The Product Owner Tax: 5 Inevitable Taxes Every Product Owner & Leader Pays

The 5 Product Owner Taxes
Nicole Smith
April 29th 2019
INEVITABLE, UNAVOIDABLE, & COSTLY:

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© 2019 Express Scripts. All Rights Reserved.
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About ME

Nicole Smith
14 Years in Production:
Product
Strategy
Agile at Scale
Innovation
Development & Delivery
Team Leadership

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Outcomes:
1. Understand and assign your own value to the five taxes
every product owner pays
2. Identify the 5 taxes, & 3 ways to shift reactive taxes to
proactive taxes
3. Find 3 ways to free yourself up so your team can reach
better decisions quicker, & alleviate context switching
4. High-five someone new (Insert gif)

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At your tables…

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EVERY PRODUCT
OWNER PAYS…

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Every product owner pays a tax
oProduct Ownership is like a bank account that needs regular contributions.
oIt’s much easier to build it up before you actually need it.

How I failed to pay my
reactive taxes
“The PO & the Doubtful Developers”

I failed. Hard.
-New direction
-New teams
-One conversation
…Taxes not paid.

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Product Owner Taxes
• 5 Taxes
• These can be either reactive, or proactive
• Regardless of which tax, or type, these taxes are:
• Inevitable
• Unavoidable
• Costly

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TAX TYPES:
-PROACTIVE
-REACTIVE

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Proactive Taxes

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Proactive Taxes
We assume that:
1. Because we’ve had conversations around outcome, the intent was clear.
2. Because we’ve stated the vision, it will be remembered.
3. Meetings are just a way of life

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Proactive Taxes
People need to feel complete in order to stay engaged
• Hearts/Minds/Words
• Beyond just identifying the right tax, how the tax is paid is equally important

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OUR BRAINS DON’T
REMEMBER STUFF!

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Reactive Taxes
3
Ignored but still unavoidable

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Reactive Taxes
• Less/little control over dialogue or narrative
• Assumptions over vision and/or intent
• Additional burden on team/product/goal to over-socialize
• Larger contribution than proactive taxes
Without adequate social equity (“bank account deposits”), reactive taxes may
require partnership on loan.

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Reactive Taxes
• We find ourselves on repeat because our brains remember visuals more than
words
• Constant disruptions
• Your time tax can be managed, but can’t be regained

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Reactive Taxes
Examples:
• Mis-alignment
• Motivation
• RCA/A3
• Reprioritization
• Tech debt
• “Fire Time”

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Reactive Taxes Are Not Always Bad.
Your failures will resonate with you more than
your wins.

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WHY PAYING TAXES ARE IMPORTANT
Proactive or Reactive Taxes

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The Goal

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The 5 Taxes

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1. Vision & Strategy
2. Visibility (blocking & tackling)
3. Collaboration
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Customer/User Community

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Vision &
Strategy
Vision &
Strategy
Vision &
Strategy
Vision &
Strategy

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Tax 3: Collaboration
Pixar’s 22 Rules of Story Telling

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Tax 1: Vision & Strategy
Rule #7: “Come up with your ending before you figure out your
middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front”
Emma Coats, former Pixar Story Artist

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• Stakeholder Alignment & Engagement
• Dependencies
• Staffing & budget

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• ANDROGAGY: An·dra·go·gy
• “Adults need to know why they need to learn
something before undertaking to learn it.”

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AVG ATTENTION
SPAN
18
MIN

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OUR BRAINS DON’T
REMEMBER STUFF!

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As a product owner or leader, you can never
over communicate your vision, your team’s
vision, & your intent.

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Visibility
Visibility
Visibility
Visibility

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“200 SENIOR EXECUTIVES FROM
DIVERSE INDUSTRIES, ONLY 17%
REPORTED THAT THEIR MEETINGS
ARE GENERALLY PRODUCTIVE USES
OF GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL TIME”.
Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness

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• Either not listening in a way
because they think it doesn’t apply
to them, or think they’ve heard it.
• “Do I need to hear this?”
• Pixar rule 16: “What are the
stakes? Give us reason to root for
the character. What happens if they
don’t succeed? Stack the odds
against”
Tax 2: Visibility

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• “Cognitive Modality
Identification”
• Middle childhood to early
adulthood retention declined
after 7 days if heard first instead
of seen & heard first
• Connect your what, in a way that
resonates, and repeat it.
Show it. Say It. Show it.

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BY NEARLY DOUBLE.
1 Day Lag: You’ll remember more you see first.

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Collaboration
CollaborationCollaboration
Collaboration

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• React vs Respond
• Team stakeholders
• Developer Empathy
• Trusted vs. forming partnerships
• Team Currency* Email me for more info

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• Who’s feelings and personality have the potential to be the most
disruptive & influential? How explicit can you make those feelings?
• How many of these characters or supporters do you have?

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• Pixar’s 22 Rules of Story Telling: Good Stuff.

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• Find a hero your team is rallying around. Keep the focus on this so everyone’s
message is guided by the same end result.
• Pixar rule 16: “What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character.
What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against”

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• UX: Are you data informed, or data driven?
• Team’s shared understanding of UX needs is just as
important as anything else
• Emphasis on partnerships
• Culture of parallel development aka “The Greyhound Affect”

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Emotional
Intelligence
Emotional
Intelligence
Emotional
Intelligence
Emotional
Intelligence

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Tax 4: Emotional Intelligence
• EQ
• Yourself
• Your team
• Disrupters
While we may promote leaders for leading, or for
being a SME, how often do we encounter peers or
folks with low self-awareness in positions of
power? How can we help them?

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EQ: Emotional Intelligence
• What prevents you from doing your deep work?
• How much time in a week do you/your team get for deep work?

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“It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15
seconds to get back to the task.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-task-
switching
“While we’ve all heard various times on this, the point that context switching
does hurt our brains, is what’s most relevant. No matter how long, it still takes
our brain time to change gears. Let’s help protect our teams from this cost.”
Nicole Smith

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EVERY TEAM HAS A CURRENCY THAT
IS THE SUM OF THEIR STRENGTHS,
SUPPORTERS, DEPENDENCIES, &
FOES.

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EQ: Emotional Intelligence & Our Work

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EQ: Emotional Intelligence & Our Work
• The double-edged availability sword
• How can you and your team make decisions quicker?
• Be available to stop, collaborate & listen

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Community
Community
Community
Community

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Tax 5: Customer/ User Community
• Responses from your most loyal people gives you
an increased degree of confidence
• Your products & funnels should tell a story for
both new & existing customers
• Qualitative & quantitative data from your
community IS possible!
• Community & data should be BFF’s.
• Reframe the “sunk cost” perspective on
community.

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SUMMARY
Deposits into your Savings Account
1. Vision and Strategy
2. Visibility (blocking and tackling)
3. Collaboration
gradient
solid color

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Let’s Pay one Tax Now!
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1. Find two meetings of the
same topic/product/activity
2. Find a new time to combine
them or group them
3. Find one meeting with an
unclear outcome
4. Ask for an agenda
5. Create your budget
Where do you need to save
more, and where are you
spending too much?

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1. Meeting Title:
• New Time:
2. Meeting Title:
• Reminder set to manage list?
3. Meeting Title:
• Agenda Owner:
Proactive Tax Time

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Feel Weird Suddenly Asking For an Agenda?
• I want to make sure I come prepared to talk
about __________________ next time we meet.
So I can make sure our time together is useful,
would you be able to send an agenda at least a
day before?
• I’m double booked, but want to join. Would it be
possible to know which portion of the agenda I’m
slotted for and how much time I have to present?

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HOW CAN YOU DECIDE MORE
EFFECTIVELY & COHESIVELY?
…PAY YOUR TAXES.

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SUMMARY
1. Vision and Strategy
2. Visibility (blocking and tackling)
3. Collaboration
gradient
solid color

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SUMMARY
1. Which taxes are most valuable to you?
2. Which taxes has your team not paid?
3. Which of these are you paying reactively and
reactively?
Move your taxes from reactive to proactive in 2019.
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solid color

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Let’s Chat.
Nicole Smith
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nerdyniki/
Email: Nsmith5@express-scripts.com
Cell: 775-741-3012
Steam/LoL: PxL VxN

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REFERENCES
• Average presentation attention span
• Scientific Study of Modality
Identification/Retention in adults/children
• What is adult learning/retention?
• US learning Library of Medicine: Androgogy
• Stop the meeting madness: Harvard Business
Review
• Pixar’s 22 Rules of Great Story Telling
• Context Switching

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