Joel Tosi: High Functioning Product Engineering Teams

In this episode, Hunter Harris interviews Joel Tosi about high-functioning product teams, integration, customer feedback, and the importance of focusing on strategy over reaction. They explore how organizations can improve their product delivery and organizational culture. Chapters 00:00 Introduction of Joel Tosi and episode overview 00:33 Hunter introduces the topic of high-functioning product teams 01:39 The importance of customer observation and feedback 02:09 Real-world example of customer feedback improving product 02:36 High-functioning teams and intuitive problem solving 02:46 The role of integration and silos in organizations 03:16 Problems caused by organizational silos and lack of customer access 04:04 Using tools to trace user journeys and bugs 04:38 The importance of talking directly to users 06:21 Limitations of tools and the need for direct customer interaction 07:14 Customer experience during internet outages and upselling 08:08 Device diversity and the challenge of multi-platform support 09:21 Organizational culture and the separation of strategy and execution 10:13 The recurring lesson of strategy and execution over time 11:04 The impact of AI on speed and strategy 11:37 Opportunity cost of fast execution and wrong strategy 12:16 Market risks and the cost of building the wrong product 13:02 Feedback loops and learning from user data 13:35 The importance of evaluating success and ROI 14:20 Product surface area growth and organizational capacity 14:50 The complexity of multiple features and A/B testing 15:21 The pitfalls of process theater and fake metrics 16:09 Rebranding and superficial changes versus real product improvements 17:02 Technical debt versus product debt and feature flags 17:37 Managing feature flags and avoiding nested permutations 18:29 The risks of large batches and delayed feedback 19:20 The danger of building the wrong thing and sunk cost fallacy 20:29 Focusing on high-value customers and product prioritization 21:19 Customer-centric versus product-centric mindset 22:05 Being obsessed with customer needs and opinionation 23:01 The importance of clear product vision and niching 23:25 Avoiding cowardly sales tactics and over-customization 24:15 Opportunity cost of maintaining unnecessary features 25:01 Economic thinking and opportunity cost in product decisions 26:11 Small bets and iterative development 28:17 Embracing uncertainty and learning through small experiments 29:02 The value of continuous deployment and quick rollback 30:16 Risks of large changes and building the wrong thing 30:45 The cascade of technical and product debt 31:17 Upcoming book release and call for critical thinking 32:13 The importance of fun and joy in software engineering Host: R. Hunter Harris https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhunterharris/ Guest: Joel Tosi https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-tosi-531a3b/ https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Signals-Levers/Elisabeth-Hendrickson/9781966280293 https://www.dojoandco.com/ By Hunter Software Consulting https://huntersoftwareconsulting.com/