My ambition
Hello! Nice to meet you. My name is Robin Seetz, a product leader, crossfitter, podcaster and father. I live in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, together with my beautiful partner and daughther.
It was around 2012 when I did a yearly review and wrote down that I wanted to become really good in product management, so that in the end I could help people and companies through digitalization.
I was inspired by an American example where they build a company to help the governement digitalize. I was perplexed by how low quality governement software was a true struggle.
How would this feel for older people, people with certain disabilities are just slightly less digital people?
So that’s what has pushed me forward. During the last 10+ years I’ve worked in Product Management. My career started at the Dutch E-commerce site Coolblue where we succesfully optimized the conversion rate and cross-sell margin by working on projects such as a wish list and comparison tool.
Intrigued by Venture Capital funds I wanted to work at start- and scale-ups, so I worked at three different companies trying to make the world a better, more efficient place. Working there had it’s highs and lows, but above all I learned a lot about building products under pressure. A skill that still helps me every single day.
Nowadays, I help companies mature their product organizations. I sincerely enjoy applying best practices to companies that are not yet at the level where they want to be. I lead a team of Product Consultants at the Dutch software delivery consultant Navara.
We help mostly larger corporates and governments create a culture of product thinking. A culture where IT and business are not enemies, but friends. Where IT is an enabler, not a bottleneck. Where managers focus on outcomes instead of output.
My personal vision on product management
My vision is that we’re on the edge of a product revolution.
Over the past 20-25 years most companies have implemented or tried to implement agile ways of working, but in the end.. not enough has changed for users and business.
1. Companies don’t feel like they’re in control. Software delivery is often still expensive and slow, so companies see IT development as costs instead of as an enabler.
2. Users and customers are often unhappy with the software they interact with. They feel frustrated because companies don’t seem to focus on what matters to them.
3. Employees don’t see their hard working making an impact leading to unhappiness, turnover and health issues such as burn-out.
Around 70-80% of all software made is never or rarely being used. Being agile alone is not enough.
So if you really want to fix these problems, you have to fix the rootcause by focussing on doing the right things instead of doing things right.
There’s so much to share about how to do this, so if you’d like to know more feel free to follow me on LinkedIn or get in contact.
Navara as trusted partner
A Product Owner needs a team. That’s why I partenered up with Navara, a consultancy boutique in the Netherlands.
In Navara I found a partner that has the best-in-class Software specialists that know how to build high quality software, fast.
I’m responsible for the team of Product Management Consultants that focus on the why and what, so that Engineers can focus on the how.
We’re trusted by leading organisations and (semi) governemental organisations in The Netherlands.
Looking for Engineers, Data specalists, UX/UI consultants or Product Consultants? We can help you out. Feel free to send me a message.
Note that this is my personal website where I express my personal thoughts. Navara can have different views.