112 / Beyond the Handoff Culture: How To Collaborate in a Post-Pandemic World, with Gavin Deadman

Product Momentum Podcast

Product teams emerging from 3 years of remote-work hibernation are now living through what Gavin Deadman calls the “handoff culture.” Acquisition marketer turned product management coach, Gavin supports a product team of 150 product managers and product leaders within the division of Flutter International and Flutter Entertainment. A prolific blogger, Gavin’s writing is must-read content for product managers, marketers, makers, and leaders.

In a pre-pandemic workplace, core product development functions were typically co-located in the same office space, Gavin explains. So collaborating with designers, engineers, and the rest of the business was pretty straightforward.

“When you’re actually working with human beings in the flesh, understanding why you’re solving particular problems becomes quite natural,” he adds.

But the Covid-driven disruption not only created a physical disconnect between product managers and their teams; it also forced us to create new, specialist-type roles and applications to do smaller parts of the job relative to collaboration. Over time, we figured out how to untangle that web.

We got really good at having conversations; we established ways of working that actually accelerate decisionmaking; and, maybe because some of those decisions went sideways, we learned to iterate more quickly.

Over the past 3 years, we’ve formalized processes that have driven much of the pre-pandemic inefficiencies from our work. Now, we find ourselves with a new code to crack:

• How do we move from the sterile efficiency of the handoff culture to build back some of the “healthy friction” occurring organically as product teams return with new energy to their workspaces?
• Have the skill sets we expect from product managers, designers, and engineers changed? If so, how do we reassess them?
• In this dynamic new workplace, where does the role of “servant leader” fit into the product manager job description?

Catch the entire Product Momentum conversation with Gavin Deadman to hear his insights.

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