"Product sense is learned through experience, not innate - and it's overrated for young PMs"
Evidence from the Archive
Stanford, LinkedIn, Zynga
LinkedIn, Zynga, and Yahoo: Wodtke's own experience with OKRs across very different organizational cultures
A wellness company using OKRs to bring robots into warehouses -- not to replace humans but to reduce physical strain while keeping all employees
The most widely recognized OKR practitioner and author of Radical Focus, who has consulted with hundreds of companies on their OKR processes and teaches product management at Stanford -- uniquely qualified to diagnose why OKRs fail and how to make them work. Their core argument: OKRs work brilliantly when done right, but most companies do them wrong.
The evidence is specific: A wellness company using OKRs to bring robots into warehouses -- not to replace humans but to reduce physical strain while keeping all employees. Furthermore, cEOs who started Friday celebrations mid-quarter and saw organizational culture transform before implementing OKRs. LinkedIn, Zynga, and Yahoo: Wodtke's own experience with OKRs across very different organizational cultures.
In Christina Wodtke's own words: "People do not value celebrations enough. I've had CEOs who said, 'Well, it was the middle of the quarter, so we didn't start OKRs, but we did start Friday celebrations and oh my God, things are already changing.'" (On the power of celebration rituals even before OKR implementation.)
Stanford
Wodtke's own career path: developer to designer to product manager, each role providing foundational experience
Her Stanford students who visibly develop product instincts over the course of a program through accumulated reps
Has taught product management at Stanford for years, previously shipped products as both an engineer and designer, and wrote the definitive book on OKRs -- giving her a rare academic-plus-practitioner vantage point. Their core argument: Product sense is compressed experience -- young PMs literally cannot have it yet, and should stop worrying about it.
The evidence is specific: Wodtke's own career path: developer to designer to product manager, each role providing foundational experience. Furthermore, her Stanford students who visibly develop product instincts over the course of a program through accumulated reps.
In Christina Wodtke's own words: "Ain't none of them yet old enough to have product sense. I mean, seriously. Product sense is intuition, intuition is compressed experience, compressed experience comes from having lots of experience. And if you're young and you don't have a lot of experience, the smartest thing you could do is learn." (Responding to Lenny's observation that product sense may be overrated, delivering the core compressed-experience argument.)