What sets great teams apart | Lane Shackleton (CPO of Coda)
Guest Lane Shackleton, CPO at Coda, shares insights from studying great product leaders and teams. He discusses principles like focusing on systems over goals and rituals such as "Catalyst" for product reviews, offering actionable advice for career growth and team effectiveness.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Defining career growth through 'Oh Shit' moments
Lane Shackleton's background and early career experiences
Parallels between mountain guiding and software development
Motivation for studying and writing about product teams
Coda's five-level career ladder and its principles
Principle: Systems, not Goals (inspired by Jerry Seinfeld)
Principle: Cathedrals, not Bricks (the unifying vision)
Developing personal guiding principles and learning from diverse sources
Ritual: HubSpot's FlashTags for feedback calibration
Ritual: Coda's Catalyst for efficient product reviews
Implementing rituals from other companies and adapting them
Ritual: Tag Up for group decision-making over one-on-ones
The story of how skippable YouTube ads were created
Lane's journey from AdWords reviewer to CPO
Advice for aspiring product managers: focus on customer expertise
The impact of 'Tim Ferriss Day' on Coda's growth
The evolution and benefits of 'Two-Way Write-Ups'
Distinguishing OKRs from strategy and the 10% planning rule
7 Key Concepts
Oh Shit Moments
These are moments of discomfort or feeling underqualified that indicate personal growth. They serve as a sharper way to gauge career progress than ambiguous questions about 'feeling like you're growing in your role'.
Systems, Not Goals
This principle, inspired by Jerry Seinfeld's comedy writing, suggests focusing on consistent, repeatable processes rather than solely on achieving specific outcomes. For product teams, this means establishing default-on systems for activities like customer research, rather than setting one-time goals.
Cathedrals, Not Bricks
This metaphor emphasizes the importance of teams understanding the broader vision and purpose of their work, rather than just focusing on individual tasks. Product leaders should help teams see the 'cathedral' they are building, ensuring everyone understands their contribution to the larger strategic arc.
FlashTags
A ritual from HubSpot for calibrating feedback, using tags like FYI, Suggestion, Recommendation, and Plea. This helps teams understand the weight and urgency of feedback, preventing slowdowns caused by treating all feedback equally.
Catalyst
Coda's product review forum designed to solve common problems of standing attendees and single-threaded topics. It uses three one-hour blocks where the whole company is available, allowing multiple topics to be reviewed simultaneously with the right, flexible attendees and clear roles.
Tag Up
A ritual that moves project discussions out of one-on-one meetings and into small group settings with key stakeholders (a 'brain trust'). This ensures that engineering, design, and other leads hear the same information simultaneously, avoiding communication fidelity loss and speeding up decision-making.
Two-Way Write-Ups
An evolution from traditional 'one-way write-ups' (like Amazon's six-pagers) where feedback and discussion are integrated directly into the content. This allows for clear tracking of who has read the document, upvoting of key questions, and explicit sentiment collection, making discussions more efficient and inclusive.
11 Questions Answered
A sharp way to assess career growth is to reflect on how many 'oh shit moments' (times you felt stretched or underqualified) you've experienced in the last six months to two years. A lack of such moments may indicate a need to seek out new challenges.
The core job of a product person is to turn ambiguity into clarity, as everything in product management, from defining roles to solving problems, often starts in an ambiguous state.
Instead of setting a goal (like an OKR) to talk to a certain number of customers, teams should establish a 'default-on' system or ritual for continuous customer interaction, such as weekly customer meetings or dedicated time for user research.
Leaders should help teams see the 'cathedral' they are building, not just the 'bricks' they are laying, by providing a comprehensive view of the vision through various facets like write-ups, metrics, and directional mocks, ensuring everyone understands the broader strategic context.
Teams can use a 'FlashTags' system where feedback is categorized (e.g., FYI, Suggestion, Recommendation, Plea) to indicate its importance and urgency, allowing them to calibrate their attention and prioritize what needs to be addressed most critically.
Companies can implement a 'Catalyst' system, which involves dedicated, company-wide free blocks of time for product reviews, allowing multiple topics to be discussed simultaneously with flexible, relevant attendees, thereby increasing throughput and velocity.
One-on-one meetings for project work create a 'game of telephone' effect, where information is lost in translation as managers relay it to engineering and design leads. It's more effective to have 'Tag Up' meetings with all key stakeholders present to discuss project work directly.
The key lesson was to 'learn by making, not talking' – instead of endlessly debating a controversial idea, it's better to quickly run experiments, create prototypes, and gather directional data to gain conviction and move forward.
Aspiring product managers should prioritize getting customer-facing experience early in their career, as deep knowledge of the customer is invaluable in tech organizations and helps build strong product intuitions.
By adopting 'two-way write-ups,' which integrate conversational elements, feedback, and discussion directly into the document. This includes features like 'done reading' buttons, upvotable questions (Dory), and sentiment/pulse checks, making the process more transparent and inclusive.
OKRs are not strategy; it's critical to disconnect strategy discussions from OKR setting. Strategy defines the approach to achieve objectives, while OKRs are the measurable goals used to track progress against that strategy.
22 Actionable Insights
1. Seek “Oh Shit” Moments
Actively seek out uncomfortable situations where you feel underqualified to foster growth and build a new foundation. Regularly assess your career by counting these moments; a lack of them indicates a need for change and deeper engagement.
2. Build Systems, Not Just Goals
Shift your focus from being solely obsessed with goals to building consistent, “default-on” systems that inevitably lead to desired outcomes. For example, establish a regular routine for customer interaction rather than just setting a goal to talk to customers, as this builds stronger instincts.
3. Orient Teams Towards a “Cathedral” Vision
Ensure your team understands the larger vision or “cathedral” they are building, not just the individual “bricks” they are laying. Present the vision through multiple facets (write-ups, metrics, mocks) to make it clear and inspiring for everyone and remove mystery from broader constraints.
4. Learn by Making, Not Talking
Prioritize learning through action by immediately running experiments, building prototypes, writing docs, or creating mocks instead of engaging in prolonged discussions. Expressing ideas through creation is more valuable and faster than endless talk or pontification.
5. Practice Deep, Holistic Listening
When listening, consciously try to absorb every fragment of what the other person is saying, including non-verbal cues, without simultaneously crafting your response. This allows for deeper understanding and more powerful insights, rather than just preparing for the next step of the conversation.
6. Cultivate a Beginner’s Mind
Approach problems with a “beginner’s mind,” as if you know nothing about the topic, to encourage first-principles thinking and uncover novel solutions. Use this approach in reviews by having others observe and identify issues from a fresh perspective.
7. Get Early Customer Exposure
Seek out customer-facing roles early in your career to gain deep expertise and intuition about customer needs, as this experience is invaluable throughout your professional life and often undervalued in tech organizations.
8. Define Principles: Read, Mentor
To develop your own principles, read broadly from diverse fields beyond your immediate industry. Additionally, pay attention to the advice you consistently give when mentoring others, as these often reveal your deeply held beliefs and help clarify your own thinking.
9. Learn from Experts, Dive Deep
To learn quickly, seek out and study the best practitioners in any given craft, then deconstruct their methods. Additionally, actively put yourself in uncomfortable, challenging situations that force you to develop new skills, especially early in your career.
10. Assume Customers Don’t Care
When developing products or communicating with customers, assume they don’t inherently care about your product itself, but rather about solving their problems. This forces you to focus on delivering impact and communicating more sharply and concisely.
11. Separate Strategy from OKRs
Crucially separate your strategy discussions from your OKR (Objectives and Key Results) and metric-setting processes. Ensure you have a distinct strategy ritual to avoid conflating strategic thinking with goal setting, which is a common mistake.
12. Adopt Two-Way Write-Ups
Transition from one-way write-ups to “two-way write-ups” where feedback and discussion are integrated into the content itself. Include features like “done reading” buttons, upvotable questions (Dory), and sentiment/pulse ratings to foster inclusive, efficient decision-making.
13. Streamline Product Reviews with Catalyst
Adopt the “Catalyst” ritual for product reviews, scheduling multiple one-hour blocks where the whole company is available. Assign clear roles (driver, maker, brain trust, interested) and run multiple non-overlapping topics concurrently to increase throughput and ensure the right people are present.
14. Use Group “Tag-Up” Meetings
Avoid discussing project work solely in one-on-ones, as this creates information silos and fidelity issues. Instead, hold weekly “tag-up” meetings with key stakeholders (e.g., product, engineering, design) to unblock decisions and make progress collaboratively in a small group setting.
15. Calibrate Feedback with Flash Tags
Implement “flash tags” (FYI, Suggestion, Recommendation, Plea) for feedback to clearly calibrate the importance and urgency of each comment. This helps teams prioritize feedback effectively, speeds up decision-making, and avoids treating every comment with the same weight.
16. Prioritize with $100 Voting
During planning or brainstorming, use “$100 voting” by listing problems/solutions in a table and giving each participant $100 to allocate to their priorities. This quickly reveals collective priorities and highlights areas of disagreement for discussion.
17. Follow the 10% Planning Rule
Implement a “10% planning rule,” dedicating no more than 10% of an execution period to planning. This prevents over-planning and ensures flexibility to adapt to new learnings after launch, avoiding being bogged down in planning.
18. Stay Calm, Prioritize, Act
In challenging or scary scenarios, prioritize staying calm, assessing the situation clearly, prioritizing actions, and then taking decisive steps. This approach, learned from high-stakes situations, is applicable even in less extreme scenarios like software development.
19. Prepare, Check, Ensure Redundancy
Thoroughly prepare for important tasks, even spending months for a few days of activity, and implement extensive checklists. Build redundancy into your systems to ensure success and mitigate risks, checking equipment and plans multiple times.
20. Scale Advice by Writing
As a leader, if you find yourself repeating the same advice in one-on-ones, write it down to scale your insights and clarify your own thinking. This also allows for feedback and refinement from others.
21. “Make Things Happen” Motto
Adopt the motto “make things happen” by actively striving to be the person who creates momentum, positive change, and progress in all aspects of your life, whether work, personal, or hobbies.
22. Know When to Back Down
Recognize that the safest approach often involves knowing when to retreat or “come down” from a challenge, even if it means putting your ego in check. Prioritize safety and practicality over pushing forward in unsafe conditions.
7 Key Quotes
moments that stretch you or moments that you feel uncomfortable in, or you find yourself saying like, oh shit, you know, I shouldn't be here. I'm underqualified to be here. Those are the moments you should be seeking out, right? Like those are the moments that stretch you and give you sort of like a new foundation.
Lane Shackleton
The core job of a product person in general is to turn ambiguity into clarity.
Lane Shackleton
goals with good intentions don't work.
Lane Shackleton
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (quoted by Lenny Rachitsky)
The nugget of a great story is like five seconds of transformation.
Lane Shackleton
stop talking about it and like go make something, go, go like run an experiment, go make a prototype, you know, go write a doc, go make a mock, just don't talk about it.
Lane Shackleton
you have to get customer facing from the very beginning because you're going to end up serving a customer your whole career.
Lane Shackleton
4 Protocols
HubSpot's FlashTags for Feedback
Dharmesh Shah (from HubSpot, shared by Lane Shackleton)- When giving feedback, categorize it using one of four tags to indicate its weight.
- FYI: 'I had a thought, take it or leave it' (no hill in sight).
- Suggestion: 'There's a hill, I'm not going to die on it' (what I would do, take it or leave it).
- Recommendation: 'I'm climbing the hill, but not dying here' (thought about it a lot, don't ignore).
- Plea: 'I don't like dying on hills, but this is a good candidate for it' (really trust me, rarely used).
Coda's Catalyst Product Review System
Lane Shackleton- Schedule three one-hour blocks throughout the week, assuming the whole company is free during these times.
- For each topic, assign four roles: Driver (leads the meeting/decision), Maker (person creating the work), Brain Trust (key decision-makers/experts), and Interested (anyone who wants to follow along).
- Centralize all topics and roles in one document (e.g., Coda doc).
- The day before the scheduled blocks, the general calendar hold is removed, and specific topics are added to the calendar.
- Multiple topics can run simultaneously in parallel blocks if they don't have overlapping attendees.
- The system ensures the right attendees are present for each discussion and decision, increasing throughput and velocity.
100-Dollar Voting for Planning
Lane Shackleton- List any set of problems, solutions, or themes in a table.
- Allocate a hypothetical $100 to each participant.
- Participants 'vote' by distributing their $100 across the items in the table, assigning more 'money' to items they deem more important (e.g., $10 to this, $20 to that, $50 to another).
- Review the distribution of 'votes' to identify areas of strong consensus or significant disagreement, bringing 'elephants in the room' out for discussion.
Tag Up Group One-on-One
Lane Shackleton- Instead of individual one-on-ones for project work, hold a group 'one-on-one' with key stakeholders (e.g., PM, Eng Lead, Design Lead, Sales, Marketing).
- Meet once a week, treating it as the team's dedicated time to unblock decisions and make progress.
- Start by reviewing OKRs and metrics.
- Maintain a table of topics where anyone can add an item, and topics are upvoted to prioritize discussion.
- Discuss project work with the entire group present to ensure shared understanding and avoid communication gaps.