My manager “README” file for 2019

Posted on January 2, 2019 by affronti

Setting expectations with your team and co-workers is a critical step in building productive, long-term relationships with each of them. This can be a difficult process even when you are all fortunate enough to be working in the same office or building, but what about when your organization is geographically distributed across multiple countries and time zones?

Fuze is a heavily distributed company and my product team alone is scattered across four countries and six different time zones. I’m constantly searching for new ways to improve transparency, set expectations, and increase collaboration between our product managers. I read this great article over at SoapboxHQ, “How to Set Expectations With Your Team“, that describes the concept of a manager “readme” file, and was inspired by the concept and some of the follow-up stories I read about managers building their own.

I took a stab at building my own readme file and have been testing it with the two new product managers that we hired in November. The feedback has been extremely positive and they each gave me some more items to include. I’ve posted the entire deck below and would love to hear any feedback on it, or ways that you think you could use this in your organization.

Happy New Year!

Link: Michael Affronti README (Google Slides)

See all the slides here: Michael Affronti README (Google Slides)

428 Offices & Counting: How I Work From Everywhere

Posted on July 10, 2017 by affronti

Credit @DesignDeveloper blog

I’ve been a prolific Foursquare user ever since it was released several years ago. I rely heavily on its Swarm check-in app to keep a digital journal of my travels for auditing, sharing, and the occasional #tbt.

I recently did some searches for words like “work,” “office,” “Fuze” (our company name), “working,” etc. in an effort to try and find all the places I’ve checked-in over the past two years where I was working.

What I discovered was actually a little surprising.

All in all, I found 428 “offices” in my travel history. That’s 428 unique places that I can claim to have been doing work at.

Here’s a sample of some of the random places I’ve called an office:

A Waffle House restaurant in Atlanta, GA
(breakfast meeting with the local sales team)
Stalled somewhere in the south of France on the EuroStar train from Paris to London
(a video call with a customer back in the U.S.)
A donut shop in Park City, Utah
(emergency virtual team meeting during a ski weekend)
The pilot’s lounge at Heathrow Airport
(internet was down in the BA lounge so they brought me in there as I claimed I needed to join this emergency meeting)

While I was looking through this diverse list from across the globe, I started thinking about how few of my friends and colleagues are able to work in these sorts of places with any kind of consistency.

Some of course, would just prefer not to, and that’s perfectly fine.

However, in working at a globally-distributed company I have found that my ability to work from anywhere has not only increased my productivity, but also has allowed me to enjoy the freedom of having the world as a workplace.

And for me, that beats the corner office any day.

1. Build Hubs, Not HQ’s

More than anything, leaders and companies today should focus on making their spaces more conducive to the modern digital worker.

At our company, Fuze, we’ve recently taken steps to do this by making our new headquarters a true hub for our workforce. Our offices are now designed around collaboration spaces – both for large-scale meetings as well as smaller, huddle sessions – in addition to more traditional, individual work spaces. It has lots of “hotel” desks for employees like myself that are typically there for a few days before moving locations.

We made these changes because an increasing amount of our employees expressed a desire to work from home, and a majority of remote/field workers (myself included) wanted a better experience when they are in an office for a few hours or a few days. This was coupled with the primary goal of using the office space to work more collectively with fellow colleagues when you’re face-to-face.

In this way our office has become a hub for face-to-face interactions and networking amongst teams. Unsurprisingly, this has led to higher productivity and better ideas, since workers can take care of their own agendas at home, and spend their in-office time focusing on shared projects.

2. Embrace Mobility

Individually speaking, in order to do this well you should invest in some common tools of the trade.

My must haves?

Get a good headset (I love the Apple AirPods). Get a great portable battery (I love my Anker). And get comfortable using remote collaboration software.

In terms of helping your employees become more mobile, take steps to build positive team culture by requiring video to be turned on in all meetings, and practicing effective video conference techniques.

Perhaps even more importantly, be sure you’re present and stick to your meetings schedule whenever possible while traveling. This will encourage your team to do the same.

At the end of the day, transparency and mobility like this is good for everyone, and has been shown to increase productivity and employee satisfaction – two important indicators of a successful business. The reason why is not a difficult concept to wrap your head around, since if employees are encouraged and able to work whenever and wherever they want, they’re able to get more done.

3. Be Physically Present

Another way to encourage working mobily and collaboratively is to plan time to bring your team together at one of the your company’s hubs once per quarter.

When doing this, budget and spend the money to bring remote people to the hub. Also, make sure it is not always the typical two-day “offsite” gathering, and instead do a week where everyone just “works from the hub.”

Doing this will leave time for spontaneous and planned face-to-face meet ups, which are some of the best opportunities you’ll have to connect with your employees during the get together.

Importantly, these 1:1’s will also offer a chance for you to promote further mobility by doing things such as bringing the meeting outside – a surefire way to be more effective and constructive with this time.

4. Balance Your Life

Ultimately, moving around a lot will often translate into suddenly realizing you never found the time to get to the dentist or run other life errands that you needed to be home for in order to do.

To remedy this, I make a point of blocking off one Friday per month to pack all of those appointments and tasks into, and I leave that day otherwise untouched on my calendar.

Doing something like this will ensure you remain grounded.

Embracing a flexible work style will unlock your true productive potential and probably even make you happier in your job, but without balance it can also allow your work to bleed too far into your life.

In other words, go see the dentist.

And, if you find yourself on a EuroStar train or sitting in a Waffle House somewhere in middle America, you can have that video conference, but don’t forget to also appreciate the French countryside flying by, or just how much you enjoy putting syrup on top of everything.

This post originally appeared on my Inc.com column on June 16, 2017.

How to Get 100 Hours of Work Done in Just 60

Posted on April 24, 2017 by affronti

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This post originally appeared on my Inc.com column on March 27, 2017.

“Time is money.”

That tired old adage was used almost exclusively by the Wall Street fat cats of yesteryear, or your father when he was trying to teach you a valuable life lesson that one time.

Here’s the thing, though. Time is free, and we all get the same amount of it. Thus, unless you’re able to consistently find ways to produce more with the time you have, yours is going to be worth the same amount as everyone else’s–which is to say, zero (at least from a fat cat perspective).

But even if you’re not aspiring to be the next Wolf on the Street, learning how to be more productive with your time, especially in today’s age of hyper-connectivity–in which someone, somewhere, is always working on the same project you are, and will be emailing you about it tomorrow, early–can help you find success in all aspects of your life.

In my own experience, there are a few key habits one can learn to be as productive as possible. And, though, as with any habits, they will take time to develop, effectively integrating them into your daily routine will allow you to achieve a more balanced life in general.

1. Wake up early

Every weekday, I wake up at 4:22 a.m. I have for a long time.

Now, despite the litany of questions I receive about why in the world I would possibly do this to myself, it remains one of my favorite productivity hacks, and is without a doubt incredibly effective when it comes to keeping me healthy in my life.

Hopping out of bed before the sun has even thought about rising allows me to address the personal chores that I either won’t have the time to do once I get home or the desire.

You can read a full description of my morning routine and how I think it’s benefited me here, but I will give you the gist, since this is an article about saving time.

Some of the main things I try to accomplish before work include taking care of mindless household tasks like laundry or paying the bills, catching up on the latest news in the tech world, going to the gym, and partaking in a little self-improvement by learning a new language.

Each of these tasks exists under one of the four tenants I follow to maximize how proactive I am with my time in the mornings: Get to Work, Get Organized, Get Smarter, and Get Healthier.

Now I realize that altering your sleep schedule is neither an easy nor attractive proposition. However, I implore you. Start small. Wake up 15 minutes earlier every week for a month. You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve with a little discipline and coffee.

2. Become an expert time manager

This is a simpler way to fuel productivity, but no less effective.

I would estimate that for a majority of you reading this, the areas where you will be able to trim the most fat are in places like answering email and scheduling. For these, don’t underestimate the value of using Google or Office 365 to set up organized folders and calendars using the platforms’ wealth of management tools.

Again, some tweaking might be required to find a sweet spot, but generally speaking, utilizing these tools will help you shave valuable minutes off these otherwise monotonous tasks.

For everything else, experiment with the wealth of productivity apps available on the market today. Personally, I like organizational tools like Hootsuite and Pocket to manage my social media and news, as well as YouNeedABudget for taking care of my financials efficiently.

3. Make your meetings active

Whenever possible, I like to hold my one-on-one meetings in an active atmosphere.

As with the rest of these hacks, it’s not a novel idea, but in practice I’ve found it to work wonders for both the quality of communication I have as well as my ability to maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle throughout a busy day.

Doing something as simple as walking outside and talking instead of sitting face-to-face across a desk will allow conversation to flow more freely, and encourages my employees to be healthier themselves, which ultimately leads to a happier team and a more productive organization overall.

If you can’t get outside, or are holding most of your meetings in a videoconference setting, remember to employ some active strategies to remain focused and engaged in the conversation. These methods include things as simple as using your hands when you speak or standing up, but can lead to vastly more effective communication.

Stretching this idea of activity even further, I’d encourage you to look into things such as intramural sports leagues for your co-workers, which, at the end of the day, can not only be superb team-building exercises but are also almost unanimously considered to be an awesome time.

And, to reiterate, being awesome (and efficient) with your time is kind of the whole point.

Left-Brain or Right-Brain: Which Builds Better Products?

Posted on March 6, 2017 by affronti

Photo credit more-sky.com

This post originally appeared on my Inc.com column on February 16, 2017.

Left-brain vs. right-brain. Calculated, precise, and mathematical vs. creative, flexible, and emotional. Two opposing hemispheres locked in an internal battle to determine what from within makes it out into the world.

It’s a perceived struggle that has raged on for the entirety of human existence, and for the most part, the war has been balanced. However, never has the fight been more one-sided than in the current world of business.

The dawn of the tech giants and big data has thrust us into an era of emphasis on STEM and its introduction into a person’s education as early as possible. Some argue that to be successful is to be technical. Once revered backgrounds in the humanities, arts, and social sciences are so underrepresented in the workplace that the majority of undergraduates have begun to avoid such degrees altogether for fear of being unemployable.

But to invoke a few key ideas from these forgone disciplines, the overemphasis on technical prowess in business is a tragic, and often – especially when it comes to entrepreneurship – fatal flaw.

What Can The Humanities Offer Businesses?

As with many of the concepts in the realm of the humanities, the question of what value hiring right-brained employees can add to a company has a largely open-ended answer.

This is simply because the areas where those well-versed in the liberal arts can help a company thrive – such as in understanding what customers want, how they want to be treated, and how to anticipate their future behavior – are either hard to quantify or intangible altogether.

But understanding culture and being able to readily assess and interpret the ever-changing perspectives of society is something that can help drive successful innovation in today’s increasingly competitive marketplaces.

To substantiate this claim, look towards the startup industry’s insatiable desire for being “disruptive.” By definition, dreaming up a disruptive idea requires an ability to redefine or even create a new industry altogether. In truth, such a thing can only be achieved if one has the ability to challenge traditional theories, predict outcomes based on concepts rather than data, and then effectively communicate how and why this idea is important, to both colleagues and customers alike.

A few leaders I follow who have tapped into their humanities backgrounds in order to achieve this way of thinking: Reid Hoffman (Founder of LinkedIn), Mike Krieger (Founder of Instagram), Chris Cox (Former Product Officer at Facebook), Marissa Mayer (Former Yahoo Head), and Scott Forstall (Creator of iOS).

The Critical Balancing Act

Does this mean having employees with technical prowess is not important in business? Definitely not.

What’s more likely is that it’s best to have people who are adept at balancing both their technical and humanist sides when making decisions.

Going back to the aforementioned individuals, all of whom were graduates of Stanford’s Symbolic Systems major – a degree focused on studying psychology, logic, and linguistics – it seems the best product leaders tend to be equal parts philosophy and computer science.

This balance is useful because it allows individuals to bridge the gap between the more social, empathetic, qualitative challenges a business faces, and the more data-centric, quantitative ones which dictate a business model.

With both approaches in hand, individuals that drive a business, such as Product Managers, can have a higher level of vision when assembling the pieces of their idea into a coherent strategy. And this superior point of view ultimately leads to a product or service that not only knows what its customers want, but can also understand why – two importantly separate things.

Fuzzy vs. Techie

Sticking with Stanford for a moment, where students self-identify and differentiate between “fuzzy” (i.e. arts, humanities, social sciences) and “techie” (self-explanatory) disciplines, we can see further evidence of how each way of thinking remains at odds with the other.

At the end of the day the real benefit of a Liberal Arts background comes from its student’s abilities to re-think how something can work, and communicate this idea in a compelling manner. And an often overlooked fact is that the Liberal Arts also includes natural sciences.

I got a chance to read an early version of The Fuzzy and the Techie, a new book by Scott Hartley that comes out in April. He explores this idea that product leaders must balance empathy and psychology with design and development in order to be best poised for success. He attempts to debunk this faux opposition of technical versus non-technical by describing what it takes to create our best products, companies, and organizations. It takes both. Give it a read when it comes out.

And as tech grows increasingly complicated, it will become essential to have individuals who not only can understand how to build something, but who can also maintain a solid grasp on a product’s ultimate goals and direction amidst the often chaotic changing tastes and moods of its customers.

3 Steps to Make Virtual Meetings Actually Productive

Posted on February 7, 2017 by affronti

Photo Credit: StudioC

This post originally appeared on my column on Inc.com on July 18, 2016.

Videoconferencing is revolutionary. It allows people in the East Village to connect with international colleagues in real time–not only hearing what they have to say, but also seeing how they gesticulate when they’re talking. Seeing as though much of human communication is nonverbal, this is nothing to take lightly.

At Fuze, I manage a team of Product Managers spread across four different time zones. And I’m proud of the fact that I’m able to use my company’s software to connect with my team. I spend about 50% of my time traveling since I believe face-to-face meetings are immensely important. However when I’m back in my office in NYC, my days usually consist of joining back-to-back virtual meetings from my office for hours at a time. How exactly can you and your coworkers stay productive when you’re in videoconferences all day long?

Setup your office correctly

Believe it or not, making a few changes to the way you configure your work environment can have a tremendous impact on your videoconferencing productivity.

Not surprisingly, videoconferencing drives engagement during remote meetings. Those who attend videoconferences hold their attention 52% longer than those their peers who meet via conference call. What’s more, in a recent survey, 56% of respondents indicated that they multitask often during phone meetings. Compare that to only 4% of respondents doing the same during videoconferences, and you begin to see how these modern meetings are more productive.

But this all doesn’t mean that switching to videoconferences will automatically make your meetings more effective. You have to set yourself up for success. Here’s how:

Use your hands

Having a wide-angle camera (I use this Logitech webcam) allows you to be standing in full frame three or four feet back from your computer. Other attendees won’t just see your face. Wide-angle cameras make videoconferences more authentic because they enable you to talk with your hands, making it feel as though you’re in the same room with remote team members. Authenticity comes from engagement; when your meeting attendees see you actively talking and gesturing they know you’re being serious. Since people can see you in totality, they’re not worried if you’re hands are off-screen typing or using your phone. Remember, just because videoconferences are more productive doesn’t mean attendees won’t browse the web here and there. A wide-angle camera cuts down on those unproductive habits.

Sketch it out

There’s certainly a lot of digital whiteboarding software out there and it tends to work well when needed. To best mimic the in-person experience, however, you may be better off pairing your wide-angle camera with an actual whiteboard that’s facing it. That way, other attendees feel that much closer to being the same room as you. Sketching is a great way to get your creative energy going and help come to consensus faster when brainstorming with another person.

Stand up

The last thing you want is to doze off during a videoconference–something that becomes more likely when you have to go long periods of time without talking. To mitigate the risk, utilize a standing desk. This will make you more alert–and more importantly, less likely to embarrass yourself or the speaker by falling asleep!

Get up and walk out

Lastly, above all else, don’t forget to get up and out periodically. Though you may be tempted to stay in your office all day when you have back to back meetings, sometimes it’s okay to change the environment even though it seems to be working well.

It’s easy to get caught up in back-to-back meetings where you end one videoconference and launch another. In some instances, this may be unavoidable.

You should block yourself small chunks of time you can use to go for a walk, bounce ideas off a colleague, or have a one-on-one meeting. Movement encourages motivation. So take a break, get water, or interact with a local barista to make sure you’re not sitting (or standing) in your office all day.

Videoconferencing can seriously improve productivity. But you have to set yourself up for success. Follow these tips and you should see your videoconferences become much more effective.

1 Simple Change to Make Your One-on-One Meetings Instantly More Productive

Posted on January 27, 2017 by affronti

This post originally appeared in my Inc.com column on August 12, 2016

Why I Fell in Love With Walking

I’m the VP of Product at Fuze, a tech company in the enterprise communication space. I’ve been an athlete and fitness enthusiast for about as long as I’ve been a geek, and in a past life I became a certified personal trainer at my local gym during college. Over the years I have learned that there’s a science behind feeling better as a result of moving and being active. Working as a personal trainer got me excited to help my clients be happy and healthy–which ultimately resulted in them feeling inspired and excited. Nothing made me happier than to see my clients achieve their fitness goals and then get ready for the next challenge.

Several years later while working at Microsoft I remember getting restless during a 1:1 with one of my team members; it was a gorgeous Seattle summer day outside and I hated being inside the office. I decided to try something simple and different during my next 1:1. Instead of sitting in my office for the meeting, I asked my team to try walking around campus and talking with me instead. Microsoft had these wonderful soccer fields that made it easy to do some laps around.

Not only did this turn out to be a healthy activity, the resulting conversations were also incredibly more personalized and free-flowing than they’d be if we just sat around in the office going over the same content.

I quickly found that walking meetings served as a great way to merge my passion for physical activities with the needs of management, meetings, and other work tasks. There’s a benefit from a business perspective, and a clear benefit with respect to you and your teams’ healthiness.

Build a Healthy Team

Right around the time I started walking for my meetings at Microsoft, the first of the quantified-self set of companies launched and, being a data and gadget geek, I bought a Fitbit to start tracking my steps during runs, soccer, and daily activities. Sometimes after meetings I would share the step count graphs from my FitBit profile with my employees to celebrate that we hit funny milestones like “longest meeting of the week in steps” or “fastest meeting in mph.”

My employees quickly took notice. Many of them bought their own devices and we started to enjoy a fun little competition. One of my team members at Microsoft was so inspired by some of our conversations that she got a Fitbit and a nutritionist to help focus on her health and wellness. We talked each week about her progress and I shared tips and insights from my own experience to help. It was wonderful to see her achieve a number of her personal health goals while excelling at being a product manager.

If walking meetings aren’t your thing, there are a number of other ways you can bring your team together while encouraging healthy behavior.

During my Microsoft days, I organized intramural soccer events between different teams in our group as we had those soccer fields nearby. In almost every city there are soccer fields and parks where you can easily organize a pick-up game for your team.

When I was at Contactive, my team and I joined an intramural dodgeball league that played in the Lower East Side. Playing dodgeball as an adult was hilarious and exhausting, but competing as a team every week kept us active and was a welcome stress relief from the 20-hour early-startup-days we were working.

Now, at Fuze, it’s not uncommon to catch me and my team doing a group run after work through the Flatiron here in New York City. We hit a milestone last month when we ran from our office to my neighborhood in Brooklyn, celebrating the 6-mile run with some wings and a beer at my favorite pub.

Healthy Thinking

I challenge you to take one of the things you like about an activity, sport, or exercise that you personally enjoy and find a way to share that with your team. It can be soccer, dodgeball, or even a simple walk around your neighborhood. Create active cultures and you’ll spur healthy thinking in your employees.

We all spend 40 or more hours working in an office each week. To drive health and wellness–and therefore create a more productive organization–you can incorporate daily fitness- or health-oriented activities into your workflow. Not only will your team be healthier, they’ll also be more happy and productive–a truly win-win scenario.

—

Header image from Advanced Aquatic PT

4 Reasons Why I Still Wake Up at 4:22 A.M.

Posted on November 14, 2016 by affronti

Photo by flickr user FotoArt MB

This originally appeared on my column at Inc.com on 10/27/2016.

I love waking up when it’s still dark out. I feel the most productive when I can get several things done before most of the world is even awake. Eighteen months ago, I wrote a post about why I do that, called “Why I Wake Up at 4:22 A.M.,” and the response I received from readers all over the world was incredible.

I was talking last month to one such reader about how he could make some small changes in his morning habits to increase his productivity. The first question he asked me, however, was “Are you still waking up that early?”

A lot has changed in my personal and professional life over the last year and a half–I’m traveling more for work, my job has changed in scope as our company has grown, and I have several new responsibilities. Through all of this change, one of my most important constants is that I still wake up at 4:22 each morning.

Why?

Many people I encounter are a mixture of impressed and confused, or scared, by the fact I spring out of bed when most everyone else is still sleeping. But I actually find it pretty easy to get out of bed that early. That’s because I’ve discovered that determination and commitment to regimens are crucial–even during times of change.

1. I’ve recognized that things have changed

Since I published the piece referenced at the top of this article, Fuze has changed significantly. The company’s grown. My team has grown. I have more direct reports. The list goes on.

Throughout all that, I’ve kept my center by staying healthy, starting my day off right, and dedicating even more of my time to planning to make sure everything is as smooth as it can be.

Remember, having more or different responsibilities doesn’t mean you have to change what got you where you are.

2. I’ve embraced my constants

While a number of things have changed in my life since March 2015, there are a lot of things that haven’t. I still wake up at the same time–something I’ve been doing for more than a decade.

I find that the early morning hours are incredibly productive. Although my day-to-day roles and duties have changed, I’ve kept my early-morning hours free to devote the peaceful time to free thought. I also use my mornings to catch up on industry news and find out what our competitors are up to. I still vacuum twice a week. There’s also time for nonwork stuff, too. I’m still doing CrossFit every day at 6 a.m. and have started running on Friday mornings in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

3. I’ve learned to be adaptable

I spend my days running the product management team at Fuze here in NYC. I also spend about half the month traveling, to our headquarters in Boston as well as our various customers and sales offices around the world. During normal work hours, I don’t have time to just sit down and write anymore.

Rather than accepting that reality, I’ve chosen to be proactive in the early mornings. I use the time to write position papers, do competitive analysis, and try new products. I also do a considerable amount of planning, using Evernote to catch ideas that relate to product strategy. Once I make it to the office, I cue up what I’ve found and discuss it further with my team.

One of the biggest changes I’ve had to adapt to is the fact that I travel a lot more. Despite long flights and changes in time zones–think landing in Europe at 10 p.m. local time–I still force myself to wake up early and exercise.

You might think it’s a little obsessive to only book hotels that are within running distance to a CrossFit gym. I have found that no hack for fighting jetlag works better than taking a melatonin to get a deep sleep upon arriving, and then forcing myself to go to a 6 o’clock class the next morning. With a little bit of planning, you’re much more likely to work out and stick to your schedule. Your body remembers the pattern and starts to boot up much more quickly than if you’d given in to your jetlag and stayed in bed.

4. I know that staying healthy makes me happy

The bottom line is that no matter what comes your way or what changes in your personal or professional life, you need to take care of yourself. You need to take time for yourself and your job that allows you to plan better and become a more effective leader.

So many of us deal with changes by adjusting our whole routines. But, it turns out, sticking to some parts of your original regimen will help you adapt to the changes you face. There’s no sense in changing your entire life around just because you had a change in your life or job. Stick to what got you where you are, and chances are it’ll take you even further.

How I Stay Productive in 8hrs of Video Meetings

Posted on July 19, 2016 by affronti

Photo by wikipedia user Raysonho

Videoconferencing is revolutionary.

It allows people in the East Village to connect with international colleagues in real time—not only hearing what they have to say, but also seeing how they gesticulate when they’re talking. Seeing as though much of human communication is nonverbal, this is nothing to take lightly.

Check out the full post on my Inc.com column.

5 Design Lessons You Can Use to Make Any Part of Your Company Beautiful (and User-Friendly)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by affronti

The appification of everything has made everyone an early adopter.

That being the case, companies cannot afford to let the user experience of their apps, services, IT admin portals, their website – or anything else for that matter – suffer as they go about building their products.

Companies that build apps and sell B2B products often get bogged down in the sale, shifting their focus to the next customer instead of understanding how they can make existing relationships even stronger.

Instead of following that path, companies would be wise to take a step back and first realize the importance of specifically focusing on the design functions of other areas of the company.

Luckily, by taking a holistic look at the user experience at every level and understanding the design process, companies can ensure each facet of their operations is fortified. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five design lessons that can take your company to the next level.

The most important lesson to learn from design is the power of clearly defining your audience.

Fuze went on a mission to focus on who used our products and which ones they used. At the highest level, we validated that our users work in several disciplines (sales, marketing, support) at medium and large companies. But we needed to dig deeper and find out more about our audience. What is a day in the life of the average user like? Why, specifically, will they be using our products? Why do they use our apps instead of our competitors or consumer apps?

The more thoroughly you answer these questions, the easier it will be for you to solve your customers’ problems effectively.

Make Sure That Your Entire Team Is On the Same Page

It’s certainly not difficult to get caught up in over-designing a solution to technology problems. But whether it’s revamping internal IT systems for billing and auditing or recreating a new feature, you need to be listening to the people who interface with use it directly. They’re the ones who understand best how the product works and how it can be improved through your design.

At Fuze, we recently looked at ways to build more self-service into our new customer onboarding process. Our product team spent several days watching over the shoulders of the engineers that work directly on the onboarding process, given us a much deeper understanding of their pain points and what opportunities there are to improve the process.

Use Metrics That Will Actually Tell You How Your Customers Are Using the Product

It is critical to track KPIs to determine precisely how engaged your users are. This data can help you determine, among other things, whether your users are coming back—and if not, why.

Consumer apps do this in every part of their app. Top-tier consumer apps like Instagram and Facebook meticulously study their engagement funnels and onboarding. Instagram tries to think about the way users actually use the app and where they get delight. You can apply these concepts to every type of product at your company. For example, at Fuze we track metrics like “Total messages sent and received”, “Total phone vs. video calls”, “Time to start a meeting”, and many others.

Similarly, you can use a net promoter score (NPS) during your users flows to determine how well, on a scale of 1 to 10, an interaction went. You can combine this with engagement data from Mixpanel to gauge whether people are happy with your product. Those who aren’t will go somewhere else to find a better experience. You need to understand why.

Get all Employees Involved

When we went through the rebrand of ThinkingPhones to Fuze, our design team built an internal website to allow anyone in the company to understand and interact with the new corporate language and logo. This site also went into detail as to why the rebrand was occurring in the first place.

The end result? Employees felt as though they were involved in the rebranding process and that their opinions and ideas mattered.

Craft a Personality

In the world of enterprise software, we often don’t think about the voice of the product.

Building a product personality allows people to interact with it. To determine the voice of your product, ask yourself what the application does and what kind of tools it uses.

Because voice comes from language, tone, and personality, everything from billing invoices to the language in your mobile app updates are opportunities to drive up emotional engagement with your users. In Fuze’s case, we build and test things like the audio conferencing tone people hear when waiting to join a Fuze meeting. This enables us to provide a better, more wholesome experience that drives user engagement and delight with our products.

Takeaway

At Fuze, the fundamental principles of design impact everything we do as a company across all of our business units. It’s no longer just about designing a good product anymore. Everything your company designs—from internal tools to websites and everything in between—needs to be exceptional, too.

Check out the full post on my Inc.com column.

How to Smoothly Transition from Project to Product Management

Posted on May 11, 2016 by affronti

Screenshot 2016-05-11 14.59.16

The Fuze Product Management team has grown a lot in the last year. I recently shared a slide at our weekly all-hands meeting that showed our team’s growth mapped out over the last 14 months. It was really cool to see the mix of people that joined via hiring, networking, acquisitions, and internal transitions.

Over those last 14 months, several of our Product Managers transitioned over from the Technical Product Ownership role we have in our engineering teams. Now, they are all amazing PM’s because of their deep technical knowledge and keen understanding of our engineering teams. More importantly, all of them transitioned over after having “lived the PM life” in addition to their TPO responsibilities. In almost every case this dual-role happened because of the lack of a Product Manager in their area combined with their own desires to interact with customers and create solutions for them.

If you’re working in project management or technical product ownership, making the switch to a product management role might seem overwhelming due to the various differences. While change can be difficult, it doesn’t have to be completely jarring. The most effective way to make the transition is to experience the key aspects of product management in your current job.

You may already be dealing with some product management responsibilities in your current role. If you are, then you’re already a step towards gaining fluency. If you’re not familiar with any product management behaviors, then you’ll need to gain as much experience as possible.

Granted, there’s a lot to know about product management. So here are a few things that might help you learn before deciding to make the career switch.

Always Learn from Customers

One of the best ways to prepare yourself for a product management job is work towards becoming a consumer advocate. To do this, you’ll need to get out of the office and interact with customers. Having informal discussions with customers will give you insight that you could never gain from your coworkers.

During these talks, you’ll get a good idea of what your customers are like and what they need. Pay special attention to their challenges in order to find solutions that could benefit them. Being able to deliver on customers’ needs will make you invaluable in product management.

Get In-Depth Knowledge

Before you switch jobs, take the time to get extensive knowledge about the product you’re working on. Immerse yourself in the market (including the competition) whenever you get a free moment. To get a really good feel for the product, participate in a teardown to get an invaluable look at what you’re working with.

Knowing everything about the product is important, but so is learning about the shelves. Learn about how the products are packaged and the prices.

Learn from Others

A smart method to gain some knowledge about product management while still working your current job is to sit in on an interview. A product management interviewer might be happy to let you join an interview and see what sort of questions are asked of candidates.

At some point, ask the manager for a mock interview to see how your fluency is coming along.

Try What You’ve Learned

Don’t be afraid to test yourself in everything that you’ve learned, try to create something practical. Design something based on your customer conversations, interviews, and personal research. This can be anything from new features to minor enhancements that could make the product better.

Once you fully enter the field you’ll have more time to participate in this process, but for now it’s a great exercise to see what you’ve learned. Simply sketching or spec’ing these changes is useful. Even if none of these preliminary ideas are likely to make the final cut, you’ll be glad that you started thinking creatively.

Tying it all Together

It’ll take some time and a willingness to learn in order to make a smooth transition into product management, but the results will be worth it.

If transitioning to a product management role, you want to be able to hit the ground running in your new position. To do that, you’ll need to wrap your head around some of these concepts and strategies while working your existing job. It’s certainly not easy, but with a little creativity and effort it can be done.