This is a podcast for people interested in building or designing tech products. 

At least once a week, I speak to product managers, product leaders, product marketers, UX professionals, and anyone else involved in product management and product delivery. 

Come and listen to some great conversations and get inspired! 

Listen on your favourite podcast app or on https://www.oneknightinproduct.com

About the episode 
Milly Tamati is a former "Director of Miscellaneous" who travelled the world before settling in a tiny island off the coast of Scotland with 170 residents, a castle and a distillery. She's always been a generalist at heart and is now looking to support a global community of like-minded professionals with Generalist World.
A message from this episode's sponsor - One Knight Consulting
This episode is sponsored by <a href='https://www.oneknightconsulting.com/'>One Knight Consulting</a>. Yes, yes, that's me. But listen up. I started One Knight Consulting because I have seen variations of the same problems plaguing growing startups, scale-ups and larger, digitally transforming companies again and again. These problems can cause friction between teams, slow product development, lacklustre sales, and ultimately lead to constrained growth. If you're scaling your product organisation, struggling with cross-team alignment or having trouble executing your product strategy to support your business goals, <a href='https://www.savvycal.com/onejasonknight/enquiry'>book a call with me</a> and we can discuss your needs and how I can help.

Episode highlights:

1. Not everyone needs to be a specialist, you could be a generalist!
Do you not fit neatly in a box? Do you consider yourself a jack of all trades/someone who wears many hats? You might be a generalist & there are lots of generalists out there. Embrace it and find your people!
2. The generalist sweet spot is in smaller companies & startups
All companies could benefit from good people, but startups especially need people to be the connectors, tie things together and solve whatever problems arise whatever the domain. Generalism is a superpower here.
3. If you've got a product that makes people's eyes light up then you're onto something
Milly started Generalist World by speaking to a few people, but every single person's eyes lit up & they were all super-passionate. This is a perfect signal that you're doing something right!
4. Applying a "Jobs to be Done" mentality to recruitment could be a step change in hiring practices
We can make hiring less transactional & more human by not just talking about job roles, but problems that you need to solve and the skills you need to solve them.
5. Milly believes in communities but believes 9 out of 10 will fail
It's just so easy to create a community these days. Companies & brands are jumping on board, doing the bare basics & leaving a ghost town behind. Companies need to be strategic & intentional to be successful.

Contact Milly
You can connect with Milly on <a href='https://twitter.com/MillyTamati'>Twitter</a>, <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/milly-tamati/'>LinkedIn</a> or check out <a href='https://www.generalist.world/'>Generalist World</a>.

One Knight in Product

Using The Power of Community to Help you Thrive in a Generalist World (with Milly Tamati, Founder @ Generalist World)

Adrienne Barnes started out working to help people with their user personas but found that her work pointed to an even bigger problem - companies entering growth stalls and unable to recover. She is now here to tell us all how we might maintain our flightworthiness and get back onto the path of sustainable growth.
 
 

A message from this episode's sponsor - Product People
This episode is sponsored by <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. If you’re a company founder or product leader who needs to get a product management team up and running quickly or cover parental leave check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. They’ve got a thriving community and 40 in-house product managers, product ops pros, and product leaders. They onboard fast, align teams and deliver outcomes. Check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a> to book a free intro chat and quote code OKIP to get a 5% discount.
 
 
Episode highlights:
 
 
Growth Stalls can happen to anyone and often happen after really strong growth
Companies can be growing, growing, growing and then all of a sudden just stall. There are factors that influence this, but if they're not addressed then growth stalls can last for years or decades
 
 
There are some red flags that indicate growth stalls and leaders need to listen
Too many leaders believe in themselves too much that they miss the signs of a growth stall & fail to address them. Status quo bias and ignoring dissenting opinions can impede efforts to fix it.
 
 
The earlier you catch a growth stall the better but it's never too late
Identifying stalls early naturally helps, but if you catch it late then you can still turn it around as long as you're realistic about what "turning it around" means and adjust your expectations.
 
 
Growth comes from understanding your customers & too many companies don't
If teams have different user personas defined, no one has user personas defined. There needs to be a concerted effort to understand your ideal customers and it should be a top-down, aligned effort.
 
 
Alignment is crucial for any of this stuff to work
The top reasons for growth stalls are: Not understanding your customers, Not understanding your positioning, Knowledge gaps & misalignments between teams. You need everyone to know the same stuff & pull in the same direction!
 
 
Contact Adrienne
You can connect with Adrienne on <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-barnes-2001/'>LinkedIn</a>, <a href='https://www.twitter.com/AdrienneNakohl'>Twitter</a> or check her website, <a href='https://adriennenakohl.com/'>AdrienneNakohl.com</a>.

Episode 152 - Making Sure you REALLY Know your Customers and Pulling out of Growth Stalls (with Adrienne Barnes, Founder @ Best Buyer Persona)

Heidi Helfand is an engineering leader, consultant, coach, speaker and author who says that we need to "make the most of the time we have with people". Throughout her career, she's noted how team change is inevitable and wanted to help companies navigate it with her book "Dynamic Reteaming".
 
 

A message from this episode's sponsor - Product People
This episode is sponsored by <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. If you’re a company founder or product leader who needs to get a product management team up and running quickly or cover parental leave check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. They’ve got a thriving community and 40 in-house product managers, product ops pros, and product leaders. They onboard fast, align teams and deliver outcomes. Check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a> to book a free intro chat and quote code OKIP to get a 5% discount.
 
 
Episode highlights:
 
 
Team change is inevitable but what's important is how you deal with it
Even if you're going for long-lived mission-based teams, they're still going to change through attrition, company growth, lay-offs or mergers. There's a playbook to deal with this change.
 
 
Dynamic Reteaming helps you however you decide to set up your teams
Books like Team Topologies tell you how to set up your teams to deliver value effectively. Dynamic Reteaming can work hand in hand with that approach and help you get there.
 
 
Team members don't always get to choose what happens
Sometimes people & teams will get moved around & sometimes this change will come top-down. It's ideal for team members to have a say, but ultimately it's important for the leadership to communicate, communicate. communicate
 
 
Bottom-up reteaming can work but your mileage might vary
Some companies allow people to decide what teams they work on, but your mileage may vary and, ultimately, in many companies, it's important to mix grassroots and executive input to get true success
 
 
Dynamic Reteaming offers a playbook for different types of team changes
The patterns within Dynamic Reteaming include people-focused approaches to use before and after team changes. The most important principles are to be kind, thoughtful and to treat people with respect.
 
Buy "Dynamic Reteaming"
 
"Your team will change whether you like it or not. People will come and go. Your company might double in size or even be acquired. In this practical book, author Heidi Helfand shares techniques for reteaming effectively. Engineering leaders will learn how to catalyze team change to reduce the risk of attrition, learning and career stagnation, and the development of knowledge silos. Based on research into well-known software companies, the patterns in this book help CTOs and team managers effectively integrate new hires into an existing team, manage a team that has lost members, or deal with unexpected change"

Check it out on <a href='https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamic-Reteaming-Wisdom-Changing-Teams/dp/1492061298'>Amazon</a>. You can also check out the <a href='https://www.heidihelfand.com/dynamic-reteaming/'>book website</a>
Contact Heidi
You can connect with Heidi on <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihelfand/'>LinkedIn</a>.

Team Change is Inevitable - What’s Important is How we Respond to It (with Heidi Helfand, Author ”Dynamic Reteaming”)

About the Episode
Mirela Mus is a product manager, product leader, mentor, coach, advisor and company founder who wanted to solve a problem that she kept seeing when she spoke to company leaders; the need to spin up product teams to cover hiring gaps and parental leave. She's doing this with her firm Product People.

 
A message from this episode's sponsor - Product People

 
This episode is sponsored by <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. If you’re a company founder or product leader who needs to get a product management team up and running quickly or cover parental leave check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a>. They’ve got a thriving community and 40 in-house product managers, product ops pros, and product leaders. They onboard fast, align teams and deliver outcomes. Check out <a href='https://www.oneknightinproduct.com/productpeople'>Product People</a> to book a free intro chat and quote code OKIP to get a 5% discount.
 
 
Episode highlights:
 
It's important to support promising new product managers
 
Mirela is committed to bringing talent into product management with the Product People operating model which gives APMs real-world product experience whilst maintaining quality for clients
 
You don't have to start a SaaS startup to be an entrepreneur
 
Mirela wasn't excited by building a SaaS product to solve everyday problems, and she found lots of problems through her own consulting which showed her the real problem and why a product agency is needed
 
Companies can be pretty bad at onboarding in general
 
But it's not always the case that good onboarding = a good experience. There are plenty of examples of great onboarding into poor company culture and bad onboarding into a great culture. It's the culture that's important!
 
Onboarding for product managers is harder than for most roles
 
Product managers are at the centre of everything and the requirements of the role can be really ambiguous depending on the company. The product culture is often underdeveloped which can drag product managers down.
 
There's a playbook for this stuff and a structured approach that PMs can take
 
You need to come up with a plan. There are things you can ask for in advance, stakeholders to map and sensitive topics to uncover. These can help you work out where you need to focus to be successful.
 
Contact Mirela
 
You can check out Mirela's blog post, <a href='https://medium.com/productpeople/blazing-fast-onboarding-for-pms-edbd6c8ae33c'>Blazing Fast Onboarding for Product Managers</a>. You can connect with Mirela on <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirelamus/'>LinkedIn</a>.

One Knight in Product

One Knight in Product by One Knight in Product

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