Blog Archives - Nick Sam Adams

How To Scale Your Business – Interview

by Nick Adams | Jul 18, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence, Blog, leadership, Marketing, Personal Growth, Software

Authenticity At Scale.

A really fun interview with Hector Santiestaban on his podcast, “How To Scale Your Business” discussing topics around leadership, artificial intelligence, and authenticity at scale. We talk about ways to ensure at the heart of what you do you’re providing value to those you serve. This was my first opportunity to speak to what I’ve been doing the past couple of years while also touching on past failures and lessons learned along the way.

Check it out on Spotify.

Vowel AI: Could This Be The Zoom Killer?

by Nick Adams | Jun 12, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Software

What is Vowel?

Vowel is an ai integrated meeting and collaboration software which has grown substantially in popularity since its launch in 2018. After securing 13.5m in series A funding in 2021, the company has rocketed in adoption. Vowel’s co-founders, Andrew Berman & Paul Fischer, saw a gap in the online meeting market. As we can all relate, the pandemic increased meetings at an exponential rate. As we all struggled to get our sea legs in a new and immediate remote work environment, we called meeting after meeting out of desperation and necessity.

Zoom became the industry standard for most companies primarily as a means to meet with clients as well as internal teams. Feature-rich and lots of flexibility gave it an edge over other meeting software. As adoption rose, at least from my perspective, it became evident that it was most compatible and easiest to install and get up and running. Gone were the days of guessing whether the client or customer would need training on how to open your web ex, and thank god for that because many times I didn’t know how to show them. Now, while Microsoft Teams also grew substantially in popularity, I found it was more adapted for internal company meetings, especially in the corporate landscape, while Zoom was the preferred option for working with clients and customers.

Fast forward to today and the advent of AI. I was introduced to Vowel through a colleague and touted as the “Zoom Killer,” and my interest was piqued. From the first time I used it, I was hooked.

Installation & Setup

Vowel is incredibly easy to set up, and with a web interface, there is no need for anyone to download or install any software. As the meeting host, you can use the web interface or the native app. Installing takes just a couple of clicks and has mobile and desktop apps for iOS, Android, Mac, & PC.

My Favorite Features

This thing is loaded with features but simple; I’m confident even my mom could handle it without issue. The AI integration is by far one of my favorite features, but it’s not all there is. The Vowel team has created some unique features I never knew I needed. For a comprehensive list of all features, you can see them in full detail. Below are just a few of the best that I feel set Vowel apart from Microsoft Teams and Zoom specifically:

The User Interface (as a whole):

The UI itself feels good. It’s intuitive and organized really well. So many features are compartmentalized optimally, and nested features are intuitive. I can hide myself from view, which has helped me further focus on the meeting and spend less time wondering why I wore that stupid graphic t-shirt.

Sharing my screen even feels like an upgrade from Zoom or Teams. I can emulate others, so I’m 100% sure of what I’m sharing and what the participants are seeing. The emulation feature also ensures I am confident the other participants can clearly see what I’m trying to demo.

The participants are to the left, while the right side nests the overview summary, notes, transcriptions, or a split view, letting you view the transcription and notes together while not monopolizing too much of the participant space to the left.

Transcription:

Ok, so this has simplified my admin work by hours. When you are recording, the entire conversation is dictated and time-stamped. Great for a deep dive review of what was said if necessary, but not something I typically go back and read. Thankfully, Vowel has solved that as well. A handy keyword search is available for me to find exact parts of the conversation without having to watch the whole video. It’s great for when I’m reviewing meetings and coaching calls historically trying to pull out specific direction or discussion topics.

Pro Tip | Bookmarks: You can use bookmarks to call out a specific topic within a meeting so that you can jump right back to it afterward. This has been helpful in getting to the meat of a topic I want to dive back into.

Summary:

This is one of my favorite features. The GPT-powered summarization doesn’t just condense the conversation into a consumable output – it’s good at it too. This allows me to stay 100% present with whomever I am speaking with and not worry about missing a beat. No more note-taking or even trying to read my garbled notes after the meeting. For larger groups, it does a fantastic job of documenting the meeting minutes and even calls out individuals who spoke or what they talked about. It does capture the chit-chat in the beginning, which isn’t ideal, but it’s also editable.

The summary isn’t just a bulleted list. It creates an overview of the meeting as a whole and then breaks topics into editable toggled sections. You can easily copy and paste it into your wiki or into an email to distribute to the rest of the team. All places I’ve copied this content to thus far have retained the formatting and function, which I was also impressed by.

Action Items:

Still in alpha, the action items attempt to pull out what action items were discussed from the meeting and assign them to the right individual. I won’t say this is perfect by any stretch just yet, but what I love about it is that you can delete the ones that aren’t relevant and/or add new ones to it. You can do this easily directly from the meeting. I always have Vowel generate action items for me after every meeting. While I copy and paste these into my notion notes, they also appear in my Vowel dashboard along with my other meetings’ action items. All in one place, I can quickly review action items from past meetings effortlessly. I’ll talk more about organization towards the bottom, but Vowel makes it so so easy to organize my various meetings into categories.

Notes & Agendas:

I touched on these briefly above, but Vowel comes packed with a pre-made note and agenda template library that jump-start your prep. It comes with Daily Standup, Focused Agendas, Goals – Discussion – Action Items, One on One’s, Team Meetings, and a Blank Page. Choose your poison or create your own.

All of the templates are customizable and have toggles by each topic that can be used to set a time limit for each agenda item. Powerful to be able to hold meetings to the time allotment and avoid getting deep into rabbit holes. I find with these; I am way more efficient with my meetings.

Finally, there is a cheat sheet for any of the templates, or if you’re using the blank page to use markdown to create functionality or tag individuals within the notes. To the left is a sneak peek at some of the markdown available.

Talk Distribution:

If you are anything like me, I like to talk, and I can really monopolize a conversation with all the brilliant earth-shattering thoughts I have in my head. This feature has helped improve my coaching conversations, gain more participation from others, and dramatically reduce the headcount in typical meetings.

A percentage shows in the top left corner of all meeting participants and increases and decreases solely on your piece of the overall conversation. The more you speak, the higher your percentage. Of all of the features in Vowel, this is my absolute favorite.

It has helped me keep what I say to a minimum and focus on listening to others. It is actually training me to be a better listener. Sometimes it’s almost gamified where I’m shooting for a certain percentage to see if I can hit it. It has improved my communication skills and helps me encourage other team members to speak up if I haven’t heard from them.

This also helps really identify whether “this meeting could’ve been an email.”

Headcount in meetings is incredibly expensive and wasteful. If you regularly notice attendees who are not contributing, then you can make smarter choices about who to include in the meetings moving forward and who can focus on their work. Plus, with the accuracy and efficiency of the recordings and meeting summarizations, you can quickly catch anyone up to speed who may have missed it.

Permissions:

I won’t dive too deep here, but I did want to mention that you can allow your participants to have full access to recordings, transcriptions, summaries, and action items, or you can make these settings private. The only caveat is that you need to set this when the meeting starts. If you are taking private notes, be careful to double-check and ensure it is not viewable to everyone on the call.

Workspaces & Dashboard:

Vowel Online Meeting Dashboard

Whether part of a small team or department at a larger company or have clients/customers you work with on your own, the workspaces feature allows you to segment access to recordings, transcriptions, notes, action items, etc, to only those you want to have it. Honestly, this is quickly becoming my documentation hub, where transferring notes to another platform or wiki is getting too cumbersome.

A couple of highlights to call out here are 1-click meetings, easily create new agenda templates, view clipped files from longer meetings, see your schedule, and more.

Folders:

You can easily organize your meetings by category, client, or department; you name it. Easily share the recordings with folders, people, or workspaces. Have complete control over access while giving flexibility to your organization’s needs.

Analytics:

Get meeting insights to track your efficiency, talk time, and use of filler words over time. This data isn’t just interesting to look at; it’s impacting how I carry myself and contribute…It’s improving ME.

Price:

Last but not least, the price can’t be beaten. The free version has some feature restrictions, notably the 40-minute max on meetings. This became a problem quickly for me. The good news is that the Business plan is just $19.99/mo, and I have not encountered any feature, meeting time, or meeting count restrictions. There is an Enterprise account on its way but not available yet. You can see their pricing here.

In closing, as you can tell, I kind of like this platform. For someone who typically spends between 20-25 hours a week in online meetings, it has quickly become not just a cool application but a tool that is improving my efficiency, my presence and helping me make better decisions. It’s changing how I interact with others and how I contribute to every interaction I’m a part of.

Better Summary Prompting with ChatGPT

by Nick Adams | May 24, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Management

In a matter of months, AI has gone from a clunky aspiration to interwoven into almost everything we touch online. Every day more and more applications are developed. Personally, it has created efficiencies in my world I never thought possible. It doesn’t DO the job for me, I don’t believe in that, but it has assisted me in doing what I do best, that much better. It’s automated those parts of my work that cost time allowing me to focus on serving my team, my clients, and my products to the fullest extent.

Specifically with NLP, I think about it like having the best research assistant on the planet. The fastest notetaker known to man. The most intuitive assistant a guy could ever ask for. I wanted to touch on a very simple but effective use case around summarization that has helped me streamline my own operations and save me time for the things that really matter. Specifically how you can get better outputs from GPT using prompting.

Prompting is the method with which you interact with AI models like ChatGPT. If you’ve asked ChatGPT a question before, you’ve used prompting. Below are just a couple ways to increase the accuracy and target the output you desire using prompting.

Summarization:

Summarization has saved me countless hours of reformatting coaching notes, meeting notes, legalese, terms of service, you name it. Anything and everything that has a lot of information I want to condense down into small consumable chunks, I utilize prompting techniques with ChatGPT to help me summarize. It’s just a part of my day now. Rather than go into the millions of different use cases I wanted to center specifically around summarizing notes and how to get better summaries with better prompts. You can do this with old school digital note taking or if your online meeting software has dictation, this will work for that too however you’re prompts may be slightly different.

For the purpose of this post we’ll assume you have taken a ton of notes from a large executive meeting and now need to button it up for the rest to consume.

Simple Prompt:

We can start with a prompt like, “Please summarize the notes below:”, then copy and paste your notes and drop them all into GPT-4. In seconds, your entire “stream of consciousness” notes will be summarized. It’s good, and ChatGPT can definitely get the job done but you may still have missed important aspects or still need to reformat and rearrange.

Your prompt will look something like this:

Summarize the notes below:
[PASTE YOUR NOTES HERE]

Adding Context:

Now let’s add some context. One method of improving the output is by giving better instruction on your desired output. Rather than simply saying, “Summarize the notes.” Tell GPT how you want the notes summarized. By adding context you are training the AI to understand the why behind what it’s doing. Remember, as it stands today, GPT doesn’t actually know what it’s doing (so we think) but rather is doing what it thinks it should do based on the data it’s been fed. Here are a few examples of how to add context:

Defining the specific kind of summary you want: For example, if you want the AI to summarize a lengthy notes document that is highly technical in nature and you want to share it with non technical individuals your prompt could look something like this:

Summarize this article in language appropriate for a 5th-grade student.
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

Adding a goal or perspective: For instance, if you want a summary that focuses on the profitability of the topics discussed, you could create a prompt that looks like this:

Summarize the notes from yesterday’s executive meeting at XYZ Corporation, where the primary agenda was to discuss the company’s new product launch strategy. Please highlight the key decisions made, action items assigned to various teams, and any important considerations regarding the marketing budget.:

[PASTE NOTES HERE]

Restricting the length of the summary: If you need a short summary, specify the length. You can add this to the above goal or perspective to create more context for the AI to follow. Add something like this:

Provide three paragraphs summary of the following text:
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

Using Inline Instructions: If you have a long text and you want the AI to summarize only certain parts, you can guide it by saying something like

Summarize the following text, but focus specifically on the sections related to customer feedback:
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

Remember that the context should be relevant and clear. The AI uses the context as a guide, so providing a well-defined and accurate context will help get a better response.

Add A Role:

One of the simplest ways to improve your prompt is to define WHO ChatGPT should be. By giving it a role you are giving it a perspective based on the knowledge set it is trained on. You’re telling it to “Act as if” in some form or fashion. This is a great way to craft even better summaries. Admittedly, giving it a role as “note taker” may be a bit overkill. Roles are better suited for when you are researching topics or getting outputs you need specifically defined as a developer, a scientist, a mathematician, a lawyer, etc. Keep in mind that ChatGPT will tell you specifically that it cannot give legal advice so one trick is to tell it you understand it cannot give legal advice but that you’d like to use it to send to your legal team. That further sets context within the role. Below are a few examples of how to add a role to ChatGPT when summarizing your notes:

Marketing Manager Role:

As the marketing manager at XYZ Corporation, please summarize the notes from the executive meeting held yesterday. The meeting focused on refining our marketing strategy for the upcoming product launch. Highlight the key marketing initiatives discussed, decisions made, and action items assigned to the marketing team.
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

HR Director:

As the HR director at DEF Corporation, summarize the notes from the quarterly executive review held recently. The meeting primarily centered around talent acquisition, retention strategies, and organizational development. Focus on any decisions made regarding recruitment, employee engagement initiatives, and talent management.
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

CEO:

As the CEO of GHI Industries, provide a summary of the strategic planning session conducted by the executive team. The session aimed to identify growth opportunities and streamline operations. Please highlight the proposed strategic initiatives, potential areas of expansion, and any action items assigned to key stakeholders.
[PASTE NOTES HERE]

By specifying your role within the company, you establish the context and perspective for the summary, allowing ChatGPT to generate a summary that aligns with your role and responsibilities within the corporate setting.

Few-Shot Prompting:

Few-shot prompting is a technique used to teach AI NLP systems (like ChatGPT) by providing them with a small number of examples. It’s like giving the AI a quick crash course on a specific topic using just a handful of examples. By learning from these examples, the AI can then apply its knowledge to understand and respond to similar questions or tasks in the future. It’s a way to help AI models learn quickly and adapt to new situations with minimal training data.

This is most likely overkill if you’re just using ChatGPT in the browser however I still feel it’s important to note as this prompt method really helps to better “teach” the model what it needs to do. Below are a couple examples of how you can use few-shot prompts. For brevity’s sake I won’t use notation examples but will show you how to do it with product feedback. You’re teaching it to predict the outcome of the actual notes you are summarizing:

Example:

I bought this product and it was defective: Negative
I absolutely loved using the new tool. It made me so much more efficient: Positive
Customer support was terrible and I couldn’t get my questions answered: Negative
I would absolutely recommend this product to friends and family:

You can see in the last bullet that I left it blank. What I’ve done is train the model to sniff out sentiment analysis based on some data points. The more data points the better the model is trained. When hitting “send” GPT will return with the output of “Positive”. What you can do with summaries, if space allows, is feed it some of your notes and then show the output you want. If the sample size is small enough you can do this a couple times to hone the model to predict what it should do with the new set of notes you are about to feed it.

As a reminder, many of these may be overkill if all you’re looking for is a summarization of the notes but these prompts can apply to almost anything you are looking to get a specific output from. Digging just a layer deeper can improve the results and allow you to get more out of ChatGPT. Now go have some fun and try them out yourself!

Remember that you are the secret sauce and AI is the assistant. Keep that in mind with everything you hand over. Don’t lose sight of that no matter how well you’re automating your business. Contact me with any questions regarding how to better use AI in your business and your life.

Curiosity: A Product Managers Super Power

by Nick Adams | Apr 6, 2023 | Blog, leadership, Product Management

Product management is a challenging and rewarding career that requires a combination of analytical, technical, and creative skills. It is a role that demands attention to detail, the ability to prioritize, and the capacity to make tough decisions. One often-overlooked skill, and I do mean this as a skill, that sets apart great product managers from average ones is curiosity. Curiosity is a superpower that allows product managers to remain open and receptive to new ideas and information, which in turn, shapes the direction of the product.

Taking all inputs from a variety of sources

As a product manager, you need to take inputs from a variety of sources. These may include clients, sales, implementation, development, design, support, data, the market, competitors, and of course leadership. It is easy to fall into the trap of confirmation bias, where you only seek out information that confirms your existing beliefs. This is where curiosity comes in. By curious, I mean open-mindedness, even when faced with ideas that challenge your assumptions. It means actively seeking out diverse perspectives, even if they may seem at odds with your own. This requires maturity and a strong sense of self awareness.

Remaining open and curious instead of committed to being right

Remaining open and curious is not easy. We are wired to want to be right, to hold onto our beliefs and defend them at all costs. However, being committed to being right can blind you to new information, limiting your ability to make informed decisions. By contrast, remaining open and curious means being willing to change your mind when presented with compelling evidence. It means asking questions, seeking out new information, and challenging assumptions.

Practical Applications of Curiosity as a Product Manager

1. Asking Questions:

Asking questions is an essential part of any successful product manager. By asking questions, you can gain a better understanding of your customer’s needs, your competitor’s strategies, and your company’s goals and objectives. Asking questions authentically and objectively is just as important as the ask itself. Make sure your questions are not slanted toward an outcome. Keep them objective.

2. Seeking Feedback:

Seeking feedback from your team, your customers, and your stakeholders can provide valuable insights that can help you improve your product and your approach to product management. Feedback loops are an essential tool used to build and incrementally improve any product. It’s essential to have reliable and engaged feedback loops that provide you with insights. Feedback in the aggregate can help product managers see trends and general directions we should head.

3. Conducting Research

Conducting research on your industry, your competitors, and your target market can help you stay up-to-date on trends, identify new opportunities, and gain insights that can inform your product strategy. Product managers wear a lot of hats. You can delegate this research to a business analyst if your team supports that resource. Research should be done as an ongoing cyclical process. As the world changes, so do your products. A stagnant product is a dead one. Be continually researching and looking for new opportunities within the data.

3. Experimenting

Experimenting with new features, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns can help you test hypotheses, validate assumptions, and learn from your successes and failures. The use of Alpha and Beta trials can get you extremely valuable feedback on your product or feature. Depending on the size, budget, and customer base of your product can dictate how best to experiment. Make use of prototyping and quick solution’ing to get “less than perfect” versions of what you’re building so you can get quick feedback without having to rewrite code or start from scratch. Most companies have high-value clients with great relationships that are open to becoming early adopters of what you are building. These individuals can provide you a host of great feedback that inform your direction and give you more insights into what you may have overlooked. Be careful with your focus groups and understand their bias as well.

In closing, Curiosity is a superpower for product managers. It is a powerful weapon when wielded correctly. Removing your desire to be right or seeking the answers that align with your own beliefs requires maturity. It’s about You, admitting to yourself, that you can make better decisions by listening and analyzing all inputs with an objective view before making decisions. This is an incredibly difficult skill. One I am constantly learning to be better at. It’s a commitment to the product and not “what you did to make the product a success”. Removal of the ego and serving the greater purpose of your product will lead to exactly that ideal.

Fast, Cheap, or Quality – What Happens When AI Gives You All Three?

by Nick Adams | Apr 3, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Marketing, Product Management

Harnessing the Power of AI without Losing Your Unique Flair

Not very long ago, marketers had to make a choice: fast, cheap, or great quality – you could only pick two. This was a common phrase thrown around quite a bit. It would help clients understand your process and justify the quality vs cost. It also meant that when a company was clouting all 3 it was cause for concern. This also leads to a delicate balancing act, with businesses sacrificing one aspect to achieve the other two. Enter ChatGPT – the AI revolution that has transformed the marketing landscape, making it possible to have all three (with respect to content) with little effort. However, with everyone having access to these benefits, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you ensure you maintain your authenticity and remain the source of your secret sauce? How do you resist the urge to give everything over to the ai?

Ch atGPT is an incredibly disruptive tool and the temptation to have it do everything from idea generation to creation, and automation of your content can be overwhelming. Couple that with a feeling of being left out if you’re not using your content strategy volume to keep up with everyone else can bend even the strongest of wills towards the temptation to use ChatGPT for everything. This article specifically was a rich collaboration between myself and ChatGPT. Below I talk about the value the tool provides me and how I see its use in my own marketing. But first, in case you’re the last one on earth to hear about it. A brief overview of the power of ChatGPT.

Before diving into how to differentiate yourself using ChatGPT (and in case you’ve been living in a cave), let’s briefly touch on its capabilities. ChatGPT is a powerful AI language model that can generate human-like text, understand context, and even hold a conversation. This technology has revolutionized the way businesses approach marketing, with a myriad of applications ranging from content generation to customer service.

Use ChatGPT as a foundation, not a replacement

While Ch atGPT can produce impressive content, it’s essential to remember that it’s just a tool. Use it to lay the groundwork for your marketing campaigns, but don’t rely on it as your sole creative force. By incorporating your own expertise, ideas, and branding, you can create unique and authentic content that resonates with your audience. I like to think of ChatGPT as the fastest and most knowledgeable content writer I have on my staff. It takes direction well and allows me to iterate on my own thoughts and ideas in new ways. One way I’m utilizing ChatGPT is for outlining a long-form piece of content or a strategy. I have the idea, and I know what I’m trying to relay, but I want some help thoughtfully laying that out on paper. I use ChatGPT to help with the outline which breaks down my content into smaller sections where then I can create and build out.

Add your personal touch

Once ChatGPT has generated content, take the time to review and refine it. Add your personal touch, inject your brand voice, and ensure that the content aligns with your overall marketing strategy. Remember, the goal is to use AI to augment your creativity, not to replace it. When you put a prompt, take the content verbatim, and pass it off as your own you are breaking the authenticity with your audience, and more detrimental you’ve taken your own creative power from your hands and traded it for speed and efficiency. Always remember that no one that has ever existed thinks the way you do. What’s in your head is important and giving that over to AI is a foolish mistake.

Stay on top of your niche

ChatGPT can help you keep up with industry trends and news, but it’s up to you to stay ahead of the curve. Continuously research and develop your expertise within your niche, positioning yourself as a thought leader. The more you know, the more effectively you can incorporate your unique insights into your marketing content.

My biggest fear with AI is losing my own authenticity and creative drive. I’m afraid I will slowly exclude myself. It’s important for you to know, certify, and agree with whatever content you put out to the world. You should be informed. You should have a direction. You should know what’s going on in your own industry. The temptation is there to let ChatGPT (and like ai platforms) literally do everything for you. Realize that when you do this, every day, you are lessening your own value and your own need in the world.

Blend human and AI creativity

When it comes to brainstorming, AI can be a valuable asset in generating ideas. However, to maintain your secret sauce, ensure that you have a human touch in the ideation process. Combine AI-generated concepts with your own ideas to create innovative and tailored content that stands out. Put some effort into your own idea generation and then let ChatGPT help you refine or pivot on them. Work in collaboration with it rather than in service to it. Read what you’re about to publish and ask yourself how much of YOU was there in it?

Secondarily, a lot of content just needs to be there. Find ways to use ChatGPT that will maximize your efficiency. I believe using ChatGPT to help generate FAQs, write formal documentation, legal drafts, or training materials are all great use cases. You utilize the tool to generate content anyone could do but reserve the creative flair for a collaborative experience between yourself and the tool.

Foster customer relationships

AI can improve your efficiency in customer communication, but it’s crucial to maintain genuine human interaction. Use ChatGPT to manage and respond to routine inquiries but make sure to engage with your customers on a personal level when needed. This will help foster long-lasting relationships and brand loyalty. At the end of the day humans, at least for the moment, are still in charge. Fostering good personal relationships, understanding your customers, getting human-generated feedback, and having an authentic conversation provide more value and insight than any AI system from my perspective. Don’t lose that. Honor and trust it will benefit your business.

In the age of AI, it’s more important than ever to ensure that you’re not outsourcing everything to AI, but instead using it as a tool to make your creativity, expression, and strategy more efficiently communicated. By leveraging ChatGPT in a way that complements your unique YOUness, you can maintain your authenticity and set yourself apart in the ever-evolving marketing landscape. Embrace the power of AI, but always remember to keep your secret sauce intact.

Applying Agile Non-Development Departments

by Nick Adams | Mar 31, 2023 | Blog, leadership, Management, Product Management

As a Product Leader, I see so many opportunities for translating Agile Scrum methodologies to leadership in non-development departments. Let’s explore how product management principles can be applied to effectively lead teams and improve performance and morale across non-development departments such as implementation, support, and sales.

Agile Scrum rituals are designed to promote transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. These principles can be applied beyond software development to help teams in other departments work more efficiently and effectively. Let’s take a look at how Agile Scrum rituals can be translated to leadership in non-development departments. The overall goal is to make incremental progress allowing your teams to pivot quickly and iterate in real-time. It allows for long-term planning with short-term check-ins creating more available time for teams to work and reducing the overall communication gaps and meeting overload.

Daily Stand-up Meetings

The daily stand-up meeting is an Agile Scrum ritual where team members share updates on their progress and plan their work for the day. In non-development departments, this ritual can be adapted to have a daily check-in where team members share their priorities and any blockers they may have. This can help promote transparency and accountability among team members, as well as identify any issues that need to be addressed. The true goal of the daily standup is to allow a specified time (typically morning) for you as the leader to check-in with your team. Provide any pertinent updates but ultimately hear from each member of the team on what they did yesterday, what they’re doing today, and where they have any blockers. This meeting is specifically to clear blockers and allow the team more time to focus on priorities then provide updates throughout the day.

Sprint Planning

Sprint planning meetings are where the team plans their work for the upcoming sprint. A sprint is a specified time-boxed period where a definable chunk of work is committed to. In traditional product management teams, this is typically a week or two weeks. The team measures their total capacity and plans work based on the capacity. The goal is to complete all work that is scheduled within that sprint. One or two-week sprints allow teams to pivot and adjust throughout a quarter depending on team size and efficiency. Let’s look at a non-development group like an implementation or sales org. You may have a backlog of tickets or a number of sales calls that are required to be made. The bandwidth your team has defines their throughput and by massaging your capacity in two-week increments you can also project much farther into the future and provide more accurate, real-time reporting to your leadership groups.

Sprint Retrospectives

Sprint retrospective meetings are where the team reflects on their work from the previous sprint and identifies areas for improvement. In non-development departments, this can work very much the same. A regular retrospective meeting is held at the end of a sprint where the team reflects on their performance and identifies ways to improve. This can help promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, as well as boost team morale by providing an opportunity for feedback and recognition.

One of the keys to success with retrospectives is allowing everyone to be open, honest, and transparent. This is not a finger-pointing exercise but a way to calmly address issues within the team in order to operate more cohesively. Retrospectives are a great opportunity to recognize team members who went above and beyond. It’s a way to grow camaraderie within your team. Doing this on a regular basis can improve your team’s micro-culture and create better working relationships.

Product Backlog Grooming

The product backlog is a prioritized list of work items that the team needs to complete. In product and development orgs this is typically small definable chunks of work that can be completed in two weeks or less (depending on how long your sprints are). The product backlog consists of any and all asks of the product team that needs to be reviewed, groomed (broken down into details), and prioritized against your roadmap and other unplanned work.

In non-development departments, this concept remains the same but the execution may be slightly different. Let’s look at an example. A typical support queue has more work then the team can ever accomplish. Many times these tickets or support requests have SLAs attached to them. Grooming can be a hugely beneficial exercise because it forces a review of the backlog. This grooming allows you to close tickets that are no longer an issue, review tickets against others for priority, and manage your SLA’s better. This can also signal to customer-facing teams where in the workflow their customer’s requests are at.

At the end of the day, the team size and bandwidth are relatively consistent. By regularly reviewing your backlog you can make smarter decisions and ensure none of your high-priority support requests go unanswered.

Sprint Review Meetings

Sprint review meetings are where the team showcases their work from the previous sprint and receives feedback from stakeholders. In non-development departments, this can be adapted to have a regular review meeting where the team showcases their accomplishments and receives feedback from their peers and managers. This can help promote transparency and collaboration, as well as provide an opportunity for recognition and feedback. Most often there is a “thing” being tracked. In an implementation, it can be X number of setups per sprint. In sales it could be did we hit the call quota or meeting quota for the given sprint. These are typically tracked in dashboards providing metrics. While sales quotas and performance dashboards are not directly related to product management principles the cadence is. By shortening the review time you can make better decisions and target problem areas before they get too big.

Agile Scrum methodologies translated to leadership in non-development departments can help promote transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. By adapting Agile Scrum rituals to fit the unique needs of non-development departments, leaders can help improve team performance and morale while shortening the cycle time for adjustments and coordination. By focusing on these principles, leaders can help create a culture of innovation and success in their organizations while minimizing stress and providing better visibility to the rest of the business.

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