I know I’m not the only one who’s spent tons of time trying to recreate the way we worked at Pivotal Labs - it was the most collaborative team dynamic I’ve ever experienced.
That work culture shaped me into the PM teammate I always wanted to be and taught me what to seek out in other product orgs: the teams, the strategy, the pace, and the ways of working that make the whole thing hum.
Years later, I still refer to myself as a Pivot in and around that social circle. It can sometimes feel like a badge of honor: shorthand for integrity, clarity, curiosity, and care.
So. This is a thank-you to:
the people I paired with
the clients I coached
the culture that changed how I work and who I am
The Values that Stuck
They were printed on walls, stuck to laptops, stamped on notebooks. The real magic was actually practicing them with each other and with our clients.
Do the Right Thing
Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
At Pivotal, doing the right thing meant being honest about what mattered. It meant always advocating for users, protecting your team, and calling things out when they felt off - even if it made things awkward with clients or stakeholders.
Sometimes it meant standing firm when a stakeholder wanted to bypass Discovery entirely, or pushing back on a product direction that was more about internal politics than user value. I learned that "the right thing" doesn’t always make you popular, but it almost always builds trust.
We stood up for sustainable pace practices and insisted on paying down technical debt.
We sought real evidence to help prioritize ideas instead of working with risky assumptions.
We protected each other, learned from each other, and made each other better.
Doing the right thing sometimes meant advocating to ditch a fun new design idea in favor of something far less *sexy* but much more useful. Sometimes it meant calling out inappropriate teammate behavior, even on the client side… yikes.
I watched principled, thoughtful Pivots navigate those moments with humility, clarity, and heart. They left a mark.
Do What Works
If it works - run with it. If it doesn’t - fix it.
^ This was always my favorite value.
We didn’t follow any strict process without good reason. We structured product team engagements using the XP framework, and set goals upfront to deliver outcomes (usually working and successful software) which made us fast and flexible - not because we skipped steps or broke rules, but because we knew when to apply which techniques to move a particular team forward (and when to ease up)!
Pivots were always present and responsive. No remote work (at least, back in the day). No laptops allowed in meetings unless you’re actively presenting. One big, beautiful stack-ranked backlog, daily standups, weekly planning, and retrospectives with topics that actually mattered. In the room and in the work, together. Regimented for focus and time-saving sake…
We could reprioritize on the fly and make big decisions together quickly - literally by turning our screens toward each other and asking, “have a sec to look at this?”
It was so much less about this feature vs. that feature, this timeline and that status update, and instead all about what teams could come up with - right now, together, with collective shared context - that would most likely achieve the goal or solve the problem at hand?
It was an electric mindset that rewired how I think. It made everyone more practical but also more curious and collaborative. It gave us the permission to ask, “What would actually work here?” - and empowered us to go find the answer.
Always Be Kind
Not "nice"… kind.
Kindness at Pivotal wasn’t about being agreeable. It was about being generous with time, honest with feedback, and respectful of everybody’s growth curve.
Always being kind looked like:
offering help, advice, and/or resources by default
making space for someone else to drive a pairing session
giving difficult feedback with care, because you want the other person to succeed
It’s a core element of my leadership style - a common skill used by all Pivots.
What We Built Together
I worked on everything from defense mission scheduling tools to bubble wrap sales catalogs to credit card installment systems. Sometimes there was no UI, no clients in the room, or no real roadmap. But the mission was always the same: ship good software, and bring others along for the ride.
I got to:
experiment with lean research methods in the employee cafeteria with insurance PMs at Allstate
modernize tangled architecture to enable StubHub’s dynamic ticket pricing model
ease pain from fibromyalgia using cognitive behavioral therapy with Swing Therapeutics
and a LOT more - check out my portfolio here
Ultimately, the projects themselves were secondary to the experience of working there, as an employee or a client pair, and IMO the most important thing we built together was Trust.
You can trust pivots to care. To listen. To ship great working software. To tell the truth.
But it goes deeper than that. We practiced trust constantly: through pairing, through feedback, through rituals - it became muscle memory. That practice still shapes how we all work - no matter the context, the industry, or how stuck a particular project is, we trust each other to work together to get it unstuck and back on track.
What I Still Carry
I bring a bit of Pivotal Labs with me into every new team I join:
I still build journey maps and service blueprints as a way to orient and organize what we’re learning and building.
I still pair with teammates, because seriously - it’s just so much more valuable than soloing. Every time.
I still ask, “What do we need to learn or validate?” before diving into any final decisions.
I still believe in balanced teams, shared rituals, and user-centered everything.
Not every place is open to changing their ways of working. It’s often as simple as that. But I’m always looking for the open-minded teams and stakeholders out there - especially times like now where I’m seeking new work. How close is this new opportunity to the way I hope to work? If it’s fairly far away… are they open to trying new things?
Anyway - the best part is that there’s almost always another Pivot nearby.
Sometimes we find each other by happenstance. (Sometimes I bring them in myself!)
But when someone says, “I worked at Pivotal,” I do actually trust them immediately, because I just know they’ll do great work, well.
The Pivotal Network Is Very Much Alive
Even after the brand changed hands, the community is still thriving. It didn’t disappear, it just spread out and took root in cool (and often surprising!) new places.
And the Pivotal Alumni Slack is one of my favorite corners of the internet: It’s got regional meetups, strong memes and hot takes, pet pics and parenting advice, throwback photos, and the occasional “does anyone have the psychological safety workshop talking points?” thread.
We celebrate wins, ask for help, and keep discussing ways to live out *the values* wherever we’ve landed.
It’s about time someone asked,
“When are we forming the ex-Labs collective technology-for-good commune where we solve world-bending problems, pair all day, and take long ping pong breaks?
I’m only half kidding.
If You’re a Pivot Reading This
✨ Thank you. You made me better. You still do.
✨ Want to swap stories or riff on old practices? I’m in.
✨ Need a recommendation, a sounding board, or a reminder of how fantastic you are? I’ve got you.
✨And if you’re hiring, building something new, or know a role where a Pivotal Labs PM would thrive - please reach out! I’m currently exploring what’s next, and if you’ve got a team full of people you trust to do great work, I’d love to join you.
To everyone I learned so much from in Atlanta, New York, Dallas, DC, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco: thank you.
To all the Pivots keeping the flame alive and doing excellent work: don’t be a stranger!
Find me on the Alumni Slack :)
📼 Feeling Nostalgic?
Want to revisit some old Pivotal magic?
What Was Special About Pivotal? by Nat Bennett - spoiler alert: possums
What It Means to Be a Pivot series by Kent Raymer - a deep dive into culture and craft
Built to Adapt on Medium - a time capsule with great case studies for how we worked
LabsPractices.com - an ever-growing collection of the not-so-Secret Sauce
Videos: This is a Pivot, Meet Pivotal Labs, Together We Can Build Something Meaningful, and The Pivotal Effect
Coming Soon: More Gratitude
This post is about the culture and people who shaped how I work - but there’s more to share!
The teammates I’d drop everything to work with again
Client teams who’ve gone on to do incredible things
Thoughtful collaborators outside Pivotal who made everything better
And a few stories that didn’t fit here, but still deserve telling
It’s tied to this gratitude video from the Happiness Project :)
Stay tuned!
xoxo,
Kate Makrigiannis (Griggs)
Pivotal Labs ATL x SF (and Dallas, DC, and New York)
Do the Right Thing | Do What Works | Always Be Kind
