PT Toronto #26: Mitchell Gillespie (Director of Product Management at Wave HQ) shares his talk “Qualitative Intelligence: The art of qualitative data turned powerful insight." Intelligence is defined as "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge." When it comes to leveraging qualitative insight the difficult and consistent fallacy of any person acting as the Voice of the Customer is a struggle to successfully "acquire" and "apply" without hours of tedious, painful, and isolated effort. Every audience member will leave the talk understanding how to assess/score their organization's ability to acquire and apply qualitative insight by reflecting on 4 critical dimensions (with recommended approaches): 1. People & Teams Is your cross-functional organization participating in building qualitative insight? 2. Strategic Frameworks Is your cross-functional organization using appropriate strategic frames of thinking to parse and isolate qualitative insight? 3. Automation & Facilitation Is your cross-functional organization facilitating people's ability to easily capture, analyze, and share insight? 4. Tooling Is your cross-functional organization using the appropriate tools to empower everyone in the company? (e.g. NomNom Insights) Throughout this discussion Mitch will highlight his ideological belief in the power of qualitative insight, some hypotheses being experimented at Wave, and some examples of success he's experienced. Also, if you haven't caught on already, you'll also leave with the appreciation of how building qualitative intelligence is a team sport. Product departments alone (incl. product design) could never achieve optimal results without the participation of many other cross-functional peers. Mitch is inspired by engaging with people who are passionate about making an impact in any shape or form. He believes internal optimism, grit, and resilience is critical to succeed in today's digital product industry. Currently, as the Director of Product Management at Wave, Mitch is responsible for supporting & sharpening the organization’s ability to deeply empathize and collectively solve the needs of the brave small business owner. As the number of competitive entrants grows Wave (and the product group specifically) is acutely focused on optimizing the strengths and motivations of every employee as a competitive advantage. Mitch has taught numerous 10-week cohorts at BrainStation in product management because he thoroughly enjoys every light bulb moment observed. When Mitch is not raving about Wave, customer’s pains, or the role of product managers you will likely find him lost in the backcountry of Algonquin Park or some beautiful mountain range.

2. Qualitative Intelligence
The art of qualitative data into powerful insight
Mitchell Gillespie | Director of Product Management

3. About Me
4 years @
Wave HQ
2 years @
Street Contxt
2 years @
BrainStation
Present @
Wave HQ
Product Manager
Head of Product
Lead Educator
Product Management
Director of Product
Management
WaveHQ is hiring!
Contact me on LinkedIn

6. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants

7. Core beliefs
as PM

8. Courtesy of: David Lapin (www.lapininternational.com)

9. Courtesy of: David Lapin (www.lapininternational.com)

10. Courtesy of: David Lapin (www.lapininternational.com)
Structural
Lens
Ideological
Lens
Relational
Lens

11. Daniel Pink (www.danpink.com)
3 factors lead to better personal
performance & personal satisfaction
Purpose
Mastery
Autonomy

13. Why talk about
Qualitative
Intelligence?

14. Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic
approach to its subject matter. It is an attempt to make sense of, or interpret,
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Denzin and Lincoln (1994, p. 14)
Denzin, N., & Lincoln. Y.(1994). Handbook of Qualitative Research.Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications Inc.

15. Intelligence
“the ability to acquire and apply knowledge”

16. Ability to acquire
“a measure of quality and efficiency”

17. Ability to apply
“a measure of how the acquired data is analyzed and impacts decisions/culture”

18. It’s rarely the only data source used, but
it one of the best tools to invoke influence as a PM

19. Why I’m not
talking about today

20. Most successful research methods
Empathy-driven interviews
Best problem discovery scripts
Recommended surveying tools
Survey design process

21. The challenge

22. Challenge #1: Wave has lots of qualitative data;
isn’t always the data worth interpreting

23. Chat & support ticketsCustomer Interviews Community Forum
In-app chat In-app surveys & NPS Long-form surveys
Challenge #1: Wave has lots of qualitative data;
isn’t always the data worth interpreting

24. Challenge #1: Wave has lots of qualitative data;
isn’t always the data worth interpreting

25. Challenge #2: Wave is delivering at high
velocity, research is a luxury

26. Challenge #2: Wave is delivering at high
velocity, research is a luxury

27. Challenge #3: Wave strives for continuous discovery;
our time is limited, and it’ll never be top priority

29. Qualitative
Intelligence
“the ability to acquire and apply knowledge”

31. Invest into and utilize agents of change
This is the art of turning qualitative data turned powerful insight

32. People & Teams
Strategic Frames of Thinking
Tooling
Facilitation
Automation

33. Agent of Change
Leverage your cross-functional peers to
streamline & analyze your data
How?
Focus on their desired
outcome, not yours!
People &
Teams

34. Sales &
Acct Mgmt
SuccessMarketing
Support

35. Agent of Change
Inject the necessary strategic lens to focus
on the right qualitative data
How?
Be a product manager!
Strategic
Frames

36. Ideal and Non-Ideal Customer Profile

37. Customer Demand & Generation
http://www.whencoffeeandkalecompete.com/

38. Empathy Map
https://www.copyblogger.com/empathy-maps/

39. Teresa Torres, ProductTalk.org
Solution Space

40. https://www.slideshare.net/Leananalytics
Business Outcomes

41. https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/36299.pdf
Business Outcomes

42. Agent of Change
Implement the appropriate tools to increase high
quality analysis in an efficient way
How?
Focus on cross-functional ROI
Tooling

43. Qualitative Data Centralization
Promo Code: PRODUCTINSIGHTS
40% discount for 6 months on any plan.
EnjoyHQ
(formally NomNom Insights)

44. Automation Tools
Zapier

45. Booking / Calendar Management
Calendly

46. CRM
HubSpot

47. Agent of Change
Facilitate the necessary cross-functional sessions
to incentivize participation in qualitative analysis
How?
Be a product manager!
Facilitation

49. Agent of Change
Discover and remove every tedious manual effort
holding people back from achieving their desired
outcome
How?
Sketch a customer journey map!
Automation

50. PM sends email to
target customers
Customer clicks link
Customer fills in survey
Customer signs up for
interview slot
PM picks customers to
follow-up with via email
& Calendly link
PM & Customer meet
PM sends email to
target customers
Customer clicks link
Customer fills in survey
Customer auto-signs
up for interview slot
Right
customer?
PM & Customer meet
vs.

51. Examples
executed @ Wave

52. Example 1:
“Understanding our Brave
Entrepreneur”

54. Reliance
on self
Knowledge
of my business
Leveraging
People
Assessing
change
Clarity + Focus
in the now
Claiming
opportunities

55. Example 2:
“Avoiding the Tsunami”

56. ~60-70% increase in volume

58. Contextual
Anxiety / Inertia?
Product upsell opportunity
Business outcomes
New vs. Mature Customers
Free vs. Paid

59. Example 3:
“Hey you courageous entrepreneur…
where you going?”

60. Auto-send drip email to
customers who lightly
churn without adopting
(with contest)
Customer fills in survey
via SurveyMonkey
Zapier picks up new
survey response via
webhook
Zapier pushes new
response into EnjoyHQ
Enjoy HQ utilizes rules
to automatically expose
changing themes over
time
AND
Assigns to PM
I share monthly with the
appropriate stakeholders
Select specific cases to
expose as new insight

61. Example 4:
“The Ultimate Migration”

64. Questions?
Mitchell Gillespie | Director of Product Management
@mitchgillesp mgillespie@waveapps.com