Responsible Product Management

© 2022 Thoughtworks Alexander Steinhart | @quanders
A short introduction to
Responsible
Product
Management
Alexander Steinhart, @quanders
September 22 2022
1

Value
2
Value (/ˈvaljuː/),noun
the importance, usefulness or worth of
something for someone
Cambridge Dictionary
Let’s talk about it

Value
3
How do we find value?
Innovation
Desirability
(human)
Viability
(business)
Feasibility
(technical)

Value
4
How do we find value?
Product
Desirability
(human)
Viability
(business)
Feasibility
(technical)
Product Management

Business and technology
5
Business Business Business
Supporting role Collaboration Tech-led differentiation Tech@Core
Tech
Tech
Tech
Business
and Tech
3rd Industrial Revolution
information as a resource
4th Industrial Revolution
technology at the heart of value
Technology moved to the core of business

Society and technology
Society and
Individual
Society and
Individual
Society and
Individual
Supporting role Tech@Core
Tech
Tech
Tech
Society
and Tech
3rd Industrial Revolution
information as a resource
4th Industrial Revolution
technology at the heart of value
Technology is at the core of society - and we technologists have great power

Little things can
have far-reaching
consequences
7
Themes of potential negative effects:
Accidents due to distraction ◦ Addiction ◦ Anxiety ◦ Betrayal of
trust or privacy ◦ Death ◦ Depression ◦ Disinformation ◦
Exclusion ◦ Exclusion of a group of people ◦ Exploitation of
workers ◦ Exposure of personal data ◦ Financial insecurity ◦
Harm to relationships ◦ Harm to the environment ◦ Inactivity ◦
Muscle strain or other injuries ◦ Negative self-image ◦ Neglect
of basic self-care ◦ Over- or under-representation ◦ Political
polarization ◦ Psychological harm to children ◦ Reinforcing
stereotypes ◦ Sleep deprivation ◦ Unequal opportunity ◦
Unequal quality of service ◦ Verbal abuse ◦ Violence
Source: Spotify.Design Worksheet - Ethics Assessment

Declining trust
Trust in the technology sector and tech is declining - and we lose our playfulness

© 2022 Thoughtworks Alexander Steinhart | @quanders 9
Environmental
challenge

The need for
systemic thinking
10
Business/Economy can’t exist without
society and can’t exist without Earth.
Business can’t keep externalizing social &
environmental impacts.
The three-nested-dependencies model
reflects a co-dependent reality.
Take people and planet into account
3 Nested Dependencies Model
Adapted from Peter Senge et al, The Necessary Revolution
Environment
(Planet)
Society
(People)
Economy
(Profit)

Value
11
How do we find value today?
Sustainable
Innovation
Desirability
(human)
Viability
(business)
Feasibility
(technical)
Responsibility
(individual, society,
environment)
Further reading: Moving beyond financial value, Design Council, 2020

Value
12
How do we find value today?
Product
Desirability
(human)
Viability
(business)
Feasibility
(technical)
Responsibility
(individual, society,
environment)
Responsible
Product Management

93%
of consumers say companies
have a responsibility to look
beyond profit to positively
impact society
75%
of consumers would
consider not buying from a
company that demonstrates
poor ethics
52%
of consumers say they’re
more worried about
technology’s ethical issues
than they were a year ago
Why act now?
There is rising pressure for technologists to be held accountable
for the impacts of what they create.
Expectations are shifting for the role of business in the world
Trust &
Trustworthiness
Keeping
consumers’ &
employees’ trust in
the business,
processes and
solutions you offer
becomes key.
Source: Salesforce's Ethical
Leadership and Business Report

It explores and actively
considers values,
unintended consequences
and negative impacts of
tech, and actively manages,
mitigates and reduces risk
and harm.
It capitalizes on
opportunities.
Yet, it also admits
accountability for the
product’s impact on the
environment, society and
individual; increasing
trustworthiness.
Responsible Product Management
Definition
Responsible product management extends product management with a way of
working that aligns technology and business behavior with environmental, societal,
and individual interests.

The Responsible Tech
Playbook
15
A start to the tools and practices that help
businesses make better technology decisions.
● Tools for uncovering sources of bias
● Tools for understanding the full range of
stakeholders
● Tools for understanding the values of
those concerned
● Tools to revisit the business model
● Tools to develop responsible principles
and update processes
● Tools to mitigate risks from ethical
challenges

Bringing ESG to
product teams
16
Incorporating Responsible tech into
into the ways of working means also
considering ESG and a shift-left.
Sustainable
business
Environment
Governance
Social
DEI
Education
Health
Humanitarian
Participation
Poverty
Accessibility
Identity
Privacy
Compliance
Risk
Security
Food
Climate
Energy
Water
Circulatrity
Biodiversity
Source: Gartner

Anticipation, Values & Principles, and Culture
Three key elements to consider more in Product Management today
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

Anticipation
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

We’re great problem solvers…
19
Define strategy
Understand why and deﬁne how
Execute solution
Create the outcome
build the
right thing
with lean
product
development
build the
thing right
via continuous
integration &
delivery
Discover Define Design Deliver
Build
Measure
Learn

20
Problem Solution
“Love the Problem,
Not the Solution.”
Maybe too much?

21
Problem Solution
… but we need to look beyond our solutions. Intended
Consequences
Unintended
Consequences
increases
carbon
footprint
exclude
certain
groups
decreases
trust
promotes
addiction
tricks into
consent
increases
efficiency
imbalance
with
partners
new
markets
better
usability

Capitalize
22
Mitigate
Decide
Anticipate
Responsible Innovation Process: Anticipate
What might be intended or
unintended consequences of this*?
*vision, strategy, product, feature, design, implementation…
a.o. Cennydd Bowles; DotEveryone

Add anticipation to
your process - and keep
building that muscle
Prototype
Measure
& Monitor
Learn
Mitigate or
Capitalize
Anticipate
Responsible
Experimentation
In the big and small picture: identify
process steps, ways of working, and artifacts
and add an anticipation scanning step.
Examples
- Add as an explicit step in the
build-measure-learn cycle; or
- as questions after
- end of strategy sessions,
- scaling playbooks,
- new feature kick-offs
- …
Ideas or
Problems
Insights
Build

24
Anticipate: Prompts help you to think beyond
What could this mean
to people in their
professional life?
How could this affect
different markets?
What could this mean if
everyone in the world
were doing it?
How could this affect
the communities you
operate in?
for wellbeing or
relationships?
Who else does your
user experience your
product with?
to the consumers of
your product?
Have you considered
security, reliability,
support & monitoring,
understandability?
Prompts provided by DotEveryone’s Consequence Scanning

25
Prompts provided by Artefact Group's Tarot Cards of Tech

26
Prompts provided by Omidyar Network's Ethical Explorer

Things you might find
27
Intended Consequences Unintended Consequences
Sales Tool
‘Reduce stress and confusion by
multiple tools and offer one source
instead’
‘Salesperson may feel they are taken
more seriously by the effort that
went into creating a better tool’
‘Supporting the sales person with
"expert" functionality might decrease
the transparency for customers’
‘No gender-neutral language
⟶ women might feel excluded when
they see the UI.
E-Commerce
Partner Tool
‘Partners can offer better service to
their customers’
‘Exclusion of partners due to partner
size as they are small’
Examples

Values & Principles
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

Making a Vision the Reality
How to move from Vision to Delivery by Marty Cagan - it’s not enough
Product Vision Describes the future you are trying to create;
Team Topology Defines how structure your teams;
Product Strategy Helps us decide which problems to solve;
Team Objectives Assigns those problems to product teams;
Product Discovery Helps us discover a solution; and
Product Delivery Builds that solution to bring it to market.

Making Values a Reality
How to move from Vision to Delivery by Marty Cagan, extended
Values & Principles Set what is important and guide action;

experience
of privacy
and
security
Empathy
There is no neutral technology but great values
Explicit values and principles offer space for reflection and guidance, examples
Principles show
what’s good and
guide action.
Values set what
is important.
‘for those who
follow their dream’
(u.a. freedom,
autonomy)
Transparency
Accountability
Respect
‘create a better
everyday life for the
many people’
(u.a. equity, inclusion)
rightly
present
data

Making Values a Reality
How to move from Vision to Delivery by Marty Cagan, extended
Values & Principles Set what is important and guide action;
e.g. translates into
CFRs and ACs
e.g. problem and feature choice
Every feature
users experience
is a proof of your
values and
principles.

Many ways to your
values and principles
Methodology:
Value Sensitive
design, Value-based
Engineering (VbE), …
33
Anticipation:
Explore risk areas
and drive
guardrails from it
Company
values
Get starting with one or two ways today
Further reading:
Friedman, Batya; Hendry, David G. (2019). Value Sensitive Design:
Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination. MIT Press.
IEEE 7000™-2021 – IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical
Concerns During System Design
Moral values:
e.g. human
rights

34
Carbon Dashboard
Example principle:
“We will not knowingly misrepresent data”
➔ We involve those that own the data
➔ We thoroughly check our calculations
➔ We are transparent at how we come
up with figures
1. Identify probable risk
zones
2. Imagine the
worst-case scenario
3. Use these scenarios to
create a set of
principles for the team
Example: Anticipation to principles

Responsible culture
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

Your own
ethics and
journey
Diversity,
Equity &
Inclusion
(DEI)
Save space
and
continuous
learning
Conversation
on power
dynamics
How you work
with others
and honor
expertise
36
Responsible culture
36
© 2022 Thoughtworks
Culture sets the foundation, complements, and extends

Anticipation, Values and Principles, and Culture
Three key elements to consider more in Product Management nowadays
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles
Anticipation, Values and Principles, and Culture
38
They support each other - example: privacy
Privacy as privilege
Defaults and Design
(e.g. handle data that is
needed only)
$ Privacy as
differentiation
! Lost trust, fines
Special Privacy features
Prompts on
the topic
What’s your relationship to
people and your users?

Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles
Key pieces of Responsible Product Management
It’s a starting point. We all have blind spots, stay open.
What else do you
think needs to be
considered?
Please post in the
chat or in the video’s
comments.

Mantra
40
Most of the Responsible work is
and stays invisible
Checking for consequences,
working with values and principles,
and thinking about where to include
responsible tech is the ethics work
and is our responsibility.

Value is changing
- skate to where the puck
is going to be
Impact of tech is larger
- more responsibility
People care
- keeping trust is essential
Responsible Product Management is key today
Summary
Society
and
Tech

Key pieces of Responsible Product Management
Summary
Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Values &
Principles

Anticipation
Values &
Principles
Responsible
Culture
Where to start
Summary
Values &
Principles
Leader
● Are anticipation, values & principles, and a
responsible culture explicitly addressed in
your general strategy and practices? If not,
how can they be?
Practitioner
● Do an anticipation session (see playbook) on
your product, and/or
● transform one company values into a product
principle and start working with it, and/or
● discuss who should be your next team
member to increase your team’s diversity.

Thank you
44
Standing on their shoulders, inspiring, or
providing feedback…
Andy Birds ◦ Artefact Group ◦ Batya
Friedmann ◦ Cennydd Bowles ◦ Christoph
Hassler ◦ David G. Hendry ◦ David Ryan
Polgar ◦ DotEveryone ◦ Eduardo Meneses ◦
Elise Zelechowski ◦ Enza Iannopollo ◦ Frank
Buytendijk ◦ Guy Samuel ◦ Imo Udom ◦
James Emmott ◦ Jeantine Mankelow ◦ Joe
Edelman ◦ Jörg Rheinboldt ◦ Kat Zhou ◦
Katharine Jarmul ◦ Kathy Pham ◦ Marty
Cagan ◦ Natalie Hollier ◦ Nina da Hora ◦
Rumman Chowdhury ◦ Sara Watson ◦ Sarah
Spiekermann ◦ Sheryl Cababa ◦ Tristan Harris
◦ Vanessa Andreotti ◦ and many more…

Alexander Steinhart
asteinhart@thoughtworks.com
@quanders
45

Responsible Product Management

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie Responsible Product Management

Ähnlich wie Responsible Product Management (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Responsible Product Management