I had a blast being a guest on the Products That Count podcast with Nacho Andrade! I share my thoughts on the importance of explaining the "why" behind an initiative, having discipline with your roadmap, focusing on success metrics, and why networking is so critical for PMs. Bonus: learn my biggest Product pet peeve and why I think the Nintendo Switch is still my favorite product 6 years later.
Thank you again to Nacho and Products That Count for having me!
https://lnkd.in/gu4dk5N5
Take Six with Paul Micheli, Senior Product Manager
Careport highlighted me for their Take Six blog in August of 2020. I am re-posting the interview here:
Tell us more about your role as Senior Product Manager at CarePort. What does your average day look like?
There are a couple things that happen during my typical day. I usually start the day early with a call with one of two offshore development teams in India, one of which I’ve been working with on our new Denial Management module, and the other with which I discuss our ad hoc reporting. These check-ins serve as a time to make sure what the development teams are building, and what I’ve intended for the product, are aligned.
I then have other meetings throughout the day – whether with clients or internally – which could include showing clients or stakeholders new product concepts and receiving feedback, or working on a product roadmap and determining what updates come next.
When I’m not in meetings, I’m either writing product requirements, documenting what’s coming with a new release, or designing new product concepts. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time reviewing documentation and working with internal stakeholders to in preparation for our next product release, Care Management 20.2.
What is your favorite aspect of your job?
I love collaborating and working with people. I absolutely love talking to clients – whether learning their problems and workflows, understanding their day-to-day processes, or identifying their pain points. It’s exciting to have new problems to solve.
Once we’ve developed new solutions or product concepts, I like talking to clients to receive their feedback to ensure the product addresses the challenges they’ve discussed with us. I was a user experience designer before working in product management, and speaking with clients and end users was always the most enjoyable part of my job. I enjoy user research, and fortunately I’m able to do that in this role, as well.
I also love brainstorming as a group – particularly during the conceptual phase of product development. I really enjoy collaborating during those early processes, when there are several possibilities to solve a problem and we need to work together to identify a singular solution before moving forward.
What’s next for the Care Management product?
Thanks for asking! The Care Management 20.2 release will be live in August, and it includes two new exciting features. I’ve been working on the Denial Management module, which has been completely redesigned. We have a new front-end technology that we’ve been working with, and it’s the first of – hopefully – many updates to the Care Management platform to ensure that we provide users with a modern and flexible user interface. I know that many of our current Denial Management clients are very excited to see this new offering. I’m looking forward to its launch, and hope that Denial Management improves workflows for clients that are tracking their denials.
The other exciting new feature within Care Management 20.2 is our post-acute authorization feature. This actually a huge release for us! It’s the first time that we’ll have two significant updates happening in one release. Moving forward, we hope to remain innovative and nimble so that we can address the quickly evolving care management market.
What else makes this release unique? Can you tell us about the redesign process?
This has been a long, three-year process. We took a user-centered design – or design thinking – approach for this. We spent a lot of time interviewing managers and end users, both on- and off-site. We did a six-month research effort to better understand how the legacy denials module was used, and I listened to feedback from clients and internal stakeholders. I like to call myself the “dartboard” on products like that: throw all of the darts at me, I will listen and I then figure out how to improve it.
We also worked with a UX designer for quite a few months to develop different design concepts, and we took those concepts to our clients for feedback before finalizing and moving forward. There were a couple false starts on the technology side – trying to find the right technology that would fit the solution.
It’s taken a lot of patience and persistence, but I feel like we did things in what I would call the “right” way. By identifying clients’ challenges to better understand what they were going through, we put our users first. I think the outcome is going to be fantastic for our clients. There’s a lot of buzz, internally and with the clients that I work with, about this release. I hope that, in the future, we follow this design thinking approach for all of our initiatives and major releases.
What’s something about you that coworkers would be surprised to learn?
Over the last year and a half, I’ve taken improv classes at The Second City, and I completed their improv program in October 2019. It’s been a fun process! I initially signed up because I thought it would be a good way to become a better public speaker – and be quicker on my feet – but I absolutely fell in love with it. I’ve met amazing people, and it’s been a great way to make friends – including a lot of very funny people from all walks of life. At first, I was petrified to go on stage… growing up, I never did drama or school plays. The first time I went on stage and performed a 15-minute show, however, it was a huge growth experience for me. From that moment on, I’ve been addicted to improv and have looked for any opportunity to perform. It’s probably the thing I’ve missed the most during COVID-19, which has been hard. I’m hoping that world will open up again sometime soon. In the meantime, I’ve tried to do some comedy writing in my free time.
What are your hobbies outside of work?
I try to keep myself really active, and I’m very outdoorsy. I ran a half Ironman the past two summers, and I used to run marathons. Unfortunately, there’s no racing going on right now – so I try to make up for it with more hikes, camping, stand-up paddle boarding and visiting local forest preserves outside Chicago. I have a dog named Biscuit, and I like to bring her along with me.
I recently went to Michigan and visited Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I did a brutal hike – two miles each way, climbing nothing but sand dunes to get to the water. I’ve done some pretty intense mountain hikes in the past, but this was one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done. It was amazing once I reached the water and could cool off, but then I realized I had to do the two-mile trek in the hot sand back to the parking lot!
To learn more about what Paul’s been working on, read our recent blog post about our Denial Management offering, which lives within CarePort Care Management.
How My Secrets to Run a Marathon Apply to Product Management
I recently did an interview with my friend, Silvia Li, for her web series “Three Success Secrets. I discussed my secrets to find success in completing a marathon. Yes, the 26.2 miles on your feet type of marathon.
The three secrets I shared in the interview were:
Home stretch!
Set a Goal
Be Persistent and Patient
Find Help
I am about to launch a complete product re-design of our Denial Management offering that was a 3-year “marathon”. The interview made me take a step back and look at my recent experience. I realized the same secrets I shared also apply to Product Management. It is a challenging role that requires a strong set of soft skills to succeed.
These three secrets have helped me navigate the long road to build a product that many of our clients are really excited to get their hands on.
Set a Goal
When I prepared for my first marathon, I set a goal to finish the 26.2 mile journey. I didn’t focus on completing it in a specific time or running faster than someone else. My goal was focused on what I believed success would look like, and everything else was considered a distraction. I could have walked the entire race, and that would have been okay. That goal kept me motivated on those brutal 18 and 20 mile weekend runs while I was training.
In the same fashion, a good Product Manager needs to set goals for the product they are building. These product goals need to be based on the context of the product and the business. Examples can include launching by a specific deadline, meeting new revenue numbers, getting a specific amount of clicks onto a page, or reducing the time and effort to complete a task.
It can be really easy to get off track when building or updating a product. Product Managers constantly face the pressures of competing priorities, limited time and resources, and those distracting “fires”. Setting goals can give you something to point to every couple months to make sure the development efforts are on the right track. It is important to check in on these goals over the course of a project. I pick up my original Positioning Document every couple months to make sure my project is still going to meet the original goals I set. Doing this keeps me grounded during those challenging times.
I recommend using the SMART criteria to set goals. It will set you up for success to have objectively attainable, measurable goals to attain.
Finally, those check-ins may cause the product goals to change. That’s okay. Business priorities change; market needs shift. Set that new goal and re-focus on obtaining it.
Be Persistent and Patient
It’s a bit of an understatement to say training for a marathon is not easy. It is definitely a large physical undertaking. But I believe it is more of a mental exercise to spend 4–5 months ramping up mileage towards 26.2. It was not easy giving up hours of free time on my weekends, dealing with injuries that slowed me down and took my off my training plan, and changing my diet to support my nutritional needs. Believe me when I say there were days I wanted to sleep in, stay home, and watch TV. It takes a lot of persistence and patience to work through the challenges and stay committed to that goal.
That same persistence and patient is required of a good Product Manager to obtain those previously discussed goals. There are always going to be unexpected bumps on the road to building a product. How a Product Manager responds when things do not go according to plan may be more important than setting goals. Losing patience only gets you further off track and closer to failure.
The product redesign I have been working on had 2 or 3 false starts because we discovered the proposed architecture was not going to meet our business and design needs. I also saw this project get de-prioritized twice for other company initiatives. Half of the original development turned over during this period, which led the project shifting to a completely different offshore team.
That’s a lot of chaos for anyone! But I stayed with it. I kept pushing for the project to not be shelved. I would continue to share feedback from current clients that desperately wanted to see the denial management workflow that would increase their team’s efficiency. I had to argue we needed to move to new technology in order to stay competitive. I continued to remind leadership that we could move onto other projects, but my requirements and design concepts were ready to be picked up by development right now.
The point is: if you really believe in the product you are building, then a little backbone is needed to stay persistent and trust the process will get you to the finish line.
Find Help
Running is an individual sport. It was on me to set the training schedule, set aside the time, put the shoes on, and go out there and hit the pavement. However, to do something as intense as running a marathon, it is important to find support. I joined running clubs to run with like-minded people that were encouraging of my goals. I had the support of my friends and family, while saying I was crazy, still showed up on race day to cheer me on. And let’s not forget the volunteers handing me cups of water and sports drink along the way. I may have run the entire race, but I didn’t get to the finish line on my own.
This same secret applies to Product Management. I may be leading the efforts to build a successful product, but I rely on the following people:
Developers build the product
QA testers make sure a high quality product goes out the door
Support and Service personnel share client feedback
Tech writers provide the necessary user manuals
Marketing and Sales to spread the word and keep the product profitable
Without my teammates support and advice, I likely would have our clients at our office door with pitchforks and torches (or dropping their subscription).
A good Product Manager knows they are not an island and don’t have all the answers. I was willing to listen to the feedback on design concepts, requirements, and launch strategies. I really believe the collaboration helped me build the best possible product possible.
To bring the point home, I really like the way Patrick Neeman recently summed up the importance of collaboration in product.
Bonus tip: Celebrate your progress
On any long journey, like running a marathon or building a product, it is important to celebrate progress along the way. It is easy to focus on what hasn’t been accomplished and get discouraged. But when a small milestone is met, I take a moment to step back and take note of the successes to get to this point.
These milestones can be the first line of code being written, seeing the first product demo, or having that first successful user test of your design. Acknowledge the progress, thank your team for the hard work, and then celebrate however you see fit!
In Conclusion
The clients will ultimately let me know whether the product will be successful. However, I’m feeling confident my marathon running experience and living these secrets have helped me successfully navigate a challenging product development effort. Setting goals, staying persistent and patient, and finding help allowed me to get to the finish line.
How Improv Will Make You a Better Product Manager
Let’s face it, being a Product Manager is a tough job. Every day can bring new, unexpected challenges: Maybe it’s a new defect in your product, or you have an unhappy client, or maybe your developers just told you that really important feature is going to take 6 months to build. Those are the days when Happy Hour can’t come soon enough.
I was looking for a new activity to take on in my free time over a year ago, and decided to sign up for an Improv course at The Second City in Chicago. I thought it would be fun, with the hope it might help me with my public speaking skills. 15 months later, I have completed their Improv program, performed in numerous shows, and have developed a taste for comedy sketch writing. Little did I know I was stepping into a new hobby that has done wonders for my professional life.
Here are a few areas where Improv can help you become a better Product Manager:
Improv helps you become a better listener
Deep listening is crucial to be a successful improviser. Names, places, and relationships are all being made up during an improv scene. An improviser needs to listen carefully to everything being said so a scene can have continuity. It can be really awkward if one player starts saying they are at a rodeo, and the other player responds by saying they’re a pirate on a ship. It doesn’t make sense and you start losing the audience.
Those listening skills become really important as a Product Manager. Developers may present you a compelling explanation about the feasibility of a feature that could affect product direction. Sales may be describing a potential new feature that could be a business growth opportunity. Listening closely to end-users will help build understanding of the problem they are really having, and help avoid building exactly what they asked for. (Which we know can be exactly what they don’t really need.) I have found my listening skills have improved and allowed me to focus on the problem space to develop a better solutions.
Improv helps you go with the flow
By it’s nature, everything is made up on the fly while improvising. There are no lines to memorize, scripts to read, or stage directions to follow. An improviser can’t control what someone is going to say. However, what they can control is how they respond to what is happening in the scene. Thinking quickly and responding to the unexpected, instead of pausing or freezing, can lead to some funny and compelling moments that will keep an audience engaged.
In my first Product Management role, I realized pretty quickly how much was out of my control in developing products. I could plan all I wanted, but I wasn’t writing the code, determining the corporate strategy, or updating regulations. I found a lot of success in the role came from how I responded to those unexpected situations. The improv lessons helped me embrace the unexpected, and allowed me to go with the flow to keep the product development moving in the right direction.
“Yes, and…”
“Yes, and…” is the classic line that is taught early in improv classes. At it’s core, the line is meant to acknowledge what your teammate said or did, and then to build on it. This acknowledgement leads to a more continuous and compelling scene. Going back to the pirate example, giving a “no” back to a teammate and going a new direction can cause the audience to be confused and lose interest. Worse, the trust is lost between teammates on stage.
As a Product Manager, I will not pretend I have all the answers. In fact, I encourage all of my teammates to speak up and share their ideas with me. My Support and Services team has shared client feedback that helped me avoid releasing a feature that would have not been used. My QA testers have come to me and explain a requirement I had written would have broken the workflow in a different part of the application. My developers have offered suggestions that improved the solution I was working on and delighted clients. If I didn’t listen and “Yes, and…” my teammates, I would not have near the amount of success I have had in my product work.
Improv makes you a better teammate
Improv is not stand-up comedy, it’s a team activity. The best improv teams will work together as a team to provide a fun and interesting show. It is noticeable to an audience when someone is trying to take over the show, and it ruins the energy for everyone. One of my instructors would hammer home that everyone in an ensemble should like each other to put on successful show. It’s meant to be fun! And it’s hard to have fun if you aren’t getting along with other members of the ensemble.
All of those skills I listed above: listening, going with the flow, and “Yes, and…” will make you a better teammate and more of a joy to work with. As a Product Manager, I rely heavily on my soft skills to influence and motivate my teammates to make sure the right solution is built for our clients. Throwing my ego around or getting frustrated does not serve me well, and frankly, no one wants to work with that. I have worked with insecure or egotistical PMs in the past, and have found it just drains the motivation of the development and design teams.
A former manager of mine once told me, “Friends build products, co-workers write requirements.” I have found a lot of truth in this statement in my career, and I continue let my improv experience help me grow as a team player.
Finally, it’s just a lot of fun!
I’m not going to tell you that you need to take an improv class to be a successful Product Manager. That’s a little silly.
I will say, that it has been a ton of fun and I have made plenty of new friends on this journey. I have grown both personally and professionally and I would highly recommend it for anyone.
In fact, I recommend you “Yes, and…” my suggestion…
“There are no mistakes, only opportunities.” — Tina Fey
My Favorite Three Product Experiences in 2016
Let's face it, 2016 has not been the easiest year. I'm writing this day after we lost Princess Leia, and everyone seems ready for the ball to drop in Times Square in a couple days. At least my beloved Cubs ended their long championship drought.
To balance out the negativity, I felt like sharing some positive during the year in the form of some amazing products. These are examples of products that stood out to me as a User Experience specialist. And no, I was not involved with these products in any way (although I wish I was).
Hala Stand Up Paddle Boards:
Over the summer, I was invited out to do a little Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) and quickly realized how much I missed being on the water with a paddle in my hand. I decided I was going to invest in an SUP and get myself on the water as much as possible. I knew I wanted an inflatable board for storage purposes, but I didn't know much else. The local retailer showed me the Hala SUPs, and I immediately fell in love.
What immediately struck me was the backpack that comes with the board. Most of the other boards come in duffle bags that look like they are difficult to carry around. The Hala SUPs come with a backpack that also has wheels. This allows the paddler to carry it just about anywhere at 20 some pounds, or to drag it through the airport for the epic trip they are about to embark on. The idea of taking the board up to a lake 2 or 3 miles from civilization just triggered my outdoorsy sense of adventure. And what a bonus if I wanted to bring it along on a trip that was a bit too far to drive.
I can tell you that this SUP got the job done when I went a few miles up a dirt road to a lake in the middle of the San Juan mountains. In just minutes, I was on the water enjoying the solitude. And when it looked like the weather was going to turn, I was packed up within minutes and driving away.
Every time I was on the board this summer, I felt like someone was reading my mind when they designed the board and the backpack. It is easy to tell the product is targeted for that adventurous, loves to travel paddler. The designers at Hala did their homework in understanding their users, and developed a product that I know I will enjoy for many summers.
Progressive's Mobile App:
One of the low points of 2016 for me was getting rear ended in a car accident in stop and go traffic. Luckily there were no injuries, but it is still a scary experience to be in that situation. As we waited for the patrolman, I started thinking about insurance, getting my car fixed, and what a pain the whole thing was going to be.
I opened up my Progressive phone application so I could exchange my insurance information with the other driver, when I noticed there was a menu selection to start a claim. Interesting...I could get my accident claim started right there on the side of the road. All I had to do was answer a few easy questions about the accident. Then it allowed me to take pictures of the damage as part of the claim report. I clicked the pics with my phone, and within 5 minutes of opening up the app my claim was submitted.
Did Progressive have all the information they needed for the claim? No. But they called me the next day to gather what they needed from me. What impressed me was that they kept the questions simple, and it kicked off the whole process with very little thinking on my part. Wondering if my back was okay and if the passengers in the other car were fine was a much larger priority for me than filling out a detailed set of questions about the crash on my phone.
The application asked for just what was needed in a stressful situation. It did not add any stress to my situation. The fact I was so impressed with the design in that moment should say a lot to group that built and designed just enough and not anything more.
Barracuda Luggage:
A friend of mine showed me their new Barracuda luggage while in Chicago recently. I was immediately blown away, and was lucky enough that someone checked it off my Christmas wish list.
This luggage is a travelers dream. Are you tired of searching for a place to plug in your phone at the airport? It comes with a battery pack in the suitcase. Having trouble finding a place to store your luggage? It is collapsable and comes with a bag that you can hang up in your closet. Airline lose your luggage? GPS tracker! And I haven't mentioned the nice, ergonomic handle that makes it a little easier to navigate those tight crowds.
I can tell someone who has had a lot of headaches while traveling really thought through these problems. It is another example of a product where I feel like someone was in my head and knew exactly what I needed before I realized it. Suddenly, I'm looking forward to traveling more...even if that means more TSA in my life.
Bottom Line:
The common thing that brought my attention to these three products was how much they grabbed my attention with a great User Experience. It is easy to notice a bad design and complain about a bad product. It is also easy to overlook a good user experience, because it is almost invisible and just fits what someone needs. To feel like someone interviewed me as part of the user research process for their product is a testament to the hard work that had to go into it.
I'm all about doing my homework when it comes to User Research within UX. I feel like a lot of places are forgetting this or shortcutting this process. So a tip of my hat to these three products that made my 2016 a little better.