Prefer audio? Listen wherever you get podcasts.
About this episode
Maya Okafor ran product at Lumen, a fintech that launched more in a year than its partner bank did in five. Her team was twelve people. The bank's product organization was over three hundred.
We talk about why small teams move faster inside slow companies, how she got approvals down from six weeks to three days without breaking a single compliance rule, and the weekly meeting she cancelled on her first day.
In this episode
0:00 Why a bank needed a 12-person team
6:40 Cutting approvals from six weeks to three days
18:15 The meeting she cancelled on day one
29:50 What she'd do differently with 50 people
38:05 Three things to borrow
Three things to borrow
Sort decisions before you speed them up. Maya's team found that only one change in ten needed sign-off. The rest shipped the same day with a note in a shared doc.
Make undoing cheap. Every release could be rolled back within an hour, which made risk easier to accept on both sides.
Shorten reviews by narrowing them. The review stayed, but it only covered real decisions, so it took twenty minutes instead of two hours.
Mentioned in the episode
The quiet death of the all-hands meeting, the issue that started this conversation.
The two-door test, for deciding which changes need sign-off.
Transcript
Leo: Maya, the first thing everyone asks about Lumen is the speed. Twelve people, and you shipped more than the bank did. Where did that start?
Maya: Honestly, with a calendar. The bank's team had a weekly review where every change waited for sign-off. We asked which decisions actually needed it, and the answer was maybe one in ten.
Leo: So the other nine just shipped?
Maya: The other nine shipped the same day, with a note in a shared doc. If something broke, we could undo it in an hour. That changed how people thought about risk.
Leo: And the one in ten?
Maya: Those still went to review, but the review got shorter because it only had real decisions on it. It went from two hours to twenty minutes.
Leo: How did you get the bank to agree to that?
Maya: We didn't ask them to trust us. We showed them the log every Friday: what shipped, what we rolled back, why. After a month they stopped reading it closely, which was the point.
Leo: You cancelled a meeting on your first day. Which one?
Maya: The daily status call. Forty people, mostly listening. We replaced it with a written update and a ten-minute call for the five people who were blocked.
Leo: What would you do differently with fifty people instead of twelve?
Maya: Write things down earlier. At twelve you can rely on everyone hearing everything. At fifty that stops working overnight, and you notice it too late.
The guest
Maya Okafor
Head of Product, Lumen
Maya has led product teams at two fintechs and writes about small teams inside big companies.
Get the next episode
A new conversation every other Tuesday, sent with the case study behind it. Free.
You're in. Check your inbox.
Confirm your email and next Thursday's issue is on its way.
Join 4,200 readers
