John Cutler · 8 min read · Product Strategy
TBM 409: Minimally Viable Consistency (Part 2)
Read the original on cutlefish.substack.com →
The post seeks 20-minute discovery calls with senior-level managers at large, non-digital product companies to explore how they’re transforming their product operating models and applying the concept of Minimally Viable Consistency. It introduces Model Market Fit (MMF) and discusses how strategy shifts collide with existing structures, the varying adoption of ideas (e.g., journeys vs. North Star), and the challenge of balancing consistency with local variation.
Key Takeaways
- MVC (Minimally Viable Consistency) aims to keep the number of core concepts and terms to a minimum while preserving operational usefulness, with adoption sparked through workshops and conversations.
- Model Market Fit (MMF) explains that ideas spread within a company in unpredictable ways, so flexibility and avoiding dogmatic adherence to a single framework are crucial.
- When strategy shifts outpace organizational structure, cross-boundary consistency and mindful dependency management become important to avoid premature convergence on solutions.
- A practical discovery approach is to conduct non-sales, time-limited conversations with enablement, product operations, or strategic finance leaders at large firms to surface insights.
Excerpt
Help needed! I have to do some discovery for the PM day job with enterprises that sell non-digital products (consumer, cars, toys, media, etc.) and have 1000+ people across product, engineering, design, data, etc. Specifically I am looking to chat with people working at companies in the middle of some sort of “product operating model” transformation. And AI, of course. Because that’s everyone it seems. Ideally, manager or senior manager level, currently at the company or very recently left, and tasked with enablement, product operations, or strategic finance. I’m looking for about 20 minutes of discovery, and I’d be happy…