Contrary to popular belief, culture doesn’t
just happen by itself. It has to be guided and encouraged by leadership, and
then built by every person in the organization. As a Product Leader (whether
that’s the CEO at the top of a Product-Led company, or a Product Manager in the
trenches) you’re a key component of your team culture.
We’re going to look at the different types
of culture that you need to be building in your organization and in your teams.
We’ll also give you the debrief on hiring for culture fit, and give you the
tools you need to find the right people that’ll help you create a strong
product culture.
Culture has to be at the top of your mind
when you’re building Product teams. Yes it’s important to find people with the
skills and experience that you’re looking for, but you need people who are
going to be a good fit for the culture that you’re trying to create
No one likes to make an interview process
longer than it has to be, but consider adding a culture fit interview to your
process. This can be the final step, once you’ve decided that someone has the
skills needed to get the work done, conducted by your talent team. Or, you
could arrange for an informal culture-fit meeting between the candidate and the
teammates they’d be working with more closely.
Alternatively, you can pepper culture
questions throughout the rest of the interview process. As we go through the
rest of the article, check out our advice for how to conduct an interview with
an eye for culture.
Throughout your time as a hiring manager,
you will likely find yourself facing a choice between a candidate who is 80%
equipped for the role but is a fantastic culture fit, and someone who is 110%
equipped for the role but would be an awful culture fit.
Depending on the nature of the job, it may
make sense to hire the latter. Let’s say it’s a temporary contract and you just
need the job to be done well and fast.
But the majority of the time, you’ll
benefit more from finding someone who is a great culture fit and letting them
pick up the few skills they’re missing on the job. You can learn skills and you
can gain experience, but if a candidate doesn’t share a company’s values from
the beginning, they’re going to be a friction point.
The Build-a-Culture Guide for Product
Leaders:
Building a Data-Driven Culture
Data sits at the heart of all things
Product. Data helps you to make informed decisions, identify new opportunities,
and is a key tool for stakeholder management and influence without authority
Most modern agile Product Management
practices put the user at the forefront of everything, like user personas and
user stories. So the processes you use to get your product build should already
be customer-centric. This gives you an advantage, but it doesn’t automatically
create a customer-focused culture across your teams. You can always go a step
further.
Use positive user feedback as an important
measure for success. This can be a great motivator for teams, and it makes hard
work feel easier when you’re able to see the positive impact you’re having. Set
up an automation that shares 5-star reviews of your product in a dedicated
Slack channel, or send screenshots of the best reviews of the week with your
teams in your weekly standup.
Data-driven interview questions:
The key to identifying which candidates are
data-driven, is not to ask them questions that are explicitly about data and
see how well they answer. That’s just a quiz on their general data knowledge.
Instead, ask broader questions where data is one of a few answers, and see how
often they bring it up of their own volition:
" How would you go about prioritizing the
backlog?”
“How do you measure success?”
“If you have the final decision on whether
Feature A or Feature B gets built, how do you go about deciding between the
two?”
“A stakeholder has requested a feature/task
that you think is the wrong move. How would you handle that situation?”
But the biggest danger to Product teams is
unconscious bias because it can seep into your product if left unchecked. A
successful product is one that is made for all the types of people within a
target market. Potential customers notice if your product is leaving them out,
and they’ll run off to a competitor that makes them feel included. Make a
conscious effort to have uncomfortable conversations with yourself about
unconscious bias, and encourage the rest of your teams to do the same.