What Product Managers are talking about.
In this week’s Sunday Rewind, Ane Silva and Sharon-Anne Keen discuss the steps they’ve taken to improve the gender balance in the product teams at Wise Read more »
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With new tools or AI features coming to market, many of us have started to experiment with how they might help us do our jobs better. One of the most talked about tools for product people as of late is ChatPRD, billed as an on-demand Chief Product Officer who can draft and improve your PRDs Read more »
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ProductTanks, created by Mind the Product, are informal meetups that bring local product people together and provide a space to new speakers to share amazing product insights. In this article, you will find highlighted a few of the 34 meetups that were held in August with topics ranging from the importance of data to how Read more »
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Choosing your product pricing strategies is a fine science. There’s far more to it than throwing pricing models at a wall and seeing what sticks. There are a lot of factors you need to think about, and a detailed process to follow.
You don’t want to be the Product Manager that gets your product pricing strategies wrong. A price that’s too low leaves money on the table, and one that’s too high puts potential users off. It’s like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you want a pricing model that sits just right. That satisfies your customers like a perfect temperature bowl of porridge.
If you’ve been guilty of pricing your product similarly to your competitors and calling it a day, it’s time to dig a bit deeper into your product pricing strategy.
Now pricing strategies are firmly in the business management world, and if you open up a textbook you’ll find A LOT of different strategies, theories, and more. We’re going to focus on pricing strategy from a Product Manager’s perspective, making sure you know how to translate the business theory into practical action for your own product pricing.
If you want advice from one SaaS PM to another, check out our article below with insight from ProdPad Co-founder, Janna Bastow 
:
A product pricing strategy is the overarching plan for how a company prices its products or services. Think of it as the philosophy that dictates how you’re setting your price. It’s the why behind the specific pricing model you choose to run.
See, you want to give your pricing some thought. It’s not enough to just look at what your competitors are pricing and pitch your product somewhere around there. You may as well be throwing darts with your eyes closed and charging whatever number it hits. Your pricing needs to be considered. This is what a product pricing strategy allows you to do.
There are multiple strategies you can adopt, and you can jump between them all based on various factors and influences. Things like your positioning, competitors, market, and business goals will reflect what pricing strategy works for you.
This is something that you don’t want to mix up. A pricing strategy and a pricing model are not the same thing. If product pricing strategies are the why, then the models are the how. They’re the specific methods you’ll adopt when setting up your pricing.
A pricing strategy is more conceptual and broad, whereas a pricing model is the specific details of what you’ll be doing. Your product pricing strategy will feed into what model you choose to deploy.
Some popular pricing models include:
You’ve got a whole host of different product pricing strategies to choose from. They all have ideal use cases and can suit various types of businesses and products. When looking at pricing strategies, you’ll find that three main ones are often talked about the most. These are the top-dog pricing strategies that the majority of products will gravitate towards. These are:
Here’s a closer look at these three to help you identify the best one for you.
This product pricing strategy is where your price points are most heavily influenced by your competitors. When following this product pricing strategy, you’re placing more value on the outward market instead of looking inward at your costs.
This pricing strategy is best used when you offer similar products or services to your competitors. Following this pricing strategy can lead you to three main approaches to try.
There are many advantages to using competitive based pricing. Customers won’t be surprised by how much you charge, and you will instantly be seen as a viable option by customers. It’s also a very quick approach to pricing, and by piggybacking off your competitor’s pricing you can benefit from their market research without having to do too much yourself.
The drawback is that you’re heavily pressured by your competitors. If they change, you’ll need to react. Plus, by following this product pricing strategy, your profit is at risk as you may have a higher cost base.
Value-based product pricing strategies involve looking at your customers to price your product based on how valuable they find it. This is all focused on customer perception, so you need to have a drilled-in knowledge of your target market and audience. This is where collecting customer feedback, creating user personas, and more come into play.
This is a tough pricing strategy to get right, which is why many opt for alternatives. But if you stick at it, you’ll get rewarded.
You need to research your customers and find out what problems your product can solve for them and the monetary benefit your service brings. This can then guide your pricing, in addition to further testing and experimentation.
One great benefit of this pricing strategy is that you can charge a higher price as long as you get your value proposition right. You also build a deeper understanding of the market and your customers due to all the research involved, which can help you make a better product.
It is time-intensive and not a quick win, and not all your customers will agree on a perceived value. It’s one of the hardest pricing strategies to adopt, but one that’s worth the challenge.
Because, if you are confident you have a highly valuable product – one that customers perceive as such – then you can set a price to reflect that importance. Value-based product pricing is where the highest profits can potentially be realized. When a product is high-value, often price sensitivity is less of an issue and you can price based on the perceived value rather than your competitor’s pricing or even your own cost base.
Which brings us onto the subject of your cost base…
The good news is that cost-plus pricing is perhaps one of the easiest to wrap your head around. With this strategy, you’re simply choosing how much extra you want to charge for your product based on the costs to develop it.
For example, if you sold TVs, cost-plus pricing is deciding that you want to sell the TVs for 30% more than it costs to make them. This ensures that for every item sold, you’re getting a profit of however much extra you’re charging for them.
But how do you decide how much extra you want to charge on your costs? Well, that’s just down to how much profit you want to make on each item. Of course, there’s a caveat to that. Everyone wants to make a gazillion percent profit margin, but customers aren’t going to pay a gazillion dollars. You need to set a cost-plus price that’s fair and that somewhat resembles the wider market. And to do that: pull in some competitive based principles.
One of the hardest parts of cost-plus pricing is working out your cost per unit. You need to consider everything that goes into building your product and getting it out there. It’s not just development and manufacturing costs, it’s marketing, salaries, and office rent. If you don’t consider everything, you may price your product at a point where you still make a loss.
Now, cost-plus pricing isn’t going to work for every Product Manager. It’s primarily used by those selling physical products who want to keep things simple. It’s not really ideal for those looking to maximize profits. The truth is that for most Product Managers, this would be the wrong strategy to take. A better pricing strategy needs to factor in customers and competitors, which is why the alternatives are often preferred.
Although we’ve just talked about the big three strategies, there are other options you can consider or incorporate into your decision-making.
One of the more well-known options is the are Kotler’s pricing strategies:
If you want to really get your business theory geek on over your pricing strategies, you can take a look at Kotler’s pricing strategies. Philip Kotler is part of the business management theory old guard and his matrix of pricing strategies is worth reading up on.
In a nutshell, his matrix helps you plot your product based on price and quality to see if you’re offering a service that’s premium, economy, a rip-off, or superb-value to name a few.
Here are some other options that may be worthwhile looking into.
We can’t tell you that. There’s no one-size-fits-all product pricing strategy. If there was, there’d be no need for this article, as everyone would just use the same one. Now in most cases, some make more sense than others, with value-based pricing being the general favorite. However, you shouldn’t just blindly follow that.
You see, the best pricing strategy depends on so many different factors and the unique quirks of your business. One strategy will be great for one company but absolutely suck for another.
So how do you find the best product pricing strategy for you? That my Product Manager friend, is a much better question. When deciding which strategy suits you best, you need to consider quite a few things to ensure it aligns with your needs. Here are some things to think about:
What are your overall business goals? What do you want your product to achieve, in both the long and short term? If you’re keen to quickly gain market share, then a strategy like penetration pricing may work best. If you’re hoping to maximize profit over the long term, then a different strategy like skimming pricing would be better.
Your pricing strategy is also dictated by your brand positioning and where you want to sit in the market. If you’re looking to be seen as a premium, luxury brand, you need a pricing strategy that reflects that.
Looking to better define your business goals? We’ve got you covered with the ultimate collection of ready-made OKRs to boost your goal-setting. Download below 
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To nail the right product pricing strategy, you need a good grasp of your market demand. If you’re in a highly competitive space with multiple alternatives for customers to go to, you’ll benefit from a competition-based pricing strategy.
Now we did say that you don’t just want to do what your competitors are doing, but it is good to research what they’re charging and have that influence your decision-making. It can help ensure that you’re charging alongside industry standards and allows you to decide if you want to match, exceed, or undercut these prices based on your value proposition.
Your audience and the different segments that make up your user base and target market will massively dictate which pricing strategy is best for you. Different customer types have different needs and value different things. This means that they’ll be willing to pay different prices for your services. This makes value-based pricing pretty effective as long as you deeply understand what each customer segment is willing to pay.
That said, if through customer research you learn that your users are sensitive to price changes, then other strategies may be better suited to you.
When choosing your product pricing strategy you should always have an eye on your costs, as you need to make sure your strategy covers your expenses and still delivers a profit. Depending on your costs, you may not be suited to economic pricing strategies as it may result in a lower profit.
To ensure you’re factoring in cost, you can always choose a cost-plus pricing strategy, and build it by determining the minimum margin you need to sustain your business.
Got something unique about your product that your competitors can’t match? That can open you up to value-based pricing, where you’ll be able to charge a premium because your product blows your competitors out of the water. Having a Unique Selling Point (USP) gives you more freedom over your pricing strategy.
Plus, if you’re an established business in your market with strong brand loyalty from your customers, you’re in a much better position to sustain a premium pricing strategy over time.
Here’s the tea. Many Product Managers fall into the trap of not experimenting with their pricing often enough. It’s been said by Patrick Campbell, a product pricing expert, that businesses only alter their prices every 3 years. He believes that this is too infrequent and that PMs should look at altering their prices every three to six months. The numbers back this up:
“Studies have shown that 98% of SaaS businesses earned positive results from making core changes to their pricing policy.”
– Phill Alves, CEO of DevSquad
We get it. Changing your pricing often seems scary. But think about it this way. As a Product Manager, you’re changing, updating, and innovating your product constantly. With new features and releases, you’re always tinkering away at your product to make it the best it can be. Why not your pricing too?
Now before you take this to the extreme and start changing things drastically, the iterations don’t have to be that big. Big changes can be disruptive. Say you’re a customer on a tiered pricing model. You don’t want to be dealing with prices that change with the seasons. Instead, you can look to make changes by introducing a new tier and get people to upgrade, or by introducing a related plan with a slightly higher value metric and price. This little-by-little approach to changing your product pricing strategies ensures that you’re constantly evolving.
If you’re still dead set against making regular changes to your pricing strategy, there are some signs that you should look out for that indicate that a pricing strategy switch-up should be on the cards. Of course, some of these are obvious.
If your bills and expenses start to increase, and your profit line starts to fall, then it’s time to think about making changes. Keep an eye on customer churn to see if customers are leaving because of misaligned prices. Plus, if you notice that your competitors are charging prices that don’t align with yours, then you will need to update.
But a less obvious indication that your pricing strategy isn’t working is when you’re getting customers to sign up without any questions or pushback. Hold on. Are we really telling you that people buying your product no questions asked is a bad thing? Well, yeah.
See if your product is selling like hotcakes, and customers are gleefully accepting your pricing terms, it may be an indication that you’re charging too little. Your value proposition may be hugely exceeding the price you’re charging. This is potentially leaving money on the table.
Say you’re a super popular band about to sell tickets for a world tour, and just 10 minutes after tickets got released, you sold out. On the surface, that looks awesome. But if you think about it, you could have made a lot more money if you sold the tickets for a bit more.
As a Product Manager, you want to find a pricing strategy where most people are still just about willing to pay for your product. Of course, you don’t want to be in a situation where no one is buying and everyone is begging for a discount. However, having some pushback on your prices while maintaining consistent customer acquisition indicates that your prices are better than if you’re selling them without issues.
A change in pricing can be difficult to oversee. You don’t want to rush it and upset existing customers by suddenly changing things without them expecting it. You want to go about your business in a proper way. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
When changing your prices, you need to make sure that everyone knows what’s up. Open up communication with your current customers so that they’re fully aware of what you’re doing. Don’t apologize for a price change, but instead treat it as an opportunity. Offering a new tier to your product that’s a bit more pricey? Let them know and make it sound too valuable to ignore. This transparency is key.
But also don’t forget about internal communication. You definitely want Sales and Marketing Teams to be clued in so that they’re not quoting old, outdated prices or models. Keep all stakeholders informed of changes and the rationale behind them.
When you change your pricing strategy, don’t feel like you have to stick it out if it’s not working. You’re free to tweak and revert if that’s the best thing for your product. This flexibility will allow you to be agile and change your prices so that it’s better for you and your customers. Track the performance of your product after the price change, looking out for things like user activation, to see if there’s a dip you need to address.
Be sure to also monitor the KPIs you’ve decided at the start of your product strategy, as this will make it clear if your product is maintaining success with the new prices. If you’re struggling to decide KPIs for your product, we’ve got a list of all the options to choose from that you can steal if needed. Download it below 
:
When you change prices, be sure to maintain your customer feedback loop, so that insight can be used to guide further changes and innovation. Actively seek the thoughts of your customers about the new pricing. Do they think it’s fair? Do they like the new model that you’ve adopted? This process ensures that you’re making good changes for your users.
A significant change to your product pricing strategies and model may result in some resistance from customers. If your strategy has made you go from a one-off payment to a subscription-based model, that change could be pretty jarring and cause dissatisfaction.
Make sure to have a plan in place to deal with these objections. You can sweeten the deal by offering discounts and promotions to ease customers into your new way of pricing.
But it’s not just customers you need to think about. Your competitors may also react to your new product pricing strategy, so you’ll want to keep a close eye on the market to see if they respond and change their tactics. This may force you to make further changes down the road to keep up.
We’re not going to fearmonger and say that getting your product pricing strategy wrong is going to ruin your company. If you notice quickly enough that things are wrong, you can pivot and start to recover.
That said, there are some consequences that you want to avoid, which is why it’s useful to inspect and monitor your pricing regularly so that you can tweak it when needed.
The biggest issue is that you leave money on the table. If your pricing is too low and people are snapping up your product, then you’re missing out on more money that could have been made. On the flip side, if you go too far the other way, you may put customers off from buying from you.
Both of these situations can lead to a low profit margin, which can make things pretty dicey if not sorted out quickly.
Getting your product pricing wrong can also affect how the market views you. If you’re using a product pricing strategy that undercuts your competitors and that is constantly running sales or discounts, you can dilute the value of your brand. Customers may start to see your product as low quality, even if it isn’t. This forces you into a corner in terms of product positioning. No one is going to buy that it’s a premium option if they’ve already built up a conflicting perception in their head.
If you’re keen to learn more about product positioning, we’ve got an awesome on-demand webinar with the even more awesome April Dunford. She’s a product positioning expert, so it’s worth checking out the webinar below 
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[WEBINAR] The Secret to Product Positioning with April Dunford
In summary, a poor pricing strategy is a missed opportunity. You’ll be sacrificing potential income and giving up some customers to your competitors who would have loved your product. All this can harm you in the long run, so be confident to switch things up when needed.
Choosing the right pricing strategy can feel like trying to hit a moving target. It’s a mix of understanding your market, knowing your customers, and keeping an eye on your costs, all while trying to squeeze out a profit.
Whether you’re using competitive based, value-based, or cost-plus pricing, the key is to keep experimenting and adjusting. After all, even the most seasoned Product Managers need to tweak their strategies to stay ahead. And speaking of staying ahead, why not use a tool that’s as flexible as your pricing needs to be?
With ProdPad, you can manage your entire product roadmap in the Now-Next-Later framework, track customer feedback, and highlight recurring ideas to find out what you should be working on next. Why not take it for a test drive? Sign up for a free trial today and see how ProdPad can help you.
Try ProdPad for free, no credit card needed.
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This article highlights the opportunities for collaboration improvement between product managers and product designers. Read more »
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Working as a product trio can be a major transformation. If you’re not used to working this way, it involves changing everything from the coworkers you collaborate with most closely and your communication style to the mindset you bring to work every day.
Making the shift to product trios involves changing everything from the coworkers you collaborate with most closely and your communication style to the mindset you bring to work every day. – Tweet This
The product team at Botify knows this all too well.
Since 2019, they’ve been making a gradual transition to working in product trios. Along the way, they’ve given a lot of thought to this process. What works well? Where are the areas for improvement?
While Chief Product Officer Christophe Frenet initially guided this transition, many members of the team stepped in to facilitate this process.
In today’s Product in Practice, we’ll hear from Christophe as well as from Senior Product Designer Claire Laboissette. We’ll learn about how they started rolling out the product trio model at Botify, some of the tools and tactics they’ve developed to guide their work, and what they’ve observed from the research they’ve conducted with other product leaders and trios.
Do you have a Product in Practice you’d like to share? You can submit your story here.
Left: Christophe Frenet, Chief Product Officer at Botify. Right: Claire Laboissette, Senior Product Designer at Botify
Christophe Frenet is the Chief Product Officer at Botify and Claire Laboissette is the Senior Product Designer. While I spoke with Claire and Christophe for this article, we’ll also hear a bit about other continuous discovery champions from Botify. This includes the product manager Marlène Vieillescazes who works with Claire in her trio, former Vice President of Design, Benoît Drouillat, who developed the Product Trio Maturity Model, and apprentice designer Katia Hie, who is currently writing a thesis on product trios at L’École Européenne des Métiers de l’Internet.
Botify is a B2B SaaS company that helps large websites drive sustainable and profitable growth through organic search optimization. Their customers are among the biggest websites online, including retailers like Macy’s and Levi’s, marketplaces like Farfetch and Etsy, and publishers like the New York Times. Botify’s technology helps identify technical problems on their websites and implement corrective actions.
Initially, there were only developers working on the Botify product. Eventually they added a product owner, designers, and tech managers. Describing how things worked at this stage, Claire says, “We were facing the classic roadmaps decided by the founders, ‘fights’ to push users’ voices in the decisions, and some frustrations of projects that we worked on for several weeks but never ended up going live because of ‘bad’ prioritizations or just opinion changes.”
However, Claire adds it wasn’t all bad. “Small structures are super collaborative and we had this ‘little family’ feeling that was great.” But there wasn’t a well-defined product philosophy at Botify at this time.
When Christophe arrived at Botify as Chief Product Officer in February 2019, things began to change. Christophe—along with help from motivated team members such as Product Managers Matthieu de Vivie and Sarah Loichot as well as Staff UX Designer Maureen Rodaro—transformed the product organization by emphasizing the importance of meeting users and creating teams (or squads) for each outcome with one product manager per scope. To further complete each product squad, he also began adding designers to each squad.
Claire says this was an important step in defining people’s roles and responsibilities: “During this time, he had us work on a kind of RACI to understand that if PMs or designers were ‘accountable’ for specific tasks in the product life cycle, it didn’t mean that they had to carry them out.”
Overall, these changes to team structure signaled a larger shift in how Botify approached product. “My impression is that Christophe put a lot of emphasis on the shift from output-driving to outcome-driving,” says Claire. “Even if we weren’t calling them trios yet, the new squads were supposed to focus more on user or business impact.”
While there was no official announcement of the shift to the trio model at Botify, Claire says she gradually became aware that they were abandoning the notion of overlap in favor of sharing tasks and growing their skills.
What exactly did this mean?
Claire describes a classic example of overlap: “As a junior product designer, I was curious about doing in-depth data research, writing Jira tickets, or even participating in creating my squad’s roadmap. I was able to pair up with PMs who tended not to encourage me in these tasks or preferred to do them alone and inform me later. There was no ill intent, just that silos reassure older organizations.”
But Christophe suggested that they map out all the tasks between PMs, UX, and UI (they had both distinct roles at that stage). Former Staff UX Designer Maureen Rodaro was also key to implementing and evangelizing this type of exercise and a driving force behind pairing product managers and designers. Claire says it helped them realize that there were many tasks, and that if a role was “accountable” for each, it didn’t mean they had to perform it. In fact, the large number of tasks allowed them to see that knowing how to delegate could help them avoid being overwhelmed.
Going through this exercise also revealed that some tasks are in between roles. This means that each trio can adjust the RACI to their own experiences. Christophe says, “Not every PM will be experienced in doing voice of the customer meetings, so if they are paired with a UX designer who is excellent at it, then the trio can lean more on the UX role to achieve this. By pairing people with complementary skills as much as possible, I can ensure that all grow in new areas that are relevant.”
The Botify product team went through this accountability mapping exercise in 2019, a critical step in their transition to product trios.
Claire said that her squad (the “red squad”) began to emerge as an example of a strong trio. This just happened naturally, thanks in large part to the product manager Marlène Vieillescazes’s natural collaboration and ability to delegate.
Claire’s squad spent time defining principles for how they would work together most effectively.
Reflecting on why their product trio emerged as a leading example, Claire says, “I think what helped a lot was the strong collaboration between Marlène and me, and the fact that she was new to her PM role. At the beginning, I was an intern UI designer and she was a senior UX, and she mentored me. When we started the trio, we had been working together for two or three years. I was a junior product designer and Christophe suggested Marlène try being a PM during a colleague’s maternity leave.”
Marlène decided that since she was new to the PM role, she would need all the help she could get, so she created an environment of strong collaboration and trust. Claire continues, “For the first time, we really only communicated in the Slack feature channels, without any direct messages. Everyone always had to be up to date, every challenge was always welcomed and encouraged. For once, I felt I knew not only where I was going with my designs on my project but also our strategy and how the tech was progressing in parallel. We removed the silos and all felt more aware of what we were doing.”
In a trio, I felt I knew not only where I was going with my designs but also our strategy and how the tech was progressing in parallel. We removed the silos and all felt more aware of what we were doing. – Tweet This
Because the red squad emerged as a strong example of how a trio can successfully work together, they were invited to present trio best practices to the rest of the product team, the engineering team, and in a meetup with external guests. The slide below highlights the product trio’s achievements and areas of improvement when they presented to the engineering team in September 2022.
One of the slides Claire presented to the engineering team about their progress to the product trio model in September 2022.
Claire also wrote an article on Medium to share their progress and learnings in October 2022.
Botify hosted a meetup for external participants so they could share their learnings and challenges from shifting to the product trio model.
And their passion for sharing their experience doesn’t end there. Katia Hie, who’s currently working as an apprentice designer at Botify, is writing her thesis on product trios. Katia and Christophe have also begun organizing interviews with CPOs or product trios from other companies to learn about their experiences with working this way.
Claire shares a few of the observations she’s made from these interviews:
Another important step in Botify’s product trio journey occurred thanks to their former VP of Design, Benoît Drouillat. He had the idea that a framework would better help Botifyers and other companies to assess themselves and have open and honest discussions on their maturity. After launching surveys to the French design community through his Designers Interactifs association, he created a Product Trio Maturity Model.
Botify’s former VP of Design, Benoît Drouillat, created the Product Trio Maturity Model to reflect what he’d observed at Botify and heard from other members of the design community.
Claire says this model reflected the fact that at the time Benoît created it, not all the product trios at Botify were equally mature. “Back then we were still facing the issues of not having one designer per squad, of having stronger PM/designer collaboration than with the tech lead, and some trios not having any dedicated sync.”
Christophe adds that both the interviews with other companies and the Product Trio Maturity Model helped him make an important observation: “Successful companies don’t just assume the trio will work by themselves. They train people on it, they explain it regularly, and make it a part of how they operate more broadly. We still have more to do in that regard to help the trios that aren’t as advanced as the others.”
Successful companies don’t just assume the trio will work by themselves. They train people on it, they explain it regularly, and make it a part of how they operate more broadly. – Tweet This
So what happened at Botify once product trios became the accepted way of working? Claire says she observed a few significant changes.
For one, it was much easier to systematize the implementation of success metrics. “Before Christophe’s arrival, we weren’t necessarily setting up success metrics for each project, so we weren’t able to know whether a project was successful or not, and what to do if it was.”
Today, they regularly remind themselves of the right KPIs with standardized definitions and frameworks. This snippet from a Miro board includes some of the definitions they’re working off of.
The product trios at Botify now use standardized guidelines and definitions for their KPIs.
Frameworks also help them to keep their goals within the appropriate scope. For example, with Christophe’s direction, the team started using the Discovery Discipline methodology created by Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot. “This is a great method of ‘forcing you’ to go through seven steps (Frame, Observe, Claim, Unfold, Steal, Execute, and Decide) to ensure you always have a good discovery process for each project,” says Claire. The screenshot below shows the expected deliverables for step 1, “Frame.”
Botify product trios use frameworks like this one from the Discovery Discipline methodology by Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot to keep their projects and goals within scope.
The end result will be a chart like the one shown below.
KPIs are now much more well defined than they were before introducing product trios.
In addition to setting better goals, Claire says squads are now focused on outcomes. For example, in the past, a team might be defined as the “Custom Reports” team, but now they’re defined as the “Help Users Demonstrate Value” team.
The teams make sure to incorporate regular reminders of their team’s intent, outcomes, and KPIs in every board, slide, or other medium so stakeholders always remember their objective. “This creates situations where the devs themselves challenge our solutions based on the outcomes, and I think this is really the power of the trio,” says Claire.
We have situations where the devs themselves challenge our solutions based on the outcomes, and I think this is really the power of the trio. – Tweet This
On each squad’s Confluence homepage, the first thing you see is their strategic intent, as shown here for the green squad.
The teams make sure to share their outcome and metrics across many documents, like in this project board, so they’re always top of mind.
Claire says that now it’s much easier to make better product decisions. She shares one example related to the filter experience. “Our application consists of dashboards with data, and the filter experience is crucial. We knew it was difficult for new users, as it took them a long time to find the right filter to apply.” They followed a process of discovery, design, and implementation, and thought their solution worked.
But when they checked the success metric of “reduction in filter application time,” they realized it hadn’t been reduced much. They conducted a user behavior study to find out that small details like button placement or wording were creating barriers, and were able to fix it.
Claire says, “I am convinced that in our previous organization setup, we wouldn’t have defined a success metric, would have moved on to the next project, and would have only checked the product impact much later, creating frustration in the meantime.”
With the trio model, teams are empowered and silos are removed. This also leads to having stronger roadmaps and more quickly framed projects because the trio is raising the right questions from the beginning. Citing just one example, Claire says that she feels comfortable creating a first draft of the roadmap and presenting it to her product manager, a task that might not typically be done by a designer in other companies.
And perhaps the biggest impact is a mindset shift. Claire says, “There’s one team working towards a common goal. Each team member in the trio has their own expertise that is mandatory but not sufficient to succeed. Finding the best way for the trio to get on the same level of understanding from the product vision to the delivery is a never-ending challenge. Our successful trios, from my standpoint, are helped by strong individuals who have very strong collaboration skills in the first place and low ego.”
From the leader’s perspective, Christophe says, “Product trios help us be more efficient in our work. We believe that the sum of each part of the trio will be superior in outcomes to what each individual could have contributed individually.” Christophe says Claire drafting the roadmap herself is a great example of this. “By taking this task, she helped her team move forward faster than could have been possible otherwise.”
Product trios help us be more efficient in our work. We believe that the sum of each part of the trio will be superior in outcomes to what each individual could have contributed individually. – Tweet This
How are product trios working today at Botify? Claire says, “The challenge today is about elevating trio maturity in all squads. Growing your trio’s skills is all about collaboration, communication, and some kind of humility/modesty (being able to say that you are not always the expert, and that we are smarter together).”
While people often agree with the concept of the trio in theory, acting on it can be a whole other story. Claire continues, “It’s a continuous learning process starting from the most basic reminders (e.g. use the common Slack channels instead of private messages), to deeper levels such as being empathetic with your colleagues or questioning your position in conversations.”
Adopting trios is a continuous learning process starting from the most basic reminders, to deeper levels such as being empathetic with your colleagues or questioning your position in conversations. – Tweet This
For anyone who’s interested in launching or maturing product trios, Claire shares the following advice.
A trio ambassador seems ideal for this, notes Claire. It’s also important to identify a few key actions to put in place at first, such as: always communicate in common channels and always invite the trio (even if you have to challenge this necessity later). Once a trio is well established and confident in its value, you need to be ready to repeat the best practices to the other teams, who will each be onboarded at their own pace.
“At Botify, we realized that the first step to good communication was to get to know each other,” says Claire. Because the tech role of the trio rotates according to who will be tech owner of the project, they organized a communication dos and don’ts and DISC workshop to get to know each other’s professional personalities and share communication best practices. “Each of these activities enabled us to go deeper in our human relations and create a climate of trust and benevolence despite our differences,” says Claire.
One of the actionable tips related to communication that Claire created based on the team’s self-assessment of their product trio maturity.
Through the interviews they’ve conducted for Katia’s thesis, Claire says she’s realized that there are as many trios as there are companies. Some of the insights that made the biggest impression were:
Are you new to the product trio concept or need some help getting started? Explore our in-depth product trio guide here.
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Product managers have been spending the last few weeks looking at their OKRs and thinking about the direction of their products. To help us better understand product strategy and direction, we spoke with Product Leader Chiedza Muguti to discuss making your product strategy come alive. Featured Links: Follow Chiedza on LinkedIn | World Health Organisation | Alteos | ‘Giving direction in product with Read more »
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