Product for Product Management: VUCA and Cynefin
The podcast.
After my blog post on Cynefin and VUCA, the hosts of the Product for Product Management podcast — Moshe Mikanovsky and Matt Green — have reached out to me to deep dive into these subjects.
It was a fun discussion. It’s not every day that you get to talk about ways of thinking 🤔💭 Both Cynefin and VUCA are ways to think through complex problems and domains, like the types you normally encounter in Product work, so we also touched on a few related topics like strategy, AI, and product management’s role in general.
Here’s the official blurb:
Product Management is not about frameworks. Yes, using some frameworks that fit well in your situation can save us a lot of time by organizing our thoughts and allowing us to collaborate better. And before there were frameworks, there were mindsets.
In this episode we are talking about a couple of mindset that help product managers and anyone who is building products to align better with the chaotic nature of our work.
Our guest on the show is Assaph Mehr, a product and people leader. He is currently a Senior Product Manager of AI at Squiz, a Product Management Advisor & Mentor at My Mentor Path, a thought provoking blogger, and an author (of the ward-winning Stories of Togas, Daggers, and Magic series - for lovers of Dark Urban-Fantasy Detectives and Ancient Rome!).
On the episode, Assaph shared with us two of those mindsets - VUCA and Cynefin, and how they relate to our jobs as product people.
Join Matt and Moshe as they explore with Assaph:
How he got to product management
His experience building AI products, and some of the challenges they raise
What are these two mindsets all about (and how to pronounce Cynefin!)
How to understand, and harness Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA)
The balance between all of these, and how each of our domains can have a different mix
Is it possible to quantify things like uncertainty or complexity?
How he defines strategy
The 5 domains of Cynefin, and the importance of fitting our problem to the right domain
Can Product Managers impact their orgs to think in these ways?
Can product job seekers test organizational fit by probing to see if they have the right mindset?
And I think we covered quite a bit more 😉 It was an invigorating discussion, and if you’re into examining what you do and trying to improve on it (rather than just get stuff out the door), I’m sure you’ll find value in it.
You can listen on Spotify, Apple, and Spreaker.
If you do listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Does any of this help you in dealing with the inevitable complexity surrounding product management? Please leave a comment!