Product lessons from Waymo | Shweta Shrivastava (Waymo, Amazon, Cisco)

Apr 9, 2023 42m 16s 25 insights Episode Page ↗
Shweta Srivastava, Senior Director of Product Management at Waymo, discusses building trust in self-driving cars, Waymo's KPIs, and lessons from her career at companies like Amazon and Cisco, emphasizing customer focus and self-disruption.
Actionable Insights

1. Work Backwards from Customer

Always work backwards from the customer or user problem, focusing on what you are building, who it’s for, and what problem it solves, rather than building technology for its own sake.

2. Disrupt Yourself Proactively

Challenge your own models and product capabilities to disrupt yourself proactively before an upstart does, as this constant self-disruption is key for long-term success, especially in large companies.

3. Define What Not to Build

Clearly define what you are not building to maintain focus and prioritization, avoiding the trap of trying to be all things to all people, which dilutes product effectiveness.

4. Cultivate Listening & Empathy

Develop strong listening and empathy skills by adopting a growth and beginner’s mindset, taking time to absorb information, learn, and understand customers before formulating opinions or jumping to ideas.

5. Proactively Challenge Assumptions

As a product manager or leader, proactively challenge your own assumptions with an open mind; if there’s no conflict or contention, you might not be listening well or picking up on important cues.

6. Focus on Impact, Not Promotion

To get promoted, focus on creating significant business impact and doing what is right for the company, rather than optimizing actions solely for personal promotion; make your ambitions known to your manager.

7. Elevate MVP Bar for Safety

When safety is paramount, set an extremely high bar for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and do not cut corners, as core product management philosophy applies but with a different safety threshold.

8. Write a Press Release First

Before building a product, write a press release for the finished product to thoroughly think through and articulate its value proposition for users.

9. Demonstrate Commercial Progress

To maintain investor confidence and buy-in for long-term projects, demonstrate meaningful progress not just in technology, but crucially in commercial deployments and real-world results.

10. Focus on Customer & Business Value

Focus on creating genuine value for customers and building a sustainable business that makes sense, rather than optimizing for short-term investor brownie points.

11. Design for Credibility & Trust

Integrate credibility, predictability, and trust into the core design philosophy from the very beginning, ensuring users feel comfortable and safe with the system.

12. Build Trust via Transparency

Develop user trust by providing transparency into system actions (e.g., car’s view on a monitor) and ensuring human support is available for issues (e.g., calls for seatbelt).

13. Adapt to Human Expectations

Modify system behavior to align with subconscious human expectations and natural experiences, even if not strictly necessary for safety, to enhance user comfort and trust.

14. Mimic Good Human Behavior

When designing AI or automated systems, train models on human data, but filter out ‘bad’ data to mimic only good human behavior, making the system feel natural and trustworthy.

15. Design for Social Norms

Incorporate understanding of social norms into system behavior, as driving (and other interactions) are highly social and require adapting to unwritten rules in different contexts.

16. Balance Safety with Progress

Ensure products balance safety with adequate progress and assertiveness, as a system that is too cautious to move is not effective for users.

17. Track Comprehensive Metrics

Track both commercial/operational metrics (e.g., trips, active users, cost) and system behavior metrics (e.g., safety, rule compliance, progress) to measure product performance and business health.

18. PMs: Go Technically Deep

Product managers, especially in complex technical fields, must be able to go technically deep into the details of the product.

19. Embrace Uncertainty & Long Game

Be okay with uncertainty and ambiguity, and have the tenacity to play the long game, continuously improving the product, especially for transformative, long-term projects.

20. Prioritize Mission-Driven Work

Be driven by the mission of the product, such as making roads safer, as this passion is crucial for tackling challenging, transformational problems.

21. Adhere to Rules for Trust

Design systems to adhere strictly to rules, like speed limits, as users appreciate and trust predictable, rule-abiding behavior, even if it means sometimes going slower than human drivers might.

22. Understand Stakeholder Constraints

To improve listening and empathy, repeatedly practice understanding the constraints, perspectives, and definition of impact for different stakeholders in various environments and cultures.

23. Seek Challenging Projects

Improve your skillset and seek out challenging, high-visibility projects that stretch your abilities, dedicating yourself to creating significant business impact for the company.

24. Implement ‘Rule of Seven’ Emails

If an email thread reaches seven (or X) emails without resolving an issue, stop emailing and instead call the person or huddle in a room to resolve it directly.

25. Bring Your Own Playlist

For an awesome Waymo experience, bring your favorite playlist to play in the car and enjoy the ride.