OVERCOMING \THE BARRIERS \TO SUCCESSFUL PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS
TO SUCCESSFUL PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

A range of complex challenges and a competitive talent market mean businesses must implement a multi-dimensional strategy in order to progress their product leadership journeys. Being brave and persistent in tackling complex legacy issues, and nurturing and developing internal talent, are key to building an effective and resilient business.

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Given the nascent state of product leadership in most businesses, it is inevitable that people with these specific attributes may be scarce. Skilled workers such as computer programmers or engineers – who are vital in delivering digital products – will often command a premium in the wider job market. Even if it is possible to find these skilled workers, the cost of accessing and retaining these skills can be a major roadblock. Nearly one-third (31%) cited the lack of internal skillsets within their organisation as a problem and 29% cited the difficulties in recruiting these skills externally.

This can lead to other problems such as the inability to define and differentiate product leadership (29%) and achieve the necessary alignment between teams in the absence of strong product leaders (31%). As identified earlier, being able to build a narrative and sell a vision to their team and the wider organisation is essential if product leaders are to develop traction and momentum for a product-led enterprise.

^{Homing in on product leadership is all about changing the way people think. Getting to think beyond the next 6-12 months and thinking longer term. We have built our team from those who have experience in stores, but also those who have engineering or programming backgrounds. A focus on product-led initiatives and thinking means there is a high demand for talent. Further to that, there is a real need to find the right balance to get the team operating together effectively, as those with a different background have a slightly different mindset. Those from our stores tend to be more in the weeds of what impacts our employees, whereas those with an engineering background approach think with a more conceptual mindset.}

CARLA HARDING, PRODUCT DIRECTOR – ENABLING FUNCTIONS, TESCO

In order to overcome such challenges, our survey finds that business leaders feel they need to:

recruit the
right skills

invest in new capabilities
and technology

invest in internal
product training

make changes to how
their company is organised

Experience of working on product design and development (56%), a track record in delivering complex projects (55%) and a technical understanding of the working product (53%) are cited as the top three requirements when recruiting or developing a product leader. As mentioned earlier however, recruiting externally is more easily said than done.5 Product is an emerging discipline and receiving a fresh rush of investment. This sudden surge in demand for product talent, and product leaders in particular, makes recruitment challenging, especially when trying to find someone with all of the skills highlighted above. In response to this, many organisations are looking to train and develop existing product managers for product leader roles or indeed, identify relevant roles and/or individuals with the appropriate soft skills – for example, those who are highly analytical with high agency and the ability to manage difficult stakeholder conversations – to transfer from other areas of the business.

Consequently, recruitment of external talent has to be one element of a wider skills strategy. Talent management, internal development and training must be factored into the plan in the current market environment.

The biggest single barrier is the legacy of poor IT systems and platforms. The very thing a product leader is attempting to fix can prove to be the most difficult if internal teams are not aligned and if the product leader does not possess the necessary skills to bring the business together.

Legacy technology is an existential threat to many businesses. Perhaps understandably, because of the time and resources required to effectively develop appropriate strategies for transforming legacy applications and executing them, businesses all too often shelve a complete overhaul. Instead, tactical moves to bolt-on customer-facing technology are more easily taken.

Yet as we have seen in high-profile cases across a range of sectors (such as banking, the airline industry and the public sector), there are significant pitfalls in postponing the transformation of legacy systems. This ultimately slows down long-term progress as the integration with legacy technology can be cumbersome. As we showcased earlier in our top three picks for organisations that have effectively deployed a product-led growth strategy, it is unsurprising that successful product-led businesses are likely to be agile, newer, technology-led companies. For more mature businesses to realise the full potential of product leadership, legacy issues must be addressed head on.

We try as much as we can to develop our product leaders internally, but we face several barriers to that. For our product managers it is first of all moving away their domain. A lot of our product managers are very deep in quite complex things related to our product, like money flows or safeguarding. We are a regulated financial company, so we have to do those types of things really thoroughly. Our product managers develop expertise, and they get into the minutia on those sorts of issues. A challenge for us is transforming those people. The barriers to developing those people are really around allowing them to zoom out and have a wider remit. It is about being a bit more of a pragmatist and applying their generic product craft to other things.

ANDY WIGGAN, VP PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, GOCARDLESS