Leveraging data to build great products: A conversation with Pendo and McKinsey & Co.

Trisha Price, Pendo’s chief product officer (CPO), spoke with McKinsey partner Rikki Singh on their podcast McKinsey on Building Products. Get a peek into their full conversation below, or listen to the full podcast.

Why measuring the value of your product matters

Trisha Price: Remember Google Glass and the fanfare and excitement attached to its launch? There was a lot of news and hype around it, but it ultimately failed because very few people bought or used it. It goes to show that applause and fanfare are not the right measures of a successful product. You need to measure the value that your product is delivering to customers and users.

I believe this will be a big area of concern with all the hype around AI right now. I believe in AI, but I also think there are a lot of product managers and C-suite executives who are launching AI for the sake of it. It’s important to make sure that you’re not just trying to get applause and excitement—you’re also delivering real value and solving real problems. Measuring the right data will help you do that.

I also believe that putting your product at the center of everything is important. Product management has changed a lot over the past few years. When I first started in product management, the field was centered on shipping features. Now, product people have become more like business leaders, not just technical resources, and the job is more about driving outcomes. Being product-led is an example of that change.

Deciding what to measure depends on company maturity

Rikki Singh: Do you have guiding principles to prioritize the metrics you measure at any point?

Trisha Price: It depends on the maturity of the product that I’m measuring. If it’s an early-stage product and I’m trying to get it launched, I just want people to use it, and I want them to use it frequently. So I have a dashboard for a product that I have in beta that I look at every day to see how many design partners I have, if they come back, and if they used features we think matter in our hypothesis. In that early stage, I’m trying to get to product–market fit, and that’s all I think about.

If it’s a mature product that’s been launched for a while, then it’s more important to track the general breadth of feature adoption, the increase in the number of users of my product, or if the number of users is tracking with the ARR [annual recurring revenue]. For example, if gross ARR is going up but usage is just OK, something’s off. Either these people aren’t getting onboarded quickly or they bought the product in its shelfware and I’m in trouble at renewal time. So, for a mature product, I’m not relentlessly focused on product–market fit, and I’ll start looking at higher-level metrics.

How data drives cross-functional alignment

Rikki Singh: It can be difficult for PMs [product managers] to drive cross-functional stakeholder alignment between sales, marketing, and operations. Have you used instrumentation to help with alignment?

Trisha Price: I have a product scorecard that shows the success of me and my team over the year, and I share it with the whole cross-functional C-suite. When we set it up for the year, the scorecard is aligned to all my peers’ goals. For example, if my chief customer success officer’s goal is to reduce the number of support tickets that team gets, or if the revenue operations team’s goal is to launch in a new market, then my goals should match those. Product adoption requires sales to have sold what’s on the truck. It requires professional services to onboard your customers and educate them on how to use the product. So goals are often cross-functional in nature.

One pitfall I see is when product managers own the tool, leaders may not know how to use it to drive the outcomes of their team. Say a product manager is using the data to build an amazing experience, but the leader doesn’t understand how to align the outcomes to individual contributors’ work. I’ve heard product managers say, “My manager is obsessed with outcomes but is forgetting the route to get there.” As a leader, it’s our job to help take these outcomes and cascade them so the team can create a frictionless experience. Taking five steps out of a workflow for your customer base makes them happier, helps them get business value out of the product, and makes them want to renew and expand with us.

Becoming a strong leader in product management

Rikki Singh: How have your experiences shaped your approach to understanding the diverse needs, thought processes, and preferences of your product users? 

Trisha Price: For many years and at different times in my life, I have been the only woman in the room. It’s important to me that representation at all levels looks like the world we live in. I try to advocate for what is right and fair in every aspect of my life. I believe you get better business results with a diverse group of people in the room. That’s also true for how you use your products, how you conduct research when you’re engaging with people about your products, and how you launch your products.

Rikki Singh: How can middle managers accelerate their career growth?

Trisha Price: First, know what you’re asking for. Each major jump in your career is as much of a lifestyle choice as it is your career choice, especially in terms of what you’re giving up or what the job requires. So make sure you really want it.

Second, make sure you have a support system around you. I have two high school–age boys, and I wouldn’t have been able to make the choices that I’ve made without my husband. The personal part of making the jump to the next stage in your career is equally important, and it’s often discussed less than the responsibilities you have at work.

Third, be willing to learn, read, and ask questions. Being curious has helped me get to where I am. Getting the job done and driving things forward can look different for different personalities. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way, but a relentless focus on driving outcomes separates the middle-management layer from the next. It takes being bold, not being afraid to put your opinion out there, and not being afraid of rejection.

This is but a small piece of Trisha’s conversation with Rikki Singh. Read the full article, or deepen your product analytics knowledge with our free certification.