It's always heart breaking to hear how someone found their dream job only to be laid off a few short months later. I shared some tips on how to gauge the stability of the job BEFORE accepting the offer on the&nbsp;<a title="Avoiding Layoffs: How to Gauge Company Stability Before Accepting a Job Offer" href="https://www.jobsage.com/blog/how-to-gauge-company-stability/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JobSage blog</a>.

Avoiding Layoffs: How to Gauge Company Stability Before Accepting a Job Offer

Taking the right first steps in your job search can make all of the difference. I shared my advice for embarking on a job search in the <a href="https://www.jobsage.com/blog/where-to-start-your-job-search/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JobSage blog</a>.

Where to Start Your Job Search (It’s Not Where You Think!)

Are you a go-to-market leader frustrated with the lack of impact from new product features? Or a product manager spending the majority of your time enabling sales and marketing? You are not alone. Lack of a strategic product roadmap is the biggest threat facing product organizations right now. And we are all at fault.&nbsp;
To be clear, no one is doing this on purpose. Strategy is typically the headliner at annual offsites. And some businesses even successfully walk away with a crisp list of three to five strategic initiatives. In reality though, day-to-day business pressures constantly disrupt these plans.
For example, sales may demand a new feature to keep a large customer from churning, while marketing may urgently want to respond to a competitor's new feature announcement. Customer care may be receiving too many calls about a particular issue, and engineering may need to refactor. It can feel like the right thing to do is to respond to these needs, but doing so can lead to a lack of focus and direction.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/criya-prod-images/1682369527951-v3.png" alt="" width="551" height="241"> Without a clear strategy, product roadmaps quickly lose focus in response to day-to-day business pressures.
 Once the product strategy is created, you need to trust and respect the tough decisions the organization (hopefully) made and hold true to your strategy. The most important part of product strategy is focus. Focus inherently means that you are saying &ldquo;no&rdquo; to way more things then you are saying &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to.&nbsp;
Of course this does not allow you to put blinders on to what is going on in the business and broader market. But far too often we abandon our strategy and become reactive in our day-to-day operations. The result? Lackluster products that don&rsquo;t meet the needs of customers and frustrated teams that aren&rsquo;t making any progress.&nbsp;
How do we combat this?&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Think strategically. Make the tough tradeoff decisions and stick to them. All projects on the roadmap should be aligned with these declared strategic priorities, with few exceptions.</li>
<li>Align incentives. Product development teams should be incentivized based on outcomes, rather than on the number of Jira tickets completed and features shipped. If teams are measured based on driving a specific outcome, they will be more likely to scrutinize potential disruptions to product strategy.</li>
<li>Ensure teams feel heard. The goal is not to shut down communication channels between cross-functional teams. Instead, it&rsquo;s to ensure understanding of the product strategy and empowerment to deprioritize requests that do not align with the strategy. The product team is still responsible for sharing what they are working on, why it's important, and having a closed feedback loop with go-to-market teams.</li>
<li>Repeat the strategy often. Don&rsquo;t assume that the team remembers the strategy that was set at the beginning of the year, or even quarter. Frequently reiterate the declared strategy and its importance to the business. This will allow your teams to help reinforce that strategy with every decision they make.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Without a clear product strategy and aligned incentives, products can become random collections of features that do not resonate with customers. To achieve long-term success, it's essential to not only craft your product strategy, but to stick to it.

The Biggest Threat Facing Product Orgs: Lack of a Strategic Roadmap

In the world of Agile, teams have a concept of a sprint. A sprint is between one and four weeks in length. The team defines what work will be done in that sprint. They then further break the work down into tickets that developers can own. While the sprint might be two weeks in duration, developers often ship more frequently than that, even daily. But this doesn&rsquo;t constitute a launch, nor should it. &nbsp;
First, some definitions:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Shipping means deploying code to the production environment.</li>
<li>Launching refers to actually informing your users of this new feature. This could be through in-app alerts, a marketing newsletter, or even a press release.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Productive product development teams ship frequently. This enables you to learn faster. It encourages your team to break down their work into the smallest units of shippable value. And it minimizes the risk of outages or severe bugs when you ship. It&rsquo;s much easier to roll back one day of development than six months.
But just because your team is shipping features frequently doesn&rsquo;t mean your marketing team needs to launch them.
Here are five reasons to ship, but not launch:
<ol>
<li>It&rsquo;s early. While you should always strive to ship units of value, sometimes you recognize you are very early on your journey to delivering full value. In this case, it can be helpful to hide the feature behind a feature flag and only release it to a small cohort of users. This can help you rapidly learn and iterate while minimizing downside risk.&nbsp;</li>
<li>You want to maximize the launch impact. If you are following your product strategy, you are likely investing consistently in a specific area. One launch strategy is to trickle out feature announcements one by one. A more impactful launch strategy is to hold off, and then announce several exciting new features aligned with a single theme in one big bang.</li>
<li>You are measuring and documenting feature impact. Data-backed claims touting the impact of your new feature, as well as user case studies, are powerful assets to share as part of a launch. Waiting until you have these assets in place can amplify the impact of your launch.</li>
<li>You are testing discoverability. If you promote something, you drive engagement that might not have happened otherwise. If you want to truly test how discoverable a new feature is, then don&rsquo;t tell the user.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Some features don&rsquo;t need a launch. New onboarding flow? Fixed a minor bug? You don&rsquo;t always need to shout this out to your users. Especially onboarding features. Your current users are already onboarded. This update is irrelevant to them.&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
Everything that ships does not have to be launched. Your go-to-market strategy should be as well thought out as your product strategy. Sometimes choosing not to launch can have a greater impact than launching.

5 Reasons NOT to Launch a Shipped Feature

Book a free 1x1

This is your time! Bring your product questions -- whether it be personal, team, or business related. I'm here for all of it!&nbsp;
If we need more time, we'll figure out if we're a good match for a longer-term coaching arrangement.
Topics I coach on:
<ol>
<li>Product craft (strategy, process, frameworks, etc)</li>
<li>Job search (target companies, interview prep, offer negotiation, etc)</li>
<li>Breaking into product management</li>
<li>Becoming a manager (running 1x1, performance management, delegation, etc)</li>
<li>Team dynamics (cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, etc)</li>
<li>International expansion&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
Disclaimer: Limited to one session per person, unless otherwise noted by Nora. No reschedules please.

15 Min | Coaching | Job Search | Career Advice

Need help perfecting your interview skills? Let's chat!
Mock interviews are the best way to prepare, reduce anxiety, and boost confidence. We will focus on the interview type that best matches your needs and you will receive personalized, constructive feedback after the session.&nbsp;
Here's how it works:
<ol>
<li>Book a FREE 15 minute 1x1 with me so we can talk about your goals, where you plan on applying/interviewing and what your pain points/main concerns are</li>
<li>Book a 45 minute mock interview session with me. The first 30 minutes will be spent on the mock interview of your choice. The remaining 15 minutes are reserved for a quick debrief and discussing concrete ways to improve.&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
Potential interview types:
<ul>
<li>Behavioral-based</li>
<li>Prioritization case study</li>
<li>Product sense</li>
<li>Manager skills</li>
</ul>
Note: Let me know if you can't find a good time slot or you are on a tight schedule with an interview coming up soon, and we can try to find a time that works!

Mock Interview Session

Is your resume not getting you the results you want? I've reviewed several hundred (perhaps thousands?) of resumes during my career. Your resume has less than 60 seconds to make an impression. Let's make every second count!
How it works:
<ol>
<li>Come prepared with the document you want to review (either your resume or your LinkedIn profile).</li>
<li>Be ready to share what role you are seeking (level, industry, even company) so I can be as specfic and helpful as possible with my feedback.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Let's dive in!&nbsp;</li>
</ol>

Resume Review

Evaluating multiple job offers, or even just deciding which roles/companies to target, can be a daunting exercise! Use this framework to help you capture what is most important to you and then evaluate how each opportunity stacks up. The outcome? Greater clarity on the path forward.&nbsp;

Job Offer Evaluation Framework

Values are not just beliefs, but what an individual considers innately worthwhile. Values provide sustenance.
If your personal values do not match those of your company and role, then you are unlikely to be successful. More importantly, you are unlikely to be happy.
This exercise helps you to discover your personal career values before embarking on your job search!

Values Exploration Exercise

80+ questions for YOU to use in an interview to assess mutual fit. Save valuable prep time and standout as a candidate.&nbsp;
Remember that an interview process goes both ways. Although the hiring company typically drives the process, you should also be carefully evaluating the company with every interaction. This includes assessing the business, team, hiring manager, and role.&nbsp;
Asking thoughtful questions is also an opportunity to standout as a candidate. In addition to collecting information, use this time to subtly showcase your knowledge of their company, as well as your passion for the space.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Question categories include:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li dir="ltr">Company Strategy</li>
<li dir="ltr">Company Culture &amp; Values</li>
<li dir="ltr">Hiring Manager &amp; Team Culture</li>
<li dir="ltr">Organization &amp; Team Structure</li>
<li dir="ltr">Role &amp; Scope</li>
<li dir="ltr">Company Perception of You</li>
</ul>

80+ Reverse Interview Questions

25 questions to help you dig into company performance and equity considerations for privately held companies. Save time and accurately understand the potential financial upside of your offer.&nbsp;
Considering joining a start-up? Once you vet the company strategy &amp; culture, team, and role, make sure you dig into the company performance and equity considerations. This is especially important for privately held companies. Here are some questions to guide you.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

25 Start-up Financial Questions

Global Product Leader | Product Coach | ex-Intuit, Gusto, DocuSign

Nora is a product manager and business leader, who is wise and seasoned well beyond her years. She has amazing customer understanding and advocacy, is a brilliant executor, a great communicator, and most importantly... has a learning mind-set.

CEO at Foodee

Dedicated and hard-working, Nora is an accomplished and results-oriented business leader. She grabs the reins of complex and challenging projects, and delivers both strong business outcomes and great customer experiences. Nora's business acumen has enabled her to break new ground for Intuit, both in terms of geographical markets and go-to-market models.

noratucker

Nora Tucker

Global Product Leader | Product Coach | ex-Intuit, Gusto, DocuSign

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Google

National Instruments Japan

National Instruments

The Ithaka Group

Gusto

DocuSign

Talkdesk

Intuit

Sybase

Google

National Instruments Japan

National Instruments

The Ithaka Group

Gusto

DocuSign

Talkdesk

Intuit

Sybase

Google

National Instruments Japan

National Instruments

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