Product Club
The Product Club is a podcast from Halina Haanæs Product Director at EY Doberman) and Hans Martin Cramer (CEO @ Oschlo). Based in Oslo, they invite awesome product people from the Nordics and beyond to have an informal chat about something they are passionate about.
Product Club
Starting as a new CPO - with Frederik Meinertz Hansen
Join us as we delve into C-level product leadership with Frederik Meinertz Hansen. We discuss his method of starting a new CPO role with a four week grace period, where the only task is to observe, research and track the inner workings of the company, essentially peeling the onion to get to the What, How and Why.
The episode explores the Chief Product Officer's role and challenges during organizational change. Frederik underscores the importance of mentorship, empowerment, and a unified vision. He relates corporate strategy to sports coaching, offering insights for aspiring product managers.
Concluding, the discussion ties together product management and business acumen, showcasing Norway's active product community. It points out the importance of cross-disciplinary teamwork for business success and the influence of financial knowledge on pricing and monetization. Frederik's experiences provide key lessons for product managers and business leaders, reflecting the varied responsibilities of a CPO.
Frederik was also our first ever guest on the Podcast back in 2021, so it was great to hear about his journey in Bookis and Ignite since then.
I mean good.
Speaker 2:Welcome to product club and welcome to 2024. Hans Martin, yay, how's your year been so far?
Speaker 3:pretty hectic and then a bit interesting in the sense that we yeah, you want to know what's coming right, but you don't, so you're trying to plan for something new when yeah. Yes, it's always kind of that.
Speaker 2:Not gonna ask you about new year resolutions because I've read that on an in and out list. Resolutions are out.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'm not gonna ask you. So that's so last year.
Speaker 2:Intentions are in. So what's your intention for this year?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a good question, so. So one thing at least is that I'm going to be or my intention is sorry, my intention is to Actively try to learn more things, because I'm usually kind of a guy that that just kind of absorbs things. I never actually kind of go into something to learn it kind of properly, I just kind of absorb things. This year I'm actually gonna try that to go head on into something and learn something new and it's quite broad, like just anything, or do you have specific topics in?
Speaker 3:mind. I have a couple of them, but I think that's a topic for later.
Speaker 2:Interesting mysterious. Yes well, my intention is always to be more focused, so let's see if I can manage this year. High hopes for this year, okay, well, welcome back. And we have a guest here today.
Speaker 3:We have a guest here which some of you regular listeners Might actually remember from our first episode, so that's Fredrik Mainz Hansen, which is joining us today in a new context and talking about new things, so welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Just for the sake of of kind of telling your your backstory, perhaps you could kind of go through, kind of who you are, what you've done, and and and and also the question that we I think we asked that last time we talked also that how did you end up in products?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's a brilliant question. So a short summary the 12 years ago I was finishing my business degree in Denmark and since then I have been in in different worlds, in B2B and B2C. With the first it was a business development and then I was sort of introduced to To the world of products and then I have just gone down that rabbit hole ever since. What I can say I try to utilize is the experience of have been in both in physical and digital product development and can relate and sort of connect these two worlds and see what did we do in the physical world with testing in little scale and mimicking the process of Of our customers and so on. So and then, on the side of this, I've also been engaged in the Norwegian community as well and it's a lot of fun. I really see that a lot of people is definitely Developing and improving the skills, but also still struggling and sort of need these kind of therapy Communities where you can just come and sometimes rant a bit about whatever is is on your mind.
Speaker 3:Rant about your colleagues, right, that's that could be that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so no, but that's, that's really me I Since, since the last time I was CPO in bookies and now I moved into a new role here in here in ignite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's actually the topic for today, right? I'm talking about, kind of how you, how, how your journey into ignite have been and and Starting that CPO role. So that's basically basically the theme that we want to want to walk through Today, because this is second, this is your second CPO role, right? So you had bookies and then and now ignite, right? Yeah, and you've been here for a couple of months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's soon three months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think many people would like to to hear about that. Where do you begin, like when you start a CPO role and for many that's kind of the holy grail of job titles right, it's what many people are working towards. If you want to really have a say in products, you should get up there into the leadership group, right? So the CPO role is something many people are wondering about, so perfect to hear from you.
Speaker 3:It's actually done two of them in quite a quick, a quick time, so yeah, yeah, and perhaps Before kind of we dive into actually like, how do you look at the CPO role? What is the CPO role and and perhaps kind of how is this CPO role that ignite has right now? I imagine they are a bit different kind of in different companies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely different context, different, yeah, history and so on. Every company is different, but there's some similarities, I would say. But if I should try to boil down and you know sometimes when I need to focus again I have to say what is it that I have to do as a CPO? And this basically three things. One is Setting the direction for the product, which in our lingo, is product vision and and product strategy.
Speaker 1:Especially in a large organization with with many product teams, there needs to be an overall holistic vision for five, ten, 20 teams, right? So that's one thing that you are the facilitator of a good strategy process and you are definitely the ambassador for this. You should be role modeling every day and talking to teams and investors and founders, making sure that we don't forget where we are, why we're here and where we want to go. So that's like one thing sitting the direction. The second is for me to to foster this great culture that will create awesome results. Some would call it an empowered culture. Maybe just your own take on that is really what you need. So what are these core principles that you would like to put in place? So you, if you're not there one day, you'll just see that the organization is actually Performing at a really, really high level without you being there. That's what you should aim for.
Speaker 1:So it's Making yourself redundant really really because that's how you will scale yourself when you move from a product manager role into this role is that you will have to, you know, get your thinking and and the impact through all these, all these people.
Speaker 1:So it's a lot about the culting, that teamwork that you would, you would like to see and from my experience I've worked in In this professional life, but also just from being in sports, you know it's very similar to what is that culture you want on that team if it's ice hockey or football or handball, right.
Speaker 1:What is the way you you collaborate between People from different backgrounds if it's engineers and designers and business people and product people? So I'm using a lot of these references to how was it that we build, like an awesome team culture in in the sports? And the third thing is then to actually achieve stuff, win the medals, if it's in the sports, right. So it's making sure that the philosophy you you put in place is also impactful. So this is end of the day, yeah, the results of all of your efforts, that you see that, with the strategy and the direction you have set, with the Principles and and the culture, that you see people also thriving and they are making impact. So that's where that's the judgment of the product philosophy really sounds easy, right?
Speaker 2:So three steps and you just follow them and everything will be perfect, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It sounds so simple, but at least it's. It's simple to sort of sum up the different sort of things, but it's where did you start?
Speaker 2:It's an interesting thing, so you've you probably have had an idea when you started on what you wanted to Achieve as a whole. And then you get to your desk the first day. What do you do?
Speaker 1:No, to be very sort of concrete, when I went in here to ignite, I asked for for one month of Grace period. I wanted one month of investigation and what should end up in what I would call the baseline analysis, and that will be. If it was a doctor, it will be sort of the assessment of the patient. It will be the diagnosis that you said, because, even though you have these strong opinions about what is a good culture, what does it look like? You're coming into a completely new setting With different people's history and so on. So what I sort of did was to just say I need a month to really investigate. You guys, I'll be the investigator, and they said fair enough, that's. That sounds like a very thorough way of starting out and I think it makes a lot of sense, right? Because how on earth should you, you know what this patient should be treated with? What is the symptoms, what are the problems? Right, you don't really know. So you need to investigate and do your discovery.
Speaker 3:And every company is unique right. Absolutely you really need to get that understanding, especially if you're going to own some something core, as the product really is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:How did people respond to that, when you were walking around talking, I assume, and observing, and how did people react? Did they manage not to give you tasks and like to get you working on something like where they respectful of?
Speaker 3:Did they respect?
Speaker 1:you yeah they definitely respect it and I didn't have to do a lot of pushback, so that was really awesome. I think a lot of people were very curious what it will end up with, because they just understood that I was picking up these pieces of the puzzle and they were one of the pieces, right. But the way I did it was like the first couple of weeks was really what I would say data gathering. So I had one and one with more or less half of the company, which is 60 people, and I just gave them the microphone and said you know, help me be on board it to this company. What is it? I should know what's good about it, what's problematic, and you just listen.
Speaker 1:So it's very similar to build a product, because you have to do this open and it's starting. You don't know what you should look for even in the start. So the first 14 days was just gathering data without actually having any opinions about anything. So that was like the internal assessment, talking to people being able to visit customers to see how they use the product, have my own little two and the product like a service safari, as I would call it. And then we use Slack and it's a great sort of source for understanding what kind of conversations has been going on, who is really active, who is loud, who is not being part of stuff. So Slack is also helping you to understand this organism.
Speaker 2:I think it's a very good idea to ask for this upfront, because many people probably think the same, like yes, now I'm going to start with just researching, and then you just get caught up in things like you said, boundaries from day one. I think that's a very good recipe for someone doing the same, of course, if you can afford to right, and that the company you're starting in can actually wait a little bit to get your expertise, but it's, I think it's very worth fighting for. That time Sounds very like a smart use of you as a resource.
Speaker 1:So definitely, and I think that if you can say that something will come out in the other end you don't know what, but in four weeks from now I will have a presentation where I give you sort of an introduction, Then people can be patient because, okay, four weeks, that's not that long.
Speaker 3:Think about it as kind of product marketing, right? The product is you, you're coming into this company and then you kind of build up tensions all the way and everybody's anxious what is the result of this thing?
Speaker 1:And then you kind of yeah, you present your product, which is this presentation it is and I actually have thought in that way that I am a product and I'm shaping this. So it's not that far away but I can. Just after those sort of two weeks I gathered, to be concrete, I gathered all the pieces, screenshots from Slack, all the notes from the interviews in a big mirror board and it looked really messy. And then I just started to synthesize, started to sort of lightly see where there is patterns between what people have said, where they agree, disagree, and obviously putting in some of my own sort of what does good look like and what is it I'm seeing here. And from there you will patterns will emerge that you couldn't see up front because you were, you were on the outside of the of the business, right, and then in a second, when you see some patterns, you go and validate them just like a product. So you go out and the next couple of interviews is where you go a bit more like I've seen these kind of things.
Speaker 1:Can you, can you elaborate on on your take on this? So some of these people I've had rounds with where I've just first round, I didn't know what to ask, second round, I was sort of seeing bringing back some stuff. I sort of got my enough validation to be sort of seeing enough to be able to to put it all together in some kind of almost like a system. I almost draw a system map of where are the connections, where is there's no connections, where are there too many connections and then I tried to make it into a story so it could also be presented in a in a way that people could find appealing and relate to. So I personally use a lot of pictures in my presentation and sort of examples from life that could be drawn in to sort of explain what is it.
Speaker 2:I have seen You're using storytelling basically as you would in a product. So I think there's an interesting parallel, like, yeah, your product can be perfect, but you need to tell the story of why people should use it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you can come with a lot of findings, but unless you have the story of why this is relevant to them. Yeah, I think there's a very interesting connection there, but unless this is a perfect company I'm assuming you'll you found probably some things that didn't work right, and so the outcome of your month must have been an interesting read. Probably Tell us what happened there Can.
Speaker 3:I can. I just before you, before you go into that, because I have an observation of Frederick during this period which is interesting. So so when you first got the job, we had a, we had a little chat and you were super excited and kind of new company, new context, everything. And then I think in the middle of this period, we had a chat as well, because I've done a bit of consulting for, for, for your company and and then it was like, yeah, you were still excited, but you were also kind of a bit, oh shit, like this is, there's a lot of things going on here. And then, kind of the day before you had this presentation, you, you, you ping me and and and you had that excited kind of tone in in your, in your writing back then and and so it was yeah you look like a real kind of face Disillusionment and all those faces.
Speaker 1:I think it was the face of sort of creation right, because in the first two weeks you take a lot of things in and your, your, your, your, your cognitive load is just maxed right and you can't really. You, you haven't yet seen the patterns, but it's just like, okay, I soon I can take more data in, I need to start boiling down and it, it. It's quite an effort to do that, but when you sort of start to see the patterns and you, you can be quite confident about it, then it's like, then you are really excited about moving on. So everyone who have ever created something will have this in the middle of like, I haven't seen anything yet, when might it appear in front of me? But I can say a bit how I I presented this case but also every other case I've been involved in, and the good thing is that no company is perfect and everyone got their small things or big things you can work with. But overall, the way I have structured it is is I explained it as an onion where you have an outer layer that is very easy to spot.
Speaker 1:That's really what that, what product are this company offering? That should be quite easy to see. It should be easy to do your analysis on. Okay, how is it being used? What's the usage? Well, if you're using amplitude or mixed panel, that's where you will find some of these answers right. You will also be able to see the retention and you might have sort of seen how users are using it. So you can also have that ankle to understand why you see these numbers.
Speaker 1:But it's also an opportunity to sort of try to place the maturity of a product on some kind of a ladder and give the organization an idea. If it's like the bicycle or the sports car or somewhere in between, so that's like the outer layer and then there is a middle layer after that that you can go in and explain okay, how have they developed what they have offered? And that's a lot about the product team and how they work. Do they have a vision in place? Do they have a strategy? Do they have the right people? Do they have all the people needed for completing a product team? Are they good at setting good goals? Are they good at discovery and delivery? So that will sort of be the how of what you have created.
Speaker 3:Kind of an assessment of the current status quo of the organization.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then you come to the inner layer and the one I think is the most exciting one. That's really the why. Why are we doing how we are doing what we are doing? So that's the core sort of philosophy of the company. What is the philosophy that rules in this company?
Speaker 1:And I've seen different philosophies, from being very custom-led and very obsessed with the problem. I've also seen companies where it's very finance-led, some being very sort of investor-led, that we are here to deliver to the one who's paying the bills. I've also seen marketing-led, where marketing is driving everything. And I guess there's without saying which model is the best. But what I've seen is that when you're too balanced to just have one view on stuff instead of being a mix of everything, then I'm a bit afraid and will raise a red flag, or like a yellow flag at least. But that's the inner truth about how this company is operating and how they do what they do. And I think this is again. It's simplified into an onion model, but it wasn't supposed to be that. It's just now that I can see that there is actually three layers and it's sort of just evolved into a practice. I've done it a couple of times now.
Speaker 3:Yes, so is this kind of the same way. You did the same thing when you went to the bookies, right, or at least partly, and I guess that has your approach has evolved right.
Speaker 1:So how much did you or how much about this process did you have ready in advance before you started here in Ignite and how much just kind of had to be built along the way I think the process was already there, but the content and where to put your focus differs from case by case, because it might be that they do an awesome product but they struggle with how they do it or why they do stuff. So it's a bit where you put your emphasis and when you present it to people. It could be that you have a really good why and a really good sort of it's pretty healthy in the middle of the onion, but they're struggling on the outside to get that full impact out in the product. So why is it that it's not getting out there?
Speaker 2:And how do you then present these findings on each of these areas? Do you have a method for that, to make it impactful when you see it, read it, hear it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is. I've never just sent stuff around. So this has been a keynote where I've invited the first management team to sort of put it forward, then I've invited the product team and then the rest of the organization or the whole organization in a third meeting and you sort of try to take the temperature when you're presenting to see how people are responding to it, and it tells you a lot about each individual, not necessarily the role, but how is a developer taking a very honest critique of of his work and the company is working in right, that can be very different. So I sort of also see very sort of human characteristics when, when presenting this, the presentation is also kind of an observation for you.
Speaker 2:Like how it's being received as part of the research.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no one, you, you. When you're in this sort of baseline analysis, it's, it's you try to listen double as well as you would normally. You pay double as much attention. So it is really really intense and you are tired at night and you'll have really good sleeps because you're so tired. But it's again like building a product. You really need to put an effort into scrutinize the situation and I use the word interrogate because it is. You need persistency and you need to sort of not just you know, you need to get to the truth of what. What is the product, what is the people doing and why are we doing it?
Speaker 3:I think part of. I'm a bit fascinated by this because because I think most people, if you ask them, they would say that they want kind of direct feedback on the things that you do. Like you want to know how this is perceived and if it's good or bad or kind of your assessment right, once you're actually there. Nobody likes to hear it and that kind of brutal honesty is it's somewhat foreign for our kind of general culture here in Norway as well, right? So? So you tend to kind of downplay things a bit in kind of Norwegian feedback culture, and so it's a bit. It's a bit it's very stressful to get that direct. So this is not good, right? So how do you? How do you? In you, being Danish, you guys are a bit more direct than our Norwegians, right? Or this kind of you're louder usually than us.
Speaker 2:I guess you need to be able to at least stand in a lot of uncomfortable situations to be in the uncomfortable stuff, right?
Speaker 1:I think, even though I'm Danish, I could have chosen not to be, as have the courage to tell the truth in a way that would make sure that all my points were definitely coming through and there were no sort of uncertainty or what I actually meant, but I sort of always had. You know, life is short. You need to. If I have to be here, I want to make impact and I want to make sure that I get that everyone sees what I'm seeing, because the the goal of a baseline analysis is really not for me to tell a company what's up and down. It's hopefully that they take it in, they process it a bit and then they want to own it with me. So we find some kind of aligned starting point from where we together are going to improve the business.
Speaker 1:So I've worked a lot on giving them this, this very honest feedback, but also see if I can make them own it themselves and and come to the same realizations. And I think I have the unfair advantage of being new and have fresh eyes. So a lot of people, both here and in bookies, where I also did it was I knew there was something, but I couldn't articulate it. Yeah, there's something about being new. That is quite unfair, that you should take the advantages off because you can see something you haven't been put gone into, got into this.
Speaker 3:And I think I think that's that's a communication point as well, right, like I mean, they hired you to do this thing, like the whole point of you being here is to actually help out in building this business and being better and the organization and product and whatnot sort of. And so if you don't grab that opportunity and then kind of use that opportunity to one, give you, give that feedback and then kind of start working or making sure that the entire company understands and sees what you see, like you said now, that's kind of you can be harsh in the beginning and then you kind of start kind of working with people to get them to to understand the way and suddenly you have a position in the company to actually do change Now it is.
Speaker 1:It is really tough in the start because, let's say, you've been working in a place for six years or five years, maybe you're a founder, maybe you're an investor, right. And then I come in and sort of come with with my critique. And it's also because I look at what, what is really best in class in my belief, and I guess very few up there and so I hope it can also be aspirational. But we need to to get down to the facts of where is the product? Is it immature, is it mature? Is it scaled? Is it can it be scaled? Is it profitable enough? Is it defensible enough? These, these quite of things I believe a good business is is composed by.
Speaker 1:So I think that's you sort of, you're loyal, because you tell the truth instead of being ill oil and and keeping it away. That's how I see it. And yet when I go into these sessions, my pulse is also high, right, because it is a risk that someone will say thank you, no, no, thank you, please. This is, this is too much, or you, you can have the mandate to actually work with us on doing it. So I guess actively, I've actually taken a bet here that I want to present it in a way and hopefully they will respond well. And what I've seen is that, yeah, we might not be as direct in the Norwegian culture, but for some it's really refreshing that. Thank God, finally someone told us the truth. We have just been waiting for it. We don't know why we don't say that often.
Speaker 2:Hans Martin, you said that they hired you to do this job and they want the truth. I don't think that's always the case, though right, so some people want the CPO because it's they think it's the right next step, and so is that something you look for also when you talk to when you were looking for a for a new job? Like, are you looking for those kind of people, do you? How do you control, check, basically, if they have the right intentions? That's a good question.
Speaker 1:I think it's very it's almost impossible to de-risk all, all the risk up front Because, yeah, people want to hire a CPO, or they have heard or they never have one from before, but what they ask for and what the CPO will do will be two different things. Right, so they don't. But what they, in my opinion, need to do is just to have that leap of faith and hire a CPO and give the mandate and time to actually see that person fold out this role as it should be. But if you haven't been a CPO before, how on earth should you know what that person will do to you and your company? Right, so it's, it's a lot about taking a bet that when you feel that you have de-risked enough and my approach to this has been coffee, coffee chats I think I had almost nine coffee chats with Ignite and where we tried to scrutinize each other both ways Right, because I think there is a normal way of hiring people is very much favoring the one who is hiring.
Speaker 2:Yes, they come with a set of kind of demands and if you say that, yes, I will do all of these things that you have on this checklist, yeah, job is yours.
Speaker 1:And they put you through some tests and give you a case, right, but what you should do is you should give the company a case just to see how they are reacting, because it's really hard from the outside to get a good understanding of how they will actually respond to to the stuff that you are going to do to them.
Speaker 3:And I think this is this is especially true when you're aiming for C level roles right, where you, you, you are hired into a context where you're supposed to have impact right, and if you can't get that, then well, that's a, that's a miss on both sides, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So using using that opportunity to actually scrutinize that company and then give them a case. That's a, that's a good tip.
Speaker 1:But it's also, if you can try to have conversations with with peers in the at the C level, right, and obviously you want to meet some of the people from product. But if you can, as fast as possible, try to build that intimacy with them and be as honest and try to make them as honest as possible so they're not selling you something that is not the truth. I think that's better than coming in and say, wow, that that wasn't what we agreed on. So no, it's a full time job to to do these kind of job hunting. But I think it's worth it, because I would rather do a lot of work up front and do scrutinizing them than signing too early and coming in and then you're like, wow, I haven't meet half of the C level people and they are definitely not my cup of tea or I don't think I can work with them. You want to do that up front.
Speaker 2:And now? So you started in October, right? And so you had your Grace month, made your assessment, You've presented it to the company, so you're now just in the beginning phases of actually implementing. I suppose and how is that different from from having that I guess not not common and a quiet start, because it didn't sound like that. But now you're actually supposed to make impact, right. How do you go about that?
Speaker 1:Now I think if your, if your baseline analysis is sound and thoroughly done, out of a problem space there will be popping out the most important things you need to tackle. Is it people? Is it processors? Is it? Is it the product? So in my case it has been a bit of two, two major things. So both ensuring that we, we get more people into to fill up all the the product trios in the company. That was like one major thing.
Speaker 1:And then we have I saw early on that and this is not just ignite, this is in many companies that when you have to balance every day between operating the business you have, the customers you have, and actually innovating on behalf of the new customers, if that is not put into a good structure, then the operations will always win.
Speaker 1:So what we we did was to try to look at the the week and design it in a way where we will give a certain amount of time for innovation and and a certain amount of time of operating in a very lean, professional way the customers we had. And that has been going on now for two months and it has been quite a transformation. When you do that from one day to the other, just book people's calendar and say now it's innovation time in the morning and you can't go into a sales meeting, you can't operate customers, you'll have to wait to the afternoon. So both the people in product and the people around products needs to adapt to such a change. But it was clear to me that if we need to improve the product, it takes time and it requires focus. So we need to carve out that focus.
Speaker 2:I think many companies are struggling with this every day. I don't think anyone's come with the perfect solution. There are so many ways to structure innovation that we've talked about in a different episode, but I don't think I've heard this version yet. So actually blocking out days, but for the whole company, not just for one person. The classic example is 10% of your time, always new things. But, then you're basically alone and thinking of new things. But now you're structuring it so everyone is.
Speaker 1:To start with, it was the whole product organization when we just said now, 60% of your time in the morning until after lunch, that is really for deep work. So go offline on Slack, sit in your product teams or cross product teams and work on the next big stuff you want to make impact with. And then again an invitation to the rest of the company to be inspired and and steal with pride this concept. So now I see more and more departments is actually having this, this focus time, and that's another good point. That product can take so much lead on initiating new way of working that the whole company can benefit from. So I think part of that CPO role is also to be inspiring other departments. It's not just making sure your own department is doing really well, but it's also to like show the way to two other departments.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's super interesting and I guess you're not kind of in the clear yet. I mean, you have a lot of work ahead of you. So how do you like balance between what you really want to do now, because you have, like you said, you've identified some major issues you want to work on. How do you balance that with what you want to achieve, like in the next two years? For instance, how do you balance your vision with the company vision, etc.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think every company needs to strike that balance between how do we deliver something short term? How do we get impact, especially in a world where all startups and scale-ups need to become profitable? So how can you work with doing something smart short term? And how can you also, when you have set this product vision, how can you make sure you take some good steps in that direction? So concretely, we have, for this year, again tried to set our OQRs up for doing a bit of both. I say we both have flour in our mouth and we are. What do you say pusting? How do you say Puste?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're blowing and having flour in your mouth at the same time.
Speaker 2:So just by. Is this a Danish expression? I?
Speaker 1:guess it is, but it's like it's your baking things. We're baking all the things, but it will be. It's also to be honest to say it will be hard to both work on the vision and the short term stuff. But we need to make sure and the way we have done it is to set our OQRs to make sure that we can't deliver on one of them. We need to deliver on both of them. So we need to cover our time both for driving some improvements of the product short term but also start to see that the vision we have set will start to actually discover and de-risk on that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I know I mean Ignite's kind of.
Speaker 3:We don't have to go into specifics here, though, but Ignite has kind of a product portfolio with a set of different products right that works in companion and not in companion kind of, like every other product company ever has right, and I guess, kind of in that conversation and that discovery process that you were in, you naturally kind of go down to that and start to kind of seeing what works and what not, what is kind of our customer offering and what is not, or what should be a part of our customer offering right and how does, and I guess that exact balance that we're talking about right now.
Speaker 3:That comes down to that right, like which products will live, which will move on, which will merge and which will kind of change. How do you work with an organization that is kind of founded with these kind of business units and lived with them for, I don't know, like 10 years soon perhaps in Ignite's case? How do you start kind of? How do you start shifting that around, because that's, I guess in every organization that is somewhat controversial right To shake up the portfolio that you have? What's your take on that?
Speaker 1:I think my take has been a lot sort of observing, not just coming in and saying, hey, we need to kill that module or we need to get this one. We haven't done that yet. Why haven't we done that? So maybe more humble and just observing and try to see it. Put it to some test to see does it actually make sense?
Speaker 1:We do this kind of value proposition, have this business unit or not, but in terms of the vision for that we have set for Ignite, now it's actually bringing these different business units a bit more together, because we believe that the real magic of being in this area of procurement technology is that when you combine the different business units, because today we can look at your procurement from a spend point of view how much you spend we can look at it from a carbon point of view or from a supplier how risky is the supplier you're working with and what we have seen is that the real magic is when you combine it in between.
Speaker 1:So we actually need all the modules to work more integrated together and not delivering impact on their own. But it will be when you combine stuff because you can't no longer purchase with the notion of I want the cheapest as possible. You need to actually be cautious about who you buy it from and the carbon emission you are placing out in the world. So again, it was not something I could have set up front, but it was sort of okay. It makes a lot of sense if we try to combine this stuff. This is where the strength is.
Speaker 1:And we have also set up the product team in a way where we've designed the team to apology, to make sure that these people will actually start working more and more together.
Speaker 3:And I guess that sets the path for your future roadmap. This is kind of actually describing the roadmap and the future long term plan. These things should work together.
Speaker 2:But what makes it interesting for you then? What's the thing in these processes that really keeps you going? Because it seems like this is the space you thrive. You do the baseline analysis and explain what is the thing that excites you most about being in it, because it's quite challenging work. Some people kind of shy away from that because you need to make some really tough decisions, right. So it's a personality thing, I also assume. So I want to get a bit more personal. What excites you about this?
Speaker 1:I think it's exciting to be faced with a challenge of trying to distill the great complexity of a company, Try to go beneath the surface and really get close to the truth. I've been working a lot with user research. You're also obsessed of getting closer to the truth right, and not just assuming something. So I guess there's a bit of that getting as close to the truth as possible in the baseline analysis. But what really is sort of motivating is to see that a company can sort of become quite aligned around a purpose and a direction. If you can be a facilitator for bringing people together in a direction and not necessarily that I have set it on my own it's like facilitating it. It's perhaps the most important thing. Instead of believing that the CPO should set a vision in isolation and sit in her own room and do this. It's really about you're perhaps the most collaborative person in the whole company or you should be. I hope you will be At least. That's at least a core skill I get used every day.
Speaker 2:I think it's very interesting when I thought about it now. The conversation we had with you in our first episode was about product discovery, right, and there you talked with great passion as well about that phase of a product, and this is very similar in a way. So I'm kind of thinking you can apply all of those skills in discovering product into an organization as well. I think that's what. If I can do a bit of psychology here, it sounds like you're doing the same things, you're just applying it in a different part of the business.
Speaker 1:No, I think this kind of strategy you work and baseline analysis is so similar to building a product. You do your research first, you try to synthesize, you see where the problems are, you decide which problems to tackle and then you try to tackle them. So there's definitely some similarities from working as a product manager and with discovery in this. But I guess the one thing is getting people on board to the baseline analysis but also work with teams on almost like a daily basis to foster that style you look for and I guess it must be so similar to being a coach for a football team, like you come in with sort of an opinion about how we will like to play and hopefully that will give us some championships. So you need to explain a lot what you believe is good discovery work and obviously be hands off because it is the teams that needs to be doing it. No-transcript, I definitely don't think you can be. You need some kind of direction for the team they are looking for you for, like what does good look like?
Speaker 2:I listened to the latest episode of Lenny's podcast yesterday. There's a similar analogy to a sports team, but there the message was also you can't really be a good coach unless you've had good coaches show you how to do it. So I'm just curious if you've had these like good role models in your career that showed you how to be a CPO, because it's not something you can just do from one day to the next.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot of skill and practice.
Speaker 1:No, I definitely have had a couple of really good coaches in product, but also just good coaches in the sports world, and what I think it's characterizing them is that it's often people who have played the game themselves. So you need to know something about discovery if you want to have an opinion about discovery. So that's where I definitely see that I've tried to find a style where I'm coaching them, I'm being a really good sparring partner as often as they need, but I would also be a fool to do the work of them Right. So that's back to leadership in general. What is your leadership style? Are you dictating it or are you trying to inspire people to take a direction?
Speaker 1:So I guess that's for every leader, but also CPO. You need to figure out what kind of philosophy do you have, and I just saw early on that, moving from the product manager role to CPO, you need to scale yourself. It would be, unless you want to be a Brian in Airbnb and sit with the roadmap and take ownership of everything and never have time off. As I understand. You need to figure out how to be scalable and the best way I can see it is to, you know, foster good culture. Make sure you've got some really talented people on your team and help them to improve, and that can also be quite a direct and honest conversation of where they need to improve or where you would like to help them Right.
Speaker 3:I think your former role in bookies, right, that was a smaller company and a smaller team, and kind of this step up here is it's a bigger organization, bigger team, bigger kind of market whatever. How do you see, like, what are the main differences in working in those or as a CPO, though, in those two different settings? Do you have any reflections on kind of what it means to kind of step up the game in bigger companies? Versus in small ones.
Speaker 1:No, there's definitely more complexity, right, and you try as good as you can to grasp as much as possible, to be relevant for your product, people, for setting a good direction and understanding enough into the detail to set a holistic direction. But it's also impossible when you have a size of a company that is large, where you can't be on top of everything right. So that's perhaps the biggest change is that you need to adapt and find a way where you know enough but you're not down in every single detail. That's perhaps the biggest, not say struggle, but that's what you should sort of figure out on.
Speaker 3:And you think that your approach to setting goals right or what is success, kind of. Do you think that has changed also along the way, or are you in this similar kind of mindset that you were in bookies right now?
Speaker 1:I guess when you come to these larger organizations, your success is really more on scaling your abilities through others. It's about setting the direction. You will be longer away from actually being hands-on. So obviously it will be another value proposition you would have and be able to offer, because you can't simply be involved in every single detail or at least I don't want to be but you need to find out. When is it? Then you are at the right level, so you're also relevant and you're not outdated and you're not too far away, so people will find your input irrelevant. So that's, if you haven't tried it before, it's a nice challenge to sort of find out your way on that.
Speaker 3:Let's say that we I think probably some of our listeners they would be in the market, like we said in the beginning, so this is kind of the highest product role to have in a company. So what are some advice for people starting out now or in the middle of their career and wanting to move? What should they look out for and what should they learn on the way to actually get to that point?
Speaker 1:I hope and think they will definitely need to run some miles in product. They will need to have been through quite a lot of product work, hopefully a lot of struggles and failures and downsizing and all of that that the whole world have been through, because it's really it's where you learn the most. It's not being in a perfect setup, it's when you're in a setup that is struggling. At least, that's where I have learned the most, that's where I have learned the most. So if you have that sort of balance of your discipline, that will almost be just expected, of course, but I just see, the more that I go into this role, the more you need to be a really, really good collaborator, and product is perhaps the place where you need to, yeah, be best at being a diplomat, an opinionated person, and it's a very messy role and I don't think there's that recipe of how to actually do it.
Speaker 2:You need to be like a missionary, but also someone people trust and respect, but also give you their secrets, and so you need to be a balance of everything.
Speaker 1:It's not something that can be taught. Product is part of a bigger system. Right, you have a sales department, you have a marketing department, so you'll definitely need to sort of Realize that you're not the only department in this company. You need to work really well with them. And the cross-functional collaboration it's not just the product for you or the product to take and design. It's also about sales. It's also about marketing, bringing them in. So there's a new dimension to what cross-functional collaboration looks like.
Speaker 3:We talked about that a lot on this podcast that people can come from all over the place and become product managers in some way. I think, most like you, have a business background, like a business education, and so I think for most product managers that I have observed, they kind of lack that financial understanding or business understanding. And I think if I were to add on to what you said now, I would also add the fact that you need to learn the business or how to do business, how that business actually works, because that's a major part of that CPO.
Speaker 2:For me it's complexity. It's kind of summing it up you need to add on complexity in basically all the things you're doing as a PM. So you think, now that you have it kind of. You're struggling, maybe having these communication lines or understanding all of the business, then that will multiply when you get into a CPO role. That doesn't mean you should be scared of it or anything. You need to be ready for complexity. Basically you need to thrive in complexity is what I think.
Speaker 1:No, but for your point, hans Martin, I think maybe I didn't mention because it's on the backbone, but to me product is highly commercial work. It's about finding a spot, it's about making sure that you can make a business out of it. And if you don't have that attitude from day one, how can we monetize this need that we are pursuing? Then I think you will not do the same impact as you could have done, and at least in the conversations I've seen with commercial people, they respect product people a lot when they are the one who's actually driving the whole pricing discussions and monetization. And couldn't we even make more money on this one? Are you sure we are doing it right? Aren't we selling it too cheap from what it could be? So you need to definitely get out of the discovery and delivery bubble and also make sure that you are making a company and you are making a product.
Speaker 2:I think that's a very good point. There's probably some good courses out there. Some call like business for PMs or something I think you can add on to that. Even though you haven't had that education, it's something you can add on in a later stage.
Speaker 1:Or if you're really sort of I don't know if people have so long career planning, but you could also go into a commercial role for some time just to get empathy with how hard is it really to sell a product? What is it about cold calling someone, all of that closing a deal, because I think the more sort of experiences you can have from different fields, it will just make you more robust.
Speaker 3:I can emphasize that point Now, having gone in building my own company and actually getting out there to do sales. That's hard work and big learning.
Speaker 2:Before we wrap up, you mentioned you were part of the Norwegian product community as well. I'm for the listeners who are in Norway. Could you say anything about what's going on in the community? Where should people find you and any events coming up?
Speaker 1:The community I'm talking about here is we have this slack community called Produklederno, which was started a couple of years ago. What we see now is just the network effect. We are spending no money on advertising and there are still people every day signing up for it. We have chosen to make it quite organic, so we are not sort of driving any conversations, but what I see is that people are just very engaged. They want to discuss with other product people, the latest in product. So when Airbnb was all the noise about what Brian did in Airbnb, there has been tons of discussions about should we go for less autonomy, all of that? So I think that's. We try just to sit and observe a bit and see the network effect playing out.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good thing about being a small country that you can actually have all the product people in Norway in one slack group.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So please go there if you haven't already Produklederno Any events on the horizon.
Speaker 1:I hope so. Obviously, I've been a bit this has been consuming all my time, but we definitely have plans for this year Because we see it's one thing is the digital meetup, but actually coming together physically. And this is how you look in the real world, not just on your slack avatar.
Speaker 2:Hans-Martin, is this the year we'll finally do a live event as a standalone thing?
Speaker 3:We should probably do that. Yeah, I mean, we had our live. That's a goal for this year. It's an OKR.
Speaker 2:We have the live podcast on the Y-conference, but we want to make it a bit more low-key, so please contact us if you have any ideas of topics or if you want to join collaborate. Yeah, we'd love to come out and meet people this year, yeah, so thank you so much for sharing your journey. You are now. You're the first guest and then you're now. I don't know what number you are, but we'd love to have you on again, of course. So hope to hear more from you soon and good luck.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much and likewise Thank you Bye.