Episode 180: Aligning Product Goals with Business Outcomes: Insights from Sean O'Neill of Syncron

In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri sits down for a conversation with Sean O’Neill, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Syncron, all about value creation in product management.

Sean shares lessons from his career to date, which includes senior product roles at Amazon and Tesco as well as his current role at Syncron.

Sean explains that the all-important value-creation moments that a product manager can create could happen at a micro or macro level. He goes on to explain why, to achieve these moments, it’s so important for product managers to understand the financial aspects of their work. This starts with having a clear understanding of the business model and being able to translate product goals into terms that all stakeholders can understand.

During this fascinating conversation, Melissa and Sean also cover how to maintain an experimental mindset, measure the impact of new features, and the build versus buy decision-making process. 

Tune in now so you don’t miss out!

Identifying where you can create and add value is a vital part of your role as a product manager. The ‘value-creation moments’ that you should be looking for are instances where significant value is created for either the customer or the business, or even both! Being able to recognize and understand these moments is key for figuring out how much investment into certain areas is needed. To be able to do this effectively, product managers need a deep understanding of their company’s business model, cost structure, and revenue streams. By thinking like an entrepreneur and educating yourself on these elements, you can become a better product manager.

If you want to grow and develop fast, you need to take risks and nurture a culture of experimentation. You can maintain this culture by actively pursuing segmentation in the development process as you scale. By ‘thin slicing’ you tackle manageable parts of the process one at a time, allowing for fast feedback and rectification of errors. This mitigates the risk of investing in changes that could be a failure. This is all in aid of Sean’s overarching point that you need to be trying to make it “cheap to be wrong”. This is one of the only ways you can keep buy-in for experiments when the bets start to get bigger.

Sean reflects on his experiences in both American and European organizations, and he notes that the European product management ecosystem is about 10 to 15 years behind the US. He observes that European product managers often become rigid in their approach, adhering strictly to the first methodology they learn. In contrast, successful US product managers adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset using the right tools for the job at hand and maintaining a holistic view of the business. Sean uses this comparison to stress the importance of adaptability, focusing on impact more than methodology.

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Previous guests include: Shruti Patel of US Bank, Steve Wilson of Contrast Security, Bethany Lyons of KAWA Analytics, Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue of Doodle, Jason Fried of 37signals, Hubert Palan of Productboard, Blake Samic of Stripe and Uber, Quincy Hunte of Amazon Web Services

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