Published 12 February 2024

· 4 min read

Product leaders in the C-suite: tips for dealing with execs

Product leaders in the C-suite struggle to get their organisations to innovate and understand the value of experimentation, according to recent research. What actions can they take to get other execs to change their approach to Product?

Innovation is suffering because Product is widely misunderstood by the C-suite, according to research from digital product agency Planes. Ninety-five percent of product leaders agree a more effective approach to Product would improve innovation in their business, the research found.

There is a fear of experimentation, a chief driver of innovation, and most large organisations don’t understand the value that Product can bring to the business, the report found. Product leaders also find their roles isolating and lonely.

Those responsible for innovation are held up by stakeholders who require them to make a business case for huge scopes of work with predicted value, the report said, and company culture – tied to unrealistic expectations of ROI and outdated KPIs – blocks effective innovation. “The hardest part of launching new things is getting buy-in for the more visionary, unproven product pieces,” said Tim Russell, Product Director at Zopa Bank who was interviewed for the Planes report.

There is also often a disconnect between teams, a feature factory mindset, and no ownership of outcomes. Even if Product is represented in the C-suite, product people often don’t have as much influence as others, according to Planes.

How to foster innovation?

What actions can product leaders take to foster innovation and ramp up their influence while getting others in the C-suite on their side? As the report comments, not all ideas turn into successful products, and a good product culture requires the organisation to be comfortable with uncertainty and failure.

Look for small wins

A focus on small wins and good storytelling will improve C-suite trust and buy-in.

• Setting simple goals and then delivering against them will build confidence.
• Set out a narrative or strategy and use it at the start of each meeting.

Do regular user research

If the business is in touch with the customer at all stages of the user journey then you have plenty of ammunition to ensure customer focused decision making.

• Talk to customers/users every day.
• Recruit superfans who will give you regular feedback.
• Use journey mapping to understand the context of product use, both before and after use.
• Focus on customer pain points.

Launch little and often

Then the organisation gets more comfortable with experimentation and better able to manage risk.

• Focus on improving DevOps and work towards continuous testing.
• Find a customer subset to test and release with – Barclays for example, tested a beta version of the Barclays banking app with early adopters. Barclays Senior Product Manager Zainab Kwaw-Swanzy says it was a great way to launch things without impacting millions of customers.

Outcomes over outputs

Focus on opportunities rather than solutions, ie prioritise outcomes over outputs.

• Review metrics, and define a north star metric.

Adopt a coaching mindset

This will help teams to develop autonomy.

• Agree a set of principles to guide the way everyone works. As Max Nguyen, Senior Product Manager at Pizza Hut Digital Ventures comments: “Product culture is about allowing innovation to happen at every level. Innovation comes from the people actually working in the team.”

Planes ran in-depth qualitative interviews with over 50 product decision makers at leading UK businesses, including The Economist, Pizza Hut Digital Ventures and Barclays.

It then ran a survey to refine its findings, with over 500 product leaders at large businesses across Europe and North America. All were businesses that either have over 500 employees or are publicly listed.

Access the full report here to gather more insights on product leadership and innovation.

Further reading

Becoming a product-led organisation

A product coaching framework to foster product thinking