Main takeaways: - The MVP approach can still work, but viable means fully compliant - Experimentation and A/B Testing are still possible - but your outlook on how is different - You need to plan your sprints to be agreeable with the marathon that is legal analysis and review

1. www.productschool.com
How to PM in Highly Regulated
Industries by FiWize CTO

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10. John Koehler
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R

11. Product Management
in Highly Regulated
Industries
By John Koehler
June 4, 2019

12. About John Koehler
John Koehler currently runs Moving Iron Systems, a boutique technology consulting and
strategic advisory firm that works with startups predominantly in the automotive and
financial services industry
He currently serves as the main product advisor for CreditIQ and as the CTO of FiWize
Some of John’s prior roles include:
● VP of Product & Strategy at CarFinance.com
● Director of Product Management at TrueCar
● Senior Product Manager at DealerTrack

13. Tonight’s Highly Regulated Agenda
(once cleared by Compliance)
1. Brief overview of what are highly regulated industries
1. How to make an MVP work in a highly regulated industry
1. Planning your sprints to match cadence of legal & compliance partners
1. How to run A/B tests and experiments and comply with regulations

14. Some examples of highly regulated
industries
Every business and industry deals with some level of regulation, and obviously all need to
follow applicable laws and pay taxes, but here’s a few industries considered highly
regulated:
● Financial Services - Banking / Credit & Lending / Securities / Insurance
● Healthcare - Healthcare Delivery / Pharmaceuticals / Medical Devices
● Power Generation and Transmission
● Some Manufacturing - mostly depending on materials used or outputs
● Government Administration

15. You might work in a highly regulated
industry if...
...Your organization, or specific staff members in your organization, needs to be licensed
to make, sell, or distribute your products and services
...Your clients require a license to sell, make, or distribute their product or services
...Your organization has a “Compliance Department” (or at least a Compliance Manager)
...You needed to get fingerprinted as a condition of working at the company

16. Making an effective MVP in a highly
regulated industry
The point of an Minimum Viable Product - MVP - is that you do as little as possible to
prove the viability of the product: focus on the important features and build the “nice to
have” features later if the business results deem it appropriate
Regulatory compliance is unfortunately not just “nice to have” - it’s critical
A good product manager WANTS full compliance from the beginning - it proves whether
product is really viable: do people want it at premium that pays for regulatory
compliance
● Example 1 - product presentation/advertising and disclosures
● Example 2 - Required consumer communications

17. IANAL and TINLA
Being an effective product manager in a highly regulated firm doesn’t require you to be a lawyer
- but you do need to know the laws that regulate your business / your client’s business
Especially if your firm’s (or team’s) goal is to be disruptive - disruption is good, but its most
effective when done in a way that is cognizant of applicable regulations
Understanding the regulatory requirements that impact the product and customer experience
today can allow you to focus more effectively on areas that can be improved and not waste time
on those that cannot change

18. Become friends with the corporate lawyers
While you don’t need to be a lawyer to succeed as an a product manager in highly
regulated industries, it is good to form a good working relationship with the legal
department - especially compliance focused attorneys
1. Understand what they are most concerned with: disclosures / data use & privacy /
advertising (public website design) / equal treatment / other
2. Get buy-in on your long-term (2+ quarters) product roadmap to identify any
potential legal roadblocks early
3. Establish an understanding for required timeframes and methods for legal review
so that launch and sprints can be better planned

19. Sprint Planning in Cadence with Legal
Product Management often requires working effectively with shared resources -
whether that’s in technology, marketing, operations, or administration
While you can often use a workaround or shrink your MVP if one of these shared
resource groups are a bottleneck, there’s often no substitute for legal approval to launch
You’ll want to do your product design and get initial approvals before getting stories
requiring review into the sprint
● From there: try to get items that require online review developed and tested first
● Learn how much time legal needs to turnaround reviews on items in
Test/QA/Sandbox environment - some want 2 days, some want 2 weeks
Legal isn’t really the “Business Prevention” department, but they can be if you don’t plan

20. Running A/B Tests effectively
A/B testing is a great way to iterate on the existing product or experience and make
consistent improvements
Doing this means knowing what parts of the product have multiple legal options
available and what parts are already in place solely because of regulation
It’s also critical to know what parts of product/experience require equal treatment for all
consumers: if such requirements exist it likely will eliminate the opportunity to A/B test
and instead collect data in an alternative manner that enables product planning

21. Suggestions for Product Design and A/B
Test Design in Highly Regulated Industries
Brainstorm -> Initial design -> Legal review -> Final design -> Dev & QA test -> Launch
Do your initial brainstorming and design without worrying about legal requirements
If doing an A/B test, have your A and B (and C thru E) ready for legal review so you still
have something to test if 1 or more options get nixed as not compliant
Be prepared to discuss with compliance how consumers will be segmented into one
group or another - sometimes test experiences are fine but segmentation is not

22. In Sum: Product Mgmt in Highly Regulated
Industries Brings Unique Challenges
Agile product development leverages the benefits of iterative and
incremental development to constantly optimize the product
Heavily regulated industries tend to have slower and less frequent
change because of the compliance overhead involved with change
Good product management CAN bridge this gap:
● Much of compliance work is reducing risk because of an
inherently confusing or unpleasant consumer experience
● A great consumer experience reduces risk without obvious CYA

23. www.productschool.com
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