Matt LeMay: The Business Is Your Business

Building product the "right way" is all well and good, but doesn't matter much if your company goes out of business. Whether or not it's fair and just, product teams ultimately bear the consequences of their work's impact–or lack thereof. To deliver high-impact work, the business needs to be everybody’s business, including individual engineers, designers, and product managers. In this talk, product consultant and author of Product Management in Practice Matt LeMay shares his experience helping product teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 Enterprises define success, prioritize what matters, and make themselves indispensable.

Transcript

1. THE BUSINESS IS YOUR BUSINESS Matt LeMay | matt@mattlemay.com 
 Turing Fest | Jul 9 2024
2. Hello! I am very happy to be here with you today. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
3. (Gratuitous fancy slide) mattlemay.com | the business is your business
4. IMPACT DAY-TO-DAY WORK The things we do and decisions we make The measurable success of our business (Design, tech decisions, prioritization, “de fi nition of done”) (Growth, revenue) STRATEGY! INITIATIVES! OBJECTIVES OUTCOMES BETS mattlemay.com | the business is your business
5. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
6. Meanwhile, on LinkedIn: mattlemay.com | the business is your business
7. “Product teams CANNOT be responsible for business impact because it is the WRONG WAY TO DO THINGS because I READ ABOUT IT ON LINKEDIN!!!” “Impact metrics like revenue are LAGGING INDICATORS. *LAGGING 👏 INDICATORS 👏*. Do you EVEN KNOW what that MEANS?” “We’re just building the stuff you told us to build—if it doesn’t work, that’s your problem lol” Product Manager (ie, me) mattlemay.com | the business is your business
8. 6 months later….. CFO Product Manager mattlemay.com | the business is your business
9. Whether or not it is just and fair, product teams ultimately bear the consequences of low-impact work. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
10. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
11. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
12. The truth is that most oranization are set up to perpetuate low-impact work. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
13. Product teams deliver low-impact work More complicated products More dependencies and con fl icts to manage “Teams are doing work AROUND the work!” “Ugh SO MANY MEETINGS to manage dependencies!” “It’s too hard to make any major changes to the core product!” mattlemay.com | the business is your business
14. Every product team has the power to break the low-impact death spiral. But it isn’t easy. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
15. Breaking the low-impact death spiral: 1. Understand what success means to the business 2. Set team-level goals that contribute meaningfully to the business’s success 3. Keep your day-to-day work connected with your impact-level goals mattlemay.com | the business is your business
16. 1. Understand what success means to the business mattlemay.com | the business is your business
17. B2B B2C 😄 😄 😃 👀 👀 mattlemay.com | the business is your business
18. “How much growth would we need to see if we want to raise our next round of funding as a B2C business?” mattlemay.com | the business is your business
19. https://bit.ly/strategy_survival *Inspired by Adam Thomas’s “Survival Metrics” mattlemay.com | the business is your business
20. “Hey product team, how close are we to our green light goals?” mattlemay.com | the business is your business
21. Product teams at companies of all sizes need to know what specifically success means if they want to make effective day-to-day decisions. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
22. 2. Set team-level goals that contribute meaningfully to the business’s success mattlemay.com | the business is your business
23. Team Goal Team Goal FEATURE MANDATES!! “OUTCOMES OVER OUTPUT!” If we do this How much does it a ff ect this? mattlemay.com | the business is your business
24. Company Goal Department Goal Bigger Team Goal Team Goal Team Goal SPECIFIC INCREASE IN REVENUE BY EOY ???????? mattlemay.com | the business is your business How much would we need to achieve to feel good about our contribution as a team? Why were the features we built important to 
 the business?
25. Our team’s goal is: Converting 10,000 of our single-product users to multi-product users 
 
 before the end of the year 
 
 because the customer lifetime value of multi- product users is greater, and this will contribute meaningfully to the company’s revenue goals mattlemay.com | the business is your business
26. Team Goal Company 
 Goal Team Goal Team Goal Department Goal Different/No Goal Company Goal NOT LIKE THIS: LIKE THIS: Department Goal Bigger Team Goal * From Christina Wodtke, https://cwodtke.medium.com/cascading-okrs-at-scale-5b1335812a32 mattlemay.com | the business is your business
27. Are our team goals no more than one step away from company-level goals? 
 Do our team goals contribute to company-level goals enough to justify the company’s investment in the team itself? 
 Do our team goals involve speci fi c enough timelines and targets to drive subtractive decision-making? Team Goal mattlemay.com | the business is your business
28. Speci fi city Impact MAKE IMPORTANT NUMBER GO UP by… SOME AMOUNT??!? MAKE UNIMPORTANT NUMBER GO UP!!?!? MAKE UNIMPORTANT NUMBER GO UP A SPECIFIC AMOUNT!!! What goals are we working towards? mattlemay.com | the business is your business
29. There is no perfect number for impact- level goals. Try evaluating a few different orders of magnitude to see how each one would affect decision-making, and which one the team would feel makes a meaningful contribution to the business at large. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
30. 3. Keep your day-to-day work connected with your impact-level goals mattlemay.com | the business is your business
31. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
32. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
33. A B C 100 
 3,000 
 50 
 
 I
 DON’T
 CARE 
 
 IMPACT CONFIDENCE EFFORT L
 O 
 L
 
 OUR GOAL: 10,000 by EOY mattlemay.com | the business is your business
34. mattlemay.com | the business is your business Doing things 
 “the right way” Focusing on 
 the right things
35. Giving up the comfort and control of “doing things the right way” is scary. Really scary. mattlemay.com | the business is your business
36. mattlemay.com | the business is your business But the reality is that the success of our business depends largely on things we cannot control. And we ignore that reality at our own peril. YOUR JOB
37. Here’s a good place to start: “If you were in charge of the company, would you fund this team?” mattlemay.com | the business is your business
38. Matt LeMay
 
 mattlemay.com linkedin.com/in/mattlemay 📚 🤓
 
 @mttlmy ig 👔 🎸 🍲
 matt@mattlemay.com Thank you! mattlemay.com | the business is your business