The Substitution Solution

Adam Attas (MMM ‘18) brings a grocery list of innovation from his MMM education to his job helping reshape Walmart customers’ online shopping experience.

When Adam Attas (MMM '18) places an online shopping order, he isn’t just shopping. He is conducting field research.

As a staff product manager for Walmart’s e-commerce team, Attas is on a mission to perfect the art of order substitutions. His goal is to ensure customers always get what they need, even when their preferred item is out of stock.

“It’s a really interesting combination of data science and user behavior,” Attas said. “How do we make sure that we don’t disrupt our customers’ shopping experience or make them take extra trips?”

Attas brings a unique perspective to this mission, shaped by his experience in Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program. The dual-degree offering from Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management equipped him with a toolkit for innovation that he applies daily at Walmart

Attas oversees the customer experience of the substitution experience, working with a number of other product managers who oversee personalization, communications, and in-store shopping. He tries to make sure there is one cohesive customer journey across all digital and physical touch points.

"Customers aren't buying your org chart, they're looking for great experiences," Attas said. “A lot of what I’ve been using from my MMM skill set is that working-backwards framework of how to create an aspirational story."

Attas joined Walmart in October after working in healthcare product management for close to five years. The new role appealed to Attas for several additional reasons, including the company’s scale and its position as a competitor with Amazon to be the world’s largest retailer.

To push Walmart's advantages in that battle, Attas employs short-term and long-term strategic thinking. He uses a combination of design thinking and starting with the future in mind to align on vision and agile product management to focus on what can be delivered now, next, and later.

"As a product manager, you need to be able to see the big picture while also being able to dive in and get your hands dirty to focus on helping the team make decisions with data, effective storytelling, and strategic thinking," he said. "Even though a lot of the job is day-to-day execution, product strategy helps create an aspirational future."

To do that, Attas employs the human-centered design principles fundamental to the MMM program. It was in MMM where Attas learned that the most useful products can only be designed after understanding customer pain points. To truly stand out, it's important to use in-depth research to solve those pain points.

“I try to incorporate a lot more design-led innovation into my work as a product manager,” Attas said. "It’s really helpful to be able to communicate ideas effectively and then say, ‘What are the tactical ways in which we’re going to answer those unanswered questions? What assumptions are we going to use, what do we know today, and what data do we need to gather?'”

That innovative approach extends beyond Attas' day job.

Last year, he returned to MMM to co-teach Innovation Strategy with Dan Kraemer, co-founder and CEO of IA Collaborative, a company similarly steeped in human-centered design. The five-week class aimed to help students connect the dots of their MMM experience while identifying and building a case for a business' new growth opportunity.

“I wanted to make sure that they can see that there’s a linkage between finance, operations, marketing, engineering, and all these desirability, feasibility, viability things,” he said. “There are ways to test your assumptions to create compelling ways of innovating and investing in new ideas.”

As he settles into his role at Walmart and contemplates future teaching opportunities, Attas remains committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation in e-commerce.

His journey from MMM student to Walmart product manager exemplifies the program’s goal of producing leaders who can navigate the complex intersection of business and technology.

“I've been trying to think about careers more like a map than a ladder,” Attas said. “I view career growth as navigating toward the people you want to work with and the problems that you want to work on more than titles or trying to just achieve that next major milestone.”