Christine Itwaru

Pendo

In this episode, Christine Itwaru, Principal Strategist at Pendo, describes her journey from a product management role to product ops to strategy, tackling big-picture issues and leaves kernels of wisdom for us to use in our own product roles. Among them, how to strengthen the human connection between product teams and their users. Key takeaways …

Michael Sacca & Chloe Oddleifson

Gigantic

Working in a startup brings the concept “CEO of the product” to a whole new level. Suddenly, as Gigantic CEO Michael Sacca and COO Chloe Oddleifson know well, you’re responsible for every aspect of your product’s development, launch, promotion, sales – and everything in between. Fun fact: there’s plenty to take away from the startup …

Marsha Acker

TeamCatapult

When we’re afraid to have difficult conversations, we hold ourselves back and create more frustration and work in the long run, says Marsha Acker, founder and CEO of Team Catapult. “We spend a lot of time trying to avoid conflict and the things that make us feel uncomfortable. And yet in our attempts to avoid …

Alla Weinberg

SPOKE & WHEEL

Alla Weinberg, CEO of SPOKE & WHEEL, says that the key to designing relationships that resolve (even avoid) workplace tensions is to have different conversations than the ones we’re currently having. Our relentless focus on the work, she explains, distracts us from focusing on the people and making sure that we have created an organization …

Devan Goldstein

Trello

Success as a product manager requires finding the right balance between solving user problems and meeting rigid business demands. For Devan Goldstein, a Group Product Manager at Trello (an Atlassian product), “product management’s fundamental accountability is to ensure that the business gets what it needs out of the teams it has put in place to …

Erica Orange

The Future Hunters

Vision and Strategy are terms often used interchangeably. It’s easy to do, especially when the future is racing toward us. But when we conflate the notion of vision and strategy — as Eastman Kodak learned the hard way years ago — we confuse our objective with the path to achieving it. We can we adjust …

Matt Bernius

Code for America

It can be overwhelming to think about all of the impacts – both positive and negative – that our products might have on those who use them. In this episode of Product Momentum, Paul is joined by Matt Bernius, friend of ITX and Principal User Researcher at Code for America. Matt discusses trauma-informed design in …

Kate Leto

Product Coach, Consultant

For years product management’s “hard skills” have gotten much of the spotlight, maybe because they’re easier to get our arms around. But as product management coach and consultant Kate Leto explains, the conversation seems to be shifting toward product leadership’s more elusive collection of “soft skills,” which she refers to as emotional intelligence. In this …

Alex Crandall

Landing

Imagine a world where you can just be yourself. Where you can be safe and be expressive and be just how you want to show up and not be worried about being judged for it. This is the sort of community that Landing product designer Alex Crandall is helping to build. It’s a refreshing world …

Matt LeMay

Sudden Compass

The myth of product management is that human complexity can be reduced to a manageable framework, one that lets us show up for work feeling confident and comfortable and ready to take on the world. Not so fast, says Matt LeMay, internationally recognized product leader, consultant, and author of Agile for Everybody and Product Management …