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
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Conway’s Law causes products to mirror internal team structures, creating silos that hinder customer-centric collaboration.
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All stakeholders in an organization can be right from their own perspective but still lack alignment on customer goals.
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True customer obsession means prioritizing customers over revenue, competitors, or technology, as practiced by Amazon.
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Spending regular, agenda-free time in the field with real customers is critical for building empathy and customer insight.
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Salespeople’s feedback often reflects sales objections, not deep customer insights needed for innovation.
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Fictional personas with invented names and backgrounds risk misleading product teams; real customer stories are essential.
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Observing customers’ actual workflows reveals key unmet needs, as seen in the Salesforce Lightning Experience redesign.
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Early customer feedback is most effective with low-fidelity sketches rather than polished prototypes to invite honest input.
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Organizational metrics should align with customer value drivers, not just financial measures, to truly live customer obsession.
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Breaking Conway’s Law requires embedding customer-centric habits at all leadership levels, including CEO and CPO participation.
Notable Quotes
"Products you ship are direct reflections of your organizational process and communication structures."
"All of them are right but all of them have partial knowledge working in silos."
"Customers are the North Star that should guide all of our work and decisions."
"Customer obsession instead of business model obsession, instead of competitor obsession, instead of technology obsession."
"Sales objections are not customer insights; they serve different purposes."
"Empathy comes from doing the work yourself, like pipetting in a biology lab, not just hearing about it."
"Don’t create fictional personas; use real people’s names, photos, and real stories."
"Sketches are a democratic medium that customers can interact with and improve during feedback."
"If employees are happy, they will take care of customers well, and shareholders will be fine."
"Are we truly a customer-first company, or are we just a shareholder-first company?"
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