Becoming evidence-guided | Itamar Gilad (Gmail, YouTube, Microsoft)

Itamar Gilad is a product coach, author, and speaker with over two decades of experience in senior product roles at Google, Microsoft, and various startups. He is also the author of Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty and publishes a popular product management newsletter. In today’s episode, we discuss: • What it means to be “evidence-guided” • How to think about your KPIs as metric trees • How to prioritize ideas using the “confidence meter” • The GIST model for roadmapping • Common mistakes with ICE • Advice for using evidence to challenge gut-driven founders — Brought to you by Ezra—The leading full-body cancer screening company: http://www.ezra.com/lenny | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny | LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business: https://www.linkedin.com/podlenny Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/becoming-evidence-guided-itamar-gilad Where to find Itamar Gilad: • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ItamarGilad • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamargilad/ • Website: https://itamargilad.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Itamar’s background (04:35) How his time working on Gmail shaped his philosophy of “opinion-based” development (08:35) Lessons from developing Gmail’s tabbed inbox (13:40) A brief overview of Itamar’s book, Evidence-Guided (14:30) Balancing founder creativity with an evidence-based approach (17:32) Advice on how to push back against founders (19:36) Signs you aren’t as evidence-guided as you may think (21:13) Itamar’s GIST model for becoming more evidence-guided (23:51) How to set overarching goals using his “value exchange loop” (28:45) North star metrics vs. KPIs (33:47) Using “ICE” to assess the value of ideas (37:39) Itamar’s confidence meter (44:28) Speed of delivery vs. speed of discovery (46:14) How to apply Itamar’s frameworks based on company type and stage (49:09) First steps in becoming more evidence-guided (50:21) Next steps in testing (55:41) The task layer in the GIST framework (1:02:54) Thoughts on roadmapping (1:04:56) How OKRs fit into the whole picture (1:07:11) Lightning round Referenced: • Itamar’s presentation slides: https://itamargilad.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Podcast-Slides.pdf • What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing-product-teams-john-cutler-amplitude-the-beautiful-mess/ • Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty: https://itamargilad.com/book-evidence-guided/ • The co-founders of Google in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-page-and-sergey-brin • Kanban: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban • Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira • The ultimate guide to OKRs | Christina Wodtke (Stanford): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-okrs-christina-wodtke-stanford/ • Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ • The ultimate guide to A/B testing | Ronny Kohavi (Airbnb, Microsoft, Amazon): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-ab-testing-ronny-kohavi-airbnb-microsoft-amazon/ • ICE framework: https://growthmethod.com/ice-framework/ • Sean Ellis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/ • RICE scoring model: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/rice-scoring-model/ • Idea Prioritization with ICE and the Confidence Meter: https://itamargilad.com/the-tool-that-will-help-you-choose-better-product-ideas/ • Assumptions Mapping: https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/methodology/phase2-define/assumptions-mapping • What is Dog Fooding, Fish Fooding a Product?: https://matt-rickard.com/fishfooding-dogfooding-product • SVPG books: https://www.svpg.com/books/ • The Lean series: https://theleanstartup.com/the-lean-series • Dreaming Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish • ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/ • Lennybot: https://www.lennybot.com/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.