Five Rules for Building Value-Generating Product Teams

Eager to learn how to take your product teams to the next level? Explore our notes for the key takeaways from this insightful conversation — or watch the full interview!

Introduction: Meeting Aneta Orszewska

Matt (Host): Hi everyone, and welcome to Around the Product Development, our weekly series where we dive into topics like monetization, innovation, and actionable insights from digital product practitioners. This week, we’re joined by Aneta Orszewska, Head of Product at Boldare. Aneta has a wealth of experience, both international and diverse, including her time in Berlin and Singapore. Welcome, Aneta!

Aneta (Guest): Thank you, Matt. It’s very nice to be here.

Matt: Could you tell us a bit about your journey?

Aneta: Yes, I would be happy to do that. So you mentioned my Berlin experience, and I think it’s a nice starting place to talk about product. Berlin is quite a product place, and this is where I had a chance to work for two startups. One of them was a tech startup called BioAnalyt, and another one was called Omio. Back then, it was still called GoEuro. And this is where I really got into product development, and not only digital products but also physical products.

So this is where my strong love for product-related things started. And since then, I was gaining a lot of experience and also hands-on experience. I was reading a lot. I was also exploring Agile approaches into product development. And the last four years was also a great chance for me to dive into those topics at Boldare, who are digital product designers and creators and who specialize in Agile ways of developing products for our customers.

What Defines a Product Team?

Matt: Let’s dive in. What makes a group of people a team, and what distinguishes a product team?

Aneta: I think the best way to approach this topic is to maybe break it down a little into three parts. So I would start with first, what is a team?

Because not every group of people is actually a team.

Then I will talk briefly on what a product team can mean, at least how we understand it, and also what is a value-generating product team.

Starting with what I think comprises a team of people, I think it’s super important to build a team of people around a purpose. So a common purpose. It’s very important that a group of people that are going to be a team have a common sense of something that’s meaningful for them and a common understanding of a purpose. So why are we a team? Why are we going to work together? What’s our goal? What’s our purpose? And what’s the path that we are going to take to reach this goal? So understanding the “why,” as Simon Sinek would say.

And here we could also add some more important dimensions for a group of people to be a team, such as self-organizing or self-managing, even if we think of Scrum and Agile approaches.

So I would say for a group of people to be a team, they need to have a purpose, a meaningful purpose for them, and they also need to be empowered. So this is what I was saying: a sense of self-organization, of being actually accountable for what they work on and how they work on it. So purpose and empowerment—two foundations, I would say.

Matt: And what about product teams specifically? What else do they need?

Aneta: If we have hopefully a team already that’s working nicely, what do you need for a team to be a product team? I would say there are maybe five important things for a team to be a product team.

Key Elements of Value-Generating Product Teams

• User-Centricity - Building empathy for the user is essential. Product teams need to understand the problems they are solving for their users or customers, as this forms the foundation of modern product development and discovery.
• Business Mindset - A strong focus on how the product impacts the business is crucial. This includes understanding monetization, achieving KPIs, and aligning with the overall business model. Together with user-centricity, this creates the cornerstone of a successful product team.
• Product Lifecycle Awareness - Teams must understand the product’s lifecycle, from the initial idea through launch, product-market fit, scaling, and eventual decline. Awareness of the lifecycle stage enables informed decision-making and strategic resource allocation.
• Data and Analytics - Familiarity with tools to track KPIs and analyze product performance is a must. Without a data-driven approach, managing a product effectively becomes challenging.
• Cross-Functional Skills - Diverse experiences and viewpoints within a team enhance its ability to tackle complex challenges. Collaboration between individuals with different perspectives fosters innovation and leads to more effective solutions.

What Makes a Team Value-Generating?

Matt: Because my question would be, there are also product teams that are not that much value generating, I assume, right? Or maybe only a little generating, not optimal. And you’ve worked in them as well. I think it happens.

Aneta: Yes, I think I would say value-generating has also some key things that need to be present, like understanding what value is for the client.

So, if you do not really know what the value is for the user or for the client, then you cannot deliver it. A value-generating product team needs to have a clear understanding of what the business value is and the value for the user, right? This means close cooperation with stakeholders and involving them in the product development cycles or in discovery cycles. And if I may, I can jump back to this because we have a nice story within Boldare. That’s the way we cooperated with one of our partners. So, close cooperation with stakeholders, metrics, and decisions – I would say, data-driven decisions.

Of course, this involves tracking the data, understanding what kind of data you’re looking at, what the data is showing, and being able to suggest or make decisions as a product team to the C-level or stakeholders. Because you can develop products in various directions, and you’ll have a number of opportunities in the pipeline. In the discovery pipeline or even in the development pipeline, value-generating product teams can assess these opportunities and make recommendations about what to build to deliver the biggest value for the user or the business—for the company.

And one more thing. Actually, two more things. First, a good understanding of the user market and business goals. This means not only looking inside the product or the near environment—like the C-level, marketing, or sales team—not only within the organization, but also outside. So, of course, doing some user research, being in contact, validating, and testing the solutions, but also being aware of what’s going on in the market. Are there any competitors? Is there any technological advancement that we can use to make our product more automated—like AI, for example?

So also looking more widely at the product. And finally, something that should be the baseline, though I haven’t seen it too many times, is the lean startup mindset and experimentation. This is a great source of value generation. If you run a number of experiments in the product, you’ll explore new possibilities. Because if you stick to only one line of thinking, without trying various things or testing, you’ll lose a lot of opportunities. Right. So, I think these are like the three levels of teams: product teams, and then value-generating product teams.

Final Thoughts and Resources

Matt: I have two more questions. Where do people find the right resources if they don’t know where to start?

Aneta: Yeah, I would say Strategizer. Yes, Strategizer and Alex Osterwalder. There is Teresa Torres regarding product discovery habits, there is Tim Herbig regarding product strategy, Roman Pichler, and of course Eric Ries and Lean Startup. And of course, the Boldare blog. There are a lot of nice articles there.

Matt: Yes, of course, the Boldare blog as well is a great spot.

Matt: And if people have questions around this, can they get in touch with you on LinkedIn as well? Can they ask you a question? I’m sure they can, right?

Aneta: Yes, I’m happy to talk. I’m happy also to discuss things or if someone has a different opinion, then I’m also super happy to discuss.

Matt: Perfect. For everyone listening, they can contact you. So that’s perfect. Thank you, Aneta! This was insightful.

Aneta: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Matt: Thank you, and for the audience, thank you for joining as well. It was a pleasure having you. Bye.