Victoria Sheer
Product Strategy and Operations Lead
How to grow Product Leaders with OKRs: Aldi Süd case study
Victoria Sheer is an experienced Product Leader with the passion for maximizing value delivery and 360° view on product development. She worked as a Product Manager in diverse industries. She cofounded OKR Consortium, is an Agile Trainer, Product Coach, Transformation Manager, IT Consultant, Product Community Builder.
TOPIC: How to grow product leaders with OKRs
ABSTRACT:
Transforming into product organization and changing the role of Product Leaders in a large multinational corporation with rigid processes and hierarchy is an entirely different challenge compared to a mid-sized product company. But OKRs integrated into product operations can bring value to both, if applied right.
As a Product Strategy Operations Lead at Aldi Süd, I found the following three topics to be the key to enable Product Leaders to grow and generate value for the organization.
Product Strategy – What is the step-by-step process to craft a meaningful product goals and align them with the company strategy
Key Performance Indicators / Key Results – How to use KPIs and OKRs correctly and why both are important
Product Execution – How to align product roadmap and product strategy to enable the product team to deliver value
In this session, I will share a case study of Product Transformation at Aldi Süd e-commerce where I changed the processes, implemented OKRs and coached Product Leaders to live their new role
Learning Outcomes:
Understand how OKRs bring strategy and execution together
Learn the steps to create a product strategy and use it for prioritization
Understand the difference between outputs and outcomes and why using the latter helps create an impact
Get guidance on product roadmap creation
Prerequisite Knowledge:
Experience working as a Product Manager
Information for Program Team:
Case Study
This is a case study presentation. Planned for 25 mins plus Q&A
- Product manager role and its current challenges: 3 min
I discuss the main Product Manager tasks and the challenges they encounter. This part creates context for OKR implementation motivation
- Strategizing: Tools and context for creating product strategy: 10 min
I introduce product strategy processes and tools like KPI tree and customer funnel that could be used to identify bottlenecks.
I also share templates for those tools incl. opportunity template.
All tools I will present based on Aldi Süd e-commerce example
Measure: 7 min
In this part I explain how to apply OKR check-ins and how to connect them with KPI tracking.
Execute: 5 min presentation
Here I explain how OKR cycle could function and the connection to the product development cycle and roadmap
Questions & Closing: 10 min
Workshop
Workshop based on the case study could consist of participants in groups creating OKRs for their case studies using the approach and templates I provide. The workshop can scale to a large number of people but up to 5 people in one group.
- Workshop intro: 10 min
I collect from the group for 3 buckets: Strategize, Measure, Execute the main Product Manager tasks and challenges they encounter. This part creates context for OKR implementation motivation. Here I also explain the challenges we encountered at Aldi Süd and why we decided to try out OKRs.
- Strategizing: Tools and context for creating product strategy: 30 min
I introduce product strategy processes and tools like KPI tree and customer funnel that could be used to identify bottlenecks.
I share predefined case studies incl. Company description, vision and mission with teams
Here teams would write high level focus topics for the next year for the company from the case study
Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Plan: 20 min
In this part I explain how to write OKRs, the difference between outputs and outcomes, and provide examples of good OKRs
Here teams write OKRs for their context based on the topics they identified in the previous exercise
Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Execute: 20 min
Here I explain how roadmaps can be created for OKRs and how they can be scored.
Teams create roadmaps connecting OKRs with opportunities using the template provided ● Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Questions & Closing: 10 min
I do recap of what we did in the workshop and how it is connected to learning outcomes.
I answer open questions
I collect lightweight feedback on post-it notes
How to grow Product Leaders with OKRs: Aldi Süd case study
Victoria Sheer is an experienced Product Leader with the passion for maximizing value delivery and 360° view on product development. She worked as a Product Manager in diverse industries. She cofounded OKR Consortium, is an Agile Trainer, Product Coach, Transformation Manager, IT Consultant, Product Community Builder.
TOPIC: How to grow product leaders with OKRs
ABSTRACT:
Transforming into product organization and changing the role of Product Leaders in a large multinational corporation with rigid processes and hierarchy is an entirely different challenge compared to a mid-sized product company. But OKRs integrated into product operations can bring value to both, if applied right.
As a Product Strategy Operations Lead at Aldi Süd, I found the following three topics to be the key to enable Product Leaders to grow and generate value for the organization.
Product Strategy – What is the step-by-step process to craft a meaningful product goals and align them with the company strategy
Key Performance Indicators / Key Results – How to use KPIs and OKRs correctly and why both are important
Product Execution – How to align product roadmap and product strategy to enable the product team to deliver value
In this session, I will share a case study of Product Transformation at Aldi Süd e-commerce where I changed the processes, implemented OKRs and coached Product Leaders to live their new role
Learning Outcomes:
Understand how OKRs bring strategy and execution together
Learn the steps to create a product strategy and use it for prioritization
Understand the difference between outputs and outcomes and why using the latter helps create an impact
Get guidance on product roadmap creation
Prerequisite Knowledge:
Experience working as a Product Manager
Information for Program Team:
Case Study
This is a case study presentation. Planned for 25 mins plus Q&A
- Product manager role and its current challenges: 3 min
I discuss the main Product Manager tasks and the challenges they encounter. This part creates context for OKR implementation motivation
- Strategizing: Tools and context for creating product strategy: 10 min
I introduce product strategy processes and tools like KPI tree and customer funnel that could be used to identify bottlenecks.
I also share templates for those tools incl. opportunity template.
All tools I will present based on Aldi Süd e-commerce example
Measure: 7 min
In this part I explain how to apply OKR check-ins and how to connect them with KPI tracking.
Execute: 5 min presentation
Here I explain how OKR cycle could function and the connection to the product development cycle and roadmap
Questions & Closing: 10 min
Workshop
Workshop based on the case study could consist of participants in groups creating OKRs for their case studies using the approach and templates I provide. The workshop can scale to a large number of people but up to 5 people in one group.
- Workshop intro: 10 min
I collect from the group for 3 buckets: Strategize, Measure, Execute the main Product Manager tasks and challenges they encounter. This part creates context for OKR implementation motivation. Here I also explain the challenges we encountered at Aldi Süd and why we decided to try out OKRs.
- Strategizing: Tools and context for creating product strategy: 30 min
I introduce product strategy processes and tools like KPI tree and customer funnel that could be used to identify bottlenecks.
I share predefined case studies incl. Company description, vision and mission with teams
Here teams would write high level focus topics for the next year for the company from the case study
Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Plan: 20 min
In this part I explain how to write OKRs, the difference between outputs and outcomes, and provide examples of good OKRs
Here teams write OKRs for their context based on the topics they identified in the previous exercise
Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Execute: 20 min
Here I explain how roadmaps can be created for OKRs and how they can be scored.
Teams create roadmaps connecting OKRs with opportunities using the template provided ● Feedback: 5 min for conclusion, section wrap up
Questions & Closing: 10 min
I do recap of what we did in the workshop and how it is connected to learning outcomes.
I answer open questions
I collect lightweight feedback on post-it notes
