This article is an excerpt from the book “Digital Transformation and Product Culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy“.

It is quite common to have a separation between business and the digital team. This separation often creates a disconnect between these areas. While the digital team focuses on developing dig- ital products, the business team is concerned with making more business happen. It is necessary to connect the two to effectively generate results that impact the company’s strategic objectives while addressing customer problems and needs.

During the period when I led the digital transformation at Lopes, the largest real estate company in Brazil, between 2020 and 2022, it became clear to me that we needed to bridge the gap between business and technology for the company to make the most of its investment in technology.

To bridge this gap, I introduced the concept of digital drops and business drops — brief sessions where business and digital teams exchange knowledge on key topics. Every month we had two important moments in the company:

• Business Drops at Lopes Labs All-Hands: Lopes Labs is the name of the technology and innovation team I led at Lopes. During our all-hands meetings, our team gathered for about 2 hours to celebrate our results, share learnings, and welcome new members. We always set aside about 20 minutes for business people to talk about their areas and raise awareness among the Lopes Labs team. Some examples of the topics we covered are: the broker’s journey; what is consortium?; CrediPronto; LGPD and compliance; Primary market; Secondary market; franchises and Lopes network; What it means to be a publicly traded company (IR); Lopes’ organizational structure; Commissions; Institutional; history and business units; updates on the real estate market.
• Digital Drops at Lopes Labs Update: Every month, we gathered the entire company for an hour to showcase the recent results and achievements of Lopes Labs. Between 5 to 10 minutes of this meeting were dedicated to sharing a topic about the development and management of digital products. Some examples of the topics we covered are: how we prioritize; the difference between project and product; A/B testing; why we conduct so many experiments; what OKRs are and why we use them, among other subjects.

I used to call this technique cross-pollination. While the business team brought its knowledge and experience to the digital team, the people from Labs brought their knowledge and experience to the business people in the company.

Digital transformation and product culture

This article is another excerpt from my newest book “Digital transformation and product culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy“, which I will also make available here on the blog. So far, I have already published here:

• About the book
• Part 1: Concepts
  • Chapter 1: The so-called digital transformation – Project and Product
  • Chapter 2: Uncertainty and digital transformation
  • Chapter 3: Types of company
  • Chapter 4: Type of company vs digital maturity
  • Chapter 5: Business models
  • Chapter 6: Agile, digital and product culture
• Part 2: Principles
  • Chapter 7: Deliver early and often – Measuring and managing the productivity – Case study: Dasa Group – Case study: Itaú Unibanco
  • Chapter 8: Focus on the problem – The Famous Product Discovery – Why the “business demands => IT implements” model does not work – Case study: Magazine Luiza
  • Chapter 9: Result delivery – Outsource or internal team? – Case study: Centauro
  • Chapter 10: Ecosystem mindset
• Part 3: Tools
  • Chapter 11: Product Vision – Product vision examples
  • Chapter 12: Product Strategy
  • Chapter 13: Team Structure – Structuring effective product development teams – Structural teams – Team structure spreadsheet – Downsizing and layoffs – CTO + CPO – Internationalization – Outsourced team – Tuckman model – Dependencies between teams – Should we have a dedicated innovation team? – Should we have a team dedicated to fixing bugs? – Business Units – Why Individual Bonuses Don’t Work in Product Teams – What makes a group of people behave like a team?
  • Chapter 14: What are OKRs and How to Get the Cadence Right – Perverse Metrics, Leading Metrics, and Lagging Metrics – From Vision to OKRs: Team, Initiatives, and the Metrics That Actually Matter – OKRs, Financial Bonuses, and How to Scale to Large Teams
  • Chapter 15: Measuring Digital and Product Maturity
  • Chapter 16: Hacks to help in the digital transformation journey – Hack #1: Start small – Hack 2: Alpha, beta, and go-live terminology – Hack 3: What is the problem? – Hack 4: Examples – Hack 5: Digital and business drops

Scale your customer research

In a world where AI levels the playing field, deep customer knowledge is the one asset your competitors can’t copy. ReveLumi was built exactly for that. Learn more at revelumi.com.

Workshops, coaching, and advisory services

I’ve been helping companies and their leaders (CPOs, heads of product, CTOs, CEOs, tech founders, and heads of digital transformation) bridge the gap between business and technology through workshops, coaching, and advisory services on product management and digital transformation.

Gyaco Podcasts

At Gyaco, we believe in the power of conversations to spark reflection and learning. That’s why we’ve created “Produto em Pauta” podcast, with new episodes every Thursday.

The main series is called Mentorias: coaching conversations with product professionals, built on the idea that one person’s questions are often the questions of many others. We explore concrete challenges and turn experience into practical insights you can apply in your own context.

Available on YouTube and Spotify. Recorded in Portuguese, with English subtitles on YouTube.

Digital Product Management Books

Do you work with digital products? Do you want to know more about managing a digital product to increase its chances of success, solve its user’s problems, and achieve the company objectives? Check out my Digital Product Management books, where I share what I learned during my 30+ years of experience in creating and managing digital products:

• Digital transformation and product culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy
• Leading Product Development: The art and science of managing product teams
• Product Management: How to increase the chances of success of your digital product
• Startup Guide: How startups and established companies can create profitable digital products