On March 9, 2023, we were delighted to welcome the FrenchProduit community to our Toulouse premises (aka la Naza) for a Meet-Up.
On the program :
- A welcome drink between participants
- Two high-quality conferences on feedback from two companies with a strong product culture(Lucca and Pictarine).
- Discussions and sharing over an aperitif dinner
It was a great experience for several reasons:
- The highly instructive contribution of the two REXs
- To see that the Toulouse product community is active and present, and to be able to share our PM realities with our peers.
- Raising the profile of 5 Degrés SUD
The contribution of the two REX in a nutshell :
François Goldgewicht, Pictarine's CPO , came to talk to us about Pictarine's product culture, and the 12 principles they "self-impose" to align themselves with this culture.
In short, "radical" discovery, "pragmatic" delivery and team commitment (sounds dreamy, but François reassures us that it's not easy every day).
Radical discovery: everything is done to achieve the following objective: find clues about user behavior, even if it means "breaking production" to find out. Radically changing a feature and seeing that users don't adopt it is a clue. The cost is worth it.
Pragmatic delivery : it's essential to know the business impact before embarking on a solution, in order to best adapt the feature.
A committed product team : each member of the team works as much on discovery as on delivery, and everyone must be able to talk "strategy": put forward hypotheses, be able to measure and propose solutions. The conditions for this to work are mutual support, communication and benevolence. This ecosystem allows everyone to feel fully involved.
Cecile Meozzi da Costa, Head of Product at Lucca, spoke to us about the clash between business and product teams.
Lucca's mantra: " We design applications for those who use them, not for those who buy them". As an HRIS solution provider, this means making sure that the functionalities are those required by the users (company employees, HR) and those who buy the solution (company managers, HR directors).
So there are business teams (BM, CSM) and product teams (PM, Designer, Developer). It's not always easy to manage the relationship between the two teams. The first wants to see a new feature as a priority, while the other prefers to improve the product's inherent experience.
This is where the judge of the peace comes in , aka the PMM (Product Marketing Manager), bridging the gap between the two worlds. The PMM is the voice of a player:
- The PM is the voice of the user/customer
- PMM is the voice of the prospect
The PMM has his own squad with representatives from the business teams (sales, marketing, CSM).
This enables Lucca to co-construct the roadmap by prioritizing both the voice of the customer and the voice of the prospect (and it works quite well!).
Seeing that the Toulouse community is alive and well and active:
Around forty of us attended this Meet-Up. A variety of profiles, in very different fields, but all sharing the same passion for Product Management.
We shared our experiences , ideas and projects with our peers over a convivial evening.
Spreading the word 5 Degrees South :
We're proud to have welcomed the FrenchProduit community for its Meet-Up at our newly inaugurated offices in the Pink City. It was an opportunity to introduce the team and share our vision: Product theory is one thing, implementing it and bringing it to life is quite another, and that's the challenge we've set ourselves.
We're already looking forward to the next Meet-Up and hope to see you there! 😉
In the meantime, feel free to view or replay the replay of this great evening.
Sébastien Rambaud
Consultant Product Owner & Practice Leader Product Management
