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Fascinating conversations with founders, leaders, and experts about product management, artificial intelligence (AI), user experience design, technology, and how we can create the best product experiences for users and our businesses.
Kyle (00:01.422)
All right, welcome to another episode of Proditees, Product by Design. I am Kyle and this week, this time we have a pretty special episode and I'm pretty excited about this one because it is actually episode 100 of this podcast, which is a big milestone and I'm pretty excited to do this one. Most of our episodes have been...
discussions and interviews with other product managers, UX designers, founders of companies, experts from the industry. And interestingly, I was actually going through and editing one of those episodes and realized it was actually episode 100. And so that will actually be episode 101, which will come out very soon, but decided...
that that would probably be a good time to stop and reflect a little bit on the past 99 episodes of this podcast. A little bit about where we've been, some of the discussions and interviews that we've had, and just some of the insights that we have learned over the past five -ish years or so. It hasn't been quite five years of the podcast, but it has been pretty close because...
The genesis of this was pre -COVID -19. It was literally, you know, we started talking about doing this before the pandemic really hit. And, you know, I wanted to start a podcast pretty much about the same time that I think everybody in the world wanted to start a podcast or just a little bit before. I think it really took off as everybody started to stay home and needed to find something to do and...
we were talking about that and really kind of planning things out in 2019. And then really started to have all of the episodes. And then during the early part of the pandemic, that's when we started recording and going live with everything. So it has been close to that, which puts us at a hundred episodes now. So it's been a really, really interesting journey. And we've...
Kyle (02:24.782)
change the format a little bit, but I wanted to go through and talk about five of, I think, some of the lessons that we have learned and some of the key things over the years that I think we've gotten from some of the episodes and call out some of the episodes along the way that have been some of the instrumental ones. And I think there've been probably too many to call out.
through the years. And so I'm not going to be able to get to all of them, but wanted to highlight some of the episodes that I think would be great to go back and listen to. And I put them in the show notes as well, that as we talk about them, you can go back and listen to some of those as well. But this isn't to say that this is all of them that you should go back and listen to, because I think that there are great insights from so many of them.
through the years, you should definitely go back and find any that look interesting, but just to call out some of them through the past four or five years or so, that would be great to go back. So with that, let's dive in and check out some of these because I'm excited to go back through. And this has been kind of a fascinating journey for me as well to go back through some of these conversations that we've had.
and just recall some of this as I've gone through and talked with so many really, really great people. And I probably need to do this more often. But without further ado, let's dive into some of these things. So one of the first key things for me has been learning from others. I think this has been one of the key insights and key takeaways for me over the years is that,
Learning from others has been one of the most important things. And that really has been, I think, the origin of this podcast in general. So in the early days, Eva and I, who was originally the co -host of this, she was a Lead UX designer and I was the head of product. And we decided that we wanted to make this podcast and really...
Kyle (04:46.734)
talk about product management and UX design and bounce ideas off of each other and frankly learn from each other, learn from experiences and talk about them and then share those experiences. And so that was really the origin and foundation of this podcast. And then from there, it really started to evolve into talking with other people.
bringing in other people's experiences so that we can learn from them as well and then share those with others. And I think it's just been a fascinating, fascinating experience for us and then for me to continue that and really learn from other people, not just about product management and user experience design, but also business, founding companies, the startup journey.
And not just that, but also in industries that I haven't necessarily had experience in. I have worked in many industries throughout my career, probably more than a lot of people as I've been in product management and worked across a variety of industries, but having conversations with people across a variety of industries. So I'll call out a couple episodes where...
we've been able to have just really interesting conversations with people across industries and learn from them and their experiences. And again, I think there are too many episodes to call them all out, but definitely go through and check out some of them. One of those episodes, an early one, episode 29 from April 23rd in 2021 was with...
a friend and former colleague, Rachel Larson, who is an absolutely excellent product manager and product leader. I learned a ton from her years ago when we worked together. And then we had a chance to have her on the podcast and again, learn from her experiences early in her days of product management. And then as she was taking on new challenges. So some of her experience in...
Kyle (07:11.566)
in balancing the work that she was doing and how to do that with a family. And she talks about that and some of the experiences as difficult as that can be. And then the product experience as well. So it was a wide ranging conversation that we had and got the chance to learn from her and her perspective.
And I thought that was a great one. So definitely check out episode 29. And again, that one's linked. And then we had another opportunity in another great episode, episode 37 with Jens Gozman that this was in October of 2021. And he has written a number of articles and on medium specifically about product management.
And that was kind of where we originally got connected. I used to do a lot of writing on medium. I've kind of pared that back and do more specifically for my newsletter, which you can find linked in the show notes as well. Still do some on medium, but less so now. But Jens has done a lot of writing. And we talked a lot about some of the things that he writes about, but also about the act of writing.
and how that acts as a forcing function for our thinking. And I found that to be so true that in order for me, and this is why I started writing early, early on, is that I needed a forcing function as well to really just gather my thoughts and really understand a concept. And I remember doing this years and years ago. I had just this problem and I wrote an article called,
product thinking versus project thinking, which is still probably one of the best articles that I've written. And I just, I was having this issue at work and I couldn't wrap my head around why we were butting heads so much as product managers versus kind of these, the project managers and these different mindsets of what we were trying to do. And so I just, I sat down and started writing about it to try and...
Kyle (09:36.654)
force myself to understand it better. And that was the genesis of this, was trying to understand this forcing function. And that was where this article came from. And it's still one that I go back to, and I think a lot of people go back to. And that was the topic of this conversation as well, was his work using this as a forcing function for himself. And...
why we do it and how we can do it effectively. So definitely check that one out, episode 37. And bringing this a little bit more recently, episode 93, where I had the opportunity to talk with the CEO of Product Board, Hubert Palin, who obviously, if you are in the product management industry, you are probably familiar with the tool, Product Board.
which is well known among the tools that product managers use. We talked about the evolution of product management, where things have been and where they're going, along with many other things, his experience and where he came from in his product management journey, as well as the experience of founding and leading.
a company within the product management space. And so learning so much from that itself. And this was a more recent one. So January of this year, 2024. So you'll definitely want to check that one out. And it was so interesting to learn from his experience and talk about not just his experience, but the experience of his teams and product board specifically. So that has been one of the...
The main things and probably one of the most important things is learning from other people, from their perspectives and being able to take that and apply it to the work that I do and compare some of the things that I do. How does that fit into maybe what other people are doing? What can I learn from them? And I think that's one of the most important things about this medium is...
Kyle (12:00.654)
being able to get other people's perspectives, which is why I enjoy doing this so much, is being able to understand that and then be able to share that with other people. So obviously the genesis of this podcast. So that's number one, learning from others. Number two, prioritization and prioritizing is everything. So we talk about prioritizing.
in so many different episodes. And one of the key things with that, I think, is prioritizing in life. So I think there's prioritizing in product and in our work, but also prioritizing in life, which is such an important topic. And I think that's where we talked about that very, very early on. In episode 33, we talked with Carrie Ann Moolman, and this was in...
July of 2021. And we talked about burnout. She wrote a fascinating article on burnout and how to survive a design career and the three predictors of burnout. And I thought this was just, it was a great, great conversation and still applicable today. And I think burnout is such an important topic and understanding when we are
seeing the signs of burnout and when we're approaching burnout, especially early on, because I think so many of us are facing burnout in our roles, in our jobs, in our lives. And what is that exactly? How can we understand it? How can we more appropriately address it? Because we don't want to be far along in that. She talks about how she...
address that in her career because she got to that point when it was far too far along and and the things that she did. So definitely check that one out because it was a great conversation. And then I really liked when we talked about this as well with Zach White in episode 67. And this was in March of 2023. And we talked about how burnout is when we are emptying the tank faster than we're
Kyle (14:23.95)
filling it and how we have to prioritize ourselves. And I think that that's a metaphor that I really enjoy and I think about a lot because it's a very, very useful one in order to understand that how we can view burnout and how we can view prioritization in our lives, that it's not necessarily something specific but...
It's just an ongoing thing and we have to be filling that tank as much as we're emptying it. And when things get out of balance, we can know early on. So definitely check that one out as well. And then obviously product prioritization is part of this as well. It's been a regular theme across so many episodes. And episode 80, which was in July of 2023, we spoke with
Kareem Mayan of Savio to discuss the importance of gathering and prioritizing customer feedback. And this is obviously such an important topic to me since I work in product management, also to him. So important that he founded a company built around the idea of gathering and prioritizing feedback from users. And that is of course Savio. And you'll definitely want to check that one out.
in the way that they approach it because if you work in product management or in anything kind of related, you'll want to understand why prioritizing customer feedback is so important and how to do it. What are some of the tools that can help you effectively do it? And what are some of, not just the tools, but the frameworks to use? And that was a huge part of the discussion that we had in that one in episode 80. So another great conversation. So that's number two.
why and how prioritization and prioritizing is so important. So number three, as far as our lessons go, is focusing on people. We talk a lot about focusing on customers and users as part of the work in product management specifically. And I think this goes for anyone.
Kyle (16:51.438)
in business in general, we have to focus on our users and our customers. And in episode 49, I had a great conversation with Dr. Kenya Odor. And we discussed human centered design. And this was in May of 2022. We talked about so many things, but specifically how we can avoid bias in our user research.
and how we can focus on one, the importance of user research and the importance of understanding the user experience and really focus on designing for people. Again, that human centered design and a focus on our actual users and our customers and what that actually looks like. This was another great conversation that I think.
You'll definitely want to go back and listen to, I know that it was a great one for me. So as we focus on people, we also want to focus on the people that we work with, our teams. And this has been a recurring theme throughout so many of our episodes, the importance of building and sustaining a good team. This often comes through choosing the right people, mentoring, coaching.
breaking down silos within our organizations, working across groups so we can be effective. We've discussed this in so many different episodes, including one with Justin Zalewski, who is a director of product design. And this was in episode 70 in March of 2023. And this was another great episode. And we discussed a whole bunch of different topics, including...
the idea of breaking down silos and how we can work effectively across different organizations. And definitely go back and listen to this one among many others. And finally, as we focus on people, how do we get diverse perspectives for our products and for our teams? We've had a number of discussions on this and I think it's so important.
Kyle (19:12.59)
because if we don't do this, and this has been a topic from very, very early in this podcast, we make very, very bad mistakes. And Eva very early on mentioned how this impacted some of her experience, not only as a designer, but just as a user of products. And in one discussion with Jenny Meyer, who was the co -founder of Collective MFG, and this was in episode 50,
which was in June of 2022, we discussed why they founded Collective MFG and the importance of having diverse voices and perspectives and the impacts of what happens if you don't, if you don't have people of different backgrounds, of different perspectives in your teams helping to design your products.
giving voice to different opinions within your groups. And it can feel sometimes a little uncomfortable if you have those voices, but it's so important because if you only have people agreeing in a team, that means that you're missing things all the time. And having good, healthy debate and disagreement.
means that you will always reach a better outcome in my experience. And I've noticed this in many of the discussions that we have in the teams and groups that I have. And again, sometimes it can feel uncomfortable when there's disagreement, when there's different perspectives, but that is always good because it means that you are bringing different ideas out.
And when everybody is always agreeing when everybody's always always has the same ideas or perspectives that means In my experience that you're missing things and so again, I think this is a great episode Episode 50 and we've talked about this in a number of different episodes as well. So it was number three focusing on people Number four, I think this is a great one having a clear
Kyle (21:40.238)
vision. This is so important in product management, in business, it's also important in life. You know, what do you want your life to be? Because it's so easy to get lost in the work. And so in an episode, I go back to a lot is the conversation I had with author and founder, Joey Cofone. This was episode 58 in October of 2022. And we talked a lot about
creativity and Joey's personal story is one of a creative vision in your personal life. So not just for your business, but even though that's part of it, but also for your life. And so it was a fascinating episode that we talked about so many different things as far as creativity, his story and his book, which again, I still thoroughly enjoy, which is called the laws of creativity.
And we talk a lot about that as well and how they apply to the work that we're doing, but also to life. And so definitely go back and check that one out. Episode 58. That was a great one. And we talked a lot about product vision and this is probably a soapbox I get on all the time. I write about it all the time as well. In episode 69 in March of 2023, we talked with Niha Bansal from Google.
about the importance of starting with a product vision and strategy and how that is part of how Google operates, but also how we should operate in that way, starting with what is the vision of what we're doing. And this is something I feel like so many teams and different organizations miss is that we often start with the execution. What are the features that we're building? What are the things that we're doing as opposed to what is the vision of what we're trying to create?
And if we don't have that vision of what we're doing, it's so easy to get lost in just the details and never get to the overarching goal of what we're trying to achieve. And I feel like it's so easy then to just focus on features and just continually churn out things that we get lost in that. We never end up getting to the thing that we're trying to do.
Kyle (24:06.83)
because we've never defined that thing that we're trying to do. The thing just becomes churning out features and we become a feature factory of just cranking things out. And at that point, leadership and executives and people higher up get lost in features as well. And they just want lists of features as opposed to outcomes, as opposed to the vision that we're trying to achieve, whatever that is. So this is so important to me. Like what is that clear?
vision of the thing that we want, whether that's a personal thing, whether that's a thing for a product, whether that is the thing for business, what is the vision that we want and what's the strategy that we're using to get there and then getting into the details of how exactly it is that we're going to do that. And finally, the importance of, and this is number five, the importance of adaptability. And we'll talk a little bit about a couple of things here, but like so many podcasts,
And I talked a little bit about this at the beginning. We've adapted. So, we started right before COVID and ramped up through the pandemic. And this podcast has been a lesson in adaptation. We started as a little bit of a different format and have adapted and changed. And I think that has been for something that has been really great. And it has been...
a growing experience for me and for this show. And I've been excited about it along the way. And then we've talked a lot about adaptability and its importance in many different episodes. One that stands out for me as I was going back through is a conversation that I had with Eli Pakous in episode 63. And this was in January of 2023. He is a serial inventor and is constantly...
had to pivot ideas and we talked about so many of his ideas as he's invented different things. And one that we talked about on that show was an invention for flossing. And he had an idea that he wanted to pursue and he had to pivot many times throughout because it wasn't working. The idea that he had or the way he wanted to implement it just wasn't working. And he had to adapt and change. And he talks about the many things that went wrong with that and the mistakes he made.
Kyle (26:33.934)
as he adapted and changed it. And it was a great story, not necessarily in the technology industry like we talk about normally, but so many applicable ideas to it. And so definitely worth listening to. I love getting outside of my industry and learning from some of those other areas, going back to kind of that first one that I talked about. And then also talking about adaptability and change. A conversation I had with Kevin Seres going back.
to, and this one is a little bit more recently, episode 91 from December of 2023. Kevin has been around since some of the early days. He was there at General Magic, for those who know, which was one of the companies that paved the way for the digital assistants that we know today, like Siri and others, which I can't say because I have one sitting right here.
and many of the modern AI applications that we use. And so he has seen a lot of the changes and has adapted throughout his career and used his skills both in the industry to adapt and outside of it. Like his Broadway skills and his producing skills, which we talked about. And it was a fascinating conversation because he's done many things and brought those in to the technology world, but also taken his technology.
skills and use them in the production of film and Broadway, which is, it is a fascinating conversation. You'll definitely want to check out that one. Again, episode 91, you can find that in the show notes. So that is a look back at some of the key lessons that I have taken away, learning from others, prioritizing, focusing on people, having a clear vision and adapting.
along the way. And I think that this podcast reaching a hundred episodes, I think it was a great time to just pause and reflect on where we've been. I'm excited for the next hundred episodes, which, you know, we'll see over the next couple of years. You know, maybe we'll get to 200 faster. If I'm able to continue to run through these, hopefully that is the case.
Kyle (29:01.966)
but it has been an absolute fascinating ride and I've been super excited about it and appreciate everybody who has been listening along the way to all of you for listening, sharing, appreciate it. Hopefully this also has been an interesting episode as we've kind of looked back through some of the episodes that we have done in the past and taken out some of the key insights and learnings from those.
If you like it, definitely let me know and share it. But until next time, we will talk again then.