Config 2024: Product management: half art, half science, all passion (Dare Obasanjo, Meta)
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful talk, Dario Banjo, a product manager at Meta, explores the dual nature of product management as both an art and a science. He delves into the importance of strategy, execution, and storytelling in product management, emphasizing the need for a durable competitive advantage and effective communication of the product's narrative. Banjo also addresses common misconceptions about the role, advocating for a passionate and creative approach to turning customer needs into successful software solutions.
Takeaways
- 🎨 Product management is described as 'half art, half science, all passion', emphasizing the balance of creativity, methodical processes, and personal investment in the product.
- 🛑 The speaker, Dario Banjo, initially questioned what a product manager should discuss at a design conference, highlighting the need for relevance and context in communication.
- 🌟 The talk references Brian Chesky's keynote, pointing out that even successful CEOs can have misgivings about company structure, especially during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 🚀 Chesky's quote about focusing on shipping things the team is proud of underscores the importance of pride and ownership in product development.
- 🔥 The audience's applause at the idea of eliminating product managers suggests a common frustration with ineffective product management roles.
- 🤔 Dario ponders why people might be against product managers, concluding that 'bad' product managers lack vision, strategy, and respect for other disciplines.
- 🛠 A good product manager's role is to ensure the team is engaged in the highest impact activities to achieve its goals, focusing on driving strategy, execution, and storytelling.
- 🎯 Product strategy should be unique and provide a durable competitive advantage, which is tested by its difficulty to copy and the creation of structural advantages.
- 📊 AB testing is not a strategy but a method to optimize a product once a strategy is in place, as illustrated by the Airbnb example.
- 📈 Execution is measurable and focused, with the importance of setting SMART goals and being ruthless about measuring results against them.
- 📖 Storytelling is crucial for a product's narrative, serving multiple audiences and explaining the product's purpose and benefits through a working backwards process.
- 🏆 The importance of caring about the product, problem space, customers, and team is highlighted as a driving factor for a product manager's success.
Q & A
What is Dario Banjo's role at Meta?
-Dario Banjo is a product manager at Meta, supporting teams that work on ads monetization and various ad products, as well as the in-app browser use in Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger.
What is the title of Dario Banjo's talk?
-The title of Dario Banjo's talk is 'Product Management: Half Art, Half Science, All Passion'.
What did Dario Banjo learn about Brian Chesky from his previous talk?
-Dario Banjo learned that Brian Chesky is the only designer CEO in the Fortune 500 and that he had started having reservations about the company's structure and operations before the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an existential crisis for the company.
What is the definition of a product strategy according to Dario Banjo?
-A product strategy is defined as the unique steps a team takes to achieve its goals in a way that provides a durable competitive advantage.
What is the importance of creating a durable competitive advantage in a product strategy?
-Creating a durable competitive advantage ensures that the strategy is not easily replicated by competitors, thus providing a long-term edge in the market.
What is the example Dario Banjo provided to illustrate a lack of a durable competitive advantage?
-Dario Banjo used the example of Sidecar, an early ride-sharing service that did not have a unique advantage, which led to it being easily copied by competitors like Lyft and Uber.
What is the primary role of a product manager according to Dario Banjo?
-The primary role of a product manager is to ensure the team is engaged in the highest impact activities to achieve its goals, which involves driving strategy, driving execution, and participating in storytelling about the product.
What is the significance of execution in the context of a product strategy?
-Execution is significant because it is measurable and focused on short-term actions that enable the achievement of the strategy. Without perfect execution, it is difficult to determine if the strategy itself was good or not.
What is the 'working backwards' process used by Amazon PMs for crafting narratives?
-The 'working backwards' process is a tool used by Amazon PMs to craft narratives by first defining the product's name, intended customer, the problem it solves, the benefits to the customer, and a quote from the customer.
Why is storytelling important in product management?
-Storytelling is important because it helps explain why the product matters, how it solves user and business problems, and what the product is or does, thus resonating with various audiences such as the team, company leadership, customers, and partners.
What does Dario Banjo emphasize as the three key components of good product management?
-The three key components of good product management, as emphasized by Dario Banjo, are strategy, execution, and storytelling.
How does Dario Banjo differentiate between art and science in product management?
-Dario Banjo differentiates by stating that product management is half science because it involves a body of knowledge and repeatable processes for strategy, execution, and storytelling. It is half art because it requires creativity in understanding customer needs and crafting compelling narratives.
What is the role of passion in product management according to Dario Banjo's talk?
-Passion plays a crucial role in product management as it drives the product manager to care deeply about the product, the problem space, the customers, and the team, which is essential for success.
Outlines
🤔 Product Management: Art, Science, and Passion
Dario Banjo, a product manager at Meta, introduces his talk on the dual nature of product management as both an art and a science, driven by passion. He reflects on the role of product managers in driving strategy, execution, and storytelling within a team. He acknowledges the negative perceptions of product managers due to poor representatives in the field and aims to clarify what makes a good product manager, focusing on their ability to engage the team in high-impact activities to achieve goals.
🚀 Crafting a Durable Competitive Advantage Through Strategy
The paragraph delves into the concept of product strategy, emphasizing its importance in creating a durable competitive advantage. Dario uses the example of Sidecar, the first ride-sharing service, to illustrate the difference between meeting an unmet need and having a unique, hard-to-replicate strategy. He contrasts Sidecar's failure to maintain uniqueness with Uber's successful strategy leveraging network effects and VC funding. The summary stresses the importance of a strategy that is not only responsive to user needs but also based on a company's unique strengths.
🎮 The Dynamics of Execution in Product Management
This section highlights the critical role of execution in product management, using the example of Sony's strategy with exclusive games for the PlayStation. Dario explains that a good strategy requires excellent execution to be validated, and poor execution can mislead the assessment of a strategy's effectiveness. He outlines steps for better execution, including deciding what's important based on customer feedback and product vision, setting SMART goals, and being rigorous about measuring results. The narrative also touches on the importance of pivoting when data indicates a lack of traction, using the Xbox One's slow response to market feedback as a cautionary tale.
📖 The Art of Storytelling in Product Management
Dario discusses the importance of storytelling in product management, which serves as a crucial component of marketing. A product's narrative should resonate with various audiences, including the team, company leadership, customers, and partners. He introduces Amazon's 'working backwards' process for crafting narratives, which involves understanding the product, its customers, the problem it solves, and the benefits it offers. Using Canva as an example, Dario illustrates how a clear narrative can guide product development, secure support from leadership, and attract customers.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Product Manager
💡Strategy
💡Execution
💡Storytelling
💡Durable Competitive Advantage
💡AB Testing
💡Multi-sided Marketplace
💡Network Effects
💡SMART Goals
💡Ownership
💡Unmet Needs
Highlights
Dario Banjo, a product manager at Meta, discusses the role of product management as both an art and a science.
Banjo reflects on the negative perception of product managers due to poor representatives in the field.
The importance of a product manager's vision, strategy, and decision-making framework is emphasized.
Product managers should have a deep understanding of the competitive marketplace and customer needs.
The necessity for product managers to demonstrate ownership and accountability is highlighted.
Banjo outlines the three primary activities of a product manager: driving strategy, execution, and storytelling.
Product strategy defined as unique steps for achieving goals with a durable competitive advantage.
Examples given to illustrate the importance of uniqueness and structural advantage in product strategy.
The story of Sidecar, Lyft, and Uber demonstrates the impact of lacking a unique and durable strategy.
Sony's strategy of exclusive games as a durable competitive advantage is discussed.
Banjo clarifies that addressing an unmet user need alone is not sufficient for a strong strategy.
AB testing is not a strategy but a method for product optimization post-strategy formulation.
Execution is defined as measurable and focused short-term actions that achieve strategic goals.
The importance of setting SMART goals and measuring results in the execution process.
Storytelling as a critical component of product management, impacting various audiences.
Amazon's 'working backwards' process for crafting product narratives is introduced.
Canva is used as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 'working backwards' process.
Banjo concludes by emphasizing the combination of science, art, and passion in product management.
Transcripts
[Music]
hello everyone I'm Dario banjo I'm a
product manager at meta uh I support the
teams that I work on ads monetization
which is really uh ads and I work on a
bunch of AD products and I support the
teams who work on the inapp browser use
in Instagram Facebook uh and
messenger uh today my talk is titled
product management half art half science
all
passion so um when I was first uh asked
to do a talk I thought to myself what
does a product manager talk about at a
design
conference so I decided to do some
research so I went on YouTube and I
looked at a bunch of the past talks and
I saw a talk from ban chesy which was
last year's keyot and it was pretty cool
like um I learned that Brian chesy is
the only uh designer CEO in Fortune 500
which is kind of like a pretty cool
achievement uh and he talked about their
path to
IPO and how in 2020 he'd already started
having misgivings about how the company
was structured and running and then
covid happened and their business
dropped like 80% overnight and it was
sort of like an exist existential crisis
for the company and so he had to think
think they have to think about how they
rework the company to get more effective
and more efficient in this time of
Crisis and there was like a really key
like uh quote during that presentation
he said so we talked to the team and we
said hey we're going to focus on
shipping things that were're proud of if
you don't want to put your name on it
you don't ship it designers are equal to
product managers actually we got rid of
the classic product management function
Apple didn't have it
either you know actually we got rid of
the classic product management function
and apple doesn't have it either when he
said that there was Applause in the room
in fact I wasn't in the room but it
sounded like a standing
ovation and I thought to myself great
what do I sign myself up for I'm going
to talk about product management at a
conference where people applaud the idea
of getting rid of product
managers know but but here I am uh so
this the thing I thought was you know uh
I I thought about why would people feel
this way why would they think
that and I realized that a problem work
with a thing about product managers is
that they're just a lot of bad
ones I I've worked with a bunch and I'm
sure you have too and when I when people
talk about not wanting product managers
it's because they don't want people like
this and I'm sure everyone has worked at
product manager who lacks vision and
strategy is unable to prioritize or when
they do prioritize size there's no like
decision-making framework for why they
chose option A or option b uh you've
talked to proct managers who have this
know- at all arrogant attitude that
disrespects other disciplines especially
design you've talked to product managers
who lack awareness of the competitive
Marketplace and don't even kind of have
empathy for what the customers are doing
and most importantly you've met you've
met product managers who just don't have
a sense of ownership and
accountability so when that happens I'm
not surprised that you're you go oh yes
get rid of them and you applaud
right and so what I'm going to talk
about is not you know qu you know like
what not those kinds of product managers
but what you should expect from a good
product manager and what then you should
think about as the expectations you
should take back to wherever you're
working and ask your product managers to
to achieve that's the level they should
be at so let's talk about what do good
product managers do and it's actually
really
straightforward the job of a good
product manager is to ensure the team is
engaged in the highest iri activities to
achieve its goals right that means all
disciplines Engineers designers data
scientists product managers not product
managers uh product marketers are doing
the most effective thing to achieve the
team's
goals and there are really three primary
activities that proct manages
participate in to ensure that the team
is doing this they are driving strategy
driving execution and participating in
storytelling about the
product so let's start with
strategy
right when you talk about strategy lots
of people think they have a clear idea
of what strategy is but they're often
mistaken when we talk about product
strategy a product strategy are the
unique steps you take as a team to
achieve your goals in a way that
provides a durable competitive
Advantage the most important thing about
a strategy is at the end of the day
you've created a durable competitive
Advantage you know and so let's think
about like let's let think about like
how do you tell how can you tell if you
have a good strategy again going back to
that definition there like a few easy
questions you can ask yourself it's
supposed to be unique unique to you and
your strengths so the question is how
hard is it to copy how hard is it for
someone else to do what you ex exactly
what you just did
and then
secondly have you created some sort of
structural advantage or OTE have you
done a thing where at the end of your
strategy it's not easier straightforward
for someone else to do exactly what
you've
done right and I'll run through some
examples if you ask most people excuse
me what's the first um popular ruring
service they'll probably say Lyft or
Uber but it's actually Sidecar
sidecar was a right Shing service I
think was popular in like 2012 uh it was
really the first app the pioneered the
idea of getting a ride from a stranger
and then paying them for that privilege
um and they even had a patent but their
patent was focused on giving people the
opt like on getting people to a
destination and op using the optimal
path so when they launched and they got
a bunch of
traction a a company called zimi ride
was like yo this is a great idea we
should do it too and they launched a
service called lift and that service
became so popular they be the whole
company became lift right and then there
was this company called Uber and Uber
had a town car service and they saw what
Lyft had done and they were like wow
like this is actually a better idea than
our town car service and they've
introduced Uber X and now there's Uber X
and now a key thing to note is sidecar's
idea was a great idea it actually
addressed an unmet customer need of UND
demand
rids but it was not unique like lots of
people showed up to copy it right and
there was no
mo and now let's take a look at Uber so
Uber now was in this space and thought
to themselves how do we win what is our
unique advantage and what's our strategy
for building
aot and Uber had one unique Advantage
which was a crap ton of VC
funding and Uber understood that like
understood that ride sharing is a
multi-sided Marketplace
their Riders and their drivers and the
multi-sided marketplace the way you win
is by creating Network effects where the
more Riders you have the more drivers
show up the more drivers you have the
more Riders show
up and so what happened was they spent a
bunch of money subsidizing both ends
they went to drivers they gave them a
bunch of bonuses a bunch of incentives
which inspired drivers to show up and
and join their service they went to
Riders and subsidized rides I remember
when uh getting a cab from my home to
the airport cost half as much as it cost
to take a taxi of course that's no
longer the case but that was how they
subsidized subsidized things and
eventually enough Riders enough drivers
showed up such that Uber now has Network
effects and like no I don't I I don't
even think about using lift I think
about using Uber because of what they
did and now to recap there was an unmet
user need on demand rides but meeting
that user need was not enough to create
a strategy Uber looked at their unique
strength which is VC funding and they
built a mode via Network effects
strategy let's take another
example Xbox versus
PlayStation way back in the day
Microsoft launched the Xbox after the
PlayStation um I was maxoff Employee
back when that launched and employees
used to bring their Xboxes to work after
after work hours 5 6:00 and hook them up
together using system link to play games
like Halo and we kind of discovered that
it was a whole lot more fun playing
games together with your Xbox than
playing them at home by yourself in a
network Manner and this inspired the
creation of Xbox Live Xbox Live is a way
for people to play Network games
together
online and this was a huge
differentiator for Xbox and it took Sony
several years I think Xbox Live
launching 2002 uh X PlayStation Network
didn't really show up until
2006 and it it created this they
Microsoft addressed this unmet need and
it created an advantage but it wasn't a
durable Advantage I mean it lasted for a
while like three to four years is no
joke but eventually Sony caught up and
now like having a network gaming system
is just table
Stakes right so then it was Sony's turn
to think about how do we differentiate
how do we create emotes what's our
unique Advantage T's unique Advantage
was the fact that they had a whole bunch
of In-House Studios and a whole bunch of
valuable
IP so Sony introduced decided to uh
create a strategy around exclusive games
so Sony introduced a bunch of games um
Last of Us God of War Spider-Man that
you can now only play on playstation and
in fact I own a PlayStation 5 today
despite being an x Microsoft employee
because I wanted to play Spider-Man too
and that's the only way to get it
and that and that strategy has born out
you know it's been you know several
years now almost two decades since Sony
started doing that and Microsoft has
been unable to catch up right again when
you think about unmet user need playing
fun games with others Microsoft actually
did it first So eventually caught up but
that was not enough so took looked at
the unique strength intellectual
property in house Studios and then
developed a mode which was exclusive
games again
is a strategy has to get you to to a
competitive advantage and addressing
anet user need is not
enough one more thing on strategy before
we move on AB testing is not a
strategy every once in a while I talk to
a team and I'm like what's your strategy
and they're like oh we're going to run a
bunch of ab tests and I'm
like AB testing is how you optimize your
product when you have a strategy but
itself is not a strategy
going back to the Airbnb example you
don't AB test your way into building a
product where people rent out their
rooms and that compet to hotels you
don't AB test your way there you do ab
test to find out things like when I have
a listing the photos taking via with my
iPhone perform better than if I take
professional looking photos and airb
actually did that in the show that they
perform 20% better right but the key
thing is that actually test doing an AB
test comparing different things n is not
a way to get to building a building a
product that has a durable Advantage
it's a way you optimize all right and
with that let's move on let's talk about
execution one of my favorite quotes
about
execution is this execution is
measurable and focus it's the shortterm
actions enable the achievement of your
of your
strategy and without perfect EX ution
you can't tell if you had a good
strategy and this is a quote from Naomi
glight who's a vpf PM at meta is one of
my favorite quotes and I'll give an
example going back to
Sony so we talked about Sony's strategy
around exclusive games now think about
what if Sony's games weren't great what
if God of War sucked what if Spider-Man
2 was a mediocre game if that happened
you'd have looked at Sonia and gone
exclusive games are a terrible strategy
but that's actually not the case
the execution was poor but the strategy
was good and that's the essence of this
quote like without perfect execution you
can't tell if you're had a good strategy
and so what I'm going to talk about next
are the steps that will help you get to
a path where you might not execute
perfectly but you execute better than
average and it's really straightforward
step
one decide what's important and deciding
what's important comes from talking to
your customers and intersecting what
they tell you with your product vision
and strategy so you're Sony you want to
you want to build exclusive games talk
to a bunch of Gamers figure out what
kind of games they care about step two
set goals and these should be smart
goals meaning they're specific and
measurable attainable realistic and time
based being time based is super
important you want to ensure that you
have targets and Milestones that you hit
quarterly a half year multi-year you
want to do that and then most
importantly you want to measure
results and this is where most execution
fails because either one you measure the
wrong thing a kind of classic example of
this is early on in the days of mobile
people used to measure and care about
how many downloads you got but if you if
10 million people download your app and
it crashes on Startup you actually have
zero
users right so over time we realize that
there are better metrics to look look to
look after
metrics like daily active users monthly
active users and
retention there's also not pivoting when
the data shows you're not getting
traction now uh like a decade ago
Microsoft introduced Xbox One and
Microsoft Strate strategy to
differentiate was twofold they're going
to introduce the connect and this is a
system where like your body is a
controller and it was a differentiated
uh game system uh system of playing
games and also the wanted to lean in to
entertainment and streaming on your Xbox
but there were two challenges with this
one Gamers were disinterested in
spending hundred extra dollars for this
connect system and two game developers
were like I don't want to spend a bunch
of time building a game for a subset of
your users I want to build a game that
everyone who has an Xbox can play right
and then when it came to the streaming
streaming aspect of the strategy an Xbox
is a 500 $ brick that's pretty noisy and
even back then you could already get
devices like the chomecast or a fire
stick for like a ten of the price like
35 50 bucks as opposed to getting an
Xbox if you you only cared about
streaming so Microsoft had this strategy
that elated users elated developers and
the data clearly said that but it took
the company way too long to react to
that because they were attached to that
strategy and by the time the company
tried to turn that around it was too
late and Sony is now way ahead today and
in fact Microsoft just had to spend
almost 70 billion buying Activision just
as a way to continue to stay in the
game right and that so that's on
execution right and now let's talk about
storytelling The product's Narrative is
storytelling and storytelling is
marketing so a product's narrative has
many audiences the team the company
leadership your customers and your
partners and a good narrative does
multiple team things it explains why
your product matters how it will solve
your user and business problem and what
the product is or
does so I'll walk you through what I
believe is a really valuable tool that
PMS at Amazon use for crafting
narratives it's a working backwards
process so
Amazon account like typically create his
document that has the product's name
it's intended customer the problem it
solves the benefits of the customer and
a quote either from the customer and
exact right let's run through an example
let's use canva as an
example canva the product's name is
canva the intended customer are small
businesses and entrepreneurs the problem
is solved is how to build a professional
looking product if you have little to
know design
skills the benefits to a custom a kind
customer are that they get professional
looking products on a budget and I got
this quote from Twitter I guess it's
called
x uh canvas incredible app for deciding
PR anything you need a huge selection of
templates fronts and colors endless
choices at tip of your fingers easy
editing and sending and sharing now the
key thing about this this narrative is
that look at think about all the
audiences the the product team looks at
this and goes yep we know exactly what
we're building we know exactly who we're
building for we know what success looks
like company leadership can look at this
and go Yep this makes sense we should
totally support this team and give them
the resources they need and customers
can look at this and go yep I want this
product now this doesn't mean that the
PM does the marketing the marketer does
but the thing is the PM builds a
framework and the foundation that the
marketing is built on
so with that let's
recap so what does good fra mention
about it's about three things strategy
which is the unique steps that give you
a durable competitive
Advantage execution talking to customers
setting smart goals and being ruthless
about measuring them finally it's about
storytelling ensuring that everyone
understands who the product is for and
what it does for the
customer now going back to to the DI my
talk product U product managements have
science whereas science is sort of a
body of knowledge and a process I've
talked to you about a number of
repeatable ways where you can get better
at strategy and execution and
storytelling it's half art because art
is about
creativity and so you when you listen to
a c customer and talk to them you apply
your own creativity to figure out how to
turn their unmet needs into software and
additional like when you talk when you
craft your story that takes your own
creativity and finally it's about
passion passion comes in because you
have to care you have to care about the
product You're Building you have to care
about the problem space you have to care
about the customers and you have to care
about your team and with that I want to
say thank you for listening to my talk
I'm darang
[Music]
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