In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver are joined by Kirsten Mann, former CPO at Prospection and now startup founder and board member, to discuss how product leaders can play a vital role on company boards.

Drawing from her own board experience and a research series interviewing founders and directors, Kirsten explains why product, culture, and customer insight must be central to boardroom conversations.

Key Takeaways
— Product’s Place on Boards: Product is a strategic lever, boards should treat it with the same seriousness as financials.
— Culture as a Strategic Asset: Culture emerged as the most frequently cited factor in board-level success—more than AI or tech.
— From Operator to Overseer: Transitioning to a board role requires stepping back from execution and focusing on governance and strategic guidance.
— Communicating with Boards: Product leaders must avoid jargon, speak in terms of customer problems, outcomes, and investment returns.
— The Risk of Exclusion: If your product team isn’t presenting to the board, that’s a red flag.
— Practical Preparation: Aspiring board members should build financial literacy, start with non-profit boards, and cultivate visibility through writing or public speaking.

Chapters
00:00 – Culture over strategy: Why getting culture right matters more than clever planning
00:45 – Meet Kirsten Mann: Introduction and credentials
01:45 – Career transition: From CPO at Prospection to board member, investor, and startup founder
04:50 – Early board experience: Saving a youth club through governance and tech
06:45 – Product’s value on boards: Bringing customer and tech insight into strategic discussions
08:00 – Oversight, not execution: Adjusting from exec roles to governance roles
09:50 – Frustration sparks research: Why Kirsten began writing about product leaders on boards
11:00 – Product strategy ≠ support: The board’s risk-first mindset

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

In this episode of The Product Experience, Randy Silver speaks with Dariusz Dziuk, Product Lead for Music Expression at Spotify, about the origins and evolution of Canvas, the looping visuals that accompany music tracks. From early assumptions and first principles thinking to scaling and measuring marketplace success, he shares how a bold experiment turned into one of Spotify’s most engaging features.

Key Takeaways
— Balancing Art and Science: Product management often lives between structured analysis and intuitive creativity—success lies in mastering both.
— First Principles and Assumptions: Questioning defaults—like static, square cover art—can open doors to bold innovation.
— Real Stakes Drive Real Creativity: Artist engagement with Canvas only truly emerged once the stakes felt genuine and public.
— Marketplace Thinking: Canvas succeeded because it delivered value for all marketplace participants—creators, consumers, and the platform itself.
— Innovation Through Structure: Weekly design sprints and rapid prototyping allowed Spotify’s innovation lab to explore and discard ideas quickly, eventually landing on Canvas.
— Scaling Insights: Measurable impact came later—higher engagement, saves, shares, and a new visual identity for music on Spotify.
— Artist-Centric Focus: Prioritising the needs of the supply side (artists) can unlock cold start challenges and marketplace growth.

Chapters
0:00 – Marketplace Thinking at Spotify
1:20 – Darius Jurek’s Journey into Product
2:45 – From Engineering to 0-to-1 Product Innovation
4:00 – Is Product Management an Art or a Science?
6:30 – The Brief: Connecting Creators and Fans
8:20 – Building an Innovation Lab
10:00 – Exploring Dozens of Ideas
11:45 – Why Canvas Won Out
13:10 – The Challenge of Validating a New Format
16:00 – Questioning the Assumptions Around Cover Art
19:00 – Real Stakeholder Feedback and Creative Buy-In
21:00 – Marketplace Metrics of Success
23:30 – Canvas and the Evolution of Music Discovery
26:00 – Visual Design, Collaboration, and Artist Empowerment
28:00 – Darius on Supplier-Led Product Strategy

Featured Links: Follow Dariusz on LinkedIn | Dariusz's website | Spotify | '#mtpcon @ Pendomonium 2024 Encore' recap

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy dive into the nuanced world of team collaboration with Jenny Wanger, product ops consultant. Jenny challenges the overuse of RACI matrices in product teams, arguing they often obscure deeper organisational issues rather than solve them. They discuss better alternatives, the root causes behind requests for RACI, and the value of prioritising human relationships over rigid frameworks.

Chapters
0:00 – The accountable vs. responsible dilemma
0:37 – Meet Jenny Wanger: Product ops and Reforge
1:20 – RACI: A quick explainer
3:16 – Why RACI falls short in product teams
7:00 – Infantilisation and territorialism
9:18 – The flaws in the terminology
10:14 – The consulted conundrum
11:05 – RACI as a conversation starter
12:01 – Better alternatives: Rapid and others
14:20 – When RACI might be useful
18:01 – Team dysfunction and RACI misuse
23:00 – A case study in resolving collaboration issues
26:00 – RACI as scaffolding, not infrastructure
28:02 – AI, documents, and relationships
30:05 – Diagnosing the real problem behind a RACI request
32:38 – Job descriptions vs. RACI
35:25 – Everyone’s a bit of everything
37:04 – Focusing on mission and collaboration
39:57 – Final thoughts and where to find Jenny’s work

Key Takeaways
— RACI isn't a cure-all: It often signals deeper dysfunction like poor team structure, unclear mission, or lack of trust.
— Healthy teams don't need RACI: When collaboration and communication are strong, formal frameworks become redundant.
— Use RACI as scaffolding: Let it initiate conversations, but don’t enshrine it as a permanent solution.
— Language matters: Terms like “accountable” and “responsible” are often confused, making the framework less clear than intended.
— Consider better alternatives: Frameworks like RAPID offer more clarity around decision-making without creating silos.
— Prioritise relationships over roles: Documents don't build culture—conversations and mutual understanding do.

Featured Links: Follow Jenny on LinkedIn | Jenny's RACI feature at her website | Dave Johnson's page at The Pragmatic Agilist

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.