Breaking the CPO Bubble: My Strategy for Staying Close to Our Products

As the Chief Product Officer for 8 product departments with 30 teams, I found myself in a bubble, losing the feeling of the real-world state of our products. To break this bubble, I spent six months creating a new approach to reconnect with our products and customers. I'm excited to share this journey and how it helped me break out of the CPO bubble.

Choose Demos Over 1-on-1 Meetings

I used to talk about product changes in one-on-one meetings with my Head of Products. This often led to misunderstandings and a weaker connection with the product. So, I started going to every demo in the company. This kept me in the loop with the latest updates and let me talk directly with all teams.

I also changed how we did demos. Instead of just talking about what we did in a sprint, we looked at the bigger picture. We talked about how these results matched our goals for the quarter, the problems we faced, and how I could help. This was much like what I used to do in my one-on-one meetings.

This might seem like it takes a lot of time, and it does. That brings me to the next point.

Cut Down on Repetition and Focus on Switching

First, I made my one-on-one meetings every other week. In one week, I had demos, and the next, one-on-ones. Since we already talked about products and goals in the demos, there was no need to repeat it. We focused more on strategy, personal growth, and other issues. This saved time and made the team more involved.

Also, I set one day for all the demos. Having them all on the same day helped me stay focused and not switch between demos and other work. It also made sprint schedules line up and made planning easier.

Plus, it meant product leaders could join each other's demos, which brought the teams closer together.

Put Processes First

We started doing product sprints, where we set goals for the whole product team and talked about updates together. This saved even more time for my team and me, as it was a set time to talk about any problems and how things depended on each other.

We also began doing quarterly demos. This let everyone in the company see what we achieved and gave me a broader view of the big improvements in our products. I could see how valuable these changes were from the customer's point of view.

Give More Attention to High-Priority Areas

The steps above helped me keep an eye on all our products. But to really understand the finer details, I regularly focused on the most important parts of our system. I chose these based on what was most important for the company.

I worked closely with the teams, learning about every detail and speeding things up with my support. As I moved my focus around, I learned a lot about many products and helped achieve key goals.

One More Small Thing

A key part often missed is connecting with the team that's actually making the product. To do this, I set up a regular time when anyone in my non-direct team could talk to me. They just had to book a time and fill out a questionnaire about their understanding of the company’s goals, our products, and our customers.

This was a great way to quickly find out about problems with products, solve conflicts, and get insights about our customers.

Conclusion

To sum up, being a Chief Product Officer of many product teams showed me how important it is to be closely connected to our products and the teams working on them.

By moving from one-on-one meetings to group demos, changing how often and what we talk about in meetings, and doing sprints and reviews at the same time, I could keep a close watch on how our products were developing. Regularly focusing on key areas of our products and making it easy for the non-direct team to talk to me added to my understanding and effectiveness.

These methods made our work smoother, got the team more involved, and made sure our products kept up with what our customers needed. This new approach became a key part of how we manage products, leading to more innovation and happier customers.