Lizzy Masotta

AMA: Shopify Senior Product Lead, Lizzy Masotta on Product Development Process

November 17 @ 10:00AM PST
View AMA Answers
Shopify Senior Product Lead, Lizzy Masotta on Product Development Process
Top Questions
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
To answer this question, I’m going to put my PM hat on. Why is the engineer “rogue”? What is driving them to want to “slip in this feature”?  1. First, I’d talk to them, understand their frustrations, and where they’re coming from. 2. From that conversation, I would expect to learn a bun......Read More
634 Views
2 requests
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
I don’t believe in a universal end-to-end product development process. I believe there are key rituals and elements that should be present on every team to ensure great outcomes, but each team needs to tailor the development process to their unique situation. My must-have product development e......Read More
915 Views
2 requests
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
“Agile Research” This is a term I coined to describe the act of always conducting user interviews. The problem with well-designed research projects is that they take too long and tend to deliver the insights after you’ve started building the thing. Advocate for a “rolling recruit” of your key pe......Read More
733 Views
2 requests
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
Engineers are part of your squad. They should be in the room for Problem Shaping, Live Prototyping, and Fresh Eyes. You should review your problem backlog regularly with your engineers and get their input and feedback. —Influence is the curiosity to get to the best solution— and engineers will......Read More
931 Views
2 requests
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
Work in the open. Create a culture on your team that encourages sharing unfinished work and working live together. This will drive the highest quality bar for your team. If you wait until the end of development to QA too many problems will be compounded. Some rituals I use to encourage a high ......Read More
884 Views
2 requests
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product LeadNovember 17
It is the Product Manager’s job to identify, prioritize and shape the problems the team is tackling. We’ll break this into two parts 1) finding problems 2) shaping problems. Finding Problems You need to have ongoing sources that you’re plugged into to find problems. Common sources are 1) cu......Read More
689 Views
3 requests