John Cutler Head of Product, Dotwork
Your team appreciates process when it helps them reach their outcomes.
Things aren’t easy out there for product leaders and product managers. Leaders are expected to dive into the details, vibe-lead AI strategy, and be more efficient and do more with less. Systems thinking has taken a back seat to heroics. In this chaotic climate, the way we shape how we work is more critical and more overlooked than ever.
That’s where game design comes in.
What makes a great game? It has the right amount of challenge. It’s social. It allows freedom but with affordances to stay on track. You have the information you need. You understand the rules, even when they are adaptive and shifting. Just like a great work environment, you can feel it, even when you can’t put it into words.
In this talk, we’ll explore how organizations shape how they work through the lens of game design. As product leaders, you are already shaping the game, whether you realize it or not, through incentives, frameworks, shared language, and models. Product leaders act as “chief product game designers” (CPGDs), aligning finance, marketing, sales, and customer success around more sustainable, product-led ways of working.
That kind of design can feel top-down or controlling, but it doesn't have to be. My goal is to help you embrace this role with a new sense of intentionality and possibility.
Because if you don’t design the game, someone else will, and there’s a good chance the game won’t be product-friendly.
In product we give so much attention to customer experience their processes and their strategt, but we barely turn that perspective internally.
When applied externally
When applied internally
Same mindset. Same muscles. Different context. Completely different reception.
A common quote from PMs about process:
Our processes don’t make sense and get in the way. So I do the bare minimum, and then go back to doing my job. My managers don’t seem to mind. I’m rewarded for going rogue.
A common PM perspective on “Process” is something you do only when things go bad, so Process = bad.