Today’s guest is the one and only Christina Wodtke - Professor at Stanford and author of several bestsellers, including the famous book on OKRs “Radical Focus”. We covered: * Foundations and misconceptions about OKRs * Prerequisites for successfully use OKR * Why OKRs might not be for you * The importance of psychological safety and strategic context * Outcome-based key results vs. output-based results * Cross-functional team collaboration and shared objectives * Cadences and Principles *...

I've interviewed more than 30 Product leaders in Scandinavia, and this is one of those conversations. Subscribe for free so you don’t miss out on future conversations and related content Today I'm talking with Marius Røstad - CPO at Aidn - and Espen Sundve - former CPO at Oda, who’s now a Senior Advisor at Schibsted. Marius used to head up product at Ruter before joining Aidn as Chief Product Officer. Aidn is one of the coolest healthcare scaleups in Norway, aiming to disrupt...

Today’s episode is particularly special. A 2-hour masterclass on discovery that every designer, product manager, founder, and product leader should hear With bestselling authors Teresa Torres (Product Discovery Habits) and Petra Wille (Strong Product People) - two of my biggest references. My god, this was fun...! Is it the first long-format episode on discovery with 2 industry legends? Possibly... Will there be advanced lessons, golden practical nuggets, and plenty of spicy takes? Oh...

My guest today is the globally renowned marketing expert April Dunford. April has probably advised more B2B tech companies on positioning than anyone in the world. April's book Obviously Awesome is one of the biggest best-selling marketing books out there - and I'm so happy we had time to dig into everything you need to know to nail Product Positioning so that customers get it, buy it, and love it. Every founder, marketing, sales, and product person should listen to this episode! We...

My guests today are Itamar Gilad and Bruce McCarthy. Itamar is a former product leader for Gmail, Youtube, and Microsoft - and is the author of the bestselling book Evidence Guided. Itamar’s latest book is about creating high-impact products in the face of uncertainty, and he also has some strong views on roadmaps, roadmapping, common traps to avoid, and what to consider instead. But so does Bruce! Bruce is the author of the book Product Roadmaps Relaunched and, most recently, the book...

My guest today is Melissa Perri. Melissa is the author of the bestselling book "Escaping the Build Trap" and recently co-authored “Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale”. She runs a successful CPO Accelerator, is a former professor at Harvard Business School, serves on several Boards, and is the Founder of Product Institute. In this conversation, we explore: * The role of Product Ops * The main misconceptions with Product Ops * The 3 key pillars of...

Stay tuned by subscribing for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/ My guest today is Ryan Singer. Ryan is the author of Shape Up, an excellent guide to help teams and companies work in a better way to ship work that matters - consistently over time. Ryan's work is incredibly important to understand. Whether you adopt Shape Up or not, there are so many golden nuggets in how Ryan sees the world of how teams should work. In our conversation, we covered: * Why do Scrum and other agile...

My guest today is Janna Bastow. Janna is the Co-founder of Mind the Product - the world’s largest product community - Founder & CEO at ProdPad, and the inventor of the widely adopted roadmap framework “Now, Next, Later” There’s so much Janna and I could have talked about but we focused on what great roadmaps look like, and the future of product management. We discussed: * The story behind how Now Next Later was invented, from idea to widely spread roadmap framework * Different ways to...

Subscribe for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/ My guest today is Daniel Elizalde. Daniel has trained more than 1500 people in product management, including folks from top tech companies like Tesla, Microsoft, and more. He's been working in Product for over 25 years, in so many different industries - and is the author of the book The B2B Innovators Map. This conversation was a deep dive into Product Management applied to B2B products, covering: * The importance of mapping out your...

My guest today is someone special to me: Bruce McCarthy. Bruce has probably seen and helped more companies with product roadmaps than anyone in the world. He's the author of the best-selling book "Product Roadmaps Relaunched" and has just launched his new book Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders. Bruce and I met in Madrid a couple of years ago. Our first 1:1 was over breakfast, where we talked about different things - including the new book he was writing at the time. I knew...

My guest today is one of my favorite product people out there: Petra Wille Petra is the author of one the best books for product leaders you can find "Strong Product People", she's the founder of an amazing product conference "Product at Heart", and one of the few product coaches featured in Marty Cagan's new book Transformed. Petra is such a great human being, and I am a big fan of her work. We covered a lot and, even though I am clearly biased, every product leader and manager should listen...

My guest today is Manuel Pais. Manuel is the co-author of the masterpiece book "Team Topologies: organizing business and technology teams for fast flow". He's recognized by TechBeacon as a DevOps thought leader, and is today an independent consultant and trainer, focused on team interactions, delivery practices and accelerating flow. We covered a lot, including some questions and comments from Lyse and Shibsted (read the full case here): * Different types of teams and interaction modes, and...

My guest today is one of my favorite product thinkers: John Cutler John is an absolute legend in the product community, and one thing I love about John is his dedication to sharing the messiness and contextual nuances in the world of building products. John has worked in Product with some of the most exciting tech companies around the globe and is the author of one of the most-read Product newsletters in the world: The Beautiful Mess. Everyone wants to work like the "best" product...

My guest today is the one and only Bob Moesta.  Have you heard about Jobs to be Done theory? Bob was the one creating it together with Clayton Christensen - who's for many the Father of Disruptive Innovation. Bob is the Founder and CEO of the Re-wired Group. He has worked on & helped launch more than 3,500 new products so far, is a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, and started his career by being a mentee of Dr Deming himself - the father of the Toyota Production System. He’s...

My guest today is Niko Noll. Niko is a software engineer turned product manager turned product discovery coach.  He has learned Product at scale - shipping value to 18 million monthly active users - and spends most of his time coaching teams and being a founder at Juttu, a tool that helps product teams talk to users every week. Niko is very dedicated and passionate about helping product teams discover value sooner - and so it was a bit of a no-brainer for us to get together and talk about all...

My guest today is my friend Carlo Mahfouz. He's the Vice President of Strategic Technology Partnerships at Laerdal Medical and the author of the book Reality Check.  Carlo is such a well-articulated thinker. I love how he breaks things down and I really miss working with him.  We talked about: * How to become a better listener * How to let go of your ego, and why this is key in great leadership * How to foster collaboration between Engineering, Product and Design * Why Engineers should be...

My guest today is Gabriele Bufrem - one of the product coaches featured in Marty Cagan's new book Transformed. I met Gabi last year and love talking with her. She's both a superstar product coach and a great human being.  Today's episode is like a mini masterclass for product leaders and managers, where Gabi shares practical tips and advice from her experience coaching strong product leaders and teams in companies that we have all heard about.   We covered: * The 4 biggest challenges product...

My guest today is Marty Cagan. Marty has probably observed and advised more product teams and leaders than anyone in the world. For many, he's the Godfather of Product Management. Bestselling author of some of the most iconic books in our industry (Inspired, Empowered, and recently launched Transformed). Probably the world's most requested speaker in Product development conferences. And founder and partner at Silicon Valley Product Group - for many, the most credible and highest-quality...

My guest today is the one and only Hope Gurion. Hope works together with Teresa Torres teaching and coaching product teams on all things continuous discovery, is the founder of Fearless Product, and is one of the featured product coaches in Marty Cagan’s new book Transformed. Sometimes we meet people that we immediately know are special.  Hope is one of them :)  And this conversation is the evidence of why I’ve been such a big fan of Hope’s work for a few years now.  We discussed,  * Why is...

My guest today is the roadmap sensei Phil Hornby. Phil is probably one of the few people in the world that has seen hundreds of Product roadmaps.  He’s the co-creator of the renowned show “Talking Roadmaps” where he regularly interviews thought leaders like Teresa Torres, Marty Cagan, April Dunford, and John Cutler.  Phill works together with the one and only Bruce McCarthy as a Product Coach at Product Culture, and is the founder of For Product People. We could have talked about anything...

My guest today is Ida Aalen. Ida is both a good friend and a great product mind from Norway. If you are a Product Manager or leader in Norway, I bet you have heard about Ida’s work. She’s the author of the first Norwegian Product Management book called “Bedre produkter”, which directly translates to Better Products. She’s been a product coach for the past year before joining NAV recently as a Product Lead. Ida and I talked about: * How writing helps us think * How to find a balance between...

Today's guest is the one and only David Bland, author of the bestselling book Testing Business Ideas co-written with Alexander Osterwalder and part of Strategyzer's book series.  David is one of my biggest references in Product.  His work, combined with Teresa Torres, is such a potent cocktail for anyone wanting to build better products and discover value more effectively.  One of the things I love about David's work is his emphasis on evidence-based decision-making and how practical he made...