Make Things That Matter

Adam Thomas: Operationalizing product strategy

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Episode notes

Adam Thomas is a coach that helps product teams operationalize strategy so they spend more time focused on building the right products and less time fighting fires.

In this conversation, we discuss Adam's decision making framework, Survival Metrics, which helps product teams make better decisions and avoid both sunk costs and loss aversion. We talk about:

* how to earn the trust of our counterparts and be better internal collaborators

* how to make our strategy a living, breathing thing

* key product leadership responsibilities that extend past product work

Links & resources mentioned:

* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

* Adam Thomas: website, LinkedIn, Twitter

* Adam’s Maven workshop: Survival Metrics

Related episodes:

* Melissa Perri: Product strategy and the missing middle

Books and media:

* Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

* The Crux

Other resources:

* Warhammer 40K

Timestamps:

[00:01:48] War gaming shaped product strategy

[00:03:22] Warhammer 40K

[00:07:11] Michael Jordan's Winning Shot

[00:11:22] The whole person equation

[00:14:15] Emotions in the workplace

[00:17:54] Survival metrics

[00:23:08] Implementing survival metrics

[00:27:26] Trust issues in product development

[00:30:05] Internal value exchange

[00:34:33] Being "Product Led" is Misleading

[00:36:26] Using survival metrics consistently

[00:39:23] Focusing on important outcomes

[00:45:12] Complying with regulations in finance

[00:46:19] Data privacy officer importance

[00:50:13] Questions to ask yourself



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