Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Opening Keynote: Breaking Conway's Law--or How to Work Differently and Not Ship Your Org Chart
Gold
Monday, June 3, 2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Share the love for this talk
Opening Keynote: Breaking Conway's Law--or How to Work Differently and Not Ship Your Org Chart
Speakers: Tatyana Mamut
Link:

Summary

If doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, most enterprise product teams are insane. In today’s world, shipping truly innovative, customer-obsessed experiences means that we must break down silos and collaborate in new ways. In this talk, Head of Product (CPO) at Nextdoor, Tatyana Mamut, PhD–who also led multi-functional product teams at Amazon, Salesforce, and IDEO–draws upon experiences at enterprise companies that managed to break Conway’s Law and ship innovative product experiences by working across silos and functions.

Key Insights

  • Conway's Law means products often unintentionally reflect organizational silos, making collaboration across functions difficult.

  • All internal stakeholders can be right in their perspectives, but without shared customer focus, conflicts arise.

  • Customer obsession must be prioritized over revenue, competitors, technology, or business models to align organizations.

  • Leaders like CPOs and CEOs should spend regular, agenda-free time directly with customers to build empathy.

  • Real customer field research uncovers nuanced needs that proxies like surveys, sales feedback, or fictional personas miss.

  • Fictional personas dilute real customer complexity; using actual customer stories and photos is more effective.

  • Reframing product design around actual customer workflows—e.g., salespeople writing emails and holding meetings—can rapidly improve products.

  • Early, low-fidelity prototyping like sketches encourages honest, democratic feedback from customers.

  • Customer value drivers must dictate prioritization and metrics, as seen at Amazon (price, speed, selection) and Intuit (money, no work, confidence).

  • Aligning OKRs and dashboards to mission-driven customer metrics ensures product teams remain accountable to real user outcomes rather than shareholders alone.

Notable Quotes

"The products that you ship are direct reflections of your organizational processes and communication structures."

"Everyone has a different perspective and partial knowledge, and all are right—but that creates silos."

"Customer obsession instead of competitor obsession or technology obsession must be really clear across teams."

"Having your CEO and CPO spend two days a month in the field with customers without any agenda is critical."

"Sales objections are not customer insights; they serve different purposes and must be treated separately."

"Pipetting at a biology bench gives empathy no survey or photo can provide."

"Don’t make up fictional personas; use real people’s names, photos, and stories to capture real customer complexity."

"Showing sketches to customers early encourages them to redraw and better express their needs."

"If our employees are happy, they will take care of our customers—and shareholders will be just fine."

"Are we truly a customer-first company, or a shareholder-first company? That shows up in what we measure."

Ask the Rosenbot
Billy Carlson
Pro-level UI Tips for Beginners
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Nidhi Singh Rathore
Embracing participation to unlock deeper truths in commercial research
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Fatimah Richmond
The Future of ReOps as a Strategic Function: A Roadmap for Getting There
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Niko Laitinen
Adaptable Org Design for Resilient Times
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Theresa Neil
Designing for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Uday Gajendar
Theme 1: Introduction
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Sam Proulx
SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Prabhas Pokharel
Order and Chaos: New Ways of Collaborating on Synthesis and Storytelling
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Jorge Arango
Design as an Antidote to VUCA
2019 • Enterprise Community
Peter Merholz
The Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX
2023 • Enterprise Community
Prayag Narula
HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Julie Norvaisas
Back to basics, or start from scratch?
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Kathleen Asjes
Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sarah Sgarlato Pierini
From Passion to Execution: A Story of Evolving Research Maturity at LinkedIn
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Jamika Burge
Embracing change: Navigating shifting landscapes with compassion and agency
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Dr. Nikki Smith
Research Strategy: Connecting Insights to Outcomes
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold

More Videos

Nalini Kotamraju

"For the first time, I was able to advocate for funding directly for the research function at high executive levels."

Nalini Kotamraju

Research After UX

March 25, 2024

Dean Broadley

"Not belonging anywhere meant that I had access everywhere."

Dean Broadley

Not Black Enough to be White

January 8, 2024

Denise Jacobs

"If you’re not doing the work of addressing your own pain, you won’t be effective in helping others."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Kim Fellman Cohen

"Design thinking helped us empathize, define problems, co-create ideas, and then test them like products."

Kim Fellman Cohen

Measuring the Designer Experience

October 23, 2019

George Aye

"We mostly have something called a BYOE scenario or bring your own ethics."

George Aye

That Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide

November 16, 2022

Nathan Curtis

"Sometimes alignment work isn’t enjoyable, but it’s part of the job for design system success."

Nathan Curtis

Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products

June 9, 2016

Greg Petroff

"Platforms need researchers and designers to make them meaningful and intentional for the people they are designed to serve."

Greg Petroff

The Compass Mission

March 10, 2021

Chloe Amos-Edkins

"Global and local cultures are closely entwined and always influencing one another."

Chloe Amos-Edkins

A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation

March 27, 2023

Mackenzie Cockram

"Some stakeholders still prefer their beliefs to data, even in academia."

Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian Franklin

Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live

December 16, 2022