20Product: Why Process is Killing Your Product Team and How to Remove it | Three Product Decisions Every Team Needs to Make | Why the Best Companies Build Movements and Lessons from Shopify and Atlassian on How to Do It Right with Jean-Michel Lemieux

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Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jean-Michel Lemieux is one of the OGs of engineering and product having been the CTO at Shopify and the VP Engineering at Atlassian. Jean-Michel helped grow both Shopify and Atlassian from single-product to multi-product companies and led the building of their platforms.

In Today’s Episode with Jean-Michel Lemieux We Discuss:

From band class to Shopify CTO

How did Jean-Michel make his way into the world of product?
What were Jean-Michel’s biggest lessons from his time at Atlassian & Shopify?
How are Shopify & Atlassian the same? How are they different?
Why does Jean-Michel think Shopify could have been 10x bigger?

Building the Perfect Product

How does Atlassian & Shopify build movements instead of product?
What does Jean-Michel know now that he wishes he had known before he joined Atlassian & Shopify?
How does Jean-Michel balance between shipping speed vs. quality?
Why does JM think scrums and TDDs are BS? How did his last year at Shopify change his approach in product development?
What is a time horizon friction? And how does it impact teams?

How to Lead a Product Team:

What is micro alignment, and why does Jean-Michel think it is so important?
What 3 types of decisions every team makes?
What does Jean-Michel think are the most common reasons teams become average? How does he prevent it?
What do Jean-Michel think are the most common mistakes CEOs make today?

Hiring the Best Product Team:

How does Jean-Michel structure the interview process for new product hires?
What signals does Jean-Michel look out for when hiring? Why does he believe experience does not matter?
What are Jean-Michel’s biggest hiring mistakes? What were his lessons?
What are 2 of the most common mistakes founders make when hiring a product team?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shopify will ship on quality. Atlasin will ship on speed. You don't build a product, you build a
0:05.4	movement. I believe that one of the things that slows teams down the most is what I call
0:09.6	time horizon friction. Time horizon friction is caused by a lot of process. And that process is,
0:16.1	you know, a lot of people who want to put plans in place. And they feel comfort. Most
0:20.2	companies over plan 100x.
0:22.4	This is 20 Product with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, 20 Product is the monthly show where we sit down
0:27.0	with the best product and engineering leaders in the world to reveal their tips, tactics, and
0:31.6	strategies to scaling the best product teams. Now, today we have one of the OGs joining us.
0:36.8	He's built engineering teams at two
0:38.6	of the world leaders as the CTO at Shopify and the VP of Engineering at Alassian. There is little
0:44.3	this guest today has not seen in products and engineering and I'm so thrilled to welcome
0:48.0	Jean-Michel Lemieux to the hot seat today. But before we dive in, your website is the front door
0:53.0	of your business. The way teams build and
0:55.2	optimize it is broken, stuck between inflexible templates and cumbersome code-dependent
1:00.3	solutions. There's a better, faster way. Enter Webflow, a visual first platform that
1:05.7	empowers you to create freely. Experience a CMS where you can build dynamic content without code, native localization
1:12.5	that lets you translate your site in one click to reach global audiences, and third-party apps
1:18.0	and integrations so you can build faster. Now you can ship web pages in weeks instead of months
1:23.3	and save millions in development costs. These are the real results for companies like Orange Theory, Dropbox and IDO.
1:29.8	Get started today at webflow.com.
1:32.1	Webflow, more than a website builder.
1:34.1	And so if Webflow is the game-changing CMS, did you know?
	...

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