steve johnson, purple squirrels and other lies, bos usa 2016

Steve Johnson@[email protected]://www.under10playbook.com

Purple squirrels and other lies

© 2016 Under10 Consulting

Candidates with the perfect combination of skills, education, and experience

(and will also work for peanuts)


What skills are you seeking?


TECHNOLOGY


OPERATIONS


DOMAIN


PROCESS


Decision makers, whether CEO or

product manager, need to leverage all types of expertise.


“The ideal candidate has extensive experience in our technology, business, markets, and domain.”


Technology

Business

Markets

DomainOperations


“ Anyone who acquires deep expertise does so at the

expense of breadth.Andrew Hargadon,

author, How Breakthroughs Happen


Expertise

Products

Dev

Sales


Expertise

Products

Dev

Sales

Our sales people should

be able to implement my

product. I support 300 products. What are

their names?


Johnson’s rule of management:

Nothing seems difficult to people who don’t have

to do it.


“ We value people who are learning machines and are

highly adaptable over people who only bring experience.

David Cancel, CEO & Founder, Drift


Who’s been hiding their

headcount in product

management?

Exec

How large should a product

management team be?

Sales

Mktg

Dev


listen

DEFINE DESCRIBE

EVALUATE

ENABLE

RELEASE

SCHEDULE

LAUNCHANALYZE

DESCRIBE Expertise: Product

LAUNCH Expertise: Market

DEFINE Expertise: Business

SCHEDULE Expertise: Product

ENABLE Expertise: Market

EVALUATE Expertise: Business

RELEASE Expertise: Product

ANALYZE Expertise: Business

PROPOSE DEVELOP DELIVER

Prepared for

ByUnder10 Playbook Canvas™

1609 © 2012-2016 Under10 Consulting, LLC

listen DEFINE DESCRIBE

EVALUATE

ENABLE

RELEASE

SCHEDULE

LAUNCHANALYZE


“ When I do my job right, there’s no sign of it;

disasters just fail to occur.Herman Wouk

War and Remembrance


The ideal candidate: one who can learn and gets shit done.


Don’t look for “purple squirrels.”

Instead, build expertise in all your teams.

And disasters will fail to occur.

Steve Johnson@[email protected]://www.under10playbook.com