Mambo no. 5 (greetings from Zürich) 👋🏼

Life lessons, Product & the Podcast.

I can't believe it's already newsletter time again!

I walked home today, stepping on the crunchy autumn leaves. It's definitely cosy season, so grab a brew and enjoy the updates ☕️ 🍂

Life Lessons

Last time I sent this newsletter - I was in Malaga for my brother's wedding, and what a wedding it was! 🥰

It was absolutely incredible to have all of my family together and be able to spend a whole weekend celebrating the peak of happiness. Weddings are (usually) just like that aren't they!

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find the aftermath of the most incredible weekends pretty damn hard. You have such a high, and then going back to 'normal' life can feel like a real crash to reality. This one particularly hit me, as it was the last time I'd see some of my family for a few months.

I deliberately planned my schedule so I didn't need to work much whilst I was in Europe. But you know how it goes... you kind of just get used to working a lot, you feel like you have momentum, and sometimes it feels super difficult to take your foot off the pedal.

My mini meltdown in Madrid was exactly what I needed to make me realise that I should do as I had originally planned, and take my foot off the pedal for a little bit.

So I took a couple of days off, and then a couple of days turned into 4/5 days.

I've heard from a lot of people that the key to running your own business is self-discipline. & whilst I agree with that, and think that there are times when it is absolutely necessary. There are also a lot of times where we should actually listen to our bodies, our minds and feel like we can allow ourselves to rest. To actually rest. Not to take a day 'off' and spend it doing other 'chores'.

We've been brought up in societies that make it seem like that is crazy to do nothing, and so we constantly live on the edge of burnout and think that is normal.

What happened when I took a few extra days off? Well - my motivation came flooding back on day 5 and I ended up working all of Saturday and Sunday - and I absolutely loved it. I gained a real feeling of alignment for the things that I want to, and I am, working on. A real sense of growth and opportunity. & if we need anything in the freelance world - we often need all of that!

I stepped into this week full of life and enthusiasm for everything that I do. & even when things haven't gone as I planned, I've felt full of abundance and gratitude and have been able to handle it all in the best way.

The lesson - take some time off. Actually off. I'm not saying use precious holiday days to do nothing. But when you do have holiday days, or weekends - don't feel like you need to do things just because you should. Reframe everything and ask yourself what do you want to do? I know, especially with children and work - there are a lot of 'shoulds' in there, but that's why it is especially important to make time for the 'wants'.

PS. I am in Switzerland again. Another 2,200km covered, but it has been beautiful! I love being in this little pocket of Autumn - the sun is still out, the mornings are fresh and the crunchy leaves mean I skip down the street like a child. 100% recommended.

Product Lessons

How should you structure your Product team?

I’ve been writing for a few different publications for a little while now, & I bloody love it. I love covering a range of product topics and growing my writing skill.

One of the most common topics that I’ve consulted on, and written about - is how to structure product teams.

Now, there is no right or wrong to this. You can structure a team however you want (in my opinion). As long as it follows these things.

1. Always structure product teams around your strategy.

This means that they will understand their purpose and actually focus on the outcomes that add value.

This also might mean that you break traditional teams that look after funnel steps for example, and restructure them to work towards a common goal.

2. Align priorities at the strategic level

So many product organisations struggle because everything is a priority. Teams don't know where to focus to have impact as they try to do everything. They also might have competing dependencies, and the teams can't structure themselves effectively to remove these.

By structuring teams around strategic goals, and making sure that the priorities of these goals are clear - you can alleviate a lot of this pain. This means that teams can add value in a much more effective way.

3. Make sure your teams have clear, aligned goals.

Teams need to know exactly how they will contribute to success. This means setting clear goals, but giving them the freedom to state how they will best contribute to these goals.

Success metrics for the goals also need to be clear. For example, you should have a North Star Metric (or similar leading metrics), and have clear targets for goals (OKRs can work well for this!).

Points 1 & 2 often mean that it’s not enough to just create traditional product teams (PM, UX, Engineers, Analytics), but actually - you need to add additional people from across the organisation to form some form of product team that really can thrive ie. integrated Product teams with Sales, Customer Success, Marketing.

Of course - these 3 steps make organisational structure sound so simple, and we all know that it never is that way. There's a lot more involved. If this is a topic that interests you, I am always happy to chat about this more, just drop me an email.

Evie's email

The Podcast

This week we were joined by Darinka Burovska. Darinka has travelled to 11 countries in the last year, all whilst practising Product Discovery.

Darinka shared some incredible insights on the life of a Digital Nomad, and how to conduct Product Discovery across different cultures.

There is so much that you'll learn from listening to Darinka - and you will definitely be inspired by her journey.

Listen Here

Have an amazing weekend, I’ll certainly enjoy sunny Switzerland! As ever, feeling incredibly lucky that this is how I get to live my life 🥰

Evie
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