Ok, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon and um good evening wherever you are in the world. I am Shria Na uh product management leader at Qualcomm.Now, how many of you here know who Qualcomm is actually or what Qualcomm does if you know, uh you know, give a type it out in the chat window. I'd love to know if you know about Qualcomm and where I work early if you know, I'd love to hear that. Otherwise, uh let me introduce you. So Qualcomm is the world's leading wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development launch and expansion of five G.

When we connected the phone to the internet, the mobile revolution was born. Now coming to my role, I work in the wireless connectivity division at Qualcomm, interacting with wireless enterprise providers to align their needs with Qualcomm's wireless portfolio. And today I'm honored to be here and sharing my experiences on how to stand out and build your USB with each one of you. Thank you for joining me today. Uh Please feel free to use the chat window as I have been reiterating. Let us dive right in. Now, all of us work really hard to be great at our job. In fact, we want to be the best at everything we do in return. We have expectations. What we expect is that we will be rewarded with promotions or it could be money or sometimes it's just an appreciation for our work in public. But many a times or let's say most times we are disappointed we're just like most and, and just like most, it has happened to me too. Really? I was about five years into my career and I was working more than 18 hours on a really critical project for the, for the team for almost six plus months. And I was quite proud of my work.

I confidently went in for my performance review at the end of the project, I expected a promotion. Let me tell you no less. After all, I had given every I had given it everything. So what do you think happened? You know, I mean, when I went in and asked for this promotion or when I went in with this expectation? I got five words. You are not or a similar one in your career type in the chat window if you've heard this at any point in, no, we are not in one room so that the best I can do is, you know, get you to uh type into the chat window and maybe I can uh you know, take a look. Yeah. Thank you for the thank you for the engagement there. Now, I'm sure many of us have and I've acted just like any of us did I put in so many hours and sacrifice my life for this. I was sad. I cried my heart out and of course, I blamed my manager, look blaming our managers or someone we work with at this point really comes easy. But it is strange that when we end up becoming managers, many of us or rather most of us have to make similar decisions because of the tradeoffs and the constraints. Now thinking through my options at this stage, I realized I had two options.

One, I could look for a new job or I could look for answers. And it was not that she did not have hints all around me. I saw folks who had received promotions in or two promotions in three years. And then there were others who are working far less than me and still moving ahead and making progress. The more I searched for answers, the more I saw a pattern, it was all about the ratio of output to input. Let me tell you what I mean. In other words, a lot of people call this as productivity, the ratio of production output to input. So simply put there are three possible scenarios where your input is really large. In this case, as you can see case A where I is really large and o is really small and when I mean, o it is the output in terms of how your stakeholder or your management views your output. It's not what you view it at, but what the world sees of you or what your stakeholders view of you. And then this case, B where your input and output are proportional. And finally, you have KC where I is small and O is really large, that is your input is small and o your output is really large. Needless to say my current state was a case.

A and I was really working hard, but I was not getting anywhere or not getting to where I wanted to be. But what I want it to be technically is KC, which is I directly or output greater than input, considerably greater than input. So in fact, we all wanna be KFC, we all want our reward to be higher than our investment. Then why is it that only a few of us get that? Why something that a few of our friends colleagues get so effortlessly seems so elusive to many of us? So I introspected, I read articles, you know, I, you know, I was researching this topic but I found no direct solution. And that question kept nagging at me. It happens to you, right? When you don't find a solution to something keeps nagging at you, how do I solve this? But when I joined product management, I started reading books to explore this discipline and one day I stumbled upon a framework. Uh This seemed to be really the answer that I was looking for. At least in my opinion, the process from going from case a case a on the slide to case C on the slide where output is much greater than input, where I want it to be. Now, since childhood, I have loved modeling the complex world around me in simple work frame works probably that's why I ended up being an engineer.

And today I'm delighted to share one such framework that helped me maximize my output with the minimal input and in turn stand out and find my USB. Now some of you know, this framework as the famous Kano model, the Kano model was developed by Noriaki Kano, a Japanese researcher. What that model does it maps the complexity of developing product features with customer satisfaction. If you know about this model, have ever heard about it, used it, please type in the chat window and if you like it do type that as well, you know, um UU I and research uh U I researchers or UR folks or even designers and uh product managers have used this framework a lot. So I'm sure they must be familiar. So, but what I'm doing is I'm trying to brief the others so that they quickly come to speed on the model before we go into how it maps out. OK. Now it starts with the goal of building products. That is the goal is customer satisfaction, right? So one axis of this is customer satisfaction. What you're doing is you're technically plotting uh X axis and y axis and trying to map, you know how features kind of fall in or how they should uh how, how they map along these two dimensions.

So the customer satisfaction dimension or vector ranges from total satisfaction called a delight to total dissatisfaction, which is called uh frustration. As you can see on this uh axis, the other part or the exact solution, as we see is functionality that is how well we have implemented and delivered the feature for a product. And what is offered really for the customer and these two dimensions together uh actually form the basis of the Kano model as we knew it and then determine how our customers feel about our product feature. Let us go, you know, you see these curves. So let us go into these curves one by one. Let me quickly explain to you how they map out. So let us talk about the first curve, the first curve, meaning the red one here, let me see. Let me get my pointer. OK? So you see the the the red curve here. So the co feature these are must have these are expected by customers. If a product doesn't have them, it will be considered incomplete or just plain bad. Now, these type of features are called must have we need to have them. But that does not mean our customers will be more satisfied, they will just not be thissy. For example, we expect our phones to be able to make calls, the car should have breaks.

Having any of these won't make us happy, but lacking them will definitely make us angry or uh towards the product or a service. As you can see from this, from this red curve of, you know, on the lower part of the graph, you know the way it maps out. You can see that in simple words, these I am non negotiable. These are what you have to deliver in a product right now. Coming to this blue line up here, some features have a proportional relation between satisfaction and functionality. The more we provide, the more satisfied our customers become. And when you're buying a car, it's gas mileage sometimes or which is a performance attribute or while buying a laptop, it's your battery life, which is a performance feature. The more you have each of those, the greater your satisfaction, every increase in functionality leads to increased satisfaction.

As you can see, it's a linear representation. And finally, it's a third curve which is unexpected features which when presented can cause a positive reaction or surprise the users. And these are called your delight. Now, think of the first time you controlled uh the Netflix on your TV using Alexa or when uh Shazam app got the right song in a crowded station. You felt? Wow, you really felt delighted. Right. It was not something that you saw before. Now, in case you do not know what Shazam is, let me tell you, Shazam kind of identifies the music playing around you. When Sham was first introduced, it did not catch all the songs. In fact, it identified a really low percentage of the song correctly and it failed most of the time. But yet it caught on people focused not on the failure, but were amazed at what it delivered. And that's what the lighters are when you start off. You know, this just delighted the customers eventually you to find new delight. But that's what was one example of how people got delighted in this job. Your the Netflix with Alexa or the Chazen app when first introduced will be on the green curve here. You know, when you then the customers didn't know they wanted it, but they love what they got. And as you can see the cus the curve throughout the cus, uh the curve throughout has a higher customer satisfaction level, even with minimal functionality.

Now, when I saw this model as uh the pro as a product manager, I thought how remarkably it represents our career mapping this model to our carriers, the X axis will be the input and the y axis the output all of us have finite time and energy similar to, you know, how we build our products, we have finite resources.

We have finite investment. In our case, it's similar, you know time and energy, how we use this time and energy to maximize what we deliver is definitive to our success. Similar to our products, those products are successful that maximize and translating these three cases. I explained at the beginning. Here's how uh the three graphs for your eye o will look like as you can see case a where your input is really high. Now here, however hard you work, the output curve will always stay below the origin. If you're here, you're focused on core tasks which are expected of you. These are tasks that need to be done. Now when you, you know, for example, joined as an engineer fixing bugs was expected of you. When you join the marketing team, developing collateral was expected of you.

When you join sales closing, a client deal was expected of you. You got a pack here and there for starting, but then you soon realize you did not stand out. This is your core focusing all our time on these tasks, makes a cookie cutter. And in most cases, we end up being dissatisfied at not being able to stand out and make an impact. As you can see from the Kumari comparison. If you are here, you, most of your output is likely core features, you need to deliver them, but that will not increase the happiness or satisfaction of your stakeholders that your management, your managers or your organization, they just won't be dissatisfied. Now, look to the second curve, this is case B where you find the balance between input and output it is there. That is we get results proportional to the amount of time and energy we have spent on task. As you can see, being here is definitely better than case A because you managed to break even in case of your effort and output personally, you're fairly satisfied. Remember, most people do not get promoted for solving their own problem, but people get promoted for solving their manager's problem.

So here you take up tasks or projects beyond your de defined rules. Beyond your core deliverables. It is where you step up to solve your manager's problems, your organizers problems or you know your overall team's problems, you get promoted for solving your manager's problems and not just your own. As I was saying, now you move your paradigm, your, there's a paradigm shift here where you move your paradigm to your team or your manager's paradigm. This is your I equal to where your input and output are fairly, you know, linear, the more you deliver these, the greater the satisfaction and your stakeholders satisfaction. Now finally coming to where we all aspire to be KC, low input yielding maximum output. Your graph here is always about the origin. In all cases. Here you find time not just to work on the core items, but on strategic problems that impact the larger organization and industry. This is unexpected from you and even the smallest of tasks or projects that you take up you and you deliver with delight, folks. Technically, no one expects this from you. So they will not be missed.

But it is when you take up these opportunities that you stand out, you're delighted finding some time and investing your energy in these stuff helps you stand out from your peers. Now, here you're no longer limited to just your team, your manager's problems, but you're looking at the larger organization and in many cases, you're looking at some industry defining changes as well. And this will help you scale not just in your role where you are, but apply the same skill sets outside in another role and grow as a leader. And this will not come to you naturally. You have to look right, you have to look left and you have to look and identify gaps to find these problems and then you step up proactively to find solutions and drive such differentiating initiatives. In summary, the features or output we deliver in our careers or professional life is not too different from how we deliver our products, understanding this breakdown of deliverables and carefully planning our time deliverables and internal careers is key to our growth. So you last Meria, you gave us this framework.

But what are some actionable items that we can use to go from case a that is output significantly lower than input to our desired case c output, significantly higher than input to ensure that we work on the lighters and stand out. It starts with being cognizant and consciously prioritizing and planning your time and task. A few techniques that have worked for me are ruthless prioritization. It's a good idea to use a framework for this. In my case, I use the big rock, small rock framework to, to prioritize.

Now each one has a mental model to do this. But putting it down as a framework can help us more, bring more discipline. Now, once you prioritize and you know what to achieve, you can go about planning and allocating time to these steps. For this. You can use time boxing or promoter or any other techniques that help you focus and make your task ti time bound in the absence of these techniques. I found myself spending most of my time on quotas and being a case a now the second thing that you could do is you could walk into your leaders shoes that is you try to understand their problems and be a problem solver, differentiate yourself by making recommendations or suggesting solutions.

When you take a problem, take a few suggestions as well so that you could brainstorm those shadow him or her in meetings and understand what they are thinking. Not just your direct manager but the others anyone you aspire to be and of course be genuine. The other thing that you could do is you have to free up your time on your calendar to get to the delight here. You can look at things like automation and delegating and mentoring others uh on these core tasks so that you have a partner. And you know, you can a allow others also to scale. And this gives you time to move up from your core task to your delight. And finally, another thing in order to move from case B to case C finally is you've got to be looking right and left for opportunities, identifying them, you have to be in an eternal beta phase wherein be ready to learn, adapt and innovate. Think big picture, think about the connection of your work to other areas and how it can you know, meet come together, learn about adjacent areas to your current work and expand your skill set in those areas to find your delighted and a final lesson. Strategic initiatives are in most cases ambiguous in nature, train your mind to deal with ambiguity.

It's not easy, but you can get there be intent for so quickly recapping while building products, the Kano model framework helps us focus prioritize and invest an organization's time on features that will make a difference or satisfy customers. In the same vein, we can use the input output framework to measure the value we are delivering to our stakeholders. While following the framework. Do remember customer expectations and in your case of in the case of your career, your stakeholder expectations change over a period of time.

So you're delighted at one stage, could become a core when you get promoted, understanding your customers experiences and expectations and effectively generating innovative ideas to continue to solve them are important for a product of scale. Similarly, it is important to be an eternal data.

Keep evolving and finding new de lighters depending on the needs of your market. You're wishing that this framework helps you identify focus and intent, fully carve out time for your delight and stand out to build your USB. Good luck. Thank you.