5 Ideas for CPOs to Nail Your Board Presentation
There comes a time in each chief product officer’s government life, when she is requested to work together with the board. Shelley Perry, CEO and founding father of Scalelogix Ventures, multiple-time board director, and former chief product officer (CPO), joined Dragonboat’s CPO Sequence to speak about why new CPOs ought to undertake a board apply to be prepared for the inevitable and suggestions to make sure you nail your board presentation.
Efficient communication with the board will increase board member confidence in all the government group, and talking as a member of many boards, Shelley needs new CPOs to achieve success of their new position.
On this webinar, Shelley affords 5 suggestions to assist CPOs be prepared for working with their board.
Tip #1: Perceive Your Viewers (the Board Members)
Product groups are nice at understanding buyer jobs, pains, and features. It’s how they will construct nice merchandise that create worth for purchasers.
Shelley recommends that CPOs ought to leverage this functionality for figuring out prospects to know board members. Board members are stakeholders of the enterprise. They’ve jobs to do, pains to resolve, and features they wish to assist the corporate obtain.
CPOs ought to dig into board member profiles, to allow them to higher perceive what they’re attempting to perform as a board member of the corporate.
Tip #2: What Bought You Right here Gained’t Get You There
“You lead product, however your group is the c-suite,” says Shelley to new CPOs. The product group is now not your first group, so you should cease pondering that method. Boards count on the manager group to be fixing for the entire, not advocating for his or her respective features. The 5 Dysfunctions of a Crew is required studying for all new CPOs (any new CxO) as a result of it should speed up your mindset shift to first-team pondering.
“You [CPO] lead product, however your group is the c-suite.”
Shelley Perry
Tip #3: Your Product Part [of the Board Deck] is A part of a Bigger Narrative
When a CPO is requested to create the product part of the board deck, the board just isn’t searching for the precise product roadmap or replace on the standing of product initiatives. The one goal of the product slide is to help the CEO’s narrative for all the firm technique.
Shelley means that the CPO first perceive the CEO’s narrative, then construct the product slides with that context.
Tip #4: Study to Discuss Monetary Communicate and Go away Product Communicate on the Door
As a lot as you wish to, you can’t use any of the next language in board conferences: new UX, code refactor, technical debt, jobs-to-be-done, subsequent launch, PRD, Horizon 1, 2, OR 3, framework, prioritization, double diamond technique.
Go away these phrases on the door.
To be able to nail your board shows, translate product modifications into language that furthers the enterprise. Use language that communicates how the product will enhance gross sales, retain prospects, enhance EBITDA, increase into new markets, exit low-growth markets, or in any other case, enhance go-to-market velocity. CPOs have to be taught the board’s language, not train them merchandise.
Tip #5: A Image is Value a Thousand Phrases
Shelley will let you know that her pet peeve as a board member is a slide that reveals present state, which begs the query, “Is that this higher or worse than final month/quarter/yr?”
Don’t make board members return to earlier decks to piece issues collectively. Present dashboards with tendencies or knowledge over time to spark a dialog about what may be finished to make a change. You can not put a thousand phrases on a slide, however the precise dashboard and spark a 20-minute strategic dialog about find out how to transfer all the enterprise ahead.
Easy methods to Do This in Dragonboat
CPOs can use Dragonboat to assist make the transition to the c-suite simpler by relating the progress that the product group is making to the outcomes the corporate is reaching. The bottom line is to report initiative progress aspect by aspect with firm outcomes. In Dragonboat, once you show OKR progress subsequent to initiative progress, you’ll be able to have data-driven, productive discussions in your government group conferences about strategic investments, useful resource allocation and strategic initiatives which might be shifting the enterprise ahead.
Such discussions go nicely past what the product group is contributing. Your entire c-suite discusses outcomes and initiatives contributing to the outcomes, not going across the room with function-by-function updates. CPOs who convey this sort of knowledge to government conferences live as much as Shelley’s recommendation.
Study extra about how Dragonboat can assist you stage up your board conversations
Dragonboat is the quickest rising product portfolio platform for outcome-focused groups to strategize, prioritize, plan and ship merchandise that drive enterprise outcomes. With Dragonboat, product groups can join OKRs, buyer insights, and product initiatives in a single supply of fact PPM platform. Join a free trial or ebook a demo.
