How to design a successful product team.

Like many product teams, your team will likely exist in a larger organisation.

Having clear goals that align with the wider organisational vision and demonstrates value to the end-users will motivate the team. This will also allow them to operate with transparency and visibility, both internally and externally.

The team at ProductPlan outline three key criteria when it comes to achieving clarity within a collaborative setting:

Show where we’ve been – Quantitative analysis and reporting on how the product is being used, with consistent metrics that show progress toward goals.

Outline where we are – Communication of current capabilities and how they stack up against the rest of the market.

State where we’re going – A clear roadmap showing how the product is evolving to help the company meet its goals.

Clear goals ensure that everybody (within the team and the broader organisation) is on the same page, removes barriers to inefficiency and guards against potential bottlenecks.

A global study by Gallup on employee engagement and motivation found that 85% of employees worldwide are “not engaged or actively disengaged at work,” resulting in a global downward trend of workplace productivity.

Jim Harter from Gallup outlines that these employees are not bad but “indifferent.” However, it is this indifference that can lead to a spiral in culture, with broader implications for interpersonal workplace relationships and the wider work environment.

“They give you their time, but not their best effort nor their best ideas. They likely come to work wanting to make a difference – but nobody has ever asked them to use their strengths to make the organization better.”

It quickly becomes clear that establishing a culture of trust within your product team is vital to its ongoing success. In a report for the Harvard Business Review, researchers Dr. Vanessa Druskat and Dr. Steven Wolff outlined certain conditions required for establishing trust.

“Our research tells us that three conditions are essential to a group’s effectiveness: trust among members, a sense of group identity, and a sense of group efficacy.”

By promoting a culture built on trust, you are ultimately creating a space where people feel comfortable enough being honest, taking risks and innovating.

“The real source of a great team’s success lies in the fundamental conditions that allow effective task processes to emerge – and that cause members to engage in them wholeheartedly.”

Bring in the right people

Beyond adaptive and human-centred processes, people underpin how a team and its culture manifest. Choosing the right people for your product team therefore is just as vital as having good frameworks in place. However, it is important to not get lost in the hard skills an individual may have.

Though some may have deep expertise in specific knowledge areas, a successful product team requires more. Seek out desirable “soft” skills like creativity, conflict resolution and adaptability.

Ask how might they respond when a problem arises?
Can they negotiate with internal and external stakeholders?
Are they able to adapt to change?

Julia Sinclair-Jones from The Martec believes that those with soft skills “might not be the most knowledgeable managers within their team, but they’ll be the ones able to steer product team success.”