The CPO Series: Managing Through Periods of Uncertainty - User Focus

In our many brainstorms about the CPO role, my colleague Kevin Broom and I kept coming back to the challenges many leaders, and especially newer leaders, face during a downturn. We realized that our conversation quickly organized itself into topics and key themes — #focus, #prioritization, and #communication — and we have alternated posting our collective thoughts on these topics. This is part 4 of 4, looking at User Focus. You can also see previous posts on Strategy, Leadership, and Commercial & Finance for a comprehensive look at the many areas and tactics that can help you adjust to difficult circumstances to not only survive a downturn, but provide a strengthened platform for future growth.

Users are also going through a period of uncertainty. It’s crucial to take a step back and rethink what you know about your users, their journey, and what they need from you at this time. Don’t forget to take an honest look at how critical your product is given a potentially changing landscape. What will stay the same for your users? What will change? Are you positioned, or can you be positioned, to meet their changing needs? Which audience segments might double down or need more, and which audience segments are likely to drop off? And of course, how can you validate these hypotheses? All of this information is critical to considering how you’ll meet your strategic goals, and it’s critical you consider these potential changes in user priorities and behavior vs. assuming business as usual just in a tightened environment.

Focus:

• Once you have your hypotheses, focus on what bets can prove or disprove them as quickly as possible.?
• Recognize that in a period of uncertainty or constrained resources, innovation will likely take a back seat to commercialization.

Prioritization:

• Ruthless prioritization is key here. Make solid assessments (using whatever framework you prefer) of cost/value/impact, and be crystal clear across the organization what is prioritized and why.
• Be realistic about what is feasible to accomplish in a given time period, especially if you have any sort of financial or headcount cutbacks. Don’t imply that you’ll “try” to get additional efforts done.

Communication:?

• Show your work, both to leadership and to your teams. Based on what hypotheses and data are we choosing what to do? How does this align with the updated strategy? What metrics will tell us if we’re successful or have to pivot?
• Report early, report often. Be transparent about results, and leverage any poor results as learnings to better focus us going forward. What have we learned so far? What does that mean for what we do next? Ensure teams and leadership remain aligned via regular updates.

By staying focused on strategic goals, prioritizing projects, practicing sound financial management, and effectively communicating with all stakeholders, leaders can help teams align and build resilience and adaptability, allowing them to weather the storm and emerge stronger on the other side.