A big part of product management success is bringing various cultures together from people, process, and innovation. Vivek Bedi from LearnVest hosted the product and technology digital teams from Northwestern Mutual and LearnVest as they discussed over the past two years how they have brought two cultures together to come up with a bold, brave, yet balanced "third" culture. The new culture is one of taking risks, being ok with failing, and focused on innovation while keeping focus on being at the center of clients' financial lives.

1. How to Disrupt Digital Product Cultures by
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7. Vivek Bedi
Tonight’s Speaker

8. Disrupting Digital Product Cultures

9. - Patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing —
determines “how we do things around here.”
- Gives a company its personality and shapes both its
internal processes and the way it is seen by the outside
world.

10. - Sensitive Nudging of New Behaviors
- Precise Targeting of New Thinking
- Takes Time!
- Can’t convince people to change!
Secret: Small changes make the biggest
differences!

11. Change is:
- Incremental
- Creative
- Following
- Trusted
- Spread the word!

12. The Six Levers.
Leadership Clear Roles
Reward
People
Change
Behaviors
Role
Models
Formal Informal
Networks

13. Our Results
“Effects of our Change”1

14. 2 years ago
NM had a limited digital presence

15. Information Overload1
Cluttered Design
Difficult to Understand
2
3

16. Cluttered Design2
Difficult to Understand3
Information Overload1

17. Difficult to Understand3
Information Overload1
Cluttered Design2

18. Critically important experiences
were missing

19. Mobile Presence1
Pre-Client Experience
Sharing Tools
2
3
Lacked:
Self-Service Tools4

20. Pre-Client Experience2
Sharing Tools3
Lacked:
Self-Service Tools4
Mobile Presence1

21. Sharing Tools3
Lacked:
Self-Service Tools4
Mobile Presence1
Pre-Client Experience2

22. Self-Service Tools4
Lacked:
Mobile Presence1
Pre-Client Experience2
Sharing Tools3

23. Today’s digital experience has
dramatically evolved

24. Today’s digital
experience is
clean, mobile friendly
and engaging to
clients
1M Registrations
Clients registered for digital experience
From 185k to
Digital

25. External account
aggregation focused on
providing clients and
advisors a holistic
financial picture
$48B
From .7% to
Account Aggregation

26. Newly launched
insurance pages
provides a complete
summary by insured,
with policy details and
product information.
92%+
Adoption from Digital Life Insurance
Clients
Insurance

27. 51%
Adoption from Digital Investment Clients
From 6% to
Dedicated Investments
Landing Experience
Integrates a client’s holdings, asset
allocation and product views along
with market commentary for a
complete investment picture.
Investments

28. NM.com has been
redesigned to be
consumer-friendly and
help consumers take
their first-step.
NM.com
63%
Visit more than one page
From 26% to
Increase in mobile
traffic
163%

29. Launch of the
Android mobile app
expanded our mobile
footprint and user
base.
Mobile
Bill Payment Options2
Coming soon to Mobile:
Secure Share & eSign1

30. New Login and
Registration Experience
Digital
Registrations
1M 300k
Reduction of Call
Volume
(1st month)
10%
Reduces call-center impact3
4
1
Increases security2
Easier-to-use for clients1
Text Clients
Login & Registration

31. Looking Back
“How we got here”2

32. Historically, we relied on
project managers for digital change

33. Project Managers focused on:
● Timing increments
● Planning sessions
● Organization of meetings
● Providing updates
● Moving the project forward
Business Tech
Project Manager

34. How does Waterfall Methodology work?
Feasibility
Meetings &
Documentation
Design
Coding
Testing
Training
Launch
Underperform 85% of the time

35. Today’s digital
experience relies on
product managers to
evolve it.
Consumer Digital
Business
Digital
Product
Management

36. What Does a Digital Product Manager Do?
Declaration of Interdependence
We the product managers shall...
Increase return on investment
by making continuous flow of value our focus.
Deliver reliable roadmaps
by engaging customers in frequent
interactions and shared ownership.
Expect uncertainty
and manage for it through iterations,
anticipation and adaptation.
Unleash creativity and innovation
by recognizing that individuals are the ultimate
source of value and creating an environment where
they can make a difference.
Boost performance
through group accountability for
results and shared responsibility for
team effectiveness.
Improve effectiveness
and reliability
through situationally specific
strategies, processes and practices.
1 2 3
4 5 6

37. Iterate using Agile
Our Process
Discover
DefineDeploy
ResearchFeedback
Design/Wireframe

38. Agile vs. Waterfall
Original Plan
(waterfall)
Agile Plan
(series of iterative small plans)
TIME
DEGREEOFBUSINESSSUCCESS
Where the opportunity
actually will be tomorrow
Today’s view of our
opportunity

39. Our Approach
“How products are built”
For internal use only. Not for use with the public
3

40. Teams are lean and
constantly iterating
on digital experiences
by breaking through
process and
simplifying problems
to get stuff done!
Change The Way We Work1
Pizza Pie Team A Pizza Pie Team B Pizza Pie Team C

41. Teams are now
comprised of skillsets
across various
disciplines reducing
time and meetings to
get stuff done!
Change The Team Structure2
Product Manager Engineering Lead
Business Partners
Engineering/Testing TeamAnalysis/Research Team
Designer

42. Change Our Approach3
Repeat
Understand the business!
Spend time learning how the business
works today.
Research
Obsess about your clients and FRs
via research (data, feedback,
interviews).
Break up the project
Break up the project into smaller sets
of features based on user needs.
1 2 3
Design a feature
4
Get feedback
Show it and get feedback
Tweak & redesign
Iterate based on feedback
Develop and test
Break up the project into smaller sets
of features based on user needs.
5 6 7
Deploy
8

43. We are creating
experiences backed by
research and learnings
from our users and
constantly reshaping to
make them amazing.
Change The Way We Release & Engage4
Create
Show
Reshape
Learn
For internal use only. Not for use with the public

44. 2015 2016 2017
89
177
1200+
Projected Feature Releases
In 2017
By working together across NY & MKE we have
accelerated the pace of innovation.
937

45. Case Study:
Account Aggregation
“A closer look at the action”
For internal use only. Not for use with the public
4

46. Two years ago, we had a
dramatically different
experience

47. We began a journey to iteratively
improve the Account
Aggregation experience and
here’s where we are today

48. ● .7% of existing clients had aggregated
their accounts
● 10.28% of traffic happens on mobile.
● Existing experience is not responsive
We learned from user behavior on the website
Discover

49. FR quotes from outreach
...show the accounts in
the middle of the screen,
rather than the
transactions.”
FR at Eastern Region 2017
“
Discover

50. We consolidated
feedback to define the
future state of the
product
● Easily find and link external accounts
● Display holistic info at account and
transaction levels
● Dive into transaction data for an individual
accounts
● Provide breakdown, analysis, insights on
spending
Define

51. Take future vision and
begin designing
Design & Test
Start with rough sketches1
Gain Feedback!2
Build out high level “wires”3
Gain Feedback!4
Transition to detailed visual design5
Gain Feedback!6

52. Early sketches build up iteratively
to a finished product

53. Apply this method to
every team and we can
delivery so much more
● Insurance and Investments
● Budgeting
● Tools and Calculators
● Mobile App
● Lead Distribution
● Online Plan Tracking
● Fact Collection
And More...
Iterate

54. NM.com
Prospect Experience
Mobile App

55. We’ve come really far
48B
From .7% to
External Assets Agg.
1M
From 185k to
Digital Registrations
64k
From 0
to
Mobile Downloads
$128M
From 0
to
Digital Loan
Repayment

56. And we’re just getting started.

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