Empowered

1. Empowered product teams drive innovation and success

Great teams are made up of ordinary people who are inspired and empowered.

Empowerment unleashes potential. Empowered product teams are given problems to solve rather than features to build. They have the autonomy to make decisions and the responsibility to deliver results. This approach fosters innovation and allows companies to create products that customers love while meeting business needs.

Key elements of empowered teams:

• Cross-functional composition (product manager, designer, engineers)
• Ownership of a specific product area or customer problem
• Authority to make decisions about how to solve problems
• Accountability for outcomes, not just output

Empowered teams contrast sharply with feature teams, which are merely tasked with implementing pre-defined solutions. By trusting ordinary people with extraordinary responsibilities, companies can achieve remarkable results and outperform their competitors.

2. Strong product leadership is essential for empowerment

Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge.

Leaders enable empowerment. Strong product leadership is the foundation for creating and sustaining empowered teams. Product leaders are responsible for providing strategic context, removing obstacles, and coaching team members to reach their full potential.

Key responsibilities of product leaders:

• Developing and communicating product vision and strategy
• Hiring and coaching product managers, designers, and engineers
• Managing stakeholder relationships and expectations
• Ensuring alignment between team objectives and company goals
• Advocating for resources and support from executives

Effective product leaders balance providing guidance with giving teams the space to innovate. They create an environment where failure is seen as a learning opportunity and where teams feel safe to take calculated risks.

3. Focus on competence and character when hiring

Trust is a function of two things: competence and character. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Character includes your integrity, your motive, and your intent with people. Both are vital.

Hire for potential, not just experience. When building empowered product teams, it's crucial to focus on both competence and character. Competence ensures that team members have the necessary skills to succeed, while character ensures they will work well within the team and company culture.

Key hiring considerations:

• Technical skills and domain knowledge
• Problem-solving ability and critical thinking
• Collaboration and communication skills
• Integrity and alignment with company values
• Growth mindset and willingness to learn

Avoid the trap of hiring only for cultural fit, as this can lead to homogeneous teams. Instead, seek diversity in thought and experience to foster innovation. Remember that skills can be taught, but character is more difficult to change.

4. Effective coaching develops extraordinary teams

Coaching is no longer a specialty; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach.

Continuous improvement through coaching. Effective coaching is the key to developing ordinary people into extraordinary teams. Managers must prioritize regular, one-on-one coaching sessions with their team members to help them grow and improve.

Essential elements of effective coaching:

• Weekly one-on-one meetings
• Active listening and asking probing questions
• Providing constructive feedback
• Setting clear expectations and goals
• Identifying and addressing skill gaps
• Celebrating successes and learning from failures

Coaching is not about micromanaging or giving orders. It's about helping team members develop their skills, overcome challenges, and reach their full potential. Good coaches create an environment of trust where team members feel safe to take risks and learn from their mistakes.

5. Product vision and strategy guide empowered teams

The product vision describes the future we are trying to create and, most important, how it improves the lives of our customers.

Align teams with a compelling vision. A clear product vision and strategy provide the necessary context for empowered teams to make good decisions. The vision describes the future state the company is working towards, while the strategy outlines how to achieve that vision.

Components of effective product vision and strategy:

• Long-term vision (3-10 years out)
• Customer-centric focus
• Alignment with industry trends and technologies
• Clear product principles to guide decision-making
• Focused strategy based on key insights
• Measurable objectives and key results (OKRs)

By providing this strategic context, product leaders enable teams to understand the bigger picture and make decisions that align with the company's goals. This empowers teams to innovate within a framework that ensures their efforts contribute to the overall success of the product and company.

6. Team topology impacts empowerment and innovation

A topology that results in too many dependencies can make this difficult.

Optimize team structure for autonomy. The way product teams are organized and structured, known as team topology, significantly impacts their ability to innovate and deliver results. A well-designed topology minimizes dependencies between teams and aligns with the product architecture and business objectives.

Considerations for effective team topology:

• Balance between platform and experience teams
• Clear ownership boundaries for each team
• Minimized dependencies between teams
• Alignment with product architecture
• Flexibility to evolve as the product and company grow

Avoid creating silos or teams that are too narrowly focused. Instead, strive for a topology that gives teams end-to-end responsibility for meaningful parts of the product. This enables true empowerment and accountability for outcomes.

7. Convert insights into action through team objectives

The product strategy is all about deciding which problems to work on.

From strategy to execution. Product strategy must be converted into actionable objectives for each product team. This process involves identifying the most important problems to solve based on customer insights and business goals, then assigning these problems to specific teams.

Steps to create effective team objectives:

1. Focus on a small number of critical problems
2. Leverage key insights from data and customer research
3. Assign problems to teams based on their areas of ownership
4. Allow teams to propose their own key results
5. Ensure objectives are ambitious but achievable
6. Regularly track progress and adjust as needed

By giving teams problems to solve rather than features to build, you empower them to find innovative solutions. This approach also ensures that teams are aligned with the overall product strategy and focused on delivering real value to customers and the business.

8. Collaborate with stakeholders as partners, not clients

Rather than the stakeholder being "the client" that tells us what to build, and as such needs to "be managed," now we have a partner that we need to help understand the constraints so we can discover a solution that works.

Build collaborative partnerships. In empowered product organizations, stakeholders are not clients to be managed but partners to collaborate with. This shift in mindset is crucial for creating products that meet both customer needs and business objectives.

Keys to effective stakeholder collaboration:

• Establish mutual trust and respect
• Share insights and learnings regularly
• Involve stakeholders in problem-solving discussions
• Communicate product strategy and vision clearly
• Address stakeholder concerns proactively
• Balance stakeholder needs with customer needs

By treating stakeholders as partners, product teams can leverage their expertise and insights while maintaining the autonomy to make product decisions. This collaborative approach leads to better solutions and stronger alignment across the organization.

9. Evangelize product vision and strategy continuously

Evangelism needs to be a constant.

Continuous communication is crucial. Product leaders must constantly evangelize the product vision and strategy throughout the organization. This ongoing communication ensures that everyone understands the direction of the product and their role in achieving it.

Effective evangelism techniques:

• Use prototypes to demonstrate ideas visually
• Share customer pain points and success stories
• Regularly update on progress and learnings
• Give credit generously to team members and stakeholders
• Show genuine enthusiasm for the product and vision
• Tailor communication to different audiences (executives, teams, partners)

Remember that evangelism is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. People need to hear the message multiple times and in different ways for it to truly sink in and inspire action.

10. Meaningful transformation requires leadership commitment

The prerequisite for this transformation is getting your senior leaders—typically starting with the CEO—to understand the necessary role of technology as the key enabler of the business, and not just a necessary cost of doing business.

Transformation starts at the top. Moving from feature teams to empowered product teams requires a significant shift in mindset and practices throughout the organization. This transformation can only succeed with full commitment from senior leadership.

Key steps for meaningful transformation:

1. Secure buy-in from the CEO and executive team
2. Establish strong product leadership
3. Invest in hiring and developing the right talent
4. Redefine relationships with stakeholders and business units
5. Implement new processes and ways of working
6. Continuously reinforce the new culture and mindset

Transformation is not easy or quick, but the benefits in terms of innovation, agility, and business results make it worthwhile. Leaders must be prepared to model the new behaviors and support the changes consistently over time.

Last updated: July 22, 2024