Building a Product Culture That Delivers Outcomes

The Work I’m Most Proud Of Isn’t a Product Win 

It’s the culture that made those wins repeatable 

Last week, someone asked me a simple question:

“What’s the achievement you’re most proud of?” 

My first thoughts were the obvious ones. Recent wins. Clear outcomes.

One of our North American partners delivering record sales growth while also reducing operational cost to its lowest level on record. One of our UK partners delivering their best Christmas KPIs ever, with improvements in customer experience that directly translated into real revenue uplift.

All things I’m proud of.

But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became: those outcomes were driven from a deliberate focus on how we work. It’s been hard won at times, but absolutely worth it.

From Shipping Outputs to Owning Outcomes 

When I first joined Ocado, our priorities were clear: successfully launch our first two international partners.

We moved fast with an MVP mindset, measuring success through qualitative insight from users and domain experts rather than metrics.

Once partners were live, the context changed.

“You can chase outcomes directly, or you can build the conditions that make them inevitable.”

Jonathan Nobbs, Interim VP of Product @ Ocado Technology

We started to see real production data. We could understand where value was being created and where it wasn’t. At that point, shipping more features wasn’t enough.

Our focus needed to shift from launching successfully to driving the right outcomes in production.

Moving from outputs to outcomes wasn’t just about setting smarter goals or adopting OKRs. It required a deliberate shift in culture.

Culture Shows Up in Behaviour 

Culture often gets talked about as something abstract. In reality, it shows up very clearly in day to day behaviour.

For us, it came down to a few things working together:

● Being clear on our values and principles 

● Enabling high autonomy

● Supporting collaboration through an operating cadence

● Coaching

When people are aligned around shared values and principles, and the environment supports collaboration, you don’t need to prescribe every decision. People take responsibility, work across boundaries, and optimise for the whole system.

That became particularly important as we moved towards outcome ownership.

Ownership and Focus 

One of our core principles is Ownership.

Earlier on, we didn’t really apply that principle to goals. We set them, communicated them, and assumed collective effort would get us there.

In practice, that didn’t work.

Without clear ownership, effort gets diluted and teams optimise locally. Progress becomes inconsistent.

So we changed the approach.

We started assigning a single owner to each goal. Their role wasn’t to run every initiative, but to bring focus.

Rather than hoping every team contributed a bit, the owner identified:

● The few things that really mattered to achieve the goal

● The teams that genuinely needed to be involved

● Where experimentation and learning were required

In some cases, our assumptions about impact were wrong. That was expected. What mattered was learning quickly and adjusting course.

Progress became intentional rather than accidental.

Why Coaching Matters 

Assigning owners is necessary, but it isn’t sufficient.

If we simply appointed owners and gave them answers, we might get short term progress. But it wouldn’t scale, and it wouldn’t help people develop.

Giving answers doesn’t scale. Building capability does. 

Coaching goal owners was critical. Helping them think through problems, trade offs, and decisions so they could lead effectively themselves.

That’s what made the model scalable, and it had a clear impact on outcomes, morale, and retention.

What This Looks Like Now 

Do we achieve every goal? No.

But more often than not, we achieve the highest priority ones and when trade offs are required, they’re deliberate and visible.

Teams have clearer context. Decision making is faster. Collaboration across Ocado and with partners is stronger.

Outcomes like revenue growth, cost reduction, and customer experience are no longer one off successes. They happen more consistently.

People can see the impact of their work. That matters, and is visible in higher morale and greater employee retention.

Why This Is the Work I Care Most About 

You can chase outcomes directly, or you can build the conditions that make them inevitable.

By aligning people around clear values and principles, giving them real ownership, and backing them to grow, we created an environment where good results aren’t exceptional, they’re expected.

That’s the work I’m most proud of, and it’s the work I’m looking to continue.