syndigo. We discuss how to identify value in absence of customer feedback, and a model Justin built to ensure everyone - from the executive team, to the product team - understood how decisions will be made. Also, Justin discusses the importance of communication and the critical role CPOs play in being the voice of the product organization.

In this episode we speak with Alexia Assouline - Co-founder and CEO of Pascal - a vertical SaaS solution for the real estate industry. Alexia shares her vision for digitizing the home buying process - streamlining the work of real estate agents, and improving the experience for buyers. We also discuss key features built into Pascal, why Alexia chose to prioritize them and how she spends her time to get to the best business outcome.