Designing for Impact, Not Hype

Seth Carpien at UXDX Community: Designing for Real-World Impact. Video: https://youtu.be/8kLp0BRL-0M

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

From selling anything to building the right products

[00:00:07] I'm going to start out with a little limerick for everybody, to get your mind flowing. There once was a product from Nantucket whose backlog was stuffed in a bucket. With challenges galore from stakeholders who snore, the PM said, "Let's iterate." Oh, chuck it. I've got to give credit to Grant Hunter and Steve Johnson. Grant works with Outsell, a company I'll talk about in a little bit.

[00:00:26] My name is Seth Carpien, and I am the chief growth officer at Tricon Infotech. About 14 years ago, I worked as a sales executive at a company called Small Footprint. Six months into working there, my colleague on the delivery side, and I swear to this day, if he were bigger than me he would have grabbed me and thrown me up against the wall, said to me, "Stop it." I didn't understand what he meant at the time. He started to explain to me about product, about journey mapping, lean product. He talked to me about agile methodologies, prioritization, all of these different things. He said, "You need to stop selling things to people without talking to delivery and engineering, or product and engineering."

[00:01:26] I think all of you on here know what I'm talking about. There's always been that battle between sales and product and engineering, because salespeople tend to sell anything. So I asked him to teach me. I said, "I want to learn all about this." I spent the next seven and a half years learning about all of these things, the right way to build products. It made me better at business development, able to talk to chief product officers, CIOs, etc. When I left that company, when we sold it, I actually got pulled into the product world and spent five years in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and CPG, in product, really getting into it at that point.

Chasing the latest tech instead of the strategy

[00:02:10] We're all familiar with the law of market failure. 80% of products fail. Lack of product-market fit, poor execution, inadequate marketing, or just a basic failure to address customer needs or pain points. In other words, we are building to build, even if it's not needed. Now, if I were live with you, I'd ask you all to raise your hands. With this question, I wanted to know how many of you have more resources than ideas. I'm going to make an assumption here. Someone who works with me, who helped me build this deck, said, "What if people raise their hand and actually say they have more resources?" Frankly, I'd have to call the group out, because I think we all know for a fact that we don't have the resources. We have a lot of ideas.

[00:03:03] So if failures are likely and resources don't exist, shouldn't we focus on building for business outcomes and customer problems? There is a blocker, and there is always this desire to use the newest hip tech before knowing the problem or how to reach the outcomes. Going back to my sales exec role at Small Footprint, part of what I was doing was selling what customers wanted, the latest, coolest tech. I really ignored the strategy, and back then it was mobile, so I've just aged myself a little bit. There is constant pressure to adopt the latest technology trends. Right now, people are talking about an AI strategy, and speaking frankly, that makes me a little bit nauseous. What about the product strategy?

[00:03:56] Let me give you an analogy from my brief TikTok experience. Again, a question that I'm asking, and I can't see who knows this or not, but I'm sure you are all familiar with the FYP page. I'm sure some of you have been on it, and some of you have been on it who maybe shouldn't have been on it. And there we go. I blame my young daughters for that. But the idea here is that jumping on every tech trend is like trying every viral TikTok dance. You might look trendy for just a minute, and I got my minute. But if you don't know what you're doing, you're just going to end up confused and offbeat.

[00:04:51] There are always going to be challenges with leadership when navigating these latest trends, and you've got to be prepared for that. The boards, executive leadership teams, CEOs, they want the latest and greatest tech, i.e. AI right now. This leads to building products with the latest tech that are not aligned with business outcomes or solving customer problems. And in the case of SaaS companies, you may have customers yelling for something that uses bleeding-edge technology, but it doesn't actually address or solve the problem.

[00:05:27] It looks blank right now, but I want to bring up two studies. The first one I saw in October of last year at an Outsell conference, and this conference is focused on CEOs. Less than 5% of CEOs believe AI will have an impact on their organization. That one hit me a little bit. I was like, I'm not sure that I believe this one. I had to double-check the study. So let's go back to last month, in March. Another study was done between Axios and Writer, Writer.com, an enterprise LLM that you may or may not have heard of. They did this together. Nearly all C-suite execs surveyed, 94%, say they are not satisfied with their current AI solutions. Think about that. Now who is to blame for that? It's a question I ask a lot of people. Is it the executive teams? Is it the CIOs? Is it product? Is it product leaders?

Clear strategy and the feature factory

[00:06:36] While you're thinking about that, here's another question. I'm curious to know who here knows their company's mission statement, and if you know it, do you buy into it? If you don't know it, I'll tell you, you should. Not understanding or buying into it can have a huge impact on the clarity of goals and beliefs, and ultimately on where decisions are made from. I'm going to share another study. 83% of respondents in this Outsell study, and I'm sure you're all reading it on the screen right now, said that a lack of clear strategy was the major contributor to the high rate of failures that we talked about earlier, along with having efficient teams.

[00:07:28] At my previous company, I was brought in to lead products that made up roughly 60 to 70% of the company's revenue at the time. There was no clear stated mission or vision, and that led to an organization whose products were driven by a feature factory. I believe all of you know what I mean by that. So what do we do about that? We have to get leadership to create clear strategic goals, if they're not already there, and share the company's mission, if they have one, across the organization. What I was able to do was work with leadership at this company to get clear strategic goals, which enabled us to create prioritization criteria and then align just the basic processes for execution: roadmap, implementation, demand intake, etc.

[00:08:27] Let me repeat: it's important to set and maintain long-term goals, to make sure the team is aligned with the organizational objectives. You're able to achieve this by developing a strategic product mindset with your team and the rest of the organization. Let's get away from the feature factory effect. Focus on the strategic objectives. Ask yourself and your teams: how does this align with our long-term strategy and objectives? What pillars does it align with? How does it fit in with our determined criteria? Relate the objectives back to the mission and the vision.

[00:09:10] I was working in a healthcare organization right after I left Small Footprint. I was responsible for a product that enabled patient care and interoperability with private practices that were partners with the hospital system. Before I came in, and when I started, we were building features for customers. There was no common vision or purpose. There was no process, no understanding of the problems to solve. It was outputs over outcomes. So I needed to figure out how to fix that.

[00:09:44] First we had to understand the problem. Then, once we understood it, we had to come to an agreement and educate each other, the team and our customers, on the mission and the vision. This really allowed us to start executing. It allowed us to start having the right conversations when it came to what we were building: does this request align with our overall objectives, our prioritization criteria? A strategic mindset led to better results. What this also created, and what my colleague and I realized after it was all done, was a little bit of a framework. I don't think it's mind-blowing, but you have to analyze the situation, then you've got to educate the team and the customers in order to start executing in the right way, and then you evolve, and then you iterate.

The core principles of strategic product thinking

[00:10:38] Strategic product thinking is a holistic approach that involves understanding market needs and aligning with business goals, and it creates solutions that deliver value to customers and drive growth. This ideology enables you to align your product with your company's goals, strategy and customer problems. I haven't talked about the technology yet. By utilizing strategic product thinking and its core principles, you become customer-centric, and you focus on the problems, not the solution.

[00:11:14] Let's do a quick review of the core principles. I think a lot of you know them, but maybe it's a bit of a refresher for some. Vision and purpose: define a clear why behind the product, because it helps to align people on the purpose. What problem does it solve, and does it align with the company's long-term strategy? Become customer-centric: understand your users through research, feedback and behavioral insights, to build solutions that meet their needs. Outcomes over output: focus on business impact and user success, not just feature delivery.

[00:11:56] You need to be aware of the market. You need to understand what the competitive advantage is. Stay ahead: analyze the trends, the competitors and industry shifts. For example, I know that in a lot of organizations, not all, sales and product and engineering don't really get along. But that's where you're going to find a lot of that data. Look at the sales data. Look at the products that sell. Talk to the sales team and understand the customer behaviors. There's plenty of information there. You have to be agile. You have to iterate: continuously test, learn and refine the product based on real-world feedback. Make your decisions with data. You've got to use quantitative and qualitative insights to guide prioritization, investment and innovation. And lastly, collaboration. You've got to collaborate across the organization, engineering, product, design, marketing and sales, because you have to ensure a cohesive product strategy.

[00:12:57] Strategic product thinking turns products from one-off solutions into long-term business assets. It's not just about what you build; it's about the why, the how, and for whom. With my current company, a few years ago, we started working with a very large global organization. We were trying to understand what business outcomes that company was trying to accomplish. They had a lot of data, and what were they trying to achieve? So we started out with that company by trying to understand the strategy, the business objectives, their long-term goals, the business outcomes they're trying to get to. From there we knew that we needed to leverage their data in order to drive revenue, so we built a data product. That product has now become a separate division of the organization itself, and it is used to build other products to meet the needs of other divisions within the organization. If the conversation isn't had at the beginning, understanding where they want to go or the problems they're trying to solve, you don't get there.

Culture, and technology as a tool

[00:14:06] But let's face reality. You can't just say, "We're going to implement this way of thinking." You actually need to create a culture. A very close friend of mine, a colleague, and currently my right hand, taught me the importance of using culture to bring about this type of change. You must have clear, measurable outcomes that align with the desired goals and objectives. Then you must get the team aligned with the desired outcome, so that they understand their purpose. These things can give you the opportunity to empower your team to push back at the feature factory. Create that culture of trust on your team. That's the culture that I like to create. People have their own cultures; figure out what yours is.

[00:14:56] At the healthcare organization where I was building this product for private practices, our team had to align with what we call the macro culture, which is the organizational culture and what they're trying to get to. But we had to create our micro culture: what is the culture on our team? Culture isn't about happy hours and ping-pong tables. While that's great for team building, for us it was about creating a sense of trust on the team, so that they could speak up and push back. And you can have this when everyone understands and agrees to the strategy.

[00:15:39] I still haven't really mentioned technology in all of this. Technology is a tool, not a strategy. Avoid technology for technology's sake. As mentioned, don't talk about the how before you know the why. Focus on strategy and outcomes first, rather than the technology.

Deciding your non-negotiables

[00:16:06] I'm going to shift a little bit here, because I think some people who are listening to this are early in their career, or they may be at a midpoint in their career, and they're trying to figure out where they want to go. If you think of everything that we've talked about, building for outcomes, solving customer problems, a strategic product mindset, all of these different things, there is a reality that a lot of organizations may still not let you get there. They're still going to demand that AI be used, and you've got to figure out what to use it for.

[00:16:44] So as you're looking at where you are, decide what your non-negotiables are. Are you okay with just building for technology's sake, or do you actually want to solve customer problems, build towards business outcomes, and see real results from what you're doing? And if that is your non-negotiable, think about where you want to be. My non-negotiables that I've worked on are: I want to have an impact on the organization, I want to enable empowerment, and I want to be a leader, not a manager. So determine what yours are.

[00:17:18] I'm going to leave you where I started. When trying to please every notion, the product is lost in commotion. With goals spread too wide and no focus to guide, you're left boiling the whole damn ocean. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Q&A

[00:17:37] Host: That was fantastic. And I love... I was like, did you do that for my sake?

[00:17:46] Seth: I thought you might appreciate it, though.

[00:17:49] Host: Thank you. Lots of questions here.

[00:17:53] Seth: Oh boy. I hope I'm able to answer them. Goodness.

[00:17:54] Host: A few people commented on the 5% of CEOs piece, similar to how you framed it. There are a lot of "no ways." Why do you think there's such a disconnect? Because I would agree with them: less than 5% saying AI won't have an impact on productivity and ways of working. Is that naive on us or on them?

[00:18:20] Seth: I think there's a little bit of both, and I've had this conversation with a lot of people. When I saw that, I questioned it. I'm like, what is going on here? Is AI being implemented? Yeah. They've enabled some enterprise version of ChatGPT within their organization, things of that nature. What they haven't really seen from it is the ROI. There's a lot of AI that has been implemented, but what is the actual impact it's had? You have a CEO who comes to all the different parts of the organization and says, "Are you using AI? If you're not, we need to start using it." But wait a second. Shouldn't the question be: what is the problem we're trying to solve, and can we leverage it?

[00:19:03] So AI is being used, let's be very clear. But as of last year, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether or not it's actually going to have an ROI. What is the ROI on it? That's the big piece for a CEO. And believe me, I hear everybody who's saying no way, no how. I almost didn't use this statistic until I saw the Axios and Writer study. Look up Writer.com. I'm not trying to give them a plug, but they are all in on this space, and if they did this research and found this, it validated the other one for me too. And I trust Outsell too.

[00:19:48] Host: Yeah, and that is a really interesting point. Implementing AI at whatever level is a cost factor. Is it going to save time for the team, rather than actually increase productivity or look at the business angle?

[00:20:06] Seth: And I would say I do think that AI will... I am a big proponent of it. We just need to be careful how we use it and implement it.

[00:20:17] Host: Very interesting. Someone here asks, "How can I lead?" He says, "I'm at team lead level, looking to influence the product direction more. Where do you start?" I don't have any more context than that.

[00:20:31] Seth: Easy answer. No, it's very difficult. I think it all starts with, first of all, and I'm assuming this team leader understands where the team is right now, so you've already done your analysis. Then it really becomes about educating. Educating first: understanding the organizational objectives, what the organization is trying to achieve. Remember, I mentioned the macro culture. Then you look at the micro culture: okay, now that you understand what the organization is, you've got to get your team aligned with that. And then just start taking some of the frameworks that exist. There are plenty of frameworks out there that you can bring into your team and ingrain into the way that you're doing things. And as the leader, you need to be able to push back too.

[00:21:29] Now, one of the obstacles that a lot of leaders have, though, is stakeholders. That's why I talk about the non-negotiables. What do you want to do? What do you want to achieve? Do everything that you can for your team. Support your team. Once they see you support them against the stakeholders that are asking for... I always use the example of the blue button versus the pink button. "Hey, customer A wants a blue button." "Well, customer A, we have a pink button over here that does the same thing as the blue button. Can you just use that?" "No, no, no. I need it to be blue." We want to be able to empower our teams to push back against that. But the reality is sometimes it doesn't work. So just focus on your team for now, and prove some things out for them, so that they can start proving things out to the stakeholders and your other leaders.

[00:22:27] Host: Interesting. I've been having a few conversations lately, and you mentioned frameworks, and people are a bit jaded with frameworks. They're great in theory, and the reality can be very different, because when you get into the practicalities of what you mentioned, like culture and understanding the business, that's really important, because there's a lack of alignment there. What would you say to somebody who has that kind of disconnect around frameworks?

[00:22:56] Seth: I think that you have to find one that you believe in. I think there's a lot of fluff in some of the frameworks that are out there. Like, I threw up that framework. I'm not going out trying to peddle that as a framework, let me be very clear. It wasn't anything mind-blowing. It was taken from some other things. I mean, that's basic agile methodology, the processes there. So you have to figure out what works for you. You have to believe in it, and then you have to get the rest of the team on board. You can buy a hundred books on any framework, but what you also have to understand is that no one framework fits everybody, and you just have to find what works for you, and maybe develop your own.

[00:23:52] Host: Yep. Interesting. Another person has asked about being a leader versus a manager. Can you give us more context on that?

[00:24:04] Seth: Yeah. I've been talking about this a lot with the colleague I mentioned, who I've worked with for a long time. In my mind, in my opinion, I look at a manager as somebody who dictates, drives things, and creates a team of almost order-takers. Now, that doesn't mean that if you have the title manager, that's what you are. But if I'm defining two different people: a manager dictates how things are to be done, has less trust in their team, and gets more hands-on and digs in, so to speak. Whereas the leader empowers the team and builds trust with their team, so that they feel comfortable going out and failing.

[00:24:58] I'm in Boston right now at a conference, and one of the things we're actually talking about today is failure. How do you get your team to trust that it's okay to fail? So I think a leader allows you to fail in order to get better, and with a manager, you're scared to fail.

[00:25:22] Host: Yeah, that's very interesting phrasing there. I think that's a really important way to look at it. I read an article about the CEO of Snapchat: the first thing he does in an interview is give candidates an almost impossible task and put them in front of the team, so they get used to failing on day one. I would be scared if that was me. But we all do it. I say to the team all the time, "Don't be afraid to fail. I don't care." And the team are ironically very transparent, whereas personally I have to self-reflect. It's a really hard thing to face in reality, failure and looking like an idiot, all of the above.

[00:26:06] Seth: 100%. And you have to be brave to do that, because you also have to back your team. If a failure happens and that visibility goes up to executive leadership or to the CEO or whatever, and they're like, "Well, wait a second, we failed. What's happening?" you have to be able to step up and take that backlash, or whatever it may be. I think that's a little strong, but you get what I'm saying. Your team needs to see you standing up for them. You can't just tell them, "Go ahead and fail, it's okay." They have to see you empowering them, backing them up, having their back, so that they see it's okay to fail. And that's where the testing comes in. You're not necessarily failing; you're progressing towards a bigger picture, or ruling something out fast.

[00:27:01] Host: That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Seth. Enjoy the conference today. I hope it goes very well.

[00:27:06] Seth: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. This was a lot of fun.

[00:27:11] Host: It's great. And I believe you'll be speaking with Ryan at the Priceline office soon.

[00:27:19] Seth: Yeah. If you've seen this, maybe I'll get better at it. I'm going to talk about the exact same thing, but I'll get to see the raised hands too, in person in New York on the 29th of April, I think.

[00:27:30] Host: Love it. I was watching LinkedIn, and I think one or two people messaged a raised hand at the time.

[00:27:38] Seth: Only a few people. I didn't want to get called out. So thank you.

[00:27:43] Host: No, it was great. Thank you so much, Seth. Enjoy the rest of your day, and thanks again. We'll talk to you soon.

[00:27:48] Seth: Bye. Thanks, everyone.