047: Behind the scenes of Workday’s product strategy with Connie DeWitt

Enterprise Product Leadership

Today we get an amazing insider's look at how Workday, one of the most successful enterprise software companies in the world, approach product strategy! To help us in this quest, I am joined by Connie DeWitt, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy Workday. We have an illuminating conversation in which our guest shares a whole lot of wisdom and expertise about how she and her team have been so successful. Workday started as an enterprise HR solution and has grown at an incredible rate into a multi-billion dollar organization, expanding its product portfolio to Finance, HR, and planning solutions.

As most B2B leaders will know, this sort of scaling is extremely difficult to pull off, and their array of global products stands testament to the consistent and sustainable success they have achieved. Our guest gives us the low down on her approach to portfolio decisions, how the product teams are organized at Workday, and the unique way in which she and the company tackle the task of linking product management and product strategy. Join us today for an insightful conversation no Product Leader should miss!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Connie's current role at Workday, how she joined the company, and the services they provide.
• How Connie approached portfolio-wide decisions, what to invest in, and finding the best intersection of opportunity.
• The model that Workday uses to nurture products at different stages of their life cycles.
• The art and analytics of the decisions around which products need more investment.
• Connie's reflections on working at various sized companies and how the experiences compare.
• Measuring the ROI and the efficacy of product strategies; Workday's use of the RDI metric.
• How the product teams are organized at Workday and the product pillar structure of the company.
• The marriage of product strategy and product management; what sets Workday apart in its approach.
• Analytics and measurement and how Workday work to constantly improve and increase ROI.
• How to think about evaluating a team's ability to execute a strategy.
• The innovation cycle at Workday; Connie and her team's creation of a process for this.
• Connie's advice to product leaders and how to answer the two most important questions about product strategy!

Links From Today’s Episode:

Connie DeWitt on LinkedIn

Workday

BCG's growth-share framework

IoT Product Strategy Template

Daniel Elizalde Newsletter

Daniel Elizalde