Product Leadership Turnaround slides deck

Product Leadership Turnaround slides deck

1. Product Leadership for Driving
Turnaround Success
Donna Boyer
CPO, WeightWatchers

2. How I got here
High Growth Turnaround

3. Why WeightWatchers?
Generate
Positive Weight
Health
Outcomes
Drive Innovation
in Health &
Well-Being
Revitalize a
Heritage Product
& Brand

4. Why
turnarounds?

5. ?????? ?????? vs.

6. Leadership in a turnaround is all about a clear path, urgency
and psychological safety
Communicate a (no-BS!)
reason to believe
TIe people’s work to clear
financial goals
Establish and track a small
number of strategic priorities

Create a Clear Path
Forward
Set clear expectations and
deliverables
Build momentum through
rapid, high-impact results
Create a focus on outcomes
over output

Reignite a Sense of
Urgency
Encourage open, spicy
communication ??????
Actively listen to understand
challenges
Undo a culture of learned
helplessness
Instill Psychological
Safety

7. Roadmapping in a turnaround means ruthless prioritization,
precision and predictability
Identify and prioritize strategic
needle movers
Decisively cut low-impact
projects
Fully (and quickly) shift
resources to the top priorities
Create Laser
Focus
Align early and often around
“the why” and “the what”
Establish the roadmap as a
commitment, not a slide
Set “empowered &
expected-to” culture
Eliminate Thrash
(Where You Can)
Sweat the
Details
Make the user experience a
priority
Test assumptions; get hands-
on with any data you have
Obsess over incremental,
iterative improvement

8. Decision-Making in a turnaround needs to be both fast and
right
Act quickly on decisions that can
be easily course-corrected

Make decisions with (the right)
70% of info
Get the info from the folks closest
to the information





Prioritize Speed
Over Perfection
Speed vs Quality
Near-term vs Long-term
Finance vs Customer-centric
Iterative vs Innovative
Us vs Them
Reject “vs” as a
false dichotomy
Get crisp on what the decision is
that need to be made
Be clear about who owns
making the decision
Get rid of Steering Committees
as a decision making body


Avoid Decisions by
Committee

9. Tl;dr Every Product Leader should do (at least) one turnaround.
Manage unique
constraints.
Plan & build with
precision.
Lead through
headwinds.

10. Thank you!