Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators
Chad McAllister, PhD
300 episodes
2 hours ago
Welcome to Product Mastery Now, where you learn the 7 knowledge areas for product mastery. We teach the product management practices that elevate your influence and create products your customers love as you move toward product mastery. To learn about all seven areas and assess your strengths in product mastery, go to my website -- https://productmasterynow.com -- and click the Podcast button at the top of the page. Hosted by Chad McAllister, product management professor and practitioner.
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Welcome to Product Mastery Now, where you learn the 7 knowledge areas for product mastery. We teach the product management practices that elevate your influence and create products your customers love as you move toward product mastery. To learn about all seven areas and assess your strengths in product mastery, go to my website -- https://productmasterynow.com -- and click the Podcast button at the top of the page. Hosted by Chad McAllister, product management professor and practitioner.
558: How sketch comedy makes you a better product manager and developer – with John Krewson
Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators
20 minutes 41 seconds
1 week ago
558: How sketch comedy makes you a better product manager and developer – with John Krewson
Lessons from Saturday Night Live for improving product team culture
Watch on YouTube
TLDR
John Krewson, who began his career in sketch comedy before moving to software product development, explains what product teams can learn from sketch comedy. Like comedy writers, product teams must be able to be vulnerable, throw away unsuccessful ideas, and prioritize delivering valuable products over perfect products. John shares principles and practices adapted from sketch comedy that product managers can use to balance autonomy and accountability, make meetings more engaging, and understand customer problems.
Introduction
What if the secret to building breakthrough products is less about an innovation framework and more about the chaotic, creative energy of a Saturday Night Live writers’ room? Specifically, can sketch comedy principles revolutionize the way your software teams collaborate, create, and deliver products that customers love? We are about to find out, and I won’t keep you in suspense—lessons from sketch comedy can make you a better product manager and developer. In this episode, you’ll hear specific techniques to transform boring meetings into energizing collaborative sessions, practical methods to help your team improve ideas fast, and a new approach to product ownership that distributes creative control without losing focus.
Our guest is John Krewson, who brings a unique perspective as a 25-year software industry veteran and professional sketch comedy performer, including a brush with SNL. He’s the founder of Sketch Development Services, has coached everyone from startups to Fortune 50 companies on agile transformation, and wrote the book on applying sketch comedy principles to product development, titled Pitch, Sketch, Launch.
Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers
John Krewson’s Journey: John began his career as a professional actor and performed as a background player on Saturday Night Live. He then switched careers to software development and worked his way up to management, leadership, and consulting roles. As a product leader, John found himself relying on his training as an actor and director.
How Sketch Comedy Principles Inform Product Development:A software development team builds features without knowing whether they will satisfy the customer, in much the same way as a sketch comedy team has no idea if their sketch will be funny. The sketch comedy team mitigates risk by making their sketch only three and a half minutes long. Similar to software features, the sketch is a tight, independent unit of value, where the risk is mitigated by its independentness.
John studied the process of moving from an idea to a product in sketch comedy, particularly at SNL, and, along with a comedy sketch writer, wrote about how that process could be applied to product development in Pitch, Sketch, Launch.
Efficiency and Iteration:In sketch comedy, 90% of sketches don’t go on the air. Comedy teams practice their ideas on small audiences to figure out which sketches are funny before bringing them to a big show. In product development, ideas should be iterated upon using customer feedback.
Vulnerability and Transparency:Sketch comedy teams have thick skins because they’ve been told they’re not funny 90% of the time. Organization culture can allow teams to be vulnerable enough to put ideas forward that may have a 90% chance of being unsuccessful.
Always Be Ready:Lorne Michaels said, “We don’t go on because it’s ready. We go on because it’s 11:30.
Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators
Welcome to Product Mastery Now, where you learn the 7 knowledge areas for product mastery. We teach the product management practices that elevate your influence and create products your customers love as you move toward product mastery. To learn about all seven areas and assess your strengths in product mastery, go to my website -- https://productmasterynow.com -- and click the Podcast button at the top of the page. Hosted by Chad McAllister, product management professor and practitioner.
