Au coin du feu 🔥- #02 | The framework that ensures autonomy, alignment and effective product decision-making.
As a Chief Product Officer, when you start a new position in a startup, you must set up multiple products “things” (always).
When I joined Eldo 3 months ago, I decided to bring some "changes".
One was about the organisation, from a feature factory to a value factory, changing the mindset to an Outcomes organisation, working around business/impact value and not around feature factory anymore.
I have the chance to work with a CEO, a COO & an EXCO who are very open-minded to understanding what Product Management is and how Product Management can impact our growth in the following significant steps. We speak daily about becoming a PL(G) company in the next 12 months (maybe less ;)).
Thx, guys for your confidence.
I will not explain all the modifications I made, and I will not explain how I set up an outcomes organisation in 1 month (What a challenge! ). Today I take the time to present another core topic I bring to Eldo and the Product Team.
Let’s speak together about Product Principles.👇
🧐 What are Product Principles?
From warrenumoh on Unsplash
🗣 “Where the product vision describes the future you want to create, and the product strategy describes your path to achieving that vision, the product principles speak to the nature of the products you want to create — @Marty Cagan.” 🗣
They are sentences or unique words. Remember to define something that will describe your company and products, boost your teams, and make it EASY TO BE REMINDED.
They give direction, help with product decision-making, and have all of the company on the same page.
Product principles are not mandatory, but I recommend them even if you are in hypergrowth or not. This “frame” brings autonomy to the team for every action/decision they want to make. It will ensure that all the decisions have the same & unique direction.
Product Principles are a set of guardrails that help drive consistency.
Even if your Product vision does not change, your Product Strategy will evolve and must be adapted regularly. This opens a vast amount of decisions, small and bigger, daily. This is precisely what Product Principles do, allowing the teams to make decisions without someone saying yes or no—developing the team’s autonomy.
People (at least on the product side) thrive when they can make decisions independently, without a leader who approves everything.
Imagine a framework for Product decision-making assisting your Product Team (and more) in making effective decisions autonomously and being aligned with the Product’s vision & the company’s values & mission.
You don’t need to be original when you create your Product Principles. The main point is to have a team who believes in them!
To ensure you use them correctly, it is interesting to remember what they are not.👇
❌ They are not the company’s mission,
❌ They are not the Product vision or Product strategy,
❌ They are not KPIs to follow daily,
❌ They are never finished. Product Principles will always be used.
They guide your teams to be autonomous & efficient on what you need to build and how to build it—keeping consistency!
Product Principles @Eldo 🤩
Yes, it’s ONE word, not a list of explanations on a framework for Product decision-making.
To ensure that our Product Principles are related to Eldo’s DNA and easy to remember, I created a singular word, “UNIQUE”.
We are UNIQUE through the quality of our product, our relationship with our clients, our processes, our decisions, our teams, and the fact that everything we did, doing & everything is in the same and UNIQUE direction.
As one team, we are working together for a UNIQUE objective, becoming the #1 unique centralised platform in the Construction Industry.
Let’s deep dive into it. 😍
🚀 Unique
Make it “unmatchable”. No one can offer such a unique value! We are ambitious. We are not afraid to make the impossible happen. We are not afraid to deliver new and unique solutions.
🌟 Neat Product
Whatever we do, we must provide high-quality decisions.
🎯 Impact driven
We always work with an impact/outcome in mind, and everything we do is monitored and analysed to ensure that we are working on the chosen impact.
We are data-informed! We use data as a tool, not as an absolute truth!
The environmental issue is one of the main topics to be addressed in the coming months/years; at Eldo, we truly want to be part of it, and we will work on it to help as much as possible.
🧠 Qualified
We deeply understand our users to always provide the best suitable solutions.
🤝 User-centric
We draw our strength from our Clients & Consumers. They are always involved in our thoughts. Feels effortless, giving users more time to focus on the work that matters.
💚 Emotions
Whatever our decisions, we deliver high emotional quality through our user-friendly solutions. We are creators of emotions.
Generally, we want concise Product principles to ensure that everyone can remember them easily and be on the same page. Nevertheless, I believe you must find the word that describes the company, your DNA, what your product represents and around which the teams will align.
These product principles are those of the team. Like I said before, “WE” are UNIQUE.
The teams must embrace them, sweat them and naturally use them.
As an example, here are the Intercom’s Product Principles
It’s crucial to remember that product principles will always be in “work in progress”. They need to be reassessed regularly.
Client & Consumer needs, Trends, market dynamics & technology change; moreover, we have the chance to constantly learn new things that can impact product principles.
I like to link Product Principles with Product personality (Are you interested in a dedicated article? Say it in the comments section!). The combination of both, linked to a clear and powerful product vision drives and frames the future without limiting the teams' ability to contribute actively!
At Eldo, we believe these Product principles will drive many more than product decisions. Everyone in the company is involved in making ELDO as “UNIQUE” as possible. We want this “framework” to help the Product team in decision-making, but this is relevant in a broader scope. Product principles should be company-wide, not siloed into the product team.
ONE Team behind ONE focus, together!
❓What about you? Do you have any Product Principles? How do you use it?
❓Are there any topics you'd like me to cover? Feel free to share in comments!
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Best
Alessandro 👋