27. Beyond Intuition: Framework for Evidence-Guided Product Management with Itamar Gilad

The Estee Show - Product Management & Business Insights

In this episode of The Estee Show, Itamar Gilad, a former product manager at Google, Microsoft, and IBM, discusses his experiences and insights from his career. Focusing on his new book, 'Evidence Guided, Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty' he introduces the concept of 'evidence-guided' product management, contrasting it with traditional methods that rely heavily on intuition and fixed roadmaps. He emphasizes the importance of gathering and following evidence to make informed decisions, and addresses how his frameworks, including the GIST model and confidence meter, provide practical applications for prioritizing and validating ideas. Through anecdotes and historical examples from industry giants like Apple and Amazon, Gilad elaborates on the role of humility, testing, and iterative development in successful product management. He also shares his thoughts on organizational resistance to change and strategies to foster a more evidence-based, innovative culture. A must-listen for anyone interested in modern product management practices.

Itamar's Bio: Itamar is a coach, author and speaker specializing in evidence-guided product management and product strategy. For over two decades he held senior product management and engineering roles at Google, Microsoft and a number of startups. At Google Itamar worked at YouTube and led parts of Gmail.

Itamar is the author of the book Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty. He also publishes a popular product management newsletter and is the creator of a number of product management methodologies including GIST Framework and The confidence meter.

Itamar is based in Barcelona, Spain. You can find more information on his website: https://itamargilad.com/

00:00 - Introduction and background on Itamar Gilad, author of "Evidence Guided Product Management"

02:20 - Definition of "fake door test" for measuring user interest02:50 - Definition of ICE/RICE prioritization frameworks

03:15 - Definition of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

04:00 - Gilad's journey from being a product manager to writing his book

07:40 - Discussing the GIST framework (Goals, Ideas, Steps, Tasks)

10:20 - The importance of humility and not having all the answers as a product manager

12:15 - Examples of successful product launches at Google using evidence-guided approach

15:40 - Proper use of ICE/RICE frameworks and avoiding common pitfalls

19:20 - The role of experimentation and testing ideas before fully building them

22:30 - Leadership's role in embracing ambiguity and disciplined product development