Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I’m the CEO of quality science and we are starting a whole new series. We’re going to start talking about some of the essential skills for product creators, for product people. And I’m calling this series unstuck, how do we get unstuck?
How do we. Work in what is a very different world, uh, to 10, 20 years ago. And it’s really a bit of a game of catch-up, uh, to be quite honest. And so I want to make the case for the change that is surrounding us as modern knowledge working professionals. I want to really make the case for some cutting edge practices like lean and agile and design thinking.
And I really want to show you, [00:01:00] um, a radically new way of thinking about those skills, uh, and how we might all survive in this crazy world in which we live. All right. Let’s get stuck into it. And let’s just talk a little bit about the big shift that’s happening and without a doubt. Uh, you know, 2020 has only accelerated the shift.I mean, you might really argue, you know, some people call it the fourth industrial age. I think of this as being a shift out of the industrial age to the digital age. Um, and let’s talk about what that means. So in the old way of working people really had a focus on machines, manufacturing, um, stability.Mass production, uh, listening to your teacher and all that kind of stuff, but were working in a very different world. Instead of machines, we’re moving towards a world that’s based on data [00:02:00] instead of manufacturing. The key thing is problem solving rather than talking about your own organization. We’re really talking about how we integrate from stability to constant change from the factory worker.
To the knowledge worker and here we go. Here’s some, here’s some fun ones. So from capital being the biggest asset to knowledge for mass production to automated production from teachers to self-learning from top down, To bottom up. In fact, what I want to pitch to you is we’ve seen a huge acceleration of this shift to the digital age, to the knowledge age, and the only way to survive in this frantic fast-changing world is to in fact, work bottom up.
That’s where the whole idea. [00:03:00] For the name of this podcast for the name of all of our e-learning, uh, experiences, it’s all about bottom-up skills because you’ve got to work bottom up. Let’s face it, things move too fast to be top down. You know, if someone says to me, write me a big 20 page business plan for this idea.
I’ll be like, I’m lucky. If I’ve got enough time to do a lean business canvas, let alone a business plan. And the crazy thing is these old ways of working, which are very top down by the time you deliver that work, it’s out of date. So this is the opportunity we can work in a bottom up Y and that’s the most exciting prospect that we have.
So now, I’m making the case that we’re working in a digital era in a era of knowledge. So we need new skills and I want to list for you the six skills, and then I’m going to present [00:04:00] you the essence, the core and the starting point of working in a bottom up way. So there are six different skills that I think are essential.
Six different practices, six different methodologies. One is lean startup. Absolutely essential too. Growth marketing three rapid prototyping for design thinking number five, agile software development. And all of that comes down to number six, high performance teams. That’s all about culture. So, what I want you to have in mind is that if you do want to work in this new bottom-up way, these are the six areas of practice that you need to master.
You need to be able to build, measure, learn with lean startup. You need to be able to rapid prototype, you know, stimulate the senses of your users. You need to be able to conduct design thinking, [00:05:00] uh, which is all about empathizing with users. You need to then take those ideas and build them with small teams, which is the essence of agile.
Software development. The next thing you do is when your product is ready, it’s all about growth marketing, and you’ve got to test every part of the funnel and it all comes down to those high performance teams that have their core engine is built around trust. Okay. Now, if you want to take all of those different skills and work out, what is the most bottom up starting point, whether you want to promote a product, build a product.
Create a profit model or build a team to do it. It all starts with the pains and gains of your customer of your user. And you have to understand what are the pains that your user experiences and how are you going to relieve those pains? What are the gains they’re looking for and what are your gain creators?
And I present to you that if you know [00:06:00] those pains and gains you’ll know the use cases for your product, You’ll be able to build a hypothesis for your venture. You’ll be able to build a team around the right behaviors, systems and symbols, you know, have the right culture. And when it goes to telling your story out in the world to promote it, you’ll know exactly how to go and propose this service to the world.So if you know the pains and gains of the end user, I make a case to you that you can build everything you need in a great business product and enterprise. You can actually deliver against those four PS product, profit people and promotion, and it will all come back to the most bottom, up to the most essential practice that you need right now here in a world that is so agile, nimble, and fast, where it changes the constant.You need to know. What are the pains and gains of your user? What keeps them up at night and what services do they [00:07:00] need, what products do they need? And what’s a product worth creating. So if you go out and do this in the world, you will find enormous success and you’ll be able to craft something that delights your users.You’ll be able to find something that brings real joy. Not only to those that use your product. But I reckon you’ll have fun as well. So there you go. That’s my case for the most essential skills for product creators. It’s not only about design thinking and lean and agile and all of that. It’s much more than that.It’s about building these great teams, it’s that, you know, that full picture that we have in the four PS and all of that comes down to the most essential practice of working in a bottom up way, which is knowing the pains and gains of your customer. Okay. That’s the first of our new series of getting unstuck, the essential skills for product creators.I hope that you’ve got some inspiration, maybe a [00:08:00] little practical tip along the way I might pass since I’m the CEO of quality tents, and this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That’s a wrap.
