R070 - Teams and Business in Digital Product, with Marta Ros Urrutia

In my opinion, product companies are the perfect breeding ground for experimenting with new ways of work management, strategic planning, self-management cultures, and ultimately, everything related to the main transformation challenges most companies face today. Today we talk about digital product with Marta Ros, Product Director at Infojobs.

What is the real world to you?

The definition of the real world is a bit complex for me, because as everyone lives in their own reality bubble, what is reality and what is not? It's something difficult for me to define because everyone has their own life. That's where the magic is too.

When we are conducting any market research, what we try to do is avoid all the assumptions we make ourselves about what we are being told, because as everyone comes with their own reality backpack and context, it is difficult to separate the different realities, and it is a task that makes you always go with a blank page to understand the other's reality.

R070 - Teams and Business in Digital Product, with Marta Ros

Product teams at Infojobs

Your context is really complex, not just because of what we talked about regarding marketplaces, countries, etc. You are currently leading 11 teams, and these teams are all working on a single marketplace. How do you divide the teams?

The teams were already divided when I found them and were very well defined in how they were divided. They were clustered into candidates, companies, and monetization. Now monetization and company are together. Each of them has a part of each user's experience and are owners of it, which from my point of view is good and this doesn't need to be changed.

If a candidate team is dedicated to the search experience, then all the problems related to the user experience of searching for something, well, this is their problem and they will say what the problems are, etc. It is very well resolved and absolutely nothing has been touched. For me, the challenge is how they work together and that silos are not created between them and there is no lack of communication. So, this has been the biggest challenge for me this year and a half. It has been easy because when I joined, all the product managers were asking for it. We need to be more united. And it is about creating the space to have those common discussions about user problems.

When we are talking about the candidate not finding the right offers, it might be that companies are not defining the offer well. So, it is no longer just a problem of the candidate not finding. How do we extend this problem to all teams? Can we do something from another team that is not strictly the one dealing with search? Because what it does is not find. This is the question we have to ask ourselves. That's why it is important to align on those needs. From aligning on the needs, what are the most important problems we have to solve, we all have to agree on this. So, for me, unity is the most important part of everything, so that no one remains isolated on their side. You were talking about the isolation of looking at a metric and losing perspective; the same can happen in a product team.

What artifact do you use to convey that cross-visibility to all teams?

The least technical artifact is getting everyone in a room and talking. Last year, for example, I saw the need for everyone to look at the entire journey from both sides of the marketplace, employers and candidates, at each step, what problems I see, all metrics and all qualitative data too, perhaps more related to user satisfaction to understand each of the things. We did an exercise to connect the different metrics with thread. And there we decided what problems we had to talk about. But that artifact was because we came from the separation of everyone. So, I thought it was important for everyone to understand each other's problems. So, when I moved this metric, it affected you with this other metric.

So, it was important to understand that part so that we could have a concrete conversation. When we get back together now, it will be a completely different artifact. It's about experimenting, just like the culture. Look, one of the things I didn't tell you before about different things in digital companies is the luxury of being able to fail. And this culture of constant learning. Well, I also allow myself that within the teams and the artifacts we use.

It is impossible to develop a product in a company that penalizes error.

You can't, because that's exactly what you have to do, fail. Because you will have to. Another problem if we fail and haven't learned anything. If we don't learn anything, we are doing something wrong. But if we have learned a lot, it stops being a mistake and becomes a learning. So, we have to be very clear about this. But then, I also allow myself this and I am super transparent with the team so that they also live the culture of error, which is like a pejorative word, but I find it wonderful.

If there is something I am proud of about this podcast, it is how heterogeneous its listener community is. I must confess that there was a time when I was worried about talking to you about topics not usual in the real world line of recent times. Over the years, and it's been six now, we have been developing diverse themes and discovering incredible people. But perhaps business and product topics have been left out, and I think we need to remedy this. The change companies need is an integral change. It is difficult to find references to be inspired by, which is why I think there is much to learn from product-oriented companies. So in upcoming episodes, we will add a bit more diversity to the already usual topics on innovation, technology, and its social and ethical impact. But at the core, all this is about the same thing. People trying to build better futures. Thank you very much for trusting our judgment. A big hug and I look forward to seeing you in the real world.

What is a product strategy?

Let's see, I think the product strategy depends a bit on the level you are looking at it. It also depends on the size of the company. I mean, an Adevinta, which is a tremendously large company with 25 marketplaces in 10 different countries, when there is a product strategy, it is a more structured strategy in what exactly are the values that each of the products must embody. We are talking about marketplaces, what is the liquidity in the marketplaces has to be, we have to be attentive to this. The product must embody that trust we must give to users. Certain elements that must be pillars, that must be respected in each of the products you develop.

Then, you can go more to the level of marketplace, how you define the product strategy. The way I understand it, for me, it is fundamental that the product, and especially in a digital company, is super aligned with the business strategy itself, because the product is business, business is product. It's all very intertwined.

Digital companies have not reinvented any wheel. Everything was already there. They have gathered different ways of working that were quite well optimized and have brought them together in some way.

If we go down different paths, conversations will become tremendously complicated because we already speak different languages, business and product. We speak differently and if we are not aligned there, we are not doing well.

For me, one of the fundamental points to have a good strategy is that everyone is clear, not only what it is, but how we are going to measure that the strategy is being fulfilled. Of course, our goal is for people to find jobs, have joys, and for companies to fill this gap. They are the joys, but we measure the joys once a year. How do we know throughout the year that we are on the right track? There has to be a North Star Metric. And from there we break down, what exactly is the focus of each one. And we become a bit more specific, what does this big vision mean in the different areas?

For me, there is the strategy on one side, like more of the core problem you are solving and you have to be sure you are solving it correctly, but then you have to see if there is a need to expand that strategy in other focuses, like product extension and find exploring those gaps that can cover other needs adherent to the main problem.

What characteristics does a digital product company have?

In the end, for me, it also comes with the part I like most about the product. For me, a product-oriented company is rather a user-oriented company. That is, the user is at the center and if you put the company's priorities, the user is at the center. Does this mean it will not have any impact on the company? No, because it does have to have it. But this is what makes it different.

One of the fundamental points to have a good product strategy is that everyone is clear, not only what it is, but how we are going to measure that the strategy is being fulfilled.

In my previous experience, in more industrial companies, the user was not something that was taken into account and it is true that even my first ethnographic study was done at Roca. I mean, a purely industrial company, but we got into seeing how people, in this case, the "empty nesters" lived in the bathroom once the children had left their home. The truth is that it was a wonderful opportunity. I mean, it doesn't mean that industrial companies don't have this perception, because I have experienced it in a totally industrial company, but I think this does differentiate it from the vast majority, perhaps.

The other for me is speed. I mean, it's a dizzying speed. You have to be releasing new things all the time, all the time, all the time. You can't be still for a minute. I have that feeling of no peaks and valleys, you are always at the peak. And then the rest, actually digital companies haven't reinvented any wheel. Everything was already there. A little bit from here, a little bit from there. They have gathered different ways of working that were quite well optimized and have brought them together in some way.

UX is not invented in the digital environment. User experience is also entering a clothing store. How you do everything, the aroma, the music, how they serve you, that is also user experience. It is not invented in the digital world.

Business vision

It makes sense to define a vision and where we want to go. But then, how do you get to that vision?

How you get to that vision is what you have to define. That's why I told you there are different layers. For me, the strategy is at the vision level. That you can achieve this and how you can be sure you are going in that direction. And then, from there, it's about seeing how it evolves because the environment also evolves very quickly. Not only us as a company that is releasing new things, but the environment itself also changes very quickly. So, that makes people also behave differently with respect to your product. Therefore, you already have to turn. Perhaps the most significant example we've had recently was the pandemic. That changed absolutely all the behaviors of everyone. And you look at all the metrics of all the companies, and there are peaks up or peaks down. There are no middle terms. But, of course, you have to take into account that those circumstances, sometimes, before the cycles were longer and now the cycles are smaller and the contexts change quickly.

Therefore, I don't know if there shouldn't be a strategy, I don't know if I would say this as a statement, I don't know if I would feel comfortable, because there always has to be a direction, something to aim for.

Metrics and data orientation

We talked about metrics and that data orientation. How to measure and what problems do we sometimes encounter with metrics?

I think the first is understanding the metrics we are looking at. The interpretation of the data. And the data is very playful because depending on the perspective you look at it, you can interpret it one way or another. And then, it completely changes the perspective of what you are looking at. In fact, I found it very amusing, right during the pandemic, the same data shared by different televisions gave it a positive or negative focus. This is the issue with data. In itself, the data tells you nothing. How do you interpret it? With what other data are you feeding it? There is a complicated challenge. And knowing what you are looking at too. And then, not getting stuck on those metrics that really aren't helping you improve anything at all, known as Vanity Metrics. The challenge of really identifying what those good metrics are that we need to know if we are really following that path I mentioned before.

It is fundamental that the product in a digital company is super aligned with the business strategy itself, because the product is business, business is product.

Interpretation, choosing the right metrics, and not getting lost in never stopping looking, because this is a bottomless pit. I mean, you could dig and dig and dig and dig into the data and you would never finish this work. So, you have to know when to say enough.

Can we fall into misalignment, getting too attached to a metric or obsessing over a metric, trying to sub-optimize that metric and losing sight of the strategy?

It can happen. The moment that metric is very far from the target metric. Now, one of the things we are trying to do at Infojobs is to try to build a KPI tree of the entire marketplace, which is very complex in this case. Precisely to know what the connection between the metrics is and what the distance is. Because if you say: This is the biggest problem there is and this is the metric with which I will measure, but it is very far from one of the objectives you need to achieve, you are not going to do much, you are not going to move the needle. You will move this one down here, but we have to be up here as a business.

That lack of visualization of that interconnection between metrics, I think, is not in all companies. We don't have it yet, we are working on it.

The danger is being very far from the metrics and sometimes, even not looking at the metric and letting yourself be carried away by your intuition. They are like two different things, but I see them very similar, despite looking at metrics.

What is digital product?

Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to switch to the mobile, which is what we all have in our hands at all times and every day. The mobile itself is already a digital product. So, a digital product can be hardware, something you build and that has something inside. The mobile is the mobile itself, but then it also has the operating system, that is, there are other digital products that are not the hardware, but the software, simply and plainly the software. And then we have the apps and we have the internet on the mobile. All those little squares on the mobile are digital products that someone has developed thinking about solving a problem.

And every time you go to the internet, search on Google, Google is already a digital product in itself. Every page you click there is a digital product that serves a purpose, that meets a need. So, sometimes it is difficult to explain because it is something more, perhaps, intangible. In its now majority of the time. What is hard to think about is not so much the digital product, because I think today, like everyone, any age and any person has had an interaction with a digital product.

What do you like most about working in product?

The part I like most is all the part of understanding the user, all the part of knowing how they live in that moment of solving the central problem. Now I am at Infojobs, about how people look for jobs, different moments in life when they have that need to understand those changes in needs depending on the change in their environment, the characteristics that surround them, their vital moments. All this understanding, all this knowing what is happening around, regardless of whether there is a digital product or not. This is the part I like the most, the outside part.

There is a very beautiful thing: the hires that are achieved throughout the year are called joys. We have achieved 1.3 million joys this past year. And this reflects exactly what you are saying, because it is experienced in a special way, a special moment in people's lives, because you are meeting a very vital need for people.

Output vs outcome

Companies that are obsessed with reporting and deliverables versus impact orientation. Why is it so hard to focus on outcome?

I will divide it into two parts: people outside the product and people inside the product (understood as Product and Tech). People outside because they need to know what you are doing. Need to know where we are going, what is next, what you are doing day to day. That perception of lack of control to which we humans are accustomed, to see something tangible, what are we putting out there?

And then there is the part of Product and Tech: "We work a lot, but we haven't impacted." And that demoralization about the work delivered. When you go to Outcome, you have a risk that you won't get it right the first time and you will surely fail today, tomorrow, and the day after. And precisely what it is about is learning, this is what discovery is about, learning. But of course, we have worked a lot as a team and here it seems that we haven't done anything. The OKR hasn't moved. And all that we have learned, what about it? Yes, but we also want to say that we have done a lot of things.

It is not so easy from either perspective, from the outside perspective of what they are doing and from the inside perspective of we are doing a lot of things, even if we are not nailing it, we are not getting it right, we are working a lot. And there has to be a certain reflection of what is being done. It's a bit difficult, but there can be a coexistence between the two. You shouldn't obsess over either one.

My problem with output orientation is that I think that type of culture absolutely disempowers people, prevents teams from being focused on solving problems. There I see a very serious problem, the industry is still very immature in that sense.

I am 100% aligned with you. The orientation has to be outcome, not output. But the output is there. So, we must not lose visibility of the output. But all the time we have to be focused on outcome. And now we are going to discuss Q3, what we are going to do in Q3. But you are going to tell me what the needs are. Then the teams will say what initiatives they are going to do. I don't care about which or how many. I want to know, and that we are all aligned, on what is that need, that opportunity that we all agree we are going to pursue. Because the teams are very interrelated, we try to have very few dependencies between them so that there is autonomy. But it is impossible for one thing not to have an effect on the other. Therefore, we all have to be more or less aligned.