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“.

The showcase meeting is a moment when the product development team presents the product updates and achievements to the entire company. At Conta Azul, the company had all-hands ceremonies every week, each week with a different theme. One of the weeks was dedicated to the product team. At Gympass, the all- hands meetings were monthly, so we opted to create the Product Development Update ceremony to show our progress to everyone in the company. At Lopes, there was no practice of these periodic company-wide meetings, so we created the Lopes Labs Update.

The structure of this meeting is quite simple:

• Introduction: A quick introduction, lasting no more than 5 minutes, where we presented the purpose, vision, team structure, and objectives. Although it may seem repetitive to cover the same topics every month, this reinforcement helps ensure alignment. It was also an opportunity to introduce new members of the technology team’s leadership, as well as any structural changes for the entire company.
• Digital Drops: As mentioned earlier, we dedicated 5 to 10 minutes to present digital concepts to the rest of the company. It is a way to increase the knowledge of people throughout the company about the development of digital products. I remember that one of the times when we had greater engagement was when we explained A/B testing and showed some tests we conducted in practice. We asked for people’s opinions on which version they thought would win and presented the results we obtained.
• Incidents: Another 5 minutes on any incidents that occurred and had a significant impact on the company. At Lopes, we used this moment also as an educational opportunity, bring- ing in incidents from other well-known companies (Amazon, Netflix, Nubank, Google, Itaú, etc.) and commenting that technology incidents happen to any company. The important thing is how to deal with them. It is essential to conduct a post-mortem, which is the act of examining what happened, understanding why it happened, and defining how to prevent it from happening again.
• News: This is the main moment, where digital teams present the news and results achieved. Ideally, practical demonstra- tions of the novelties should be done, and anyone from the team can make this presentation. It is essential to note that the idea is not only to demonstrate a new feature but, primarily, to explain what results this novelty helped achieve.
• Questions: In the end, we opened up for questions and com- ments that could be made on any topic related to Lopes Labs, even if it had not been addressed throughout the meeting.

These showcase meetings should last for 1 hour, a maximum of 1.5 hours, and should be monthly, on a day and time that allows for the highest possible attendance. They should not be mandatory meetings, but the entire company should have a keen interest in participating in these meetings.

Next week, the seventh and final hack: productizing exceptions.

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 – Hack 6: Showcase

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