Episode 120: Navigating Product Transformations and Developing High-Performance Product Teams: a Blueprint for Success in Large Organizations
Episode 120: Navigating Product Transformations and Developing High-Performance Product Teams: a Blueprint for Success in Large Organizations
In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Deba Sahoo, SVP and Head of Product at Fidelity Investments. They discuss all product transformations and how to develop a high-performance product team in large organizations.
Deba is an accomplished Chief Product Officer and product management executive with extensive experience in the Financial Services and FinTech industry. He is a passionate advocate, thought leader, and sought-after speaker on product leadership, digital transformation, and product management.
Deba's dedication and innovation in product leadership have earned him global recognition. Recently, he was recognized among the Top 20 most influential and innovative CPOs worldwide by Products that Count, the largest network of product managers in the world.
You’ll hear Melissa and Deba talk about:
Leading a successful product transformation within your business requires product leaders to consider and work on three critical elements. The first one is bringing the right talent, grooming it the right way, and creating the appropriate structure and processes for a talent acquisition or attention and development perspective.
The second one is stakeholder relationship management, which breaks down to ensuring that the broader ecosystem has trust and credibility with them, takes ownership of what people used to do before, and adopts a proactive way of thinking about the customer and business needs. And the third one is building agile processes and routines.
Successful transformation requires trust and credibility as the foundation. Therefore, it's crucial to build strong relationships with stakeholders and leaders who hold the authority and influence to drive the change. Take the time to deliver wins that demonstrate your capabilities and build confidence and trust.
In large organizations, it's important to recognize that individuals have a limited sphere of influence. Focus on the teams where you have direct influence and deliver impactful results that may positively affect other areas led by different leaders.
Remember, transformation is a gradual process that requires patience and persistence. Avoid the temptation to rush and instead prioritize building momentum and gaining support from others. By showcasing the benefits of specific actions, you can win over skeptics and rally allies to support your transformation journey.
During times of significant change in a company, having the right product managers with the appropriate expertise and knowledge is critical. Exceptional PM leaders possess certain common traits, whether you find them within or outside your organization.
First and foremost, top-tier PM leaders thrive in ambiguous situations where multiple inputs and variables must be considered to solve complex problems. They are comfortable with uncertainty and able to navigate through it with ease.
Secondly, they possess a deep understanding of how to execute and deliver on critical initiatives. These leaders have a bias towards action, a sense of urgency, and the ability to deliver results.
Thirdly, exceptional PM leaders are adept at communication and stakeholder management. They can articulate a clear vision, establish trust, and effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams, customers, and other stakeholders to achieve their objectives.
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Resources:
Deba Sahoo on LinkedIn
Fidelity Investments | Forbes Technology Council
Deba Sahoo - 00:00:00:
You can actually connect the product terms and world into the business, like you have instant credibility and then I get it now, I get it now and then thinks it’s easy to actually move from there.
Host - 00:00:12:
Creating great products isn’t just about product managers and their day-to-day interactions with developers. It’s about how an organization supports products as a whole. The systems, the processes and cultures in place that help companies deliver value to their customers. With the help of some boundary-pushing guests and inspiration from your most pressing product questions, we’ll dive into this system from every angle and help you think like a great product leader. This is the Product Thinking podcast. Here’s your host, Melissa Perri.
Melissa Perri - 00:00:47:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Product Thinking podcast. Today we’re talking all about product transformations and developing a high performance product team in large organizations, especially ones going through a transformation. And I’m joined by Deba Sahoo who is the SVP of product and the head of products, B2B products of Fidelity Investments. Welcome, Deba.
Deba Sahoo - 00:01:10:
Hey Melissa, thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so glad to be part of the podcast and sharing kind of my journey, my expertise and thoughts with the audience here.
Melissa Perri - 00:01:18:
Well, I’m really glad to have you here too. And I think the topic that we’re going to talk about is really important because I know a lot of large companies out there, especially can we call it like software-enabled companies instead of pure SaaS companies. They are trying to figure out how to set up product organizations, go through this transformation as well. And I know you have led a really successful one. So I’m excited to hear about your stories. But for our listeners, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into product management?
Deba Sahoo - 00:01:45:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say looking back, I have a long career if I kind of break my career into different phases because product management was not a thing maybe 10 years ago or 20 years ago when I started. So first phase of my career was in tech and software engineering. So I actually spent five years in large company startups in both India and California in building FinTech financial services solutions. I have been in kind of a developer myself, an architect, manager, all roles within tech at the time, that was 2002 to 2007. There was no agile, there was no product management. I think all those things were new. But I would say my tech background has been a solid foundation to really kind of drive product management as my current role. After that kind of phase one, I would say I spent, I went to business school, Chicago Booth School of Business, then did few years in strategy and corporate development roles both at Dell and Fidelity. So I would say phase two of my career was in business school strategy and much more general management kind of roles. And then I really wanted to. I was kind of itching for building. I think my engineer and me was kind of always craving for building things and running things, and I wanted to come a little more close to the tech side. So I actually made a choice eight years ago to really be very focused on product management and product leadership. So four years after that, I led, I would say, product teams, both as product manager and product leader. And then around four or five years ago in my current journey, I was tasked to lead a large product arm from scratch, kind of setup from scratch. And I had the opportunity to really drive and build a true kind of much more real product organization. And then that has been grown tremendously over the last four or five years. We have a very large product team now that includes all of your traditional product leaders, managers, engineers, and a lot of other roles focused on enterprise and B2B products within Fidelity Investments. So that’s how I kind of ended up with product.
Melissa Perri - 00:03:48:
Great. You just recently led a great product transformation within your business as well. A lot of companies are struggling with this or getting started today. Can you tell us a little bit about what did things look like when you came in and when you realized, oh, we need to totally shift our mentality and what you did to get started there?
Deba Sahoo - 00:04:08:
Yeah, so I would say when I started kind of much more of a senior executive-level transformation journey with the right control and focus around four years ago, four or five years ago, I fortunately had a clean slate that I was told, okay, we will create this arm from scratch. Now, we did have people who are playing those roles, but we were just going through a massive transformation where we said we’re just going to start from scratch. Now, I think when I kind of started to really drive that, my kind of initial few things I observed. We had engineers, we had folks, but they’re very reactive, much more in a supporting role, taking directions from sales or operations or other groups because I was in the B2B space, heavy kind of sales and service kind of functions we had too. So I think that was kind of the genesis in history. And we didn’t really have a B2B product team per se. And my goal was to kind of how to really set that up from scratch. Right. So few things I focused on, it was very clear to me initially that I need to bring not just kind of an agile transformation, but truly be focused on product transformation, how to kind of operate in that way. And I think that I had like, few components in mind, one talent actually be very clear that I need to, over a period of time, bring the right talent, groom them the right way, and create the right structure and processes for talent acquisition, retention and development perspective. I think that was an important piece we can get into is very critical. Second more I call the stakeholder relationship management and kind of making sure that the broader ecosystem of folks truly understood and have the trust and credibility with them. Really kind of thinking about product, taking a lot of ownership of what other people used to do before and then thinking more of a proactive way of thinking about our customers, our businesses, our needs and how to actually start driving that. That was the second aspect. I think third was definitely more the structure and the process and the routines, whether it is agile, whether it is the right reviews, the right instrumentation and the measurements and the tools and metrics and those kind of things. I think those three were critical elements in my view that kind of shaped how we focused on all three because my goal was not to build amazing products but also to create a really strong product organization that could be self-sustaining and grow and scale over time.
Melissa Perri - 00:06:39:
Yeah. What was the impetus to start this product organization? So you said you came in and you had like a clean slate to go after it. What was the business or the company trying to get out of doing a product transformation and not just an agile transformation?
Deba Sahoo - 00:06:56:
Yeah, I would say I think the agile transformation is definitely kind of enterprise focus at that time. I think product transformation is something I would say was probably more of my focus to ensure that I created the right structure. Because I fundamentally believed being a product manager myself prior to that, kind of believed that we need to really think about products in that way. Because in my portfolio of products I actually have financial products that are actually selling financial offerings to our customers. I have data and AI products, I have platform products and digital experience products. Some are actually zero to one, some are 1 to 100, some are like mature products. So you kind of have to treat them differently and operate them differently. So my focus was to really do that. Now, particularly in this particular space we didn’t really have a strong B2B product team and for business reasons we didn’t invest in that particular way and we wanted to really invest heavily in our B2B space. So that was the genesis of focusing on creating a new team in the B2B space. But the genesis of driving kind of product mindset really was me thinking through without that we will be not as effective and I also I thought opportunity to really kind of share that and how we do that as a best practice team across a company and I could talk about how that has really shaped and helped till now we’re actually much more matured not just within my team, but actually across the board, really thinking about product mindset and product management and how do we do this across all the three things talent, the routines and the processes, but also building the right products.
Melissa Perri - 00:08:34:
I think it’s so important the things that you’re getting at right now too. You championed this transformation. Like, this was you leading it. You saying hey, we need this, we can’t just stop at Agile, we also need this. What types of tactics did you use? Or could you advise others who might be in the same position as you to convince the rest of the organization or the rest of the executive team? Like this is how my team works. I see a lot of people waiting for permission, right? Like oh, I have to wait for my CEO to say oh go build a product organization and then I’ll go do it. But how did you approach that? What did you do differently?
Deba Sahoo - 00:09:12:
Yeah, no great question. So I would say I think a few things in my discussion today, we’ll talk about this theme. There are two or three things that I kind of focused on. One, to do any kind of transformation, you really have to operate from a place of trust and credibility that I actually build enough trust and credibility with the stakeholders or leaders that actually I have the authority and the influence to actually drive it. So that was something I didn’t start to kind of come in and put my ideas on paper and push people around and that’s not going to work. So I kind of built trust and credibility over a year or so in multiple things in managing my stakeholders, actually delivering wins that actually makes it easier for people to actually trust and then slowly so you can actually get in that particular journey. So that’s one.
Second, any large company is a large company, you generally lead or you still have a limited kind of influence area. So my focus was how do I do this within my own organization as well as in tangential or peripheral teams where I have the right best influence, let’s say kind of my peer teams and not try to kind of really change the entire organization at the once because I don’t have the control and authority. So my focus was to kind of really focus on areas where I have control and influence. And third thing I say kind of slowly, slowly building it in a way that once I believe that I show the benefits of doing this particular way, it will be easier for people to see. And then we will become kind of the model team across the company. And people will come to say, hey, how are you doing this? Let’s try to then replicate somewhere else and then you become the champion. And this is kind of a positive cycle actually start from there. Then actually it’s easier to actually go from there and start to scale the same things that you’ve been doing. Because if you do something on a larger scale, there’s always risk and concerns and things. But if you’re doing this within a particular area where you have a trusted leader, it’s much easier actually for people to kind of wrap their heads around, say let’s do this there. And then over time we’ll expand and scale as things kind of progress.
Melissa Perri - 00:11:17:
I like that. It’s like you start with your own stuff instead of yelling at everybody else that they need to change and then not do anything within your own control. So demonstrate it. Walk the walk. Really key, I think. Good lessons for people out there. So you mentioned that you did three key things to really start this transformation and focus it and one of them is on the teams. And I’m really curious because I’ve worked with a lot of large companies doing transformations and a lot of them didn’t have product managers before. So they took a lot of subject matter experts and we trained them up and there’s some mixed success on whether they can perform or not. Some of the teams get really good at executing on certain stuff but they’re kind of lacking, I think, some of that higher level product thinking to bring the strategies together to really execute on those products. How did you approach the team-building aspect and making great product managers who reported up to you?
Deba Sahoo - 00:12:11:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say I think it was kind of a balanced approach and building kind of a slow long game to do that. So I would say initially when you’re going through a major change, it is important to make sure that we have enough people who have the expertise and knowledge of how we have been doing things and then balancing them with people who I believe are true product managers who have the right aptitude and skill set. And then over time as people leave, roles open up, things grow, then I have the ability to actually hire much more people who are truly skilled as PMs. So it was kind of a balanced view that initially it was, let’s say 50/50 or a mix of these two kind of leaders. And over time we kind of know who operates well, who doesn’t operate well, and in fact, people who have transitioned into PM roles generally a better idea for a couple of years, how they are doing, are the interest in the role, the best fit? And who else? So it was kind of a slow kind of view into this. But I had a balanced view and in that way I also included people from outside of Fidelity who are coming from outside. But I had a lot of success actually hiring people within the company who are not necessarily in PM roles, but I thought they had really strong aptitude and attitude and skills to groom them into that role. I have found that those kind of people have been the most successful people in my team and more broadly. So I’ll give a few examples. So people, some of them actually came from customer service, like people who have been in the customer service, customer-facing roles. They really enjoyed that aspect, they understood that. Now, I could see they were very energized by working with the product teams and they are the ones who will jump into prioritizing calls. They will say this is priority one, two, three, and they’re very comfortable. And those are the people like I built a pipeline of people like that. And they saw interest and over time it was very clear they’re the right fit and if they’re interested, they could come into my team or as a PM role. I’ve seen people from engineering, some of them, who have that kind of aptitude and interest of joining customer calls, getting energized by the business side of the things. And they want to be PMs. And I’ve seen them once they understood what they’ve done and what they’re interested in, they have come in and become very strong PMs. Especially, I’ve seen them play heavy, strong roles in platform PM kind of roles, where a little technical, they come in, actually become great platform PMs, I would say. I’ve also seen people from strategy backgrounds or those kind of backgrounds. They have come in especially who is willing to focus on execution, on getting to know the details and understand how to do things. And they already have the strategy toolkit, they understand how to think big picture and those kind of aspects. So I’ve seen those three players and because they come from internally, they already know the domain and the culture and the team. So it’s easy for them to kind of grasp those things and then I could actually help and train and groom them.
Over time, we have had many people who have gone through this and become extremely successful leaders and then now there is more bench strength to actually train people and you bring someone else, you have to compare them with somebody else who’s already skilled. So I think over time it’s kind of a structure that worked out. But I would say no matter what for where they came from, there are some common traits that I find that generally leads to really good PMs and PM leaders. One, you are comfortable with ambiguity and solving problems in the ambiguous space where there are a lot of different inputs, a lot of different variables. That’s important. Second, people who know how to get stuff done. Like you got to get stuff done. And there are some people who just have the agency and who have the ability to kind of figure something out and get stuff done. I think I look for those people. It’s very clear, if they can’t get stuff done, very hard to succeed at the PM. Third, I would say just communication and stakeholder management skills. And that’s something I look for when we bring people, like how well the person is communicating, can the person bring people together? I think these three are like common skills I’ve seen.
Now on top of that, I think depending upon specific roles, we do sometimes need people with some expertise or experience in a particular space. But I think these are common traits I’ve seen. And then I do, I would say, beyond hiring, I think we have also focused, I have personally focused a ton on just how do we, once you bring somebody in, like, how do you actually groom and develop both as an individual but also as a group, the product management skill set? I’ll tell you a story, if that’s okay, on one thing I did that I feel like has worked extremely well. So initially when I started the journey, it was very clear: we needed to upscale our folks and really think about teaching product management and the theory and practice of doing everything. Obviously there are a lot of different resources available, but they’re more theoretical. As you know, product management is very simple in concept, like you only have few things to learn, but it’s very, very hard in practice. So focusing more on applied aspects of product management. So I started something I call Product School within our business, and it actually started during COVID. And I basically said, I need to teach and let me start this. And I started like a monthly class to teach product management. I created a curriculum that had all the typical features, like, okay, PM 101, PM for B2B versus B2C, product-market fit, and a lot of different things that normally you’ll teach. And I basically said, I will teach like an applied version of it, not the theory. We’ll actually take the theory and use real use cases from our own business and teach people how to apply those things. And I basically said, let’s do that. I invited every PM engineer, architecture designer, anybody, and who is interested come in. And the first session was just PM 101, just basics. The audience response and the attendance was too much. It just got a lot of interest. People just came like they were kind of craving for this kind of stuff and I said, okay, that’s great. So I did one more session next month that worked very well. And then I said, okay, let’s just do this like a full year-long curriculum. And then actually crowd-sourced to some of my peers who I thought were experts in some particular areas like product-market fit. I could bring somebody else who could actually do that because I couldn’t just do myself all the time.
So after a year, it was so successful across the board. Then that got attention from our HR team, from our learning and development team, saying, hey, how do we actually turn this into a scalable program and structure we can actually use? So then I kind of left my running this versus being a sponsor and working with our HR and learning and development team to actually create a very formal structure that we call Product Academy. We now actually have that at the enterprise level. We use that to train all of our new product managers across all across everywhere. And we have run this successfully for multiple times now. It’s a great program. And now we’re doing something similar for product leaders and others. I think I’ve seen again, you don’t have to wait for it. If you have expertise, just jump in and then over time you can actually scale and people will notice.
Melissa Perri - 00:19:56:
Yeah, that’s a great example of a ground-roots movement right there. You just started with your team and it kept expanding and expanding. You didn’t need to go, hey, we need to do this everywhere. So something that I really love that you said is you invited the engineers and the designers and anybody who wanted to come to it. What did you experience after they came, too? How did that shift their mindset about product?
Deba Sahoo - 00:20:19:
I think as with any kind of transformation, it takes time to kind of go through that. But first, a few things. One, many of them actually truly understood and appreciated actually what it takes to be a PM. Sometimes you may have, especially on the engineering side, like, okay, you may not have appreciation for a PM role and you think somebody’s going to give me requirements and tell me what to build, but okay, that’s all they are. But you really understand the art and craft of how to be a good PM and they will see a great PM is so much better in terms of working. They will see in this team there’s a very strong PM and some other team there’s not a very good PM and there’s a hell and heaven difference in how those teams operate. And also from the technical side, like how they actually interact with the building, how they are solving. So it’s a whole different game. So I think they understood and appreciated it, and in many cases they actually want to be, I think the key is they want to be a partner in all this kind of dialogue and discussion. It’s just that we have to engage them in the right way. So I strongly believe that as a product leader or PM, you kind of have to treat your engineering partner or design partner in a very equal footing in terms of making sure that they’re involved in the earlier stage of the product. Either visiting strategy as well as customer, you’re going to bring them along and make them a big part of it. Actually, I normally make them accountable. Like my engineering partner, I want to make them accountable for delivery and the technical aspect as much I’m accountable for the overall product piece. Same thing is true for design. And I think this kind of experience of doing this together actually brings, in my view, strong product teams and the right structure and process because we all kind of understand each other’s way of working and where we have pain points and preferences.
Melissa Perri - 00:22:17:
Yeah, I think that’s so important. So we’ve got people going through the Product Academy. We’ve got some of these people who have never done product management before. You mentioned now we’ve got a good structure with a lot of experienced people to train them. But what did you do at the beginning to make sure that those people had people to learn from? Right. So before you had all the experienced people in the organization, what types of things did you do to ensure these people transitioning from other areas had that support?
Deba Sahoo - 00:22:47:
Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I would say initially I started my art from scratch. So initially probably a lot was me, but also I would say creating the right structure. I didn’t really push for initially in the first year, I didn’t really push for let’s be an amazing product organization. I think it’s not so much on that let’s kind of build the right products, like just kind of getting the right things done. As long as you’re building the right things for the right reasons for our customers, I think the art and craft will come. So I think first year my focus was not so much on teaching, okay, so how do we be a great PM? It was more, okay, are we focused on building the right things? Why are we building the right things? What problem are we solving for? What is the benefit of solving for those things? And then how do we get started? What is our MVP? What do we launch? How do we iterate? So it was more on those things versus trying to throw a lot of boards on purpose and then slowly, over time, we kind of did all that. To really get into the habit of thinking about target market fit and doing the discovery and launching something and learning before we scale it—I think that was a concept I was very earlier focused on versus trying from a top down way of creating a plan for three years without really understanding how and where we like to test and get adoption before we get there. That was something I was very much focused on. I would say that actually caught attention of some of our senior leaders very well because I think some leaders are—this is difficult for them to kind of understand. Give me a five year plan and details everything. But one of our kind of presidents and leaders, he totally got it. He was like, okay, you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know. So let’s kind of make sure that we know how we’re solving or what are we solving before we actually go invest in scale. Because that way, it limits my risk of investing and putting a lot of dollars in something that turns out to be not so much of needed. And it allows kind of to see and before we scale. So that was a very consistent theme that resonated very, very well and I kind of practiced for every single time like, okay, so we will launch something, we’re building something new.
People aren’t willing to invest lots of money at once. Let’s just kind of focus on particular areas based on feedback from customers and what we believe on and test that and then learn. And that concept, we did that for every single product, like three, four, five products. And we’ll do that and we’ll have a very consistent kind of framework and go and show that, hey, we have a cheaper market fit now let’s invest for scaling. Like they said, yes, we’ll invest in scale. Here’s the funding, let’s invest in scale. So that kind of concept. And then I would say very tactically, I will start to use very specific words in these meetings. I will basically say by following these kind of basic and strong product management concepts, this is how we’re doing it. I’ll actually teach those things like, hey, we just didn’t come up with doing this just because I thought would be nice thing to do. We actually followed a particular practice and framework, and I will say we achieved our market fit. Do we all believe in that? Now let’s scale. We all believe in that, the same thing. I’ll use the product terms in a very deliberate way in these kind of leadership sessions. Some people really get it because this is not a function that we have been operating in for a long period of time. So you’re going to have to really teach in a tactical, as a strategic way of how to kind of think about this. And now we are very focused on actually teaching and training our leaders in how to be thinking in this particular way. And I know you’re obviously coming to one of our summits next month. I think that’s one part of it. But how do we actually really teach our leaders to be really thinking very hard about product management and how to kind of think in that particular way.
Melissa Perri - 00:26:39:
Yeah, I think that’s so important for a lot of companies. And that’s also where I feel like there’s a lot of friction sometimes for people who are champions like yourself. And then they’re getting push-back from other leaders because they’re like, can’t you just release it? We just want things. Don’t tell me about all this discovery and stuff. So what have you found? So you taught a lot of people about the language. You defined terms, you put it into a context of why would we invest if we don’t know what to do. What have you found resonates well as a message and what have you found to stay away from, because the other leaders are like, I don’t care about that, just give me what I want. What doesn’t work when you’re communicating with leaders about what you’re going through in the transformation?
Deba Sahoo - 00:27:19:
Yeah, no, great question. So I would say I think fundamentally, if you think about, I think it’s true for any kind of company, like almost all of the leaders we have, they are primarily business leaders. And most of them have grown or grown up in business roles, whether sales, operations, or finance, or technology, or some other roles. Practice a new thing. I think as long as we talk in the language of business, everything else becomes actually start to work. So if you stop talking about heart management or agile and okay, so that’s kind of nice. Tell me what actually mean for our business. I’ll give an example. I lead up B2B products where we have mega large customers and they have demands, say can you build this just for myself? And it’s very common thing every day request, can we just build this for one client? No, we can’t do that. Right. But then if you do that in a way that we say, hey, we will build not a feature for one particular client, but we will actually build a product or something that we can actually scale for multiple clients, but we will use one initial client as an initial use case and a client, but our goal is to build it. And then kind of show that to your leadership. And from that perspective, say if you build this in this way, then you can roll this out to not one client to ten clients, to 100 clients. The return on investment is going to be significantly high because you’re building once and you’re building it in a way which is scale, okay, you don’t have to actually rebuild again just because some other client requests it. So that resonates. Okay, so now we’re actually building a product, not actually satisfying a customer’s request. So just kind of a little bit of nuanced view of that is important. And the same thing is true for any even for internal tools and all. It’s important to actually show what problem it’s solving either for customers or for business and ideally for both. And if we do not focus, forget about any terminology, it just becomes hard. I think the terminology comes in play a little later in my view, versus starting from there. Unless you have an enterprise-level mandate to go there. I think focusing on the right outcomes for the business and the customers, that everybody understands, whether they’re product or market, that resonates everybody well, with pretty much everybody.
Melissa Perri - 00:29:41:
So the outcomes that we’re talking about too is making me think of another question I want to get your opinion on. A lot of product managers, especially on the team level, have a really hard time connecting what they’re working on, especially in large organizations backup to the business, because in organizations like such as yours and other ones you can have like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teams, right? So by the time you get to what a team is working on, it might feel slightly insignificant to them. But I feel like they have a hard time communicating how all of their product metrics roll up into the business. What have you done to help streamline that communication? Or what would be your advice to help product teams see how their stuff relates to a bigger picture? What should they do to find that out?
Deba Sahoo - 00:30:28:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question. I think it’s a very hard thing and I think we are still maturing in that space. But personally what I’ve seen and done myself and I think I’ve worked well, is really think about. I think we all have some level of metrics and measurements whether we call OKRs, OKPIs I think. But regardless, I focus on two types of OKPIs. One more outcome focused and one more output focused. I think historically for a large team who have not operated in a very product way, I think in general you’ll see more output-focused OKPIs. I think that’s totally fine, totally appropriate. I think that’s where it starts. Like ok, you have an output focused team that’s very much focused on building those things and it’s very hard to reconcile with somebody asking for outcome at a very higher level. It’s very hard. So I look at that kind of in a much more kind of a stack structure but with a mix. What I mean by that is at a leadership level where you have more control over the outcome in a meaningful way that we already have launched, because sometimes it depends on the outcome, sometimes the outcome is you got to have a product in the market before you guys really drive outcome, right? So you can’t have that for a team that’s working for the next quarter because they’re just focused on launching something and I think they will not really drive outcome. So having that view that we’re at a more senior leadership level, we have more outcome-focus view. At an individual team level, depending upon what the team is working on, there may be ideally a combination of output and outcome driven. If it’s more of a platform team or an infrastructure team, their outcomes will be different versus a team that’s focused on driving conversion or growth or things.
So I think it’s very important to kind of contextualize these things in a way that actually makes sense. And if we have a team that has KPIs that they can’t really impact and drive, it’s kind of meaningless. It’s very hard to do much with that and generally it doesn’t kind of count too much. So it’s more thinking. I think again, in most places, this is a space that we all need to be matured in thinking and really thinking about how to think, about what metrics to choose, what not to choose, and not just choose, like actually how to include those in our weekly or quarterly reviews and processes where it actually means something, where you’re actually going through a strategy discussion and then you are combining that with the metric discussion to kind of really have those kind of discussions together. So it’s a hard journey. I don’t have a perfect answer, but I think what I’ve seen is kind of really thinking a combination of outcome and output. And in some teams I focus a little more on output based on what they are focused on and also by time. For a quarter, if they’re focused on just building, it’s very hard for them to drive an outcome versus, let’s say for a growth team or a conversion team, it’s easy for them to actually drive outcomes in a quarter because they are focused more on those things. So it’s kind of really contextualizing this thing and then make it relevant for the particular team, that’s essential.
Melissa Perri - 00:33:37:
Yeah, that makes sense. I try to tell I think what happened to I’ve observed this over the last ten years is that we went, oh no, outputs, we’re only going to do outcomes, right? So everybody was like over the outcomes and then they forgot. Like, you actually do have to deliver stuff if you’re on a product team. So it’s like we can’t just dance around the fact that and not talk about outputs at all. You do have to talk about outputs, but the point is figure out what you’re actually going to build first and then talk about the outputs and how that’s going to do the outcomes and do the research in it. But yeah, I think you’re right. It needs this mesh of both of them. It can’t just be one, but that’s a great way to think about it, how you were explaining what the leadership is on the outcomes and on the teams we’re getting into the outputs as well. So another good question for you, and I’m sure a lot of people are out there thinking about this. So you work in a software-enabled company technically, right? Like, Fidelity doesn’t technically sell software, but software is a critical part of what you do. In many organizations going through these transformations, they’re having a really hard time thinking about what a product is. So when you’re thinking about products, how are you thinking about how all of your financial products and your software products come together? I’m just going to throw out the question, like, what is a product to you? How would you describe it to somebody in the context of a software-enabled company?
Deba Sahoo - 00:35:00:
It’s a great question. I think that’s something I have seen internally, externally, it’s not an easy thing when you talk about product, like, what is a product and all. But I would say I think we’re already in 2023. I think we’re in financial services. I can't think of any product services we offer or our industry offers that is not offered through technology. They’re different industries like let’s say you are doing waste management, you may have actually a truck going. But in our industry, no matter what, either we’re offering our products and services through tech or through our people who are actually using the tech to offer the same products and services. So I think our industry is definitely heavy focused in that particular way. But I would say historically, a long time ago, when we talk about products generally people think about financial products like are you offering particular ETF or fund or brokerage or these kind of things? I think in today’s world when I say product, I generally kind of really contextualize that. But I think definitely we’re talking more about digital and software kind of products in that particular way, but I kind of categorize them into four or five categories and that’s how I explained internally as well. One is more financial products where tech is a piece of it, it’s a big piece of it, but when you’re trying to really drive impact and outcome, you’re trying to drive customer adoption, people’s financial outcomes and how actually it’s helping them to save or invest or grow their portfolio and things like that. And tech is a big component of that. So the product leaders who are playing in that space, they have to think about all these things, not just tech, they’ll also think about those aspects.
Then I think about digital experience products where it’s either the primary focus of motivation is actually building digital experiences. I think financial part is a piece of it like building experiences, enhancing and maturing whether it’s through web or through phones and all. So that requires some skill set where you have heavily UX and design and those kind of things focused. And then third, I call platform products where you’re building typically internal platforms. It could be external too. But like internal platforms, whether it is a back-end platform, data platform, AI platform or things where it’s a platform, the consumers are either internal users, it could be technical users or other product teams or the different users, that’s a different type of product. And then we have other products that are much more focused on I would say solving, operational servicing or those kind of pain points for either external, internal. So I think these are different categories and I try to connect the general product terminology into our own work. This is why I think it’s important to actually contextualize within how we do things. Within my business, we may do things very differently than the healthcare team or somewhere else, but it’s important to actually contextualize this. And once you can contextualize, I’ll tell you that’s instant credibility. Like you can actually connect the product terms and world into the business, you have instant credibility. And then, I get it now. I get it now. And then it’s easy to actually move from there.
Melissa Perri - 00:38:13:
Yeah, I think context is king here, and that’s really a good point. I’ve seen people try to describe for companies that are software enabled, use more like Amazon’s or Google’s as an example of how to do things, and you see the rest of the business just shut down because they’re like, we’re not them, we’re not them. And it’s true, they aren’t them. So they don’t understand how it translates to your own world. So that context is so important. And when you’re working as the software product leader around this area, how are you plugging in the more financial product people? Like the ones who are going, hey, should we offer this new 401(k) investment? Right? The one who’s actually figuring out what’s in the portfolio, should we offer this? How do they work with the software teams? What’s that give and take there?
Deba Sahoo - 00:39:00:
Yeah. So when I say in our product organization, the way I structure across the company, some of my peers are actually having those financial products. I do actually also have portfolio of financial products with my own team. So I actually have a broad portfolio. So I actually have financial products. Now, in those products, there is definitely more general management aspect. So I think, again, so the skill set of the PMs who are operating in that space have more GM-centric and really driving adoption, conversion, go to market approach and those kind of things. And that’s the primary skill set. And they’re not as focused on building software per se. So it’s a combination. So I have a combination team. Some are very software focused, some are more I think in industrial terms, we may call them a growth PM or similar kind of a role, but they’re definitely focused on more general management aspect. So personally, I do think we do have infrastructure in play in understanding those needs. And really I have to look at business outcomes there in a much more critical path on what is the value we’re driving, how many customers are we getting, how do we package, how do we bundle, how do we price, and those things come into play. So it’s kind of a mixture. But they are generally within our product organization. It’s just that some people are heavily focused on that. In those teams, they will still have software product managers and others who are kind of really making sure, let’s say payment and tool and those things work. But then the product leaders are focused more broadly on not just on the software part, but also kind of selling and servicing the products in the marketplace.
Melissa Perri - 00:40:41:
Oh, that’s so important. That’s like awesome music to my ears. I’m so happy to hear that because I think that’s so critical that you bring those things together and make them work together. And I see so many companies keep them very, very separate and then it becomes a territory war over, like who’s leading why, is it the software people, is it the business people? And they’re also not thinking about what are we actually doing for the customer at the end of the day here? Like, how do we all achieve these gains? And it’s not just about can somebody click through my workflow? It’s about can somebody get the financial independence they were looking for? Which is awesome.
Deba Sahoo - 00:41:14:
I’ve heard you speak a lot and I’m also pretty passionate about this, in my space, but also I believe that the product development strategy management and those aspects and the product development aspects of actually writing your epics and stories in Jira, they all need to be part of one person’s role. They are separate and that’s how we do things. And that’s how all my teams are. That’s how a company is. They’re one, I don’t like this product manager, product owner and these kind of things like no. So if one person who is responsible now in particular role, somebody may have a more over indexed on more of the PM side of the equation versus just the development side. But I think of them as one role where you have much more end-to-end ownership and accountability, just that based on the situation, you maybe focus a little bit more on one side of the skill set versus others, and that will evolve over time as the product matures and scales. But I do strongly believe that just one role that includes everything together.
Melissa Perri - 00:42:15:
I agree. I totally love that. So you mentioned this before too, how you started with this transformation. Another thing I see a lot of companies do is kind of just put on their roadmap like, we’re going to do the product transformation this year. Boom. Timeline. How long should people expect to start seeing the fruits of their labor doing a product organization change like this? What’s a time frame? What’s a normal time frame for this stuff? What do you think?
Deba Sahoo - 00:42:42:
Yeah, I would say definitely it’s a long game, this kind of transformation, it’s a long game. You can call it a long game because it’s like we’re talking about talent, structure, culture, ways of doing things, and process. So I think anytime you force fit in a particular time frame, which just becomes too much. I have seen, I think three, four years is actually a pretty good time frame in my view. It takes that long to actually the things that we’re talking about in the four years ago. These things will be like, okay, what is this? Why...? Now, that’s kind of a given. We don’t talk about these things. So this is no longer a new thing. This is how we do things. So the conversation is more on other things. So I think we’ve kind of gone past those things now in many areas. Now, obviously, there are all these things to mature. I think in the PM leadership space. We’re kind of optimizing and maturing in some areas where you need to mature, but I do think I have not seen anything where you get to a maturity stage in less than few years.
Melissa Perri - 00:43:54:
That’s good to hear. It’s definitely a long game. I haven’t seen anybody do this in a shorter amount of time either, but especially a large organization, you’re steering a huge cruise ship towards a different target.
Deba Sahoo - 00:44:04:
Yeah, totally.
Melissa Perri - 00:44:06:
Well, I could spend all day talking to you about this, and this has been really fun, but I know we are running out of time. So, Deba, if anybody wants to connect with you or learn more about your work and what you do, where can they find you?
Deba Sahoo - 00:44:20:
Yeah, no, same. First of all, thank you so much for inviting me. I could talk about this all day, every day. Right. So I would say, for me, I’m very much available on LinkedIn. I can post my LinkedIn kind of profile there. I do write some articles on Forbes Councils, so I put it out there too. But LinkedIn is the primary place to connect with me. I’m very actively involved in the product community, actually. I love to give back and teach. I do a lot of teaching and then product managers across the board. So I’m always available in coaching, teaching, and mentoring because I fundamentally am very passionate about really elevating the role of product and product leaders across our industry.
Melissa Perri - 00:45:03:
Thank you so much for all that work that you do, too. I think that’s so important for people to learn from product leaders like you. We’ll link to your LinkedIn in the notes for this podcast as well. But for those of you out there listening, if you enjoyed this podcast, please click subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And we’ll be back next week with another Dear Melissa on Wednesday, and we will see you then.
Deba Sahoo - 00:45:24:
Awesome. Thank you all.