GovTech, Outcomes, & Impact - Building Meaningful Products in High-Stakes Environments

Speaker A: Welcome back to Practical Product Management, a podcast where Marilyn and I talk about how product management is done in context. Um, theory is great. There's lots of great books out there about how product management is done, but product management happens in the context of where you're at, what season your company is, what you do, all of these things, these pieces. So today we're going to talk to Rob. And Rob, I would love to just have you introduce yourself, tell us, tell us and our audience a little bit about you, and then, uh, we'll kick off.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. First off, Leah and Marilyn, thanks for giving me the opportunity to join you all. I thought it was a really cool podcast. And when Marilyn reached out to me when we were catching up on old times, I was like, yeah, this sounds great, so let's do it. Um, so, yeah, I mean, my name is Rob Munro. Uh, I'm currently working for a company called Rise8. And, uh, we refer to ourselves as an elite software delivery company focused on achieving continuous delivery of valuable software that users trust and love. All that also that we can succeed on our nation's most critical missions. And we can talk more about, like, what that means in terms of sector and why we talk about it that way. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I started my career and journey of, um, falling into product management in my early days at Boeing with a, uh, transformational effort. Uh, I got it very, very wrong early on in my career, but I had great leadership around me that helped me understand the differences and invested in me throughout those, uh, trials and tribulations and had a lot of really great success in, uh, achieving transformational efforts at Boeing. Uh, and then I took a break to try to get some more, uh, what I'll call customer facing or global product experience with MasterCard, with Buy Now, Pay Leader, and some green, uh, thumb initiatives as well. Um, but then the people that I met along the way of my career pulled me back in. And if it wasn't for our CEO Brian Kroger at Rise 8, I wouldn't be where I am right now and I wouldn't be enjoying my life as much as I, uh, was before in the past. So I'm, uh, very thankful for the journey and I've met a lot of really great, inspiring people because of it. So that's what's kept me in the game so far.

Speaker A: Very lovely.

Speaker C: But that's not all. I feel like you gave this, like, really lovely. Like, yeah, I did product management at this company and this company, you're actually a practice lead. Um, you've Done a lot of coaching. Um, you believe deeply in the lean product mindset. Uh, you talk a lot about outcomes. You've been in multiple sectors, so not just one or two. So I feel like you've got this really sort of broad experience, um, and you kind of undersold yourself a little bit there Rob. So I'm going to just lean in here and pitch a little bit more for you.

Speaker B: Sure, yeah. I mean, uh, you know, what I'll say is I have had a lot of great opportunities to experience 0 to 1 for my own set of products and could grow those into portfolios leveraging tons of different uh, principles and tactics from what would be most attributable to Lean Startup, uh, with Eric Reese. Right. In terms of like innovation, accounting and getting different uh, leadership, uh, members to think differently about how we invest and how we do business planning and how do we think uh, about things on a financial level for getting new ideas spun up inside of large bureaucratic organizations. And I think that those have foundationally set me up uh, for like how do I go into a new organization, try to understand how it's wired, what is its culture, what is its operating model and then look for small nuggets of opportunities to either influence people around me, um, or try to take hold of something that I can then deliver and then demonstrate it and get by in that way by showing results. Um, and so that's, that's really, you know, helped me move from like an engineering led organization to what was definitely more of a technology payments, uh, based organization and then now into something that I think is, you know, obviously it's gov tech, it's, it's the uh, different branches of defense, it's the different federal agencies that we deal with. They all have different missions. But I think that's what's really like driven me to move away from some of the commercial and private sectors is uh, I got really, really close to the conversations that were so obsessed with revenue and sales and it just, it just didn't resonate with me. Like when I think about a higher purpose, I really, you know, I think I might be speaking for everyone here, but I think we, we don't wake up, we don't pick careers being like, yeah, this is what I want to do for somebody else. In terms of bottom line. I think we think about, you know, creating a difference in the world and changing people's lives. At least that's where I came from. And so the nice thing about you know, Rise 8 and working in Govtech though, I think it sometimes often gets a really bad rep. Is it's all about mission. It's all about what are we here to do to improve the lives of civilians, war fighters, operators. Um, because we're not talking about dollars and cents. We're talking about lives saved. We're talking about bringing people home. We're talking about improving medical, uh, procedures. It just is endless. And so, uh, if you can't already tell, it's, it's like, why I'm very excited to just continue on and help people come to the same level of, uh, uh, enlightenment, I guess.

Speaker A: What do you think is the most misunderstood part of it?

Speaker B: Um, uh, I think this part isn't really misunderstood. I think we all understand that it's large, it's very bureaucratic, it's very old, it's very stuck in its way sometimes. And I think those are the types of challenges that not everyone wakes up wanting to solve every single day. But I think that's the type of person you need to be. You have to be willing to do what is required to succeed on the mission. As much as we want to go and help solve a problem to improve lives for veterans, sometimes we have to go trudge through the mud and get through all the things that are impeding our ability to do so, because it may not be our fault for these things that are decades 100 years old, but it's certainly our responsibility. Like, at the end of the day, that's really what we're here for. And so it doesn't matter if it's your job or not. You got to find a way to make it happen. Um, I think some of the things that are misunderstood is that, um, government doesn't care about modern tech, or government doesn't care about some of the modern principles and practices. There's absolutely leaders that get it. There's absolutely, like, groups of people who are very passionate about these things, um, are trying every single day to do the right thing. But it's sometimes the environment and the culture of just all of the different groups and parties that are involved that can make that a real challenge. And so we're, we're on this journey to really help people unlearn so that they can relearn in a different way and we can recode them to think about things and approach things in different ways.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that strikes me about, like what you just said is, is the passion you have for it. Right. And how you talked about it. I think about all the years, and maybe, Marilyn, you've Experienced this too. I think about all the years that I was hiring for roles and I would talk to a young product manager and they'd be like, I want to be near the customer and I want to build user interfaces and I want to do. And I'd be like, yeah, I don't have any of those jobs. Like, that's not what this job is. The job is being in the platform. The job is building a data warehouse. The job is, you know, whatever the job is. Yeah. And having to have conversations about. I promise it's not boring. It's just different because Everybody, every young PM. I'm not every, but a lot of young PMs are just like, give me the customer. And I want to build UX and UI and I want to be. And it's like, yeah, okay, I get it, it's flashy and sexy. But I think all of us have done things that we're really passionate about that are further from that.

Speaker C: I also think that it's a, it's a good reminder that every product has a customer.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: It's not the shiny app. Maybe like, it's, it's not that. It's not that like, like button on Facebook or whatever the hell the cool social media thing is now.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Um, but every product has a customer and every product drives an outcome.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you need to approach it that way.

Speaker B: I think you can take that even further, Marilyn. Right. So some of the things that I often hear in talking to product, um, managers out in industry that we're thinking about trying to bring in for some, you know, fresh perspective, fresh talent, will look at Rise 8 in their, in their, uh, response, their initial reaction is like, oh, you're a services organization. I really want to prioritize my career being in product. And I think the, like, the blind spot you have there is like, to your point, everything you do, like if it's an internal or an external customer or internal or external user, you are there to produce something that is of value to them and they help you quantify and define what value is.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so, um, I really love focusing on, uh, I would say, like, different frameworks and tactics that keep that mindset fresh. Like, I do like this book about who does what by how much.

Speaker A: Oh, I didn't, I couldn't see. I'm sorry, I can't see it because of the way my screen is set. Oh, sorry.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, this is one book that I've been, you know, preaching with some of my product members or product people. Um, it's not that I'm obsessed about, you know, okrs as a framework. It's actually like the concepts in there about anyone can be a customer, internal or external to you, and it's all about actually having a customer centric mindset to how you think about setting goals and targets and what you measure for success.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: I was just looking for that book on my book. I have that book somewhere. It was sitting on my desk not too long ago. And I also, I also think it's a great framework and I just, uh, Honestly, Jeff and, um, you know, Josh are fantastic writers and people and, you know, I've been fortunate enough to have them into a couple of companies that I've worked with and that, that the frameworks that they give you for just helping you set your mind on outcomes. Um, and I know, Rob, this is like one of your jams is like you don't build features for features, but like, what, what, what is going to happen and how are you going to know that it happened and why should you make that thing happen as a business? And I think that mindset, um, that mindset is really interesting and I kind of want to poke at this in terms of govtech, um, because I'll. I'll tell you, when you first told me you were going to govtech, I like, I've never worked in that industry, I have no experience with it and I was just like, woof. Um, wow, that does not sound like it would be fun to me. But the more I talk to you, the more I understand that there's so much passion, there's so much opportunity to change, and the more I can see the direct correlation to other large established older businesses like banking, there's a direct correlation in how they work and the things you have to change and trying to get people to go from, you know, check the box or pull the widget or do the thing to drive an outcome is a massive mindset shift. And I'd love to talk to you about how do you approach that not only with your product managers, but with your customers. How do you start to get them to think in outcomes versus build me the lever or the light switch?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, I think the very first thing you do is march into their office and tell them they're doing it wrong and expect that they're going to listen to you. So that would be my first. No, it's going to be like, all

Speaker C: right, let's get ready for that one.

Speaker B: Yeah. Nothing would be that easy. Right. So I think, um, much to your point, like, much like any other organization, um, when you come in as like a mover and shaker and you want to burn the house down, there's lots of reasons why the culture is going to reject you. Um, our culture is different and we expect it to be different because we have very high standards and a high bar for what we're trying to achieve. We have to go on this journey to help, uh, really start from where they're at, like, meet them where they are, get to understand how they think and how they operate, how they speak. Because oftentimes what I've seen in some cases is we actually could be saying the same thing or desiring the same thing, but we're talking about it differently. And if we just move the language to one side or the other, maybe we can actually get individuals to think a little bit differently faster or just on easier terms. But number, um, one is like, meet them where they're at. Try to help them understand that we are here to help you succeed. And your mission is our mission. And we are not on a mission to brainwash you for the sake of doing so. Uh, we're here to help make sure that we deliver on what is important to you, that we help you craft that in a stronger way if necessary. And then make sure that we demonstrate, um, various practices that demonstrate in smaller, uh, bite, sizeable pieces that we are making progress on this conversation about outcomes. Um, so like oftentimes what you'll see is, uh, in government and especially like in services businesses is you create contracts, you create requirements, and you start to build this expectation of having a plan. And like, this is the hard part about these types of organizations is that's what they expect, that's what they're used to. And so taking small opportunities to introduce conversations about if we did answer this or we did solve this and we, uh, go operate on these assumptions, what do we think is actually going to be the result? And we start to have these like, rewiring conversations to walk backwards. And to be honest, sometimes you just need to play ball. Sometimes you need to be able to like, set the scene for kind of what you want to play in the next game, which is, we're going to deliver on what you want us to deliver. We're going to do so at the highest quality possible and as quickly as possible. But we're then going to make sure we have the conversation of. But what is, what was that result that we just saw? And like, hey, maybe what we just learned from this is that this isn't what our users needed at all to begin with. This isn't the problem they needed us to solve. And so we get an opportunity to rewire, um, with those results as well.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's, um, that. So there's some very good practical learnings in there. And I think that a lot of times, again, you read this, you read a book by an author, and I think the first one I loved from them that I think I bought like 200 copies at 6 Citibank was outcomes over Outputs. Um, and I, like, I loved this book. I brought it in. I had him come to a book club, and I just wanted everybody to flip to outcomes, um, and people didn't get it. And so when, when these theories hit practice or hit organizations, uh, you know, or hit process, that's been there for 100 years or 200 years or whatever, that notion of, okay, I'm gonna do the thing, it's not very big. It's kind of small. I know you want it, you must have that button. I'm going to do it. But then when we do it,

Speaker A: how

Speaker C: do we measure the difference? And should we have done that and can we do something different? And that very sort of practical, pragmatic way of trying to get people to think about behavior shift over time. Um, I think it's a people problem. It's super interesting problem to overcome.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, Lee, I'd be curious if, you know, your, your perspective and experiences on this one too, but, like, it's too easy to talk about transformation as like, a culture problem and just like, label it like this.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker B: Like, you have to say, well, if it's a culture problem, what's. What's contributing to the culture? What. What is the actual setting for culture? Um, and I don't know if this is the book you're referring to, Marilyn, but, uh, Josh Seiden, uh, was, like, famous for talking about outcomes over output. So maybe that's the same book here.

Speaker C: Same book.

Speaker B: Um, and the way that we try to get, you know, either industry or government to understand this conversation and journey that we're on and things that we want to rewire, it's that, you know, senior leaders within organizations are always going to be focused on what is your business or mission impact. Right? Like, what are the results? And I don't care about anything else. Um, and so most of the planning, the supporting, the, uh, execution teams are all producing things. They're all delivering outputs, like the things that we give all of our energy and efforts towards. And so we become very attached to them. And that's what matters to uh, us. But to be able to rewire, you have to like keep everyone's perspective on this, this continual causal uh, chain of events, which is, you have to understand first what is the impact we're trying to achieve. You then need to understand the behaviors that are ultimately going to drive a change to that impact, which is the outcome. It's the change in behavior of a system or person that you're or Persona you're targeting. And we will do so by giving this new experience or by delivering this feature. And if you start to divorce any one of those pieces, you fundamentally break down everything that is, you know, equated to your value stream or your value chain at that point. Um, and like you said, people and I think that one of the things that we need to do as leaders is we have to be better about what we incentivize and what we prioritize in educating our folks to understand about

Speaker C: the bigger picture 100%. I think my, uh, so my m. Takeaway from that period of time, and this is one company, um, is that executives care about only a few things. And in a company like that particular one, executives have a scorecard and that scorecard was blessed by the board or, you know, or the C suite or whomever a long time ago. And they get a little green up arrow or a little red down arrow and that's kind of all they care about. I'm being a little flip here, but um, that's all they care about because that's what their bonus is based off of. And when we talk about incentives, those are the metrics that drive your group. And if you come in talking about outcomes that are not directly tied to those little red up arrows or down arrows, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Even if they're really good because the corporate incentives are not supporting the sort of like, you know, your company could go direction X. And even if there's a great revenue stream over there, or even if you see an opportunity, if it's not, if it's not something that the executive and, or the corporate lens is looking at, it's probably not going to get a lot of energy. Like just, let's just be super frank about it. Whether it should or shouldn't.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and so how do you sort of like work backwards from what the company cares about, what the company strategy is or your, your, your division strategy and ensure, especially if you're a lower line product manager, that what you're driving ladders up into something that drives a metric that your executive cares About. I know that's a little bit cynical of me to sort of say it like that, but you're never going to get to outcomes if you can't make it matter to everybody. Can't.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm thinking about lots of things and I'm trying to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I don't know if you want to jump in first.

Speaker A: I mean, the thing that comes to my mind is that, I mean, absolutely, Marilyn, you have to have. Going back to what Rob said, and I think what you also said is like, there has to be like, how am I tying this thing to the broader picture, to the bigger strategy, to the bigger. The bigger goals, whatever those goals are, whatever you call them, okrs or goals or whatever. I think for me, one of the things that comes up as you're talking is that over the years, I mean, I have been a, uh, bull in a china shop and a, you know, a dog with a bone and all of the things you can think of that sound really terrible and rough. Right. Um, that's like, we need to change. And I'm going to be the person who causes the change and I'm going to impact the change. Over the years, what I've learned is that from day one, I am, um, planting seeds and laying, Laying groundwork. Right. Like, I, um, have this conversation and I'm very intentional. Marilyn taught me years ago that words matter. Right. So I'm m. Very intentional with this word and I'm very intentional with this sentence, and I'm very intentional. And I'm laying a pattern and a series of behaviors because I know I've said we're going there, and I can try to force it and run up against every other wall and beat my head against it, or I can start laying the groundwork and get buy in and figure out who my champions are and figure out who the detractors are and start doing this little game, this little dance of change and transformation. And I think when you know it's working for, for me, when I know it's working, whether it's at a big company or a startup or whatever, is when my own words start coming back to me.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And someone says to me, you know, we need to do is blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yes, we should do that. That's a great idea. Let I'm for it. Right. And because by the time you get there, you usually have convinced, you've used, you've explained your part of the influence and where your authority lies and all the. So when they come back to you and are almost like seeking permission to do the thing you said for them to do. You can be like, go do that right? Off you go.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: What do you need?

Speaker C: You know?

Speaker A: But so I just think about like going back to something you said, Rob. A lot of times we get evangelical as product managers about words or frameworks or the way, part of the way we do this podcast. Right. Like, we get evangelical about like, I have to be this way and I have to use this language and I need to use this. Tell you what I've learned. I don't care.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: For me, I will use your language if it'll mean we get to the end game faster. If you want to call this thing a purple, uh, triangle. Okay. Even if it is a red square. Right. I will call a purple triangle all day long. Right. Because. But I've learned to do that and not fight on a false sense of. I need them to learn what product management is. I, I don't, I don't need them. Everyone doesn't have to know.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: They just have to go.

Speaker B: I, uh, it's what, what, what we're talking about resonates me m with me in two different ways. And I'll start at uh, at Maryland's end and end up on Leah's end of the conversation. So, uh, like one thing that I think should, should be always true is like, typically when we walk into a room, uh, like a boardroom or to an organization that has senior level leadership that has a very clear mindset on what they want to achieve for results, we really should not come in and try to tell folks like, no, that's wrong or like, I disagree with you. Right. How, how like, how ignorant would it be for me to walk into, um, like any, any defense branch talking to like senior level, you know, leadership at that, at that ranking officer level and tell them they don't understand their own mission results or to go talk to their operators or war fighters and tell them they don't know what they actually understand. So, um, one of the reason why I started there is, uh, we can help them craft that into something that's like strong and clear. Like, we can help massage those things, but really what we can actually have an effect on is focusing on behavioral change and which is a little bit to do with the leadership style and what you're talking about, Leah, as well, where you're like looking for things to come back to you. It's like I'm looking for behavioral change, whether that's internal or with my actual customers and users and so that's why we're so focused on outcomes rather than this kind of like big, hairy, audacious goal of measuring how many impacts or type of impact we have is like, ultimately none of those things will matter. It's a means to an end equation if I don't actually change the behavior of people. Because even when we get the assumptions wrong or even when we accept assumptions from requirements, uh, for the sake of having an opportunity to help people unlearn and relearn, it's the behavioral aspect of what happened and that led to the result. And that's what we have to help people connect with. And so to get over to kind of what you were talking about as well, Leah, is like, whether it's through our products, our services, or if it's like our coaching and just the way that we're trying to groom people, um, I see a lot of times, and I did this early on in my career where it was like, yeah, I'm checking the box of like, I'm investing in myself to like go to conferences or read books or do these things right? Very output mindset of like, I did the thing. Aren't you happy that I did that? And shouldn't you reward me for it? The behavior change is what you actually need to ground yourself in with like a growth opportunity. It's like you are where you are today. Envision yourself as like what you want to be or what you want to become, what you will do differently behavioral wise. And then tell me what strategies or what your action plan is to make yourself unlearn and relearn. So, uh, like you can apply this in both what we are trying to achieve with our products and services just as much as you can in your everyday life of improving your own life and improving your quality of life too. Um, and uh, I would feel remiss if I didn't bring up something that feels like it always comes back in my life. Uh, I got a chance to watch Janice Frazier's uh, talk, uh, on the path of enlightenment with this acronym called U Bad U B A D. And um, it was at. I might be getting the year wrong, but I think it was a 2017 or 2018 mind the product talk, um, would highly recommend anyone going and listening to that. But, um, U bad is this journey towards enlightenment. It's kind of the way I think about it. And it starts from this grassroots need to understand you can't go on any journey unless you actually understand concepts, uh, frameworks, the way the business works. Right? So, like, this should Resonate very well with like entry level, junior level individuals. You have to understand or people were coaching or people that were trying to um, uh, uh, transform right. Culturally, they need to understand it and the next behavior looking for is they believe it. So they actually start to talk about it. They actually start to uh, agree, they start to open up and be vulnerable towards trying something new. And then once they've tasted that, once they've actually had enough reps and they've actually seen some success, then you start to see the real behavior change because they start to advocate for it, they'll actually speak about it, they'll actually go to their peers, they'll actually defend these things and then they move to a level of uh, uh, making decisions. So this is also something we see a lot with like junior level to mid level to senior level progression, uh, whether it's product management or other, which is like I'm very much in the case of learning and then I'm, I'm bought in. Now I'm bought in. I get it. And now I have these frameworks that I refer to repeatedly and I use them religiously, I use them on a continuous basis. It's my default behavior. But when you start making decisions with your work and your career, you start to understand at a deeper level what all these things actually can be used for. And you use them in your own creative ways to get the job done. Just like what you said, Leah, in terms of I don't care what you call it, I don't want to debate these things. I don't want to get into the discussion of like this is that it's more or less show me the result. And you are now moving into a level of enlightenment where you are able to actually see how you get to the end result through uh, the maze or the journey that you believe is going to be best suited for that, whether that's an individual basis or a team.

Speaker C: So I mean basically you both just told me that I'm not very enlightened because I'm still going to call it a red square. Um, I'm not at the purple triangle level.

Speaker B: Well, as long as arguing over the color, then yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker A: Fine. You can call a red square. I'll just be like. What she means is it's a purple triangle.

Speaker C: It's a thing

Speaker A: about red squares. Don't worry about it.

Speaker C: Not ah, that fully realized yet?

Speaker A: No. And you know what? It's not always easy. And there. And to your, you know, to the thing that we've talked about before like, some words do matter. Like, you can't call something successful. It's not successful. You can't call something a win if it's not a win.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: You can't say it was a great outcome. If you look at it and objectively, the customers are less happy.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So some words and some concepts and some ways we measure some things we talk about words do matter. I think where we can bring maturity when dealing in transformation is know being able to parse that and say what matters and what doesn't. What matters right now and what doesn't. That may matter later.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I'll nitpick the hell out of you on words in six months, but on day one, I'm like, yeah, yeah, you can call it whatever you want. I don't care. Right. But somewhere along the road, I'm gonna be like, here's what we call that in the industry. And so we're gonna start calling it that, you know, and so. And then you, you. Because I don't think until to what Rob said, you bring them people on this journey of enlightenment. You cannot call them to enlightened before they've gone across some steps. Some people leap quickly. Some people are so eager for something to be different that they're like, I'll come with you. You're like, you're gonna make a mess. Right. I always know those people are probably gonna make a mess of it. And that's okay because I'll run around behind him with a broom. Right. But I think some, you cannot, we cannot call them to the next thing until we've walked path. And that, for me, often requires the patience of, um. Yeah, I'm not fighting this battle today.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And I think patience too, in terms of, like, what is everyone's comfort level with risk? And how do I empower and coach and help them be comfortable taking risks. Right. Making bets and getting things wrong is. Is going to be okay as long as you're not doing things maliciously. Um, like, you have to create that space for people to get it wrong in order for them to have the take effect and actually take traction with their learning.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, it's definitions. I agree. Like, you do need to have things kind of like, not just defined on a whim randomly, when we do have very structured things in industry and around us. Uh, but like, even to that effect, when you can get the language wrong with, um, what you measure for success.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, like, it's funny, we have seen organizations that would say, you know, they hang their hat on, like, oh, we have like 50 new systems or 50 applications running in prod on this new. This new infrastructure. Um, but what they really mean is that it's in a. It's in a prod cluster. It's in. It's in a environment that allows for you to get to prod. But actually what they're talking about is that they're sitting in like a staging or pre prod environment. Right. And so, yeah, you're like, we're not

Speaker A: gonna give you a cookie for that, but nice try.

Speaker B: I will say what, like, one of the things that folks can really struggle with in organizations that do hold this high standard and high bar, we talk about a value of like, keeping it real at rise eight. Um, we talk about outcomes in. In a couple different ways here. So, like, supporting outcomes. You can consider this translated in other industries is like, we're making milestones. We're hitting very specific things that have to be done in order for us to get to our customers. Right. Maybe some product managers out there would remember things in our backlog, like chores versus user stories here. Just trying to think of commonality. Um, we celebrate those. You want to feel great about wins, um, but we all have to be on the same page with understanding that they really don't matter. Unless you actually get to delivering outcomes that create mission impact. That's a really tough conversation for some folks.

Speaker C: I mean, I always just say no partial credit. Like, I know. I'm like, I know. I mean, anybody that's ever worked for me will tell you that I'm a little tough and I'm kind of mean and I'm a little bit of a monster. I think that's okay. But, like, we can celebrate some stuff, but we all have to agree it doesn't matter. It doesn't make the newsletter. I'm not talking about it. To leadership, because we don't take partial credit. You're not done until it's doing something.

Speaker B: There are no hypothetical outcomes in real life.

Speaker C: We gotta make it as small as possible. Right. Because I'm not gonna be on a death march for a year either. That's not fair. Fair.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So how do we get those incremental wins quickly so that we can. We can be a fulfilled team, we can be an enlightened team. But to Leah's point, like, if. If a customer is not touching it, like, you don't. You don't get the win. Right.

Speaker A: Congrats on that thing you built that nobody wants. Right?

Speaker C: Sitting on the shelf.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well. And, uh, I. So one Thing that I want to add there. And I think I have, I have a question for you, Rob. I just need to see what the question is as I get to it. But I think over the years one of the things I've noticed is that when we move from output to outcome, uh, we have to retrain the idea that we, that the heroics of output are not going to be celebrated.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And some of the detractors that we face early on are like, yeah, but I always get patted on the back for building that thing that someone wanted.

Speaker C: Launch announcement.

Speaker A: Right. And so I guess my question is how have you seen it work the best for the heroes to get to be heroes in a new way? Like how do you bring those folks along that are used, the engineers, the delivery people who are like, I did the thing and I get, I get pat it on the back and we're like, not this time especially because the

Speaker C: horizon, that the horizon is longer. Yeah. Usually when you're in output reward cycles, you do the thing, you get a pat, you do the thing, you get a pat. When you're an outcome, your product, the thing you built may completely outperform over the year.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And that's a series of um, incremental measurements and measuring against what you thought the trajectory was. And so it's a, it's like it's a series of celebrations or corrections, learnings.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and so that feedback cycle is a very, very, very different. And you've done this in lots of different places, Rob.

Speaker B: So yeah, you're, you're spot on that like different problem domains or different roles that you can play are going to have varying degrees of feedback loops. Um, and so like one of the things that can be really tough with all of us, uh, who get dopamine hits on having like really fast feedback loops and reactions to things can struggle with the long like the longevity of some things that have to take experimental cycles on even I struggled with that. Um, once you get out of a direct to an indirect role, it is so hard to like let go of, ah, needing to see something. Um, but what I think, what I think I come back to is, is still um, what do I incentivize or what do I make sure that. You know, you said this earlier, Leah, like you what do. Dropping the seeds. I still have to make everything about what is the behavioral outcome change I want to see. And sometimes I don't tell employees what I'm doing because that just biases the experiment. Right. But I, I went through the same journey too. I was at fault. I got, I got praised in my early days for doing things like, hey, I got everyone to use this new tool, I got everyone to use this new, this new framework or practice and I got praised for it. But I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that either I had leaders who were praising me for output or they were praising me for things that were intrinsic that I didn't actually understand because I didn't define it as my own success criteria. If I had said I'm gonna get people to adopt this new way of working or this new tool or this whatever, um, I love it when people are, you know, kind of coming into large organizations, been around for years, going to do OKRs, we're going to adopt Agile. And it's like the buzzword attack. But um, what I've missed and what I've missed is the fact that what will be different when we do this right? Like what will be the change? What do you expect to see that's going to be beneficial from being able to get from point A to point B? And I think that's um, throwing in just another random topic here. But like facilitation is a really powerful and important skill set to grow regardless of your role. Um, because if you can define point A and a point B with a group of people and help move them and navigate to that direction, that's an amazing superpower. Like you can solve tons of problems just because you can help frame things in a way that gets people to think differently.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of the things that I've seen that's been successful once, um, so if anybody wants to take this on as an experiment, let's do number two. Um, it's actually flipping that, um, so you state your high level objective for a team at the outcome. You know this team is going to move this number from X to Y and then there's like an as, as evidenced by or by doing the following seven things. And those seven things are output. And that that's their hypothesis on what's going to move the needle. And they can kill those whatever, seven, six, five things pretty easily. And those things can shift over the course of quarters, but they know in quarter one that these are the three things most likely that they think are going to drive that high level number. And then they can chase the output, but they can also track the impact of the output against the objective on that monthly or quarterly basis. And for me that's a really interesting way to get people from, you can still celebrate the output like Objective one thing C, you launched it, good job. Now let's watch it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And were you right or were you wrong? Do you need to adjust? Does that change your plan for next month or next quarter? Um, and it's a good sort of like halfway, um, like a half pregnant way to get people from an output mentality to an outcome mentality because they don't jump themselves. And again, like, you can read the look, you can read the book, and you can be like me, and you get super thrilled about it. And then when it comes to practice or what needs to be reported up, kind of struggle. Right. Because you're trying to run outcome running things in an output rewarding culture and it grinds a little bit.

Speaker B: Yeah. Massive, uh, hierarchical organizations, I think, struggle with this because you, like, greatly increase the number of people you have to convince to do something different at that point. Right. And then things filter through layers and gets misconstrued. And so I think it's really on leaders to be bold, to set a new standard, to set a new precedent and expectation on what we want to measure or what we really care about and make it very clear for people to understand. And then, um, when we talk about, you know, setting targets or maybe what you were kind of. Also I could attach to what you were saying, Marilyn, in terms of like, leading and lagging indicators here. Uh, you really want to give, like, a level of enlightenment to folks who kind of make journeys from, like, project to product. Also kind of get this idea or understanding that, like, I need to be able to quickly learn in order to do that, I need to be able to quickly deliver. And in order to do that, there's all these other things that have to happen. Right. And because if you just like shipping once a quarter or once a year, you have very little room for error on the bets that you make. And so, um, things that can drive that behavioral mindset change around. Oh, okay. How do I make it easier, cheaper, and less risky to fail so that I can actually explore multiple solutions, um, in very controlled ways that allow me to understand and unleash the value of innovation that we can achieve. And I think ratios are typically the best things to fall, like, fall on here, um, or lean, uh, into. And actually I'll do another plug for which is, uh, Janice's husband, Jason Frazier, gave a really great talk at our conference, Proacity in Tennessee, around, um, outcome ratios. And it's really simple if you think about it in terms of like, starting from impact mapping and working your way back through behavioral change and Thinking of the ways that you can adjust, uh, this. Sorry, my dog wants to get on camera now all of a sudden.

Speaker A: Johnny, find the conversation. Come on.

Speaker B: Um, then if you just associate time or dollars to outcomes in a ratio equation, you start to have to ask yourself, how do I drive down the expense? How do I drive down the cycle of what it takes to achieve an outcome? And again, not getting back towards the impact, but just focusing on the behavioral change. Because if I don't do that. Right. And if I don't ship multiple outcomes in prod that I can measure, it's all for nothing. Yeah, I thought that was a really great talk. Um, and it's something that we're strongly considering in terms of how we think about what we need to drive on with behavior inside of Rise 8 too.

Speaker C: Did you guys record those? And will you post them online?

Speaker B: Um, they are. They're still being, I think, edited and produced, but yeah, they're supposed to be offered up publicly as well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Awesome, Awesome. I think that's super key. I think that, uh, and I think that as, I mean, the pace of technology does nothing slower. We're not slowing down.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Um, and to your point, like, if you look at it from a pure capital allocation perspective, if you're going to say, this is my one big thing for the year and, uh, I'm going to launch this thing, it's going to take me 12 months. You're going to be wrong to some degree. Like, you're going to be. You can't be 100% correct. Yeah. Because the world changes too fast right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so your risk in that decision is really high.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Marilyn, you and I have worked with some pretty large organizations that had very large programs. Uh, I won't, I won't drop names and put shade on anybody, but I remember working in programs of like a M. Couple hundreds of people, and it blew my mind to just think about, uh, how slow it was to move things into the hands of our customers and just. But it, but it was all in this spirit and idea of like, but I can have more people for less cost. And I think that we're real. Like, nobody pays attention to the cost of delay.

Speaker C: Yes. Right. Right.

Speaker A: So no, it doesn't. It's not beneficial. It's like it, it is literally trying to put too many cooks in the kitchen. Right. Like, and it's, it's the reason for that metaphor. When I say literally, it's like when you put too many people in the kitchen and then somebody's like, get out of my kitchen because we're not going to get dinner tonight if you don't get out of my kitchen. Right. But uh, one of the things that I'm thinking as you're, as you're both talking is Marilyn, when you were just now describing sort of this, you know, experiment and how do you measure and what are you trying to do and what are you looking for? I hate to break it to all the folks out there, but that was the intention. If you look at it behind what John Doerr came up with with okrs, the problem is we it up, we make it so complex and we make it so the link is too, there's too many, it's too long, the indicators are off. You're trying to. People start to try to build okrs around what they're gonna do, what they've already decided to do, instead of like the notion that an OKR has always got to be successful. If every, especially in startups and scallops, if every founder out there would remove from their mindset that OKRs have to get to 75% or higher in order to be called successful and that you're going to have some that absolutely don't get there and you should learn from that because that's what you need to learn, then okrs would be meaningful. Yeah, yeah. If you're not going to do that, throw them out with whatever other goal planning framework you did before you did okrs, put it in the garbage can and move the hell on people.

Speaker B: We as we as human beings inside of organizations that love consistency and structure because it gives us ah, a sense of uh, comfort with life.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, we will do a lot of things like we need to have cascading, we need to have this like operationally engineered thing that makes it perfect.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Um, and then I think we also disconnect like the purpose around some differences here around things like key performance indicators versus okrs.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: API is just simply meant to be a thing you monitor as like business as usual type things.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: They're not meant to be the. What do we deliberately make changes for? What do we deliberately pick as uh, like a pivot or a direction on strategy and what is it going to look like in terms of a behavioral change? Those things should become KPIs over time perhaps if they're successful, if it means that they are now part of our normal business as usual operations.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But yeah, I, you're spot on the.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, 100%. I mean this. So just as a, as a side note, the company I'm working with, we launched something a couple weeks ago and we've been that we don't have enough volume. So it's, it's very. We don't have a lot of volume. So it takes us a long time to get statistical significance on an a B test. So we're waiting, and we're waiting and the results have been really good. And everybody's like, yay. And I was. And so what I said was, um, this is me letting you know that I have put my speech to you on failure and patience and trying again on ice, because we are going to experience it. I'll be back, and I plan to channel my energy, Hackman Rip, and give you my Hoosier speech about why you're here and why you belong and what we're going to do. And uh, but the idea that, uh, I'm almost. When a company is newly flexing this kind of transformation, I almost want them to fail the first, first time. Because if they're really successful the first time, like the first thing, whatever the first knit is, whatever the little first MVP or the first thing, if it's successful, then they're just like, they're devastated when it fails the next time. Whereas if they have to learn that crunchy thing first, then it's like the next time it's like, oh, we, we understand what this is. You know, and so sometimes I'm like, yay, we won't.

Speaker C: You know, also, don't measure too early because it might be a false indicator.

Speaker A: Exactly, Exactly. No, and that's the thing is I'm like, yep, hold, hold the, hold the applause, everyone. We're not, we're not there yet.

Speaker C: Also, sometimes the opportunity is so great that you can kind of half ass it and still make large amounts of progress.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. But I just think I, uh, just, man, I just really want us to be more thoughtful about like, allowing for the failure in the process and making space for like, is this measurement even the right measurement? And how do we talk about it? Because, I mean, I'm not the queen of this. I will have moments where I'm like, yeah, let's measure that. And then someone's like, how's that helpful? And I'm all, oh, I don't know. Good question.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, uh, we, uh, as I've gotten to a chance to, uh, get to know you both, uh, more here during the podcast and just kind of listening to the podcast coming in, the key thing that this is all leaning on is context. So, um, what's really Tough, especially for those of us who have very high energy, want to change the world, is that we'll take the same thought from one organization that probably has relatively low risk to getting things wrong versus, like, versus going into an organization that's all about, uh, keeping people alive.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: So that context matters. And I think in both organizations, it's just a matter of, like, how do we make it safe to fail? What does that look like? How could it look.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um. And you probably won't get it right the first time either, but you just gradually build upon that.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, the example I always give, I've given this one before is, you know, when I worked at Amazon, I was. One of my jobs at Amazon was to be responsible for the transaction processing component, the platform, anything that touched the. The transaction processing. Yeah. And I used to have nightmares. I would wake up in a cold sweat and they were hacked dreams. I would have the. I called them hack dreams. I would have these dreams that someone had hacked the database where we stored all the credit cards. Right. And in my brain, a billion credit cards were out in the wild and everybody had access to them. That felt real important until I built telestroke software. And then the ability for a neurologist to be able to diagnose a stroke from Seattle to Alaska, that mattered. The risk was totally different. Right. And so, yes, your financial health is super important to whoever is responsible for the credit cards at Amazon. That is true. But whether or not your, your dad dies because you can't get the computer to look close enough to the pupil to make the right decision on the stroke, that's life or death. Right. And so I think exactly what you say, like what is. Everything is about context. If I had gone into that healthcare environment, I took some of my framework and some of my tools. Right. But I had to then rethink those tools around the context of that risk because the nightmares I had when I worked there were very different.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which. Which is evidence of making critical decisions based upon actual knowledge and experience and being at that level of enlightenment to know I am going to apply what I've learned in ways that's going to make this actually, you know, fruitful. Understanding the context first. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: 100. Except for it's still a red square, to be clear.

Speaker A: That's fine. I wanted to just ask you one comment that you made earlier, before we even started, you were talking about that if you could pick the first experience experiment, it would be. Tell me more like about delivery or deployment.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, every organization who has not secured a path to production that is continuous delivery. Um, sorry for jargon, but it just simply means I have the means to be able to ship experiments or working software into real environments for real users, uh, on demand. You have to make that your first experiment. Um, some of the things that we talk about at Rise 8 with our clients is like, hey, one of the first things we really want to be able to do is just make sure we have a path to PROD and we can ship a compliant hello World application. And it's going to be super low risk, which is going to involve a minimum amount of controls. Why is that useful? We now actually understand what the journey is going to look like to move software from point A to point B. Um, we know that what we just put into PROD carries little to no risk.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so everything we do from M now on is adding risk, which means we should be having more frequent risk conversations.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And this is building the muscle memory that all organizations have, which is if they don't have continuous delivery, it's because of risk adversity. So when you understand the context of the situations that you work in, the uh, types of products you're delivering, the data that you have, you can understand the risk that you're making on decisions. And this is kind of getting into the area of like, what will it take over time to build up, uh, trust to empower teams to have that decision making authority or maybe they never will because there's just too much risk at stake for lives or for other reasons, but you couldn't even get there. You like, you're going to be stuck in the situation of cost of delay is going to cause more harm to people than it is for us to ship. The software that we have that we know actually can solve some of these problems that they're having right now.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: So that's the first experiment you have to do. It's the first experiment that you have to get. Right. Um, and that it is totally acceptable to fail on because you can only make it better because everything about it is predominantly going to be technology based, a little bit of process and a little bit of people. Um, but that's why I say it's the first thing that every organization, regardless of your industry, um, should be going after and making sure that you get it right.

Speaker C: Nice.

Speaker A: Love that. Okay, shall we lightning round?

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: All right, question number one. If you have to pick, and it can be anything at all, a framework that you love to use, what is it?

Speaker B: A framework that I love to use,

Speaker C: um,

Speaker B: I would have to say it's most recently applying what uh, I've been rereading with Jeff, uh, Gothau and Josh Seiden's who does what by how much. And again here it's not about okrs and trying to build a cascade operating model. It's getting people wired to understanding who is my customer and what value do I deliver and how do I write things in customer centric language so that it actually is already written for outcomes in producing. That's why I like it so much and I think it's, it's powerful.

Speaker A: Very cool. All right, what's the best advice you would give a young product manager starting out?

Speaker B: I'm actually so glad you asked this because I was having kind of an epiphany of what I might want to think about for uh, growing product managers. We were talking about risk in learning context of a business. I actually think that junior level individuals getting into product should focus on figuring out how to get themselves established with internal products. Um, and here's why you're exposed to like I would say fewer risks than you are jumping in and touching things that you're not going to get a lot of exposure to anyway because let's be honest, if you're very young, you're no one's going to trust you. So um, get into like an internal product team, establish what it means to run the business with that product or service and then um, make mistakes like it's, it's an easier place to fail on is my, is my epiphany, uh, here in this conversation. And that's actually something I think we need to be considering ourselves.

Speaker A: I love that. All right, what is one productivity hack that you use to make to keep yourself in balance?

Speaker B: Uh, I'm experimenting with this actually in 2025. So we have a very flat organization at Rise8. Um, so I currently have quote unquote 18 product managers that report to me. That number is going to only go up from here. And so uh, last year towards like the tail end of 24 I think I looked at the Google Calendar, uh, stats that I was spending 75% of my time in recurring one on ones and thinking I'm not getting any real value out of this. So therefore I'm pretty certain my employees might not be getting much value out of this. And I found this really cool talk because of our boss that posted it. And uh, I've completely eliminated that. And what has happened for me is I've switched, I've switched my Recurring conversations with employees. So solely on goal setting and goal check ins on like six week intervals. Um, and then it's really turned into just when you need me, you're gonna call me and vice versa, like if I need to have a conversation with you about something or if I want to share something with you that I'm hearing from other corners, I'm just gonna pick up the phone and call you. And I've loved it. I don't know how much my employees have necessarily loved it. That's part of the experiment here. But uh, I have freed up so much of my time to go start addressing all the other things that need to happen as we're working through these various growth stages. So, uh, try that hack out. It'll be scary at first, but I think you'll enjoy it after a couple of weeks.

Speaker A: I love that. No, I mean, I used to have a standing rule with my team. Like the answer to Leah, do you have a minute? Is yes. It might not be this minute, but I have a minute. Let me find you one. Right. And so I think to your point, I think if you can employ that as a mindset, you could try this hack and see like how, how do you make yourself available but more on demand rather than I'm just going to get with the. Get with you and have a conversation that we feel like forced to have. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Awesome. This was fun.

Speaker B: It was, it was a lot of fun. I would love to do this again. If y' all have new topics you

Speaker A: want to get into, we would love to. Like, we like, listen, we could, like I said at the beginning, I think we could talk about this kind of stuff for hours. This is, this is our sweet spot for sure. I think all of us love this stuff. So. Thanks.

Speaker B: I can definitely tell both of your all's energy is really, uh, uplifting. So I appreciate the fact that you guys are doing this.

Speaker A: Thank you. We have fun. This is, this is how we, uh, get to have friend time, is by inviting other people to come hang out with us and talk about things we like to talk about.

Speaker B: Yeah, someday we'll be cheersing through the screen or through ar, so.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: I'm in.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Awesome. Um, well, Rob, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And Marilyn, thanks for inviting you.

Speaker B: Thank you guys as well. Have a great evening.

Speaker A: Yeah, you too. Talk to you guys next time.

Speaker B: See ya.