Turning AI potential into business reality

Our exclusive roundtable, facilitated by Mal Minhas (CPTO, Gumtree), Simon Farnsworth (CTO, ITV) and Lucie Cassius (Head of Client Growth, La Fosse), brought together technology executives from leading organisations to share candid insights about their AI journeys.

The consensus was clear: successful AI isn’t about chasing the latest model or algorithm, it’s about strategic implementation that drives measurable outcomes in three key areas:

• Revenue growth through enhanced products and services
• Cost reduction across operations
• Increased velocity in business processes and decision making

“Most organisations are prioritising revenue growth rather than cost reduction alone,” noted one participant, highlighting a shift towards seeing AI as a growth enabler rather than simply an efficiency tool.

From theory to practice: AI use cases that deliver

The most compelling discussions centred around practical applications already delivering results:

• Content creation: Companies leveraging generative AI to transform marketing and creative outputs
• Development acceleration: Engineering teams using AI-powered coding assistance to dramatically increase velocity
• Product enhancement: Businesses implementing AI-supported listings to drive revenue, with examples ranging from advanced SEO tagging at News UK to product enhancements at Checkatrade

Investment priorities: people first, technology second

A recurring theme throughout the discussion was the critical importance of balanced investment across:

• People: Training, hiring, and upskilling existing staff
• Technology: Tools, infrastructure, and AI models
• Processes: Governance, workflows, and best practices

Interestingly, attendees emphasised that successful AI transformation often hinges more on people than technology. “Finding cultural champions who already understand your business and upskilling them in AI can be more effective than hiring external AI specialists,” shared one technology leader.

Several participants cautioned against premature optimisation or deep dependency on single AI models, advocating instead for starting with smaller experiments that can scale as confidence grows.

Data: the foundation that makes or breaks AI success

The roundtable highlighted data readiness as perhaps the most critical, yet often overlooked, factor in AI success.

Leaders emphasised that without robust data governance, observability, and infrastructure, even the most sophisticated AI initiatives will falter. Specific focus areas included:

• Ensuring data quality through comprehensive monitoring and alerting mechanisms
• Building scalable data infrastructure that integrates with existing platforms like Salesforce
• Establishing clear ethics policies and principles around AI usage and data privacy

Organisational structure: no one-size-fits-all approach

One fascinating insight was the variety of approaches to AI governance and leadership. While some organisations have created dedicated AI roles, others have distributed responsibility across existing technology functions.

“There’s no standardised approach yet for AI governance,” one attendee observed. “Leadership varies between CTO, CPTO, CDO, COO, or hybrid models, depending on organisational context.”

What matters most is clarity around who owns AI strategy and implementation, regardless of where it sits in the org chart.

Breaking down silos: AI as a business decision

Perhaps the most definitive conclusion was that AI strategy must be business-driven rather than technology-led.

“AI should ultimately be viewed as a service to business functions rather than a standalone tech initiative,” summarised one CTO. This requires education and digital literacy across all levels of the organisation to ensure alignment between technical capabilities and business objectives.

The experience paradox: junior staff leading the way

In a notable reversal of traditional experience dynamics, many attendees observed that junior team members often show higher enthusiasm and adaptability towards AI compared to more senior staff who may be sceptical or resistant.

This presents both challenges and opportunities: leveraging the passion and aptitude of younger employees while ensuring their efforts remain aligned with broader strategic objectives.

Actionable recommendations

Based on the collective wisdom shared during our roundtable, several clear recommendations emerged:

• Identify cultural champions: Find enthusiastic internal staff who understand company culture and operations, then upskill them in AI instead of hiring externally.
• Prioritise data governance: Conduct thorough reviews of data readiness and implement strong governance and monitoring tools to ensure high-quality inputs for AI models.
• Start small and iterate: Begin with manageable experiments before committing deeply to specific AI models or technologies.
• Establish clear ownership: Define who owns AI strategy within your organisation, understanding this may vary between technical and business functions.
• Focus on business outcomes: Ensure AI projects are driven by clear business objectives rather than purely technical ambitions.
• Broaden AI literacy: Provide training and resources across the company to increase AI understanding and drive adoption.
• Leverage junior talent: Create opportunities for younger, tech-savvy employees to contribute meaningfully to AI initiatives.
• Develop clear AI policies: Formulate and communicate AI ethics, policies, and principles company-wide.

Continuing the conversation

This roundtable is part of La Fosse’s ongoing commitment to bringing together technology leaders to share insights and solve common challenges.

The insights shared during this session underscore the importance of practical, business-focused approaches to AI implementation. As organisations continue to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape, the value of peer learning and shared experiences becomes increasingly apparent.

La Fosse regularly hosts exclusive events for senior technology leaders across various specialisms. These sessions provide a forum for open discussion and knowledge exchange in a trusted environment.

The post Beyond the hype: AI Leaders share real-world strategies for business impact  appeared first on La Fosse.

According to McKinsey, data-driven organisations are not only 23 times more likely to acquire customers, but they’re also six times as likely to retain customers and 19 times more likely to be profitable. So, is data in the driving seat for enterprise valuations? And if so, how can that value be quantified and optimised?

At the acquisition stage, what should you be looking for in terms of data and its value?

Go back to basics – look at the amount of data available, the architecture and infrastructure of where the data is collated and how it’s stored, how the tech stack is built, the structural approach and data strategy, and the period it’s been captured for.

When you have billions of data points, it’s easy to get lost. Consider the overarching operational decisions that will optimise value and how the data aligns with them. For example, if a key focus is marketing, does the data give you a clear customer picture?  Think about the insights you can monetise to help drive growth and, therefore, value. In a study by Bain & Company, only 4% of companies said they have the right resources to draw meaningful insights from their data.

At the acquisition stage, a lot of the exploration and due diligence process is about identifying opportunities. Look at the data itself and understand what’s actually visible – the quality, the way it’s collated, the way it’s stored – but also look at the talent behind it – the people who run and govern the data, how it’s reported, how the value is extracted from it.

As you move to the development stage, how do you start to unlock your data to help drive strategy?

As you begin to develop a strategy for a new business acquisition, the reality of making big changes and switching direction can be daunting, so utilising data to make small adjustments to begin with may make more sense. Looking at developing a data lake? Start with a data puddle that solves some small problems first. As you develop and understand the data better, you can connect the puddles to become ponds and then the ponds will connect to eventually become a lake.

If you acquire a company that doesn’t have a data culture, people change is the hardest element. Pick specific examples of where you can use data, show your people how to use it, and embed utilising data throughout your strategy and the day-to-day of your employees. Once you have people who know how to use the data, you’re most of the way there.

If a company is built from day one as data-centric, the CEO will likely have enough knowledge to drive the data strategy. Frequently in legacy companies, a CDO hire is made to facilitate data transformation, and there’s less buy-in from the board and cultural momentum because it’s not an embedded business element. The share of leading global firms with a CDO rose to 27% in 2022, up from 21% the previous year. The role is particularly prevalent in Europe, with over 40% of top European firms looking to a CDO for data leadership. Boards need to be aligned with data transformation; they don’t all need to be experts, but there should be a decent level of understanding. If not, bring in advisors and consultants to support the message. Data requires a high level of governance – it’s a huge business benefit/risk area and needs to have that oversight and insight from the board.

Establish some overall principles for your data. Whilst it’s important to get input from across the business, the data strategy should be created by the leadership team and communicated down. Having a holistic vision and standardising it across your systems will help to align your workforce, but don’t be too rigid on this; mapping out how to achieve your vision from start to finish leaves little room for flexibility and it’s unlikely that your plan will follow an exact path.

Data plays a vital part in optimisation – what do you need to consider at this stage?

Organisational design is at the heart of optimisation, and data is a core element of this. Consider where data sits within the business – is it within IT, with the CDO, or with the strategy team? Find correlations between different areas of the business and establish how data links them to identify the best team structure. There’s a common debate around whether a centralised data team is more or less effective than a dispersed team, but effectiveness is dependant on how the business uses its data. A central team gives more focus; a dispersed team embeds data (and buy-in) throughout the organisation.

Compliance is one of the board’s main responsibilities, so regulation and risk aversion can become the focus rather than how to harness the data for growth. Have an advisory team or committee formulate the commercial thinking to shine a light on profitability or value; when the board has compliance at the forefront, working out how to monetise data doesn’t work without that advisory help. Corporate boards may tend to over-index on risk, but this is where challenge and flexibility come into play. In a Private Equity environment, value must be created quickly. Risk is therefore reduced because the focus is on speed and there is less buy-in required from the board.

As generative AI becomes a more popular and familiar tool, the potential to use it to enable business growth is a huge draw. Fundamental process and infrastructure elements need to be stable before bringing in the next shiny thing – and data plays an important role. Generative AI utilises data points to develop and become potentially autonomous, a conceptually exciting possibility. However, there are considerations in terms of ethics, data security, and governance that must be addressed first. The best way to avoid risk is to not do anything, but there needs to be a balance or there’s no growth.

When it comes to liquidity, how do you communicate the value of your data?

The ability to demonstrate the security of your data is an important factor. Trust and brand reliability are key elements at the liquidity stage, and managing customer data plays a role in that. Security must be an embedded behaviour that every person in the company embraces. It becomes an essential and non-negotiable building block of modern corporate culture. The value of a company’s data is directly linked to its quality and integrity, therefore its architecture and security become fundamental value drivers.

Buyers and investors will look at how your company data can be considered as a stand-alone asset – yes it’s intrinsically linked to the business, but does it have a singular value? Identifying how other businesses can use your data is the key. Without understanding what can be done with the information, you can’t attach a value to it. For example, if you’re able to demonstrate impressive ROI on a commercial project, using data insights alongside the narrative to illustrate how it was done, that data is clearly much more valuable than a basic dashboard. Data on its own is not where the value lies; the critical judgement and application of the data is.

Insights were provided during a La Fosse Private Equity panel event by:

• Richard Wazacz – CEO of Travelex, former CEO and Co-founder of Octopus Choice and Octopus Cash
• Carla Stent – Board Chair and iNED including Telecom Plus plc, Evelyn Partners, Marex plc, Post Office, and former COO and CFO of Barclays GRCB, and Virgin Group
• Lorenzo Bianchi – CDTO of Sector Alarm Group, former Digital Transformation Operating Partner at KKR, and former Google senior leader
• Eser Tireli – VP of AI and Data Solutions at Bain & Company
• Elizabetta Camilleri – Chair of PE-backed Access Partnership and Togetherall, NED at BOV and Boring Money, Board Advisor to multinationals and startups
• Facilitated by Jonathan McKay – Chairman at La Fosse, Forward Partners UK, Move.ai, and Driftrock
• Hosted by Jack Denison – Global Head of Executive Search and Interim Management at La Fosse

To discuss our data recruitment solutions, please contact our team.

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So, as such a vital component in organisational success, how do you ensure that architecture has a real presence in the boardroom and is ultimately seen as a major contributor, rather than as a cost centre whose primary role is to keep the lights on?

Long-term strategy vs short-term execution

When we hear about enterprise architecture failing, it’s usually down to little buy-in from the C-suite or lack of sponsorship from those with a seat at the top table. There’s either miscommunication or a lack of understanding of what architecture really is and how it can help the business. We’ve all heard examples of CIOs and CTOs bringing in enterprise architecture thinking it will solve all problems.

Before even considering a Chief Architect hire, the leadership team must be clear on what can be achieved and how the role will benefit the organisation, with a realistic timeframe for delivery. The situation can be likened to the pattern of football club managers being hired, only to lose their jobs after a short spell of losses. They may have inherited a poor squad, or the owner has unrealistic expectations of what’s possible to achieve. In both cases, it’s the manager (or Chief Architect) who suffers, the organisation loses confidence and trust, and successful implementation falls out of reach – a vicious cycle.

Getting buy-in at board level

When it comes to interaction with the board, communicating value is key to getting buy-in. Especially with technical or lesser-understood business functions, the ability to demonstrate the positive impact of your team is an important skill. Think about:

• Shifting mindsets – there’s always been an air of intimidation from the technology team, that they are the all-knowing experts of everything IT-related. This is obviously not the case, and the majority of Chief Architects we’ve spoken to have admitted to panicking anytime a shiny new technology is launched and the board demands to know how it can fix their problems (Chat GPT/AI anyone?). If you make yourself vulnerable and admit that you’re not the expert, but can find someone who is or develop your own knowledge, you’ll gain trust and reduce the ‘us and them’ divide.
• Knowing your audience – numbers are the language of the C-suite. When engaging them, if you can evidence what you’re saying with specific, compelling metrics, they’re more likely to take note. Bear in mind that success is dependant on the stakeholders you’re engaging. For example, a CFO will be more interested in cost-saving and revenue increase numbers, but a CPO will have different drivers. Get to know your stakeholders, their motivations, and ultimately what helps them to succeed in their role, and then tailor your approach to it.
• Alleviating pain points – it may be a business process that could be easily streamlined or upgrading legacy tech, but by uncovering your stakeholder pain points early on, you can find some immediate successes and easy wins. If you can help someone, you’ll get them on-side. Even if it’s not necessarily your area of expertise, gain trust by making things easier; it’ll quickly open doors and help develop stronger relationships. Consider the bigger picture – could mulitple people or branches of the business benefit from something you’re working on? Find and improve connecting functions, not only making efficiencies but bringing different elements of the business toether.
• Being properly prepared – We hear so often that the challenge is getting into the boardroom in the first place, but once you do, do you have a clear plan? Being prepared is about having a business case fully worked out, knowing the answers to follow-up questions, and mapping out next steps. Be ready to make decisions and take accountability, but also think about suitable options for projects that require more stakeholders involvement. Be clear that architects aren’t just problem-solvers; they’re also idea-generators. Considering architecture at the ideation stage is vital with any new projects or initiatives. Ask some of your less-technical peers for feedback on how you communicate your technical points; peer review gives a different perspective to ensure your message hits the mark.

Balancing advancement with BAU

Whilst it’s true that digital transformation and technical innovation are key success drivers, there’s a need to balance new projects with the day-to-day. Without a solid architectural foundation, those development areas won’t have a stable footing to start out on. It’s easy to get caught up in the shiny and exciting stuff, but the engine needs to keep running.

Data can be helpful here – what’s working well? What efficiencies could be made? What small changes can help to support those efficiencies? Identify where minimal changes can have a big impact and showcase your team’s value in these areas whilst leaving space to carry out BAU tasks.

Sometimes, tech ideas come from less technically minded business functions. For example, the Product Team may ask for what they believe is a simple and straightforward update but is actually a complex undertaking. Manage expectations by collaborating with them and plotting the realistic scope of the project. If the alignment with overall business strategy isn’t apparent, or the effort outweighs the end result, where does the value lie

Building a tech culture

Culture may be the word of the moment, but it’s a key business focus for a reason. Building a tech culture is about embedding technology throughout your organisation, enabling your workforce to utilise tech tools, and using them to support growth and success.

Collaboration is a huge part of successful tech culture – there needs to be a mutual respect and understanding between different branches of your business to facilitate growth. For example, the Product Team can lead the creation of a business value case, but they must be aligned with the Architecture Team to understand the full scope and plan implementation.

Building trust is also important here. It takes time to establish your credibility and value, but each team needs to be able to rely on the other. There’s a common opinion that architects offer options, but rarely take a stance; as with the board, build trust by showing that you can make decisions and guide the narrative.

In any workplace, understanding people is at the heart of good culture. Take time to talk to people, find out what drives them, how they make decisions, what’s important in their day-to-day role. If you’re able to understand the vision of the people you working with, it’s easier to feed into and facilitate that together.

Reading list:

• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, by Martin Fowler
• Empowered, by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones
• Influence, by Robert Cialdini
• Surrounded by Idiots, by Thomas Ericson

The post Elevating Architecture to the Boardroom appeared first on La Fosse.

Start with culture

It’s no secret that a successful business has a successful culture at the centre, so embedding an expectation of excellence within that culture is a great place to start. Company culture is made up of three things: the things that are written down, the things that are said, and the things that are demonstrated and believed. As a leader, it’s your job to set the tone and really show up; you must live and breathe your company’s culture and elevate the environment.

The next stage is driving those messages and actions throughout your teams and the wider organisation. Visit employees in each location, encourage input from everyone on what’s going well and what could be improved, and welcome suggestions on different ways of working. It’s only by collating different opinions that you’ll understand how embedded those cultural elements are. Remember, culture needs to be championed across the company from top-to-bottom, so buy-in at board level is equally as important.

Hire for personality

Tech comes and goes (after all, it’s just a tool), but the person using the tool and using it well is where success lies. The most important thing you can do is hire good people, and ‘good’ doesn’t necessarily mean technically proficient. Skills can be taught; personality, problem-solving ability, and work ethic cannot.

Of course, there’s a basic skill-level requirement, but it’s not the leading factor. Having a detailed understanding of the soft skills and ways of working already present in your teams can help you to identify what you’re missing, and therefore recognise the value-add candidates. Bring on people who are smarter than you; if you’re wise enough to realise your gaps and shortfalls and then hire people to fill those gaps, you’re on to a winning formula.

Optimise collaboration

Online technical collaboration tools make working over the web pretty simple, but emotional contagion is a huge factor of working as a team, and being physically together at regular times is vital to understand the more subtle nuances of interaction. Combining the two can work well; the time spent together in person can focus on communication, the time spent online can focus on technical work. Ensure you’re enabling both environments as much as possible.

Testing collaboration at the interview stage can also be a great indication of individual work practices and approaches. Try giving your candidates a problem and then work with them to find out how they solve it – you’ll see practical examples of problem-solving, critical thinking, resilience, curiosity, and reaction to failure, all of which will help you to understand how each person will work within your team.

Understand drivers

In a competitive marketplace, understanding what attracts and motivates candidates isn’t where the conversation ends; to retain your staff, you must ensure they feel fulfilled in their roles. Find out what drives them – recognition, working with others, remuneration, trust in managers, challenge, career progression – and keep talking about this on an individual level as their roles develop. Remember, the things that make one person happy are not necessarily what make another person happy.

Commonly in tech, innovative and dynamic ways of working are an attractive prospect for candidates and employees, and being open to suggested new ways of working, alternative tech stacks, or unfamiliar software can not only motivate but also show a willingness to be flexible.

Focus on happiness

Defining success within teams can be difficult, but ‘The Happiness Factor’ is the leading indicator of whether people will deliver, bring people along with them, and help build a positive culture.

Autonomy is a huge element of happiness; people don’t want to be order-takers, and so allowing for self-management (to an extent) can help to create a more positive environment. If you’ve hired the right people, trusting them to do their job should come next.

As with understanding drivers, talk to your teams about what makes them happy. Send out regular surveys and ask for feedback, welcome suggestions, and check in on your employees with regard to their mental health and well-being.

Manage your vendors

If you’re using external agencies and vendors to hire into your teams, treat them as closely as you would an employee or internal hiring manager, and hold them to the same standard. Communicate the cultural elements that are vital to your business’ success and ensure they are hiring against them. Align your interview questions to uncover ‘personality’ factors, collaboration styles, and soft skill sets. Your vendors are a representation of your business; excellence should be front of mind for them, too.

Reading list:

• Riding the Waves of Culture by Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars
• Communication for Engineers by Chris Laffra
• Legacy by James Kerr
• Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

The post CTOs Anonymous: In search of excellence in a global workforce appeared first on La Fosse.

From maintaining a robust IT framework to keeping an eye on emerging trends, ITSM leaders are a key driver of innovation and business growth. 

But how can ITSM leaders bring value and navigate their many challenges? 

During our recent ITSM Summit event, we brought together ITSM leaders to discuss how to get the most from your teams and what the future holds for the industry.  

Here’s a round-up of the key themes from the night. 

Set up for success

ITSM, like any other service, needs clearly defined goals to measure success.  

It may sound obvious, but it’s vital to be clear on the role of ITSM in your business. What does the user want? What do they need? If your service meets or exceeds expectations, you’ll have a seat at the table and get the visibility and influence you need to drive value. 

When you’re working on large matrix projects, make people accountable and get cross functional teams to work together. This will ensure projects don’t take too long and cost too much. Fast feedback loops are a useful way to keep teams engaged. Collate feedback, produce improvement plans and showcase delivery. 

The tools you use are also a key factor in user perception. ServiceNow is used by nearly 85% of Fortune 500 companies and 70% of our ITSM Summit attendees, but it may not be the best fit for you. Gartner’s magic quadrant can help you understand where you stand. 

Move from traditional to agile

There’s a growing expectation for ITSM to be flexible and adaptable to business needs. Essentially, you shouldn’t work for the processes, the processes should work for you. 

Cloud transformation has made it easier for ITSM teams to work to within an agile framework, and make the most of the flexible roadmaps, ongoing adjustments and constant collaboration that comes with it.  

It’s also allowed for a closer relationship between ITSM and DevOps. While the teams may have a different focus, they can come together to deliver shared objectives. Integrating tools and systems between the teams is a useful way to share knowledge and align on strategic projects. 

While agile brings many benefits it’s important to not lose sight of traditional ITSM principles. Strong processes and detailed documentation complement agile ideals and make for a strong structure that delivers a better user experience, reduced risk, improved culture and better adherence to regulations. 

Optimise with automation

Automation and AI will undoubtedly have a part to play in the future of ITSM. However, its implementation should be linked to business objectives. If automation doesn’t help you achieve your goals, it’s not much more than a vanity project. 

Depending on your use case, automation can bring about significant benefits. For example, it can allow you to simplify processes to allow service desk agents to focus on continual service improvement (CSI). Virtual assistants, chatbots and machine learning can all help optimise your process, cut costs and improved user experience. 

In a poll of ITSM leaders after our event, over 50% said that optimising processes and productivity were their focus points for the next 12 months, with integrating AI the next most popular goal. 

This highlights that process is still a key focus for ITSM leaders and AI and automation is likely to be part of that journey. But it’s important to stress that a human element and a personal touch will always be needed. 

Build great teams

Alongside having a clear strategy and access to relevant tooling, building a strong team culture team is key. The book Radical Candor by Kim Scott outlines how leaders can be more effective by combining sincerity with care. 

Modern ITSM should move away from a command-and-control culture to one that promotes collaboration and problem solving. An example being the simple switch from ‘change manager’ to ‘change enabler’ mindset. This will help ITSM SMEs to think like a developer, becoming more agile and able to adapt to challenges, and foster an environment for continuous improvements. 

The change in team culture can also be seen at leadership level. A recent trend has showed a shift from a traditional CIO approach to the people- and product-led CDO vision.

But team culture is only as effective as talent you have available. Hiring staff that can successfully manage change and are comfortable working with a range of stakeholders will remain a core part of delivering value.

Get in touch with ITSM recruitment experts

At La Fosse, we help leaders build great teams. We have built strong relationships with a large network of ITSM professionals over 10 years, making us well placed to find the match for any of your future hiring.

If you have an immediate hiring need, or would like to discuss the ITSM market, please submit a brief.

The post The future of ITSM: Four trends to watch appeared first on La Fosse.

Navigating the Product vs. Platform dilemma

A key consideration when addressing the product vs platform dilemma is to think about what your organisation wants to achieve; is the main goal of your app to be cutting edge, or quick to market, or an elevated customer journey? Being driven by the overall outcome is a great starting point that can help to clarify the direction of your planning and implementation, and therefore the direction you take in your approach. The ‘structure follows strategy’ business principle should apply.

Add into that the different limitations you may be facing; does your app need to align with other commercial constraints, or adhere to strict protocols and legislation? Do you have limitations in terms of technology, budget, or talent resource? Factoring in these elements will encourage a more realistic outlook, and consequently the creation of a more realistic strategy which can then be followed with the appropriate structure.

The internal impact of your mobile app is another important point; will it require input from across the business or influence the work of other departments? Implementing a platform team that works across a technology, rather than an integrated team that works cross-functionally across a product, may have less of an effect on your organisation as a whole, but isn’t always a suitable solution.

In the current landscape, mobile is central to the user journey, but with such a unique development and deployment process, an organisation’s web-centric technology and product capabilities don’t necessarily align with what the customer values about apps, and these limitations can become frustrating when not addressed.

The trend towards harmonisation of skills and teams around product in technology is causing a potential shift towards mobile becoming less platform-focused and more product-focused. How your team should be organised, what strategies you should be using, and what technologies lend themselves to those elements will all be a defining factor in the success of your mobile app. 

Building a successful mobile strategy

Resourcing is a fundamental factor when it comes to building a successful mobile strategy. A platform-centric approach requires specific skills, experience, and expertise in a highly specialised environment; a product-centric approach is more flexible. Product teams should develop in-house capability, while platform-centric teams may suit contractors or third-party suppliers.

When defining your mobile strategy, consistency is vital. Customer experience, the bread and butter of every successful business, must be aligned across your different customer journeys – mobile, web, store – to ensure brand integrity and recognition. As a result, relevant teams must work together to coordinate their efforts, whilst also retaining individual measures and outcomes for their own areas.

Defining key success measures from the outset will keep your project on track and could also help to identify whether you lead with product or platform. If your quantifiable outcomes lend themselves to one approach over another, it’s clear which path to take.

If you’re building or managing a large mobile team, it’s challenging to have many hands working on the same platform. Dividing by territory, customer journey, or sub-products makes the process more efficient and prevents a bottleneck from building up in specific areas of development.

It would seem that product team organisation is the more advantageous approach. By dissolving mobile-specific platform teams and bringing mobile experts into product, silos can be removed and the potential to scale and grow becomes more realistic. However, there are trade-off considerations around performance, platform differentiation, and development efficiency.

Mobile development in the next five years

As the mobile space continues to evolve, it’s likely that a new platform or type of application is somewhere on the horizon. Across the tech industry, AI is certainly the next big thing, and particularly Local AI in the mobile space. As with VR and Blockchain, it could have a place, but may not replace the fundamentals.

One prediction is the move away from physical screens to virtual ones as the primary point of experience, with user interfaces becoming integrated with the physical world via spatial computing. With Apple Vision on the horizon, the question to consider is this: will it do for spatial computing what the iPhone did for mobile computing? The implications on the customer journey are huge – the approach to marketing, buying, and brand interaction would all need to adapt and will require their own highly-specialised skills and processes.

For support with building your own mobile team, or to find out more about our total talent solution, contact Louis Gush.

The post Product vs Platform: The dilemma of establishing mobile teams appeared first on La Fosse.

​With teams having to take a multi-strand approach to solving this huge issue, we at La Fosse facilitated a roundtable event to explore some of the outside-of-the-box thinking that’s being adopted by businesses across the board. We heard from a diverse range of engineering leaders on the different mindsets and methods they’ve embedded within their businesses, which we’ve summarised and shared here.

​

​Attracting talent

​Some candidates want to work with the latest technology, and there are a few older languages that simply aren’t as appealing. If you’re not able to offer cutting-edge codebases, then you need to demonstrate more depth; re-frame roles to focus on the complex problems you’re solving, the encouragement of creativity, and innovation within your engineering practices. Alternatively, many junior candidates are just excited to get a foot in the door, so tailoring job postings that reflect those differences is important.

​The need to retain tech talent during the pandemic resulted in massive salary inflation for those who could afford to pay it; for those who couldn’t, many employees were rewarded with title changes instead. Unfortunately, this now means that some candidates may not have the skills or experience reflected in those titles, which can result in expensive mis-hires or difficulty in agreeing the level that new starters come in at. Roles are not always aligned from business to business, so it can be challenging for talent to make a sideways or upwards step, which is generally what candidates are looking for in a next role.

​When you’re screening candidates, ability can be a very seductive element, but attitude and approach are much more important in the long run. You can teach new skills, but you can’t teach attitude. Identify the key characteristics you want for your team – entrepreneurial mindsets, career accelerators, and future leaders–and establish these first before looking at technical competency. Don’t overlook what can be known as ‘deep generalists’ – great people who have multiple skills in different areas rather than specific expertise in one language or technology.

​Your interview panel is a vital part of the process, especially when discussing workplace culture with your candidates. Interviewers hire people who are like themselves (it’s human nature), so you need to ensure diversity, representation, and diversity of thought are considered, and that prospective employees can interact with different people across the business. After the interview stage, get feedback from the most junior panellist first so their opinion isn’t influenced by others.

​Be open and transparent with your interview feedback, and if you want to bring someone on board then show your enthusiasm. Having the “I want you to work here” conversation with your offered candidates is the starting point to your working relationship and sets the tone for your interactions in the future.

​

​Developing talent

​Great engineers don’t materialise overnight. You need people who will grow and develop with the company, keep up with changes in tech and new skills requirements, and take ownership of their own learning. Guidance here is essential; a young team requires a solid knowledge base to draw from and bringing in seniors who have that depth of technical understanding is key.

​Engineers who have worked in the company for some time will hold the knowledge base, and if you’re hiring above them then you need to strike a balance between acknowledging the work they do and placing someone who can provide leadership or mentorship. Make it clear as to what skills gap the new hire will be filling, the impact they’ll be making, the responsibilities they’ll have, and how the team can rely on them. If your engineers want to progress, they need to be shown how to do that and be given the opportunity to do so.

​Are you clear on your employees’ career aspirations? Engineers fundamentally either want to hone their current skills or learn new skills; there are those who want to be experts in a specific language, and those who want knowledge across the board. Remember that vertical growth isn’t everyone’s goal. Your own views from a managerial perspective won’t necessarily reflect their personal ambitions. Take time to have open career conversations with your teams.

​An Agile coach can be a great asset – they sit outside the hierarchy so have an unbiased, unemotional view to see where the gaps are. It’s a different type of nurturing and exploration from an alternative perspective; you’re opening eyes and minds to new opportunities and ways of learning.‘Career Scrums’ can also work well, splitting up the wider team into smaller groups of people who can be a sounding board, give support, highlight wins, and embed retrospectives.

​Progression and performance management are a vital part of your employees’ development journey. Career ladders are one traditional approach that have stood the test of time because people want to grow and be acknowledged, and recognition of this with the ladder system gives people confidence that they’re developing. However, there shouldn’t be levels for levels’ sake – each step needs to be valuable and reflective of actual progression. It should be a supportive mechanism and not a driving mechanism.

​Reward on the value that someone adds to the people and teams around them. It’s not really about number ratings (which can make people focus on an arbitrary score), it’s about identifying the people who really make an impact and who are an integral part of the team. Collate feedback from their peers to tap into this.

​At the beginning of the career journey, 6-month probation can be more successful than 3 months because it gives people the chance to react to feedback and demonstrate they can grow and adapt quickly. Bear in mind that a longer probation period can be demotivating for some people, so ensure open communication with new starters. Be on the lookout for imposter syndrome – it indicates a sense of humility, but understand where it’s coming from: are they in a toxic environment that makes them feel this way, are they not being recognised properly?

​Create an environment where failing isn’t a bad thing – it’s a route to finding a solution. If you enable your engineers to experiment with ideas and try different approaches, the outcome will not only be more creative, but will also materialise quicker because your team won’t be spending large portions of time forecasting and managing failure. Approaches like this demonstrate your trust in your employees, and ultimately create more positive working conditions.

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​Retaining talent

​Equating monetary value to the value your employees contribute is hugely important – you need to keep up with market rates, what each person’s individual worth is to you, and how much your company value has increased because of the work they do. And whilst salaries are the driving factor for some, also recognise that for others, success is about progression, working on exciting projects, or building great working relationships. Establish motivations for the individuals on your team and keep communicating to ensure they’re being met.

​Mental health care and wellbeing are now considered fundamental to the employee experience. The great resignation wasn’t necessarily about specific companies or roles: it was about people being burnt out, wanting recognition of mental ill health, and being more open about improving work/life balance. Employers need to provide support and facilitate regular, authentic check-ins with their teams.

​Everyone cannot be a fit for your business, and attrition isn’t always a bad thing. The company, teams, and individual people will change over time: people’s priorities shift, values evolve, they reach different milestones, wants, and needs in their own lives. If something isn’t working, you need to have that open relationship from both sides to be able to say, “something needs to change”.

​Be transparent and honest about what the career journey looks like. If you’re starting a period of transition that’s going to be challenging, you need to let people know. Not everyone will want to be part of it (and that’s fine), but if you don’t make it clear that the next stretch is going to be tough, then people will leave, and it won’t be a positive exit.

​‘Retaining’ is not just about people, it’s also about knowledge retention. Code is written and understood by specific people, and if those people leave then that knowledge can be lost too. You need to make sure that knowledge exchange and handover is part of your ‘people exit strategy’.

​Learn how to be good at losing employees. You want people to feel that they’ve spent their time well, that they’re leaving with more skills and knowledge than when they joined. Your alumni are an asset if you treat them well – if they go on to create great companies or teams or products, then what better accolade for your company to have been a part of their success story.

​To find out more about attracting, developing, and retaining top software engineering talent, or for support with your own candidate search, contact William.Rollings@lafosse.com. View our upcoming events.

​Interested in reading more? Check out:

• How to prioritise your tech and teams though a large-scale business transformation
• Driving High-Performance in Engineering Teams
• ​Staying Connected: Happy Teams, Happy Users

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La Fosse was delighted to host a roundtable event on the 20th of October to gain insights into how businesses are managing this challenge. The event took place in London and was facilitated by Lucie Cassius. We took away the following points:

How do you get buy-in from stakeholders and the wider business?

Your data team doesn’t live in a vacuum; their actions and outputs should affect every element of your business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is automatically on board. You may come up against HR and key stakeholder constraints, and budget limitations could be an issue if the people within those departments aren’t bought into what you’re trying to build.

“Make friends” internally – develop relationships with the right people to drive your agenda. Understand what different areas of the business need and communicate how the data function will support authentic evaluation and improvement for each. Showcasing a project to the wider business can help to bring about some faith in the pathway you’re trying to forge.

What skill sets are needed within the data team?

Whilst the basis of technical ability is obviously key, softer skills like stakeholder management and communication are just as vital to the success of your team. It’s often a rarity to find individuals that possess both these criteria; those with exceptional technical ability are often lacking when it comes to interacting with stakeholders, and those with fantastic communication skills don’t usually have the depth in practical expertise.

Senior members of the team need to have a strategic understanding, so they not only know how to build dashboards, collate data, engineer and produce reports, but they also drive the ‘why’ and can monitor the impact the data team’s work is having on the wider business.

Are candidates expecting too much?

The market is highly competitive, and with new ways of working leading to a more accessible interview process, lateral movement within the industry is prevalent. Many graduates have an unrealistic expectation of career progression – with so many employers fighting for them, it’s not hard to see why – but that doesn’t necessarily align with the roadmap you can provide.

The need to attract top candidates shouldn’t replace hard work; promotions and title changes are still the result of contribution and success. Adding individuals to an already entrenched team needs to strike a balance between talent-attracting packages and equality with the existing employees.

Should ‘Head of’ positions mean people management?

Defining what a role means in terms of responsibility is important, especially for those in more senior positions. Should the title ‘Lead’ or ‘Principal’ be defined as an individual contributor role? Would you expect someone with the job title ‘Manager’ to be managing a team? Are you using the correct terms and titles to attract the right candidates? Ensure clarity on what these roles encompass from the outset.

Does the tribe/squad/chapter model work?

Building tribes or squads that are focused on different elements of a product/business, for example, mobile or customer success, naturally depends on the size and structure of the wider business.

Although renaming your team won’t make you instantly more effective, it is a great way to promote teamwork and innovation, as well as give individuals a sense of enablement and ownership. Smaller business units have still seen great success from building a centralised team and identifying a ‘data champion’ across different business units that can communicate directly with the data team.

How do you retain and develop your talent?

Set quantifiable measures from the beginning. What are OKRs and success indicators when it comes to the data team? Those objectives need to be reviewed at least every quarter, with goals updated so that people know they are working towards a roadmap in their careers.

It’s motivating for your team to know where they are making an impact and the areas for improvement to concentrate on going forward. Team leads should also look at self-reflection; are they improving the delivery and accuracy of the team, are they improving the delivery and understanding across the business?

If you’re interested in understanding more about our series of Data Events or attending, please get in touch with lucie.cassius@lafosse.com.

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Panellists:

Hannah Prevett (Moderator) – Deputy Editor, The Times Enterprise Network

Simon La Fosse – Founder and Executive Chairman, La Fosse Associates

Saul Klein – Founding Partner, LocalGlobe

Chris Loake – Chief Technology & Operations Officer, C Hoare & Co.

Milena Nikolic – CTO, Trainline

Joysy John – CEO, 01 Founders

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Shifting priorities

The UK has always been a major player in the tech world. Now, nearly 3 million people in the UK work in tech, with 100,000s of job openings available each day. As Saul Klein notes, the UK tech economy is the “third-fastest growing and most important ecosystem globally”, sitting just behind the Bay Area and Beijing. As technology continues to weave its way across all sectors, demand for these roles is growing rapidly year on year.

Post-pandemic, however, people are rethinking what they want from work – as employers will be aware, flexible working has become a top priority. Despite the massive growth in the tech industry and jobs within the sector, demand still far outstrips supply; the ability and desire to work remotely has resulted in a highly competitive, candidate-led landscape. Consequently, many businesses are struggling to get the right people, with the right level of experience, at the right price for their budget. Because skills are in such high demand, larger companies are willing to pay much higher than average to secure the talent they need; even among people with one or two years of experience, salaries have inflated so much that it has become common for people to be offered double their pay grade.

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How can businesses change the way they hire?

The crux of all this is that it’s time for companies to change the way they hire. This event’s panel put forward four key approaches that employers should consider as part of any ongoing hiring plans.

1. Lead with flexibility

Being too prescriptive could jeopardise your ability to bring in top talent – in today’s competitive market, employers should empower and trust people to choose what works for them. As well as remote working having many obvious benefits to the employee, especially in terms of well-being and work-life balance, it also opens up lots of opportunities for employers – as candidates are no longer tied to a specific location, being flexible around remote working allows access to a much deeper, international talent pool. This “flexibility first” approach has already been adopted by companies like Trainline; CTO Milena Nikolic discusses how they are implementing hybrid working models and encourages businesses to “empower people to choose what works for their personal work-life balance”, something she believes will lead to a more successful business and provide better results.

2. Lead with purpose

As Milena Nikolic continues, “Coming out of the lockdowns, I think everyone had time to step back to rethink what’s important to them.” In a world where “hygiene aspects” like compensation are becoming less of a problem, “it’s now starting to be also about the purpose of the company and what the company is trying to achieve”. Simon La Fosse also notes that “we’re seeing an increasing need for people to feel connected to the organisation that they’re working with, and why shouldn’t they?” 

Businesses need to consider what else they’re offering to potential employees – how can they leverage their ethos and position themselves as somewhere employees can connect to and be fulfilled by?

​3. Lead with development

With the risk of paying well over market rate for senior roles, UK businesses would be prudent to shift their focus from the “knee-jerk reaction” of replacing senior talent to one led by developing and nurturing early-stage talent within the business. As Simon explains, “It’s just not about trying to replace experienced people. It’s about getting them in earlier, nurturing them, developing them, going through the effort that’s involved in that, and taking care with people. And that is […] what companies in the UK need to appreciate more than they have in the past.” Chris Loake also gives his view on the subject, noting the main challenge to hiring being that, “everybody wants to hire somebody with five years’ experience…but in the industry that I work in, that’s just not realistic”.

In short, investing in internal learning and development – putting mechanisms in place that allow junior hires to stay and develop effectively within the business – could be a much more programmatic answer to the issues we have today. As Saul Klein, Co-Founder of LocalGlobe argues, “If you don’t invest in your talent brand – in training, in learning, and development – and you’re not building your internal capacities, then you’re not going to be a talent leader.”

4. Look outside the box

In today’s age, technology is not a separate career path – every business is a tech business to some extent, and the majority of office workers are expected to use technology as an integral part of their role. As such, many businesses have started to look outside of their usual pools of STEM graduates to find people with transferrable skills and the right attitude and potential to be trained and upskilled.

According to Tech Nation, of the 2.9 million tech workers in the UK, nearly 1.1 million of these are made up of people working digital jobs outside of the tech sector itself. As most of these workers will likely not have come from a tech background, it also proves that skills are easily transferrable from one sector to another with tech as the lynchpin. This is a case of improving diversity in a different sense than what we’re used to – inclusive hiring is an invitation to, as Saul puts it, “stop thinking in silos” and put more value on soft skills and individual potential.

​Who is responsible for reshaping the UK tech workforce?

The government is already allocating spending to build out the economy, but there is only so much they can do when it comes to making change on a smaller scale. Tech is here to stay, and it is our communal responsibility (whether business leaders, employers, or educators) to address the skills gap and ensure that the tech of the future is built by people from all walks of life.

Fixing the skills shortage and democratising access to tech careers is something we’re passionate about at La Fosse; as a talent partner to many leading businesses, we have a responsibility to help them enact change and set standards for the wider industry. We are pioneering this change through our award-winning tech training company, futureproof. Since 2019, the academy has already launched the careers of over 100 future tech superstars from all backgrounds, training them in full-stack web development before placing them into junior roles within leading companies for two years, with full support from our team throughout.
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If you’re interested in learning more about how futureproof associates can benefit your tech teams, visit our website or book in a call with our Head of Commercial, Claudia Cohen.

No matter your hiring needs, our top-to-bottom talent services are here to help. View our services here or get in touch with your account manager today. 

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Performance vs product​

​Every CTO will be familiar with the battle between engineers and product designers. The latter will want to focus on the “shiny” – the thing that will excite the end customer and ultimately sell the product, while the former knows that there’s no point in building style over substance; what might initially attract the end user will only sustain their interest if it works, and works well. ​

“The biggest lesson learned was to build fast things, slowly.” ​

However, while it can feel like a constant “us vs them” duel, in reality the organisation will only find success if both parties can work together effectively. Some businesses have attempted to reconcile the two with the implementation of a Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), but this doesn’t always work in practice. The CPTO will have built their career in either product or tech, meaning they are likely to favour one over the other. Whether this position is in place or not, it’s vital that the CTO can find the balance between taking the time necessary to create a high-performing end product and letting go of the time-consuming tasks that provide little value for the user. ​

“An engineer will always want to improve performance; if they can shave off 0.001 of a second in loading time they will. It’s all about striking a balance.”​

Shared goal = shared language​

As has been established, communicating between teams is vital for success, so CTOs must think about the most effective way to do this. It’s important that everyone buys into the project, of course, but also that they believe in the process. In order to ensure that everyone involved is on the same page, CTOs should promote cohesion in the type of language used and timelines created.​

“We made sure everyone was speaking about the same things, at the same time and in the same way.”​

​Each team will have a different view on what should be considered a priority, so the CTO’s role must be one which clearly sets out the different inputs and how these will contribute to the overall goal. Clear, concise and cohesive communication is key. ​

Gaining board approval​

When preparing a business for IPO, every decision will be scrutinised to a new set of standards and CTOs need to be aware of this. If there is no business case for a given proposal, it will not be approved by the board – particularly if there is a large price tag attached. For most CTOs, this is a given already, but what happens when plans go awry, and more money is needed to fix the problem?​

“I realised I’d inherited a legacy stack with layers and layers of bad code. We had no choice but to rebuild, and I’d need the board to see the value in that.”​

Sometimes, the answer can lie in data. If, for example, it can be proved that rollout has been unsuccessful due to performance problems, and these can be eliminated, then it is likely that the board will approve more work and more funding. More often, however, it is about keeping one eye on the business case throughout the course of the project. There will always be unexpected obstacles along the way, but CTOs can overcome this by understanding and communicating the cost, reasoning and value of each decision. ​

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​To learn more about our CTO offering, please get in touch with Simon.Bird@lafosse.com

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Leading our teams from home over this prolonged period has been a new experience for most of us. It’s required us to adapt and show flexibility as we try to limit the impact the current situation has on our people, their ability to succeed and the environments we’ve created to enable that success. We have all had to learn fast, and those in leadership positions have had to adapt rapidly to ensure employees are having their needs met and are striking a healthy balance between work and their social life.
Ben Flowers, Engineering Leader at BCGDV was on hand to facilitate the conversation. Here we’ll take a look at the key takeaways from what the assembled leaders had to say about leading during lockdown.

The boom and bust in productivity

Settling into a balanced routine during lockdown took some time to get right. Yet it was broadly acknowledged that during the first month companies saw a big spike in productivity.

However, encouraging this might have seemed, it was largely the result of employees working longer hours. Working from home lends far fewer moments of downtime, be they around the coffee machine or something as innocuous as walking to a meeting. The attendees all agreed that working through the lunch break was a frequently encountered problem, and employees had suggested that not having a clear line of demarcation at the end of the day, such as a train journey or cycle, meant it was difficult to switch off or not reply to emails late into the night. Overall, people were falling into unhealthy cycles and it was clear that maintaining this high pace was going to be unsustainable. Quickly, productivity dropped considerably.

Managing employee wellbeing

In order to understand how to mitigate against this overworking, it is imperative that employees have one-to-one’s with people who are not their line manager, so they can be “realistic and honest about problems they are facing in the new working environment”. What became clear was that individuals were not taking any holiday and so burnout levels were high. It is undoubtedly unsustainable to work without the decompression one gets from taking a good tranche of time off – even if it was spent at home.

Building on this, the discussion moved onto a management-led wellbeing strategy that involved giving employees access to the app Thrive. The app helps to reduce stress, anxiety and other conditions that have been exacerbated by lockdown. It is game-based and can be used to help relax you before a particularly stressful situation or on a more ongoing basis to help you manage everyday occurrences. What’s more, the app has no relation to any company, so employees can be confident their data isn’t accessible to their employer.

Other top-down ways of creating down-time during the day included providing employees with licenses for virtual board games or signing up to Jackbox, which offers collections of easy-to-play party games that anyone can join simply through the web browser on their smartphone.

These novel practices have worked in tandem with great employee-led initiatives like ‘shout-out sessions’ which leaves people feeling encouraged and positive going into the weekend and ‘coffee and bakes’, which gives people a chance to chat and show off their baking skills! Events like these were dubbed “virtual water-cooler” experiences. Another great example is putting in place a “cross-functional banter channel” on Slack, which combats the tendency for individuals to only speak to those within their immediate team and allows people to share mood-lifting content.

Managing disruption

Almost everyone will have been on Zoom meetings which have been interrupted by young children, pets or delivery drivers. Our panellists agreed that these occurrences were by no means a significant disruption, and in fact had really helped to humanise the situation and make people more empathetic towards the challenging circumstances many faced. It can be argued that those who have families have a great support system but having to entertain and teach young children is stressful and will result in productivity dips.

What’s more, young people who live alone are not as likely to be distracted, but they had their social support network shut-off, as normal activities like going to the pub or the gym were impossible. These younger employees are also used to bouncing ideas off each other and collaborating. For anyone in a leadership position, it’s essential to “acknowledge these generational differences”, and to empathise with the various challenges’ employees of different age-groups are experiencing. Overall, whilst disruption had influenced both professional and social life, it’s certainly the case that remote working has improved emotional intelligence within the workplace.

What is the future of remote working?

Most of the leaders agreed returning to the office was something employees were keen to do, but only for 1-2 days a week in order to take part in ideation and heads-together work. What’s more, the lockdown has shone a spotlight on the great benefits that implementing a remote-first ethos can have. These range from having “a wider hiring pool”, to spending considerably less on real estate and remapping offices so they are more geared towards collaborative spaces.

Moreover, now that everyone has worked remotely, people have a greater understanding of how to use the technology effectively. Before lockdown, those who were dialling into meetings remotely found it to be stilted and they were frequently being cut out of the conversation. Now that everyone has experienced video calling and virtual workshops, it’s anticipated that future events which rely on having a remote aspect will run much smoother.

Bringing the event to a close, the panellists discussed how, going forward, they would try and diminish the number of meetings that were occurring. One of the benefits of remote meetings is that they are incredibly efficient, with usual time-drains such as searching for a meeting room no longer being an issue. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of moving immediately from one call to the next without having any breaks. To combat this trend, there is a useful feature in Outlook which cuts down meetings, ending them five minutes earlier and starting them five minutes later, to ensure employees get the time they need to decompress in between calls.

Hi, I’m Will, I’m a Node.js consultant at La Fosse. If you have any thoughts on this article, or are interested in attending the next event, please don’t hesitate to reach out on 02081678685 or William.rollings@lafosse.com.

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I was delighted to host a virtual event for the leadership community to share learnings and discuss challenges. A massive thank you to my panel Rosemary King – Product Management Leader, Founder – The Product Co-operative, Polly Howden – Product Director – Role Share, Founding Member – London Tech Ladies, Marc Abraham – Head of Product – Engagement at ASOS.com and Adriana Landaverde – Chief Product Officer – Clim8 Invest.

See below for the key takeaways.

Responding to Uncertainty

“Some of the bets which we were taking based on a long-term, gradual change of the landscape have just changed overnight.”

There are a number of ways a business can respond to a change of this magnitude, and one of the hardest things as a leader is being decisive when there are so many major factors out of your control. Do you play it safe to keep your head above water? Return to old, tried-and-tested behaviours which feel comfortable in a time of unfamiliarity? Or accept that the rulebook has been thrown out, and push forward an agenda of innovation? Many leaders are balancing deciding on what degree to pivot products in response to current needs, or even launch new ones.

What emerged from the discussion is that, for many businesses, Covid-19 has inspired a renewed, intense focus on Product. With the sales-pipeline unstable, many companies are taking the time to focus on developing their products in line with customer needs. This is even more pronounced in companies that offer both in-person and digital services, many of whom have responded by focusing on the development of the digital side. For Product teams, this has the potential to be exciting, but also puts a high pressure on Product to be a “magic wand” in a crisis.

From Sales-led to Product-led

“The CEO has taken this opportunity to put Product front and centre.”

For some leaders, the lack of sales has given them the opportunity to get back to best practice by infusing data and research back into the business, listening to their customers and educating the rest of the organisation on a Product-first mindset. This is of course marred by difficulties: not being able to physically sit down with customers to understand their needs has been a real challenge.

In B2Bs, some leaders are looking at building a healthy relationship between Product and Sales to facilitate a consultative-type selling approach. Whilst many potential clients have a large appetite for digital products right now, coupled with this high engagement is a risk-averse attitude to actually buying. This stems from fears around investing substantial sums in new technologies and businesses they haven’t worked with before at a time when revenue is, for many companies, uncertain. Product leaders are therefore looking at how they can adjust their propositions to appeal to and address these conflicting feelings.

Supporting teams through a crisis

“At virtually no other time have employee needs been so different. Some people are at home in this intense environment with their kids getting way too many hugs a day. Other people haven’t had a hug for weeks.”

Of course, one of the key challenges faced by any leader in this period is how to support your team. With the future so uncertain, it can be hard to answer questions and provide adequate reassurance, particularly when your only avenue is a Zoom call.

For many, the key question is when – and whether – we will return to the workplace. It’s key to involve your workforce in these decisions, whether via an anonymous survey or by reaching out directly. At this point, it will be no secret to any team that every individual’s needs are different – with only 25% of students having returned to school at the time of writing despite government mandate, child-care will undoubtedly remain a challenge for many.

Moreover, whilst many are raring to return to the office, employees have got use to the flexibility of working from home and it’s unlikely that they’ll want to snap straight back to normal. Indeed, a quick mid-event poll of our attendees showed that nearly 100% will expect more flexibility from their own jobs on returning to the office.

Whilst it’s tempting to always put on a brave face, it was suggested that one of the best moves a leader can make is to model vulnerability. Everyone has collectively been through a difficult time, and opening up about this is a method for facilitating connection with employees. With employee mental health high up on the agenda, panellists also cited several tools to help monitor employee wellbeing, including OfficeVibe which allows you to collect, measure and review employee feedback, and Bolt which facilitates the reporting of employee concerns.

Future of product?

“You can’t just have Product sitting in the corner doing its thing – it needs to be infused throughout the organisation.”
What’s more, with ways of working changing at such pace and scale, the Product mindset has special application to teams themselves. Thinking about the team as a product, and allowing experimentation as to the way we work and not just what we build, will allow companies to give both their employees and their customers the brilliant experiences they deserve.

I’m Ryan I head up La Fosse’s Digital Design and Product contracts team. If you have any thoughts on this article, or are interested in attending the next event, please don’t hesitate to reach out on ryan.patel@lafosse.com.

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