INSPIRED, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 62Communicating Product Learnings

Sharing what we learn in a startup happens naturally because the product team and the company are pretty much the same thing. However, as companies scale, this becomes substantially more difficult; yet, it also becomes increasingly important to do.

A technique I love for helping with this is for the head of product, at a company all‐hands or similar meeting every week or two, to take 15 to 30 minutes to highlight what has been learned in product discovery across the various product teams.

Note that this is meant to cover the bigger learnings and not the minor things—what worked, what didn't work, and what the teams are planning to try the following week.

This update needs to move fast and kept at the big learnings level, which is why I prefer the VP product to do this. This is not where every product manager parades in front of everyone for a detailed update, taking one to two hours of time and at more detail than most people want to see. It's not meant to be a repeat of sprint reviews either.

Instead, the update is meant to address several purposes, some tactical and some cultural:

• The big learnings are important to share broadly, especially when things don't go as hoped. As a side benefit, sometimes someone in the audience has an insight about what might explain the results.
• This is a useful and easy way for the various product teams to keep apprised of what other teams are learning, as well as ensuring that useful learnings make ...