Unknown Origins

Sara Nagy on Product Development

December 09, 2021 Sara Nagy Season 1 Episode 94
Unknown Origins
Sara Nagy on Product Development
Show Notes Transcript
Leadership means removing barriers and having a bias for action to make meaningful work happen, and nurturing talented people to capitalize on their passions and strengths by unleashing the power of creativity to achieve self-actualization.

Sara Nagy has spent the last 25 years as a business leader at Microsoft and as an entrepreneur, where she built and led her own business. Sara has mastered the art and science of developing and bringing people-centered products and services to market that solve real-life problems by providing solutions that people and businesses actually need.

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Music by Iain Mutch 

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Roy Sharples:

Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you seeking inspiration? an industry expert, looking for insights, or growing your career, I created the unknown origins podcast to provide access to insights and content from creators worldwide with inspirational conversations and storytelling, about art, architecture, design, entrepreneurship, fashion, film, music, and pop culture. Leadership means removing barriers and having a bias for action to make meaningful work happen, and nurturing talented people to capitalize on their passions and strengths. by unleashing the power of creativity, to achieve self actualization, Sara Nagi, has spent the last 25 years as a business leader at Microsoft. And as an entrepreneur, where she built and led her own business. Sarah has mastered the art and science of developing and bringing people centered products and services to market that solve real life problems by providing solutions that people and businesses actually need. Hello, and welcome, Sarah! So what inspired and attracted you to product development and the fresh place?

Sara Nagy:

I've always had a passion to try new things. I'm curious by nature. And you know, over the years, even from a young age, I've loved technology and innovation. And, you know, I think at the, at the root of all of it, I like to solve problems. I'm a problem solver. In fact, I think many people that I've worked with would call me the fixer, I'm using air quotes. I've found that in product development, you really bridge you know, kind of these four, these four areas, you know, one is you're going to have to try new things to develop a product and you might have to fail and try and fail. Time and time again, to get it right. You might be taking an existing product and expanding upon that you might be branching out into something new to build what a customer's needs. So definitely you've your curiosity and trying new things are key. From a curiosity perspective, you know, you have to be okay, not having all the answers. But being able to uncover information, ask good questions, listen, learn, you know, really kind of peel back the onion and work to understand what are the most important needs in order to, to develop something, whatever that is, it could be something very simplistic, it could be very complicated, like software, which is the area that I work in, but, you know, a product is a product. You know, because I work in the software industry. You know, I'm using technology, but no matter what you're doing, you're going to be using technology in some way, shape or form. You know, for argument's sake, let's say you're designing a hard good like a chair, like an office chair, we've all had to have these office chairs at home during the pandemic, and you know, it makes a difference. You're going to use technology in a variety of ways to do that. You know, you might use software to design the chair, you might use data and analysis to understand what the features should be, how big, how large, etc. Like, technology always plays a part in every element of that. And that was something I was always curious about from a young age. And then, you know, most importantly, you need to be solving a problem for someone. I'm a people person, I really enjoy working with people with customers. Like I said, before, some people call me the fixer, I would often come into roles in my team in product roles in various different roles, where there were big customer challenges, and it was my job to figure out what how to solve that. What's the solution? And so I want to understand what does the customer need? What are their biggest challenges? What problems were they trying to solve? In order to figure out a path to success? You know, when I was a kid, I was always dreaming up new ways to make product better. So you know, you asked me like what inspired me? I'll never forget, I was seven or eight years old, and I was helping my mom clean the windows in our house with windex spray bottle and paper towel. And I told my mom, you know, windex really needs to do is come up with those, these pre moistened towelettes. Like they're already moistened, and they're in a little package, and you can wipe down the windows and make it easier. And you know, years later, of course, they came out with this and my mom and I still have to this day. It's too bad. I wasn't old enough to work at Johnson St. Johnson or Johnson and Johnson because I could have made a fortune at seven years old as far as who's inspired me. Related to that kind of like where I've gotten my inspiration. I've had a lot of mentors, managers and coaches along the journey, and some standout more than others. And I would say those that stood out, are and I won't mention names, because I don't want to make anyone feel bad for not getting mentioned. But, you know, they're the people that kind of pushed me to do things, one outside my comfort zone, and to, you know, believed in me that I had the ability to think about how to do something, you know, creative and unique, and kind of use my creative mind and juices and come up with something and take a risk on it. And you know, not be afraid to take that risk. And if I failed, you know, try and try again.

Roy Sharples:

Mentorship should never be underestimated. standing on the shoulders of giants by seeking counsel, from people you trust, respect and admire, finding positive role models who can share their skills, insights and expertise, to help nurture your ideas and to accelerate you on your creative pursuits, understanding and respecting history, and then fusing best practices into finding the future to truly innovate on new products, and not to reinvent the wheel. And secondly, your point around failure. It's about treating failure as a step forward, not a step backward or a reason to disengage, recognizing that failure is essential to mastery, embracing challenges persisting, when confronted with setbacks, to continuously learn, and keep moving forward, and the pursuit of excellence. And thirdly, being able to observe and see the solutions to problems by manifesting what is inside you, and around you, in your everyday life. And making those connections from past to present to make what is from what is not. You're originally from Midwest America, how much has the values of having a strong work ethic, modesty, integrity, and helping others shaped your outlook.

Sara Nagy:

It's interesting, because I, you know, I now live on the West Coast. And I think the West Coast is kind of this melting, melting pot for all of these different people from various different areas. And growing up in the Midwest, is very community driven. So you know, when I was a kid, it wasn't odd, to, you know, if someone was got a flat tire, you stopped and help them change their tire. If someone stopped by for dinner, you invited him in and you, you know, found a way to make sure that the meal found them. Yeah, so it was very people were very family oriented, very community driven, very help your neighbor, you know, very engaging. And so I think that helped me a lot in that I took that too, when I moved to the west coast of people probably thought I was weird. But, you know, one thing they say about people in Seattle, I got this a lot when I first moved to Seattle, because when I was a kid, we moved over to the eastern part of Washington. But when I was older, I moved to Seattle. And people would say, Hey, we should get together for coffee. Well, typical Seattleites don't really mean that. They they mean they say it, but they don't. That's just the thing. They say. Yeah. And when they would say to me, I'm like, great, when, but they like when are we getting together? And I meant it. And so I think, you know, a lot of what you bring in that community, a family oriented people oriented upbringing is, you know, you do what you say, if someone says you're gonna go for coffee get together for coffee. So I think that has helped a lot in you know, if I'm going to go design something, or if I'm going to work on a product, and I say, I'm going to go and execute on whatever it is, I'm going to do it. And if I can't do it, I'm going to explain why I can't do it. There's no, you know, no, nothing false there.

Roy Sharples:

I know that you've traveled the world, and that you have a deep affinity for appreciating and respecting differences in lifestyle and behavior, which unites us and traveling forces us to depart from the familiar and take on a world of new experiences, cultures, languages, architectures, foods and lifestyles that influence our mains bought bodies and souls by shaping us into better, more well rounded people with a more integrative worldview, which can be a catalyst for inspiring innovation and creativity because you experience different cultures and diverse societies. You took it upon yourself to head off into the sunset, as a teenager and head safe for Miami. What compelled you to do so?

Sara Nagy:

So funny story, I grew up in the Midwest, and we moved to Washington and I graduated from high school, the thing that you want to do is get the furthest away from your family as possible. And so I decided with a couple of girlfriends that I was going to move to Florida, and live in Miami for a good six to nine months, I think my family thought I was a little crazy. But I love new experiences. I love getting to know people, I love different cultures. And so I picked up move with my friends down to Miami, live there, I think about nine months, and we did all kinds of various different things and had a lot of great experiences. And I it was my plan, then that I would, you know, I wanted to move back to Washington and live in Seattle, and work somewhere in the Seattle area. But that was something that I wanted to do. And I don't regret it, I think it was a great experience. I think at you know, 17 years old, being it's my first time living away from home in a capacity like that taking care completely of myself. And I think that it's probably one of the best things that I did. Because you get a real taste of what it's like to have to, you know, man for yourself in every way shape and form. I'll segue a little bit and say that I'm often asked to speak at colleges and to young women in STEM. And I always caveat to say, I don't know, if I'm the best representative to speak because I didn't go to college myself, I actually, I think, you know, I thought about it, and I was interested in it. But I just I didn't have any role models, really, you know, that had gone to college, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I maybe it was, you know, wise wise for my age, but I didn't want to waste money on going and spending X amount of years on an education when I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it and or what what it would give me. And so I just started working, I'm very resourceful. And I, you know, there was various different types of things that I kind of had identified that I was good at. And one of those things was organization, if you will, so you know, operationalizing things, organizing things. And so just through networking, and getting to know people, I had, I worked for a couple of years before I started the business related to operational efficiency. And then I went out on my own to do the same type of role. Where I created my own business, I was 24, I think at the time, and I had all female staff. And we spent our time working in the automotive industry of all things where we helped automotive dealers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, drive more efficiency instead of their operations. And a lot of it was, you know, skills that used today, which was helping each of these departments talk to each other, in in a much more seamless way. So you have a parts department in the service department in the sales department and accounting, you have all these different departments in a, in a dealership or in many businesses, and they're all a bit you struggle because they it feels like they compete maybe a little bit. And so my job was one to come in and get them to play nice, to help them be more operationally efficient, make more money, be more effective. And then, you know, three was just at the end of the year when they were having to report out on all this information was just making sure it was accurate. So I got started on that at quite a young age and and once I'd gone through that and had my own business and got a taste for it, it was hard to think about like, Well, should I go back to school at this point. And funny enough technology played into the business itself, because in any thing you're doing, especially in a business like that, where they've got proprietary computers and proprietary software, I started to learn those systems, right manuals for those systems, learn how to work those systems, which really kind of sparked a lot of my technology drive at a young age as

Roy Sharples:

Then you gravitated to Microsoft...

Sara Nagy:

Setting some context there. When I was in high school, I came over to Seattle with a friend. And he actually was getting a job an internship at Microsoft, and he showed me the campus. And I thought to myself at that time, because it was very much. You know, at that point, just a ton of developers I thought well, I could never work here like like I would have what would I offer like I you know, I always thought I really cool, but I thought I could never work here like what would my value be? And so ironically, when I had my own business and I was you know getting to network and know, you know leaders, community members, business owners in the Seattle area, some of these people happen to be Microsoft people. And one of the gentlemen said to me that he was one of the people that helped me get hired at the company. He's like, you've done marketing and sales. And you've been your own accountant. And you've had to, you know, here's all the things you've done in your business, you can 100% work at a company like Microsoft, because we have all of these, these facets, like, we're not just, you know, developers, we're, you know, there's, there's lawyers, there's, you know, people that are creative, there's Yeah, inventors that Yeah, I mean, like, think of all of the professions that you could have that are interesting, they're at Microsoft. And that's, I mean, I think that's one reason that I've loved and been at the company so long is that you could do anything you can be in marketing, you could be a technical role, you can be a lawyer, you could make music, you could, I mean, that the endless possibilities, I think, have kept me motivated. But I also think that the people are what really drew me to the company, because I've met and worked with and become friends. You know, for many years with the smartest, most amazing, most innovative and cool people you could ever meet. I've never felt like there was something that I couldn't do at the company, it was only my own personal limitations, if I couldn't do it, meaning, I've never felt like someone said you can't work in those jobs, or you can't change disciplines. You can't be in those roles. That that was that's never been something some people have said nor the culture, it's always been great do do and be whatever it is that you want to be. It's your only limiting yourself by thinking you can do it.

Roy Sharples:

What is your creative process in terms of how do you dream up new ideas, and then develop those ideas into concepts, and then bring those concepts to actualization?

Sara Nagy:

However, I think it was Plato. Funnily enough, that said, necessity is the mother of invention. And, you know, every great product starts with a need. So I mean, just think, think about music, like I love music, I listen to music every day, I I've had passion for music my whole life, I think, you know, we both have that passion. Yeah. And, you know, when I was little, I would listen to my parents 40 fives on a record player, you know, and then it you know, became larger records and the need for having more portable music, and easier ways to listen to it. You know, it was like a theme as I grew up. So I remember that, you know, we had boom boxes, quote, unquote, when I was a kid, as we call them, you know, but they were bulky and you know, you needed batteries to make them portable, and you had to carry your tapes with you at the time I'm, I'm dating myself, by the way, in my age, if you were going to go travel with a family, you know, these things weren't convenient. And so you know, things like Sony came out with a Walkman in the 70s. To make it more portable, right? And I'll never forget, I broke my leg in the the mid 80s and skiing. And I got a Walkman sport as a gift to be able to listen to music. So I could when I hobbled around on my crutches, I could listen to tunes, and I think I still have an advert somewhere, I'm not that much of a collector. But, you know, we were getting more portable means then. So now it's starting to the need became portability, so that then you get something small or you get something easier, but it was expensive. So now it's like how do you pack more music onto a device? How do you make it smaller and smaller and longer battery life. And so if you flash forward to like 2001, I was I decided to run a marathon, because I'd like to do crazy things. And I remember I had this intel device at that time, it was a basic mp3 player equivalent. It was state of the art at the time, but I think it held like 30 songs, which was a huge deal. And a marathon is 26.2 miles long. I'll never forget that. And you know, 30 songs last like 90 minutes. So to change the songs out on this player would be such a hassle. It's like connecting a cable and proprietary software and uninstalling and reinstalling and sometimes it could take hours, right? Yeah. So you know, I got really sick of those 30 songs, by the way. And what happens like right after I run my marathon will iPods come out. And why? Because small you need a smaller device, you need a longer battery life, you need more music, you need it to be faster. So all of this equates to a need need for portability Need for Speed need for, you know, a necessity that's coming from from customers like myself. And so I feel like for me the creative process, that process all starts with what exactly is need. And then you know, there's some basic things like what's the analysis, you know, what's out there that serves the needs, what are the gaps? And then I think you have to have a really open mind to be able to dream up something that might seem crazy to someone else. But it could So the need down the road. And then you know, to make this all come to life, like I'm a very visual person. So mocking up ideas, visualizing what it could be, you know, today with any products that we develop, there's a lot that we do around concepts and prototypes and visuals and mockups, and, you know, visually testing what works and determining what doesn't work, what it could actually look like, I think you find out a lot when you have a thought or a need of something, once you've actually visualized, who's going to use it, and how would they use it?

Roy Sharples:

I like your point about visualization. And by using that as a technique to provide people with clarity on what you are trying to communicate, and achieve, by giving it visual context and making it easier for people to envision, and also to achieve, it's a bit like Walt Disney's motto of, if you can dream it, you can do it. I also appreciate your point around all products must solve a problem in need, and ideas are nothing without execution and an output, what are the key skills needed to survive and thrive in product development.

Sara Nagy:

In my experience, there's really four key things. So I'm gonna I'm gonna make some assumptions that, you know, people listening to this, you know, there's, there's an understanding of how you develop a product, and there's things that you need, like market research, and you know, your management supports it, and you have a process to build it and develop it and funds to do it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume that that's all true. So with the assumption of that being true, there's really four things in my opinion, we've talked about a little bit about this before, Curiosity is one of those things. Adaptability is another, I'll talk about that in a minute. resilience, and then you know, customer focus. So if we start with things like curiosity, I'm a curious person at nature, of course, and you need to really ensure that you're not submitting to the status quo, or you're never going to dream up something that's innovative and differentiated. And, you know, being constantly curious, to me is a must reading, researching, understanding, you know, taking, like, if you're, if you have an existing product, and you need to dream up something new or better, take a hard look at your products, identify what is great and what isn't. And then adaptability. So whether you're designing something completely new, or you're enhancing something existing, and you need to really, you know, adapt and shift, you, you know, things might come up that you hadn't expected. So maybe your management comes to you, and there's a shift in direction or a new analysis comes in, you know, that influences features. Look at what we're in right now, the pandemic, you know, say you were developing an educational product prior to the pandemic, and it was based on assumptions of people learning in person, which is what we did before the pandemic. And you know, there's virtual elements, of course, but what if you had been so inherently focused on the fact that it needs to be in person? Well, now you need to be able to adapt and shift to accommodate that need, and change based on what customers are going to kind of need. Resilience, you will always face hurdles, when you build and develop products, you know, can be lots of things dependencies, on you know, another product or, you know, reliance on some other part of your company, or a partner. You know, you could have employee challenges, say a key person that's working on your team gets sick, or they take a leave, you know, what's your contingency? There's, there's always potential, that something could go wrong, or will go wrong, or block you. And so how do you? How can you be flexible, and resilient and think about how you're gonna weather those challenges. And then, you know, the lastly, and most importantly, is customer focus. I like I have this thing I call keep your eye on the North Star of the product. So, you know, ask yourself, like, what's the goal? Why are you building it? What's it going to be used for? How does it solve problems? If you start to build something, and it goes too far away from that Northstar, you have a potential that the value is going to decrease. So how does it solve the customer problem? And do it in a better way? Is it faster? Is it more comprehensive? Is it more advanced? Is it easier and more user friendly? Is it brought more broadly available? I mean, there's so many different things you can think of there, but whatever those measures are, like it needs that needs to be true,

Roy Sharples:

Underpinning a couple of the themes that came out really strongly there. So one is around that the agility, the ability to to adopt, and navigate through adversity and change with ongoing curiosity and persistence to never give up. Secondly, intuitively anticipating customer needs that provide solutions that they actually need. And finally, having a bias for action, by activating transformative change with persistence and resilience to stay the course. What are your lessons learned, the pitfalls to avoid, and the keys to success that you can share with existing, but also aspiring product development leaders?

Sara Nagy:

There's a couple things, I guess, one, it's probably my opinion, the most important thing is, don't be afraid to fail. A lot of products, you know, if you're designing or developing or building a product, a lot of things never leave the cutting room floor, quote, unquote, you know, you might work on a project and you know, work really hard to develop it, and, you know, it becomes a massive failure. And that's just, that's just reality, right? So learn from those failures, fail fast and try again. And, you know, if you are afraid that you're going to fail, you're going to really struggle at being, you know, successful at product development. pitfalls to avoid, I think, you know, I see a lot of times, people that are developing products, who want to build cool, trendy, new things, and it's, they haven't really thought, you know, not just the customer need, but also the, the practicality of what they're actually going to build. You need visionary ideas, of course, but not at the cost of actual use. So, you know, one of the stories I love is about that woman Joy Mangano, I think her name is there was a movie about her where she invented the miracle Bop, yeah, you know, Mops have been around forever, right? There's mops after mops, after mops. And in the 90s, she invents this self wringing plastic mob. And, you know, it seems like a very simple idea. And she was a massive inventor, I guess. But, you know, I remember watching some article about her. And she mentioned that she thought that she'd been successful because her ideas had mass appeal. And she, she was looking at the needs, from the audience that she was targeting, because she was one of those audience, you know, she was that audience. She's like, I'm a mom, I'm trying to clean my house. So, you know, I think, you know, think about who you're building these for. And think about the fact that there may be it sometimes simpler is better. Yeah. And then I think, you know, just about myself, you know, I've worked on a lot of successful products, and you know, it's, it's takes a village, there is a lot of people that are involved, and you need to be thinking about all of those people contribute and make a difference. And so, you know, how can you garner intelligence from these other people to make what you're thinking of better and, and do it in a collaborative way, so that the output of everything that you do becomes this amazing product,

Roy Sharples:

You seem to take an end to end systems thinking approach by taking an holistic approach of how things all fit together, rather than just seeing the specific parts, or having a polarized view of the system or the product itself. You have that ability to blend both creativity and critical thinking to envision the art of the possible whilst applying analytical rigor to work out the business and technical feasibility and viability by applying both divergent and convergent thinking.

Sara Nagy:

It's interesting because I think I'm I started out and I think I'm more creative brain, I don't know if that's left brain or right brain, I can't remember. But I'm more creative, brain oriented, at least, especially from a young age, but I think that you learn the skills in business, and, and throughout different various different roles. I've learned how to put the analytical piece around it, if you will, yeah. Because I think that you need both, if you you know, in order to do some of the the jobs that I've had, and in order to do that, you've got to be able to tap into the analytics piece of it's super important. But you also, you would have a very stagnant, dry product, right? If you didn't have some creativity and vision, right? So it's like, how do you balance those two? Or how do you pull from each one, when it's needed in the time and, you know, many of those are learned traits, like I've learned how to do those things. I built the skills through jobs and mentors and and guidance, you know, from others. And so I think that's that's it's definitely something that can be learned

Roy Sharples:

So tilting forward, Sara, what's your vision for the future of product development, and where do you see the role of creativity play within that?

Sara Nagy:

It could be so many things, but you know, from I'm going to narrow it down to one which is, surprisingly, I think it might seem surprising to people. I think people are the future of product development. And the reason I say that is, I think the future generation like myself You know, she's super creative. She's grown up her entire life with technology. And so she has this completely different perspective on how and what a product should look like and what it should do. And I feel like when you're a kid, you don't limit yourself in the same ways that you do, as you, you know, become an adult. And in this era that we're in right now, you know, kids have information at their fingertips, you know, she's never not known what it's like to have a cell phone or a, you know, a mobile tablet, or, you know, some type of ability to get answers, you know, right away. And I think knowledge, you know, his his power when it comes to, you know, building a product, and I think the younger generation, you know, it doesn't matter of age, but I just think in general, you know, they're going to help us tap into these ways to be able to build products better. And I feel like you, when it comes to people as well, like, you have to have diverse perspectives. So, you know, me and my team will be working on a product project, to build a product. And it always gets better as it evolves with the different perspectives being pulled in because someone always has a different view, someone always has a new thought process. You're yours. Yours isn't the sole and only one. That's right. You know, I think some people would say, oh, quantum computing, and you know, things like AI and other technologies are what's really going to drive the future. But I think it's people, you know, you need people. Those types of things are just tools to get you where you want to go, people are going to be the ones that use the tools, you know, to kind of dream up the next big thing.

Roy Sharples:

Yes, the emerging generation, have a more robust inner self confidence and ambition, who are highly knowledgeable and tech savvy, which instills in an innate ability to problem solve at speed. And to get to the crux quickly to come up with purposeful solutions. For example, I've done some work with the product design engineering program at the Glasgow School of Art, which is nurturing the next generation of product design engineers by blending creativity, design, and engineering science to create elegant, engaging experiences and products. But what is especially notable is the unfiltered capacity for the students to explore the connections in everyday life by proactively anticipating and responding to culture, lifestyle, and industry trends, and applying technology to improve the quality of life in a socially conscious and responsible way through design, engineering, and commerce to make products more relatable to human usage, behavior, and appeal. Do you want to learn more about how to create by frontiers by unleashing your creative power and consider getting CREATIVITY

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