AMA: Splunk Sr. Director of Product Management, Observability, Kara Gillis on Product Strategy

May 1 @ 10:00AM PT

View AMA Answers

What should be our strategy if we end up creating industry first solution by understanding the need of the future but our customers are not willing to adopt the change as it's not a necessity yet? Shall we hold the project or invest more to create more buzz about the product and hope for better adoption?

Kara Gillis•

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 1y

I don't think the choice is binary. You can most likely find the intersection between your future vision and a current pain point that's significant enough to drive adopt...

882 Views

1 request

How do I protect our product strategy from sales pushback? Our sales team doesn’t focus, and is trying to make our product easy to sell to anyone, rather that our target market.

Kara Gillis•

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 1y

The tension between product focus and sales flexibility is natural. Your sales team's desire to sell more broadly isn't necessarily wrong - they're incentivized to close ...

706 Views

2 requests

For an industry that changes daily (AI, web3), how do you think about building a product strategy around it?

Kara Gillis•

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 1y

Your product strategy should not be based around trends, but it should be flexible to leverage accelerators like AI. (Side note: IMHO Web3/Blockchain hasn't delivered on ...

721 Views

1 request

Why is it important for product managers to understand their customer's ideal outcome/JTBD?

JTBD = Job to be Done

Kara Gillis•

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 1y

Clayton Christensen wrote a book about understanding what motivates consumers to buy products. He explains:"Jobs to Be Done is a lens that reveals the circumstances—or fo...

640 Views

1 request

How do I know if we have a product strategy problem or a go to market problem? Our product isn’t growing as fast as we’d like.

Kara Gillis•

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 1y

If the problem isn't growing as fast as you'd like, you need to check several key performance indicators that tell you it's a product strategy or go-to-market problem. Un...

826 Views

2 requests