CPO Accelerator: My Key Learnings

I was a part of the Sept 2020 cohort of CPO Accelerator Program by Melissa Perri. The primary objective of the program is to aid the transformation from a product manager to a product leader. Apart from frameworks, templates & best practices, I really loved the format of bringing in expert panels focusing on different elements of being an executive backed up with real life experiences & learnings.

I wanted to pen down my learning so that I remember & implement them in my day to day life. Here are my key learnings from the program.

1. The switch from an executor to an executive: Often times I have seen product leaders struggle in their first executive assignment. Teams often complain about micro-management, not given enough space to perform, building & communication of strategy and lack of buy-in from the board of their narrative which ultimately leads to frustration of self and the team.

• Well, one of the lessons here was to avoid getting into weeds and delegate. Once you have some time, build stronger relationships with your executive team and think about overall strategy. A good strategy should helps the teams decide on what to do, what not to do and guide them in decision making as the products evolve.

2. Organising product organisations: This again is a very contentious topic, people often complain about product teams not being 'fast' enough. Apart from a general perception, one also needs to look under the hood to see how the teams are organised, how ownership is addressed, how dependencies are brought out and sorted.

• The secret sauce here is to align to a vision, while minimising dependencies and reducing overheads. While that sounds easy, one must take decisions to see what works best basis the maturity of the product, organisation and product positioning. On the basis of the above, teams could be structured around persona, value to customer, solutions, jobs to be done & strategic intent.
• We often times don't even think about product ops, but this is where as a product executive, one can drive a lot of clarity and direction. The time we spend in decision making on recurring data points is huge and any effort to streamline data, insights and knowledge brings huge impact. Hence building an ops team that helps focusing on business intelligence, customer insights and scaling up product /processes goes a long way in managing product lifecycle.

3. Building & executing on Product Strategy: This is where, I have also seen teams go in circles, especially in sales-led organisations. Teams who think in terms of feature set instead of goals translating from vision struggle here - what to build/buy, when to build/buy, what impact does it bring, where does one position this product and for whom?

• If at any point in time your product teams have a feeling - what are we doing and why? then you probably need a sound product strategy and get a buy in from not only your team but also the other team - executive board. One must first look at breaking down the vision in terms of goals/strategic intents and then map initiatives. It is important to work with your teams to look at options/alternatives to achieve impact. I can relate it with how Responsible Product Development could be plugged here to bring effective due diligence to the product processes.

4. Winning over the CEO & Board: The CEO and board usually have a short attention span with an over arching objective of financial goals. How does one tell a narrative that aligns with how they see the world? Product thinking can quickly take a back seat if the narrative is not strong, succinct and aligned to the objectives of the CEO and board.

• As one goes deeper into a product executive journey, one should be able to zoom in and zoom out to provide the lay of the land through a lens with which the CEO and the board is being evaluated on. In simpler terms, one needs to think through what is in it for them - financial, strategic objectives and the narrate the story effectively through pictures/graphs

5. It's a partnership game: If you are doing it alone, you are probably doing it wrong. I have seen product teams struggle with adoption, traction, GTMs falling flat due to low conviction on the ground & marketing message not being in line with the product positioning. This is where a team play comes to your rescue.

• The key message here was relationships matter and its very important for one to understand the goals of your peers. Every small win that helps your stakeholders achieve their goals goes a long way in building trust. Trust is the currency with which you can bring about transformation where the focus is on product thinking - i.e customer first.

Overall, this was one of the best decisions I had taken in terms of learning the tricks of the trade from the experts. You could probably get all the above information anywhere on the internet but what sets CPO Accelerator apart are :

• The stories - success & failures in the journey as shared by mentors, experts & Melissa's team
• The Structured Learning & breakout groups where we reflected on our learnings
• The message of being humble, focus on relationships & avoid being an a$$ as you grow in the corporate ladder

Thanks @Melissa, @Tami, @Denise for putting through this amazing program! Thanks to all the mentors who shared their experiences with the cohort!