PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Turnberry Solutions, Consulting Director 2021 - Present
- Leadership role for Business Transformation and Agility practice; $80MM annual revenue
- Grew a new Product Management and UX Design training practice from an experiment to over $1MM annual revenue impact in 3 years.
- Trained/coached over 600 professionals with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.
- Consistently developed IP-based training offerings with 200%+ profit.
- Product expertise: Product Management Frameworks, Product Operations, AI for Product Teams, Product Discovery, Product Strategy, Psychological Safety.
- Collaborated / co-facilitated with Jeff Patton, John Cutler, JJ Rorie, and many others.
- Trained and coached 100+ companies, including; Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Mayo Clinic, Icelandair, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, and 3M.
Chariot Solutions, Head of Product & UX Design 2017 - 2021
- 0→1 entrepreneurial leader of a Product & UX Design service offering.
- Developed a framework for building/evolving high-performing product teams.
AT&T / DirecTV, Product Lead 2015-2017
- Team lead for home automation/security product: mobile, tablet, web, and TV.
- Implemented a comprehensive continuous product discovery program.
Comcast, Product Innovation 2014
- Product lead; significantly improved the experience for all 27MM customers.
- Developed a product innovation pipeline.
Davis Vision, Product Lead 2013
- Led a cross-functional team of POs, designers, researchers, and front-end developers.
- Delivered research plans, cognitive load analysis, heuristic evaluations, wireframes, storyboards, competitive analysis, personas, insights presentations, and more.
allwebcafe, Director of Product & User Experience 2004 - 2013
- Employee #2 at this startup product and interactive agency. Contributions included product strategy, UX research/design, visual design, and web development.
- Transitioned to leadership and helped the company navigate 10x growth.
Who I am:
- I excel at leading teams that balance strategic thinking with skillful execution.
- I've developed a knack for shifting between creative and critical thinking.
- I'm comfortable with ambiguity; that's where the magic happens.
- I'm quite good at bringing people along for the ride; I'm a storyteller at heart.
- I'm proud of my winding career path; it has rounded me well.
What I believe:
- There's massive power in Collaborative Visualization, AKA working on the walls.
- Maintaining a good culture takes deliberate and consistent effort.
- "Values drive behaviors, behaviors drive change." –a mentor
- Creativity requires playfulness and patience; we need space to do our best work.
- Everyone should: be a mentor, learn to facilitate, and continuously hone their EQ.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & GIVING BACK
Speaker
20+ conferences, Meetups, User Groups, Communities of Practice
Startup Advisor
MapDecisions, Baleena, The Innovator Space
Volunteer
Design Thinking in underserved schools, Tinkering Labs Design Council
Non-profit Board Member
The Dare Two Foundation
Continuous Learner
Personal Board of Directors, Online Learning, etc.
Organizer
ProductTank Philadelphia, Philly Emerging Tech Conference
Whether it's in the boardroom, at a local meetup, or on stage in front of hundreds of people, I enjoy speaking on product and design related topics as well as facilitating workshops that allow people to learn by doing. I have been fortunate in my career and I'm excited by opportunities to give back to the community. I especially love helping people tap into their imagination and build the creative confidence that is necessary for crafting inspired products.
Portfolio | Sample Work
Product Strategy
Leadership & Team Building
Research & Discovery
Product Design: UX, IA, UI
Speaking, Workshops, & Community Contributions
That Voodoo That I Do
(aka highlights & snapshots)
OUTCOME DRIVEN
HOW CAN WE ENSURE OUR PRODUCTS ARE FEASIBLE, DESIRABLE, AND VIABLE?
Balancing the goals of the business with the needs of the user and working within the constraints of existing technology is always a challenge. Add to that the fact that this home automation product began as a startup, was acquired by a large digital entertainment company and was then gobbled-up by a Fortune 50 telecom company. Talk about growing pains! My team and I were not only able to navigate these massive transitions, but continued to improve and innovate the accompanying suite of mobile, web, and set-top box applications.
CRAFTING CUSTOM TOOLS
HOW CAN WE HELP OUR TEAMS IMPROVE COLLABORATION?
Drawing inspiration from some of the big-brains in Product, like Roger Martin, Gibson Biddle and Archie Miller, I’ve developed custom frameworks for modern product teams. A flexible Product Operating Model, a comprehensive Strategy Canvas, a lightweight Discovery Planning Framework, and a “Jobs To Be Done” Product Theme Template, just to name a few. I love developing these types of tools to help product teams from strategy through execution. I also love to share my belief that the tools are the means, not the end. Collaboration, alignment, and making progress is what truly matters.
PROTO-HYPE-ING
HOW CAN WE MAXIMIZE SPEED TO VALUE?
Our client approached us with an idea for a new app that had an intriguing core concept but an overly-complex set of requested features. We needed to quickly validate the underlying value-proposition hypothesis and, at the same time, prioritize the large set of potential features and functionality to focus on those that were absolutely necessary to win over the early-adopter segment of their target market. The resulting clickable prototype we delivered turned out so well that the client was able to use it to secure investment.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
HOW CAN WE SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCE OUR CUSTOMERS' EXPERIENCE?
One of the largest Addiction and Mental Health Treatment providers in the country was looking for innovative ways to provide direct support to the family members of their patients. The goal at the outset was to take a deep, collaborative dive into their business and identify areas of their customer’s journey where we could have the most impact. We then turned those insights into ideas and ultimately into a strategy and action plan for making change happen. This was one of those products that just makes you feel good to have participated in.
VALUES FIRST
HOW CAN WE CONSISTENTLY BUILD HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS?
I’ve seen the amazing things people can do when they are bought-in to an inspirational vision and given the room to experiment so I’m a big believer in the concept of servant leadership. I’ve had great success building diverse teams, nurturing a culture of innovation, and championing for the disciplines of product and design in businesses of all sizes. Great leadership is about modeling the behaviors you want to cultivate, continuously finding ways to inspire the team, and fostering an environment where everyone can thrive.
NETWORK OF EXPERTS
HOW CAN WE PARTNER WITH PROS TO MULTIPLY OUR IMPACT?
I’ve had the privilege of co-designing and delivering Product Discovery workshops alongside the one-and-only Jeff Patton, author of "User Story Mapping.” I also teamed up with talented industry pros like John Cutler, JJ Rorie, and Jenny Wanger as part of a series we called Friday Artists. These experts brought real-world experience and unique learning opportunities, helping our workshop attendees grow their skills in special, small-group jam sessions. Working with people of this caliber is equal parts exciting and humbling.
PRODUCT ACADEMY
HOW CAN WE DENT THE UNIVERSE BY HELPING OTHERS GROW?
I successfully grew a new Product Management & UX Design training practice, transforming it from an experiment into a significant revenue generator with an annual impact exceeding $1MM within three years. Our programs helped teams build customer-focused, outcome-driven products. I’m proud to have served over 600 individuals, representing more than 75 companies. I was responsible for the P&L for the entire education practice, attaining financial success while maintaining an incredible 4.9 out of 5 stars in our post-training surveys.
USER-CENTRIC DESIGN
HOW CAN WE SIMPLIFY TEACHERS' LIVES…AND WIN?
When I’m not cooking up good stuff at work I like to kick-back, relax and spend 54 hours straight in a room full of over-caffeinated techies and creatives hammering on interesting challenges. I participated in a Startup Weekend Hackathon with a fantastic team working on a meaningful product. We developed an iPad app that allows teachers to more easily collaborate with their students. My contributions ranged from audience interviews and persona exercises to UI collaboration and the investor pitch presentation. I made some good friends and learned a lot about myself. Oh, and did I mention we won first place!
GETTING SaaS'Y
HOW CAN WE UNIFY THE EXPERIENCE OF NEWLY ACQUIRED SOFTWARE?
McKesson Health had acquired a competitor’s product suite and faced the challenge of converting a legacy desktop software application with significant usability concerns into a modern, intuitive SaaS product. Despite a compressed timeline, my team and I were able to drastically over-deliver on those original objectives. Employing a lean UX approach, we not only simplified the architecture to support the end-user’s workflow, we also designed a game-changing solution for searching and filtering within the product which led to significantly increased daily usage.
CREATIVE DIRECTION
HOW CAN WE TELL A COMPLEX STORY IN A SIMPLE WAY?
I served as creative director on a comprehensive product launch for our client GeoBlue, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. We designed and developed a new website, created multiple magazine ads, direct mailers, online banners and much more. The challenge was taking a complex story with segmented messaging and making it easily digestible and compelling.
Pete Fleming, Product & Design Leader