Red hot metal. Bulging forearms. Tightly gripped hammer. The resounding blows. The heavy grunt. Sweaty eye brow ridge. One month as a Fellow in the Product Manager Track of IFA’s innovation Readiness Training Program can be summarized with one word – Intense. It modeled in various ways, the fast paced, high energy environs of a startup. I used to think being an entrepreneur was geeky shirts, coding long hours and deploying at the last minute. Now, I know it’s similar to the craftsmanship of a forgesmith (coined by me). The process is often not glamourous but nonetheless a work of art. Creativity, critical thinking, team work, grit, a willingness to learn, unlearn and relearn are all critical components of this process. And when properly crafted, can place an Excalibur in the hands of the customers.
The training was coordinated by an amazing group of facilitators that worked together towards one mission “ensuring we were industry ready entrepreneurs that would thrive in a startup environment”. The IFA team is a fine blend of top-notch educators, program facilitators and learning design specialists. The touch of class for me was a seeming “Fingerspitzengefühl” for when to slow the fellows down, turn up the heat or allow a period of goofing off (socials).
Personal Tendencies and Expectations
Prior to the program kickoff, we had to take a business chemistry test. I’m a Driver-Pioneer. This means I’m very comfortable at imagining alternative futures, exploring possibilities but also very logical about it - that an idea sounds awesome doesn’t hold water if you cannot show me data that backs it up.
This understanding of one's tendencies was also helpful in understanding individuals that had other tendencies and how best to interact with them. Upfront, IFA made it obvious, collaboration was going to be a key part of the training. The other values include being innovative, grit, a growth mindset, inclusivity and diversity.
Personal Branding
One major mindset shift was in the area of branding. Simply stated, how you present yourself matters a lot. In a world that’s steadily migrating online for work, networking and business, staying visible is closely tied to staying relevant. An area I had given precious little thought to. Adjustments were made – tailored action words that emphasize achievements over tasks on my CV, re-designing the CV as a whole, creating and updating my portfolio site, making good use of LinkedIn, how to prepare for an interview, guidelines to answering questions during an interview, the list goes on and on. And for each of these, there’s an assignment to submit followed by a period to collaborate and get/ give feedback with a my “branding” team. The first results, my LinkedIn engagement stats have increased.
Design Thinking/ Hackathon
The bulk of the training was the design thinking process. We learned and applied different techniques of the design thinking process over a period of 3 weeks in the form of a hackathon and ended with a pitch deck presentation day. Applying the design thinking process with my “hackathon team”, I soon found out creativity sharpens itself in the company of fellow creative minds. The issue area we “hacked” was in providing access to education for out of school kids. You can read more about it here.
Hard Skills Lab and Mentors
Here we learnt the ropes of Product Management. This part of the curriculum was one of my favorites. It was a self-paced but rigorous schedule peppered with assignments, checkpoints and deliverables. Rather than learn abstractly by watching videos and reading PDFs, we worked on real challenges from a real firm. The experience has indelibly changed my mindset. And having worked with a team on Splitspot’s roommate matching product, it only served to further strengthen my grasp of product management.
Another touch of class, we were assigned to mentors to help guide us in applying the techniques we learnt. It also ensured we benefitted from years of experience and avoid common mistakes newbie PMs might fall into. I was mentored by Omid Dorani and the jottings I made from our conversations are guidelines I regularly refer to.
Strategic Analysis
Fitting into an organization requires an understanding of the mission, vision and working style of an organization. Much more importantly, one should be able to critically assess and identify the weaknesses in the systems. We explored 2 techniques: SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and STEEPLE (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical). A combination of these two techniques allows any Fellow to identify the unique contributions he/she can bring to an organization right from the get go.
Guest Speakers
Generously sprinkled throughout the training was the opportunity to meet young, successful entrepreneurs and founders. They shared their stories, their inspirations, their insights and how they got their dreams from point A to point B. One speaker whose words resonated with me on a deeper level was Chiedo John, Senior Engineering Manager at GitHub. It was special listening to an entrepreneur who can stand aside from his vision and allow others move it to higher level of fruition.
Moving Forward
The one key takeaway for me is PEOPLE. Awesome people. Margaret Wang shared precise actionable steps to resolves issues - her availability and responsiveness is second to none. Viviana, Mary and Maria were prompt in giving feedbacks. The ease of interacting with Quadri and Omozusi. And first point of contact was Cynthia. Her handling of socials made it easy to break the ice.
My hackathon teammates John and Akin, with whom I shared many "Damn! we got it sideways, its different than we thought" moments with. Bouncing ideas off these guys was a pleasant experience. My branding podmates, especially Stanley and Akpan. I like exploring possibilities and they were not averse to that. My teammates on the Splitspot challenge, whew! Feyi, Tosan, Demola and Blessing brought out my A-game. These guys are the definition of iron sharpens iron. And to My fellow Fellows - Ingenous Trailblazers - Effervescent Adeyinka Meduoye, Mo with the OAP voice and vibes, Fobabs that brings the alternative viewpoint, quiet but imaginative Karen, Mesach freely shared his UI/UX ebook as a quick guide and many others. It was an honor.
And those that did tongue gymnastics for 3 weeks trying to pronounce my name, thanks to you guys, I had some hilarious moments.
What next? I have a bad habit of diving deeper into "things" that hold my fascination. I already signed up for 2 free courses on Product Management on Product School. And two courses on Agile/ Kanban on Udemy to keep improving. I’m looking to bring all this newly acquired skills to bear on a project or product or startup. I’m quite raring to go.