Summary
Join conference curator Christian Crumlish, conference speakers, and special guest commentators for a lively panel discussion reviewing highlights, sharing notable takeaways, and diving deeper into questions inspired by the morning’s presentations.
Key Insights
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Designers influence the design components of strategy, while product managers steer full product and business strategy.
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Domain expertise and technical knowledge become more critical as a product and company scale.
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Aligning multiple strategies (design, product, business) requires shared ownership and clear communication.
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Facilitating conversations cross-functionally is a vital skill to build consensus on strategy.
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User-centered metrics that combine qualitative and quantitative data help balance fast product iterations with meaningful user insights.
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Human-centered goals can be challenging to measure but are essential for true customer impact versus vanity metrics.
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Translating high-level business goals into actionable team goals helps motivate contributors outside their core expertise.
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Continuous focus on goal-setting, measurement, and learning is a muscle teams must develop over time.
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Product managers often struggle to motivate operational or indirect teams connected to top-level goals.
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Effective goal conversations frame expected behaviors and potential negative outcomes to create better and safer goals.
Notable Quotes
"When I was head of product, I wasn’t enough of a domain expert or business model expert to scale the company."
"You only have agency over what you can execute on, so your ability to influence strategy depends on your expertise."
"If the design team is on board with the product strategy, they own the design part of it, which should deliver a win for the product and business strategy."
"Facilitating better conversations cross-functionally is a superpower that leads to better outcomes."
"Data can be seductive, but focusing only on clicks risks sacrificing the user perspective."
"Human-centered metrics put qualitative user needs back into the conversation alongside quantitative data."
"I ask how a goal could go wrong and who might be harmed to help design safer, more effective goals."
"Teams who translate complex goals into everyone’s language help people feel proud and aligned with broader business outcomes."
"It’s a muscle to build: agreeing on goals, measuring, learning, and adjusting over time to avoid wasted effort."
"Product folks face challenges translating clear founder or business goals down to motivating operational teams."
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