Chain conversation: A future where product makers are united to create real human moments ❣
Today, I joined Chain Conversation, a 9-hour online event that breaks the norm of webinars. Throughout the day, a group of 18 software experts came together to explore two 30-minute conversations where we indulged in our imaginations considering a future that could be realised within our fields of expertise.
Here’s a little about the world I imagined through my thoughts and conversations.
In this world, product makers of all disciplines are united through purpose — a collective ambition to create meaningful, human moments and experiences through learning and curiosity.
🚀 Business leaders and product makers are intimately connected with customers
In this world, company visions are built on evidence, curiosity and learning. They inspire collective ambition and drive a strong sense of purpose throughout our organisations. Team members are united to create exceptional experiences for customers, regardless of function, specialism or seniority.
Business leaders and product makers alike are intimately connected with customers through active participation in both qualitative and quantitative customer research, seeking insight to inform decisions.
The most influential decision makers have the deepest understanding of customer behaviours and attitudes and are able to make informed, confident decisions to drive product success. Top executives play an active role in seeking customer and market insights and build the business around it.
💪 Cross-discipline teams are united as a group of product makers
In this world, product teams are not seen as siloed disciplines of designers, developers, product owners or data analysts but as a small collective of product makers with individual specialisms or skills that drive success together.
Teams work together in a culture nurturing ownership and autonomy with all the necessary tools to achieve success. Design decisions are made through active collaboration considering purpose, value and technical feasibility — focussed on getting great experiences in the hands of customers as efficiently as possible. Design sprints and team workshops are the norm — a working approach has been adopted where all opinions are equal and the success of ideas are defined through customer feedback and measured behavioural change. Mindsets and approaches have taken a turn — barriers between disciplines have been released and teams are united towards a purpose.
🎯 We focus goals on the human moments
In this world, teams are driven by creating positive moments for our customers. Instead of focusing only on traditional KPIs such as acquisition, engagement, conversion or lifetime value, we focus on specific moments — moments when a customer achieves a goal, completes a task or feels a spark of joy. Instead of talking about ‘conversion’, we talk, for instance about a hungry diner successfully placing an order. We connect with the emotions they might feel as they anticipate the human moment when the driver pulls up to their door to hand them their pizza with a smile — and we build our success metrics on those moments.
🏆 We celebrate and learn together
We celebrate curiosity and learning. We accept we don’t have all the answers. We exercise our curiosity, we explore hunches and we seek insight to inform decisions we can feel confident about. We take a structured but experimental approach to product development, seeking insight, creating hypotheses and measuring the impact of product changes on the human experience. We continually connect with our customers, learn together and strive to create the most valuable and purposeful experiences out there.
