Feb 16How to Create a Product VisionWhy having a vision is important and how to use it in steering your product — I ran a poll recently on Linked asking people to select a topic for a blog post, and surprisingly (at least to me), the dominant choice was “Creating a Product Vision”.Product Management19 min readProduct Management19 min read
Jan 28How to Launch Products in a World of Continuous Delivery/DeploymentDelivery is an internal activity, Launch is about making an initial impact in your market — I was asked a question recently about how companies should execute product/release launches in the context of a continuous delivery environment. i.e. how can we “wow” the market with a product launch when there is a continuous trickle of new features and functionality coming out Engineering? To answer this question…Product Management8 min readProduct Management8 min read
Dec 30, 2022Product has a language problem. And we need to fix it.We undermine ourselves with loose terminology and hand-wavy definitions — Every profession has it’s own language precepts and terminology. Legal, Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, Epidemiology, Finance, Project Management etc. all have specific terminology to clearly identify important and common concepts. And even if you’re not in those professions, you’ve heard some of those terms and may have an idea of what…Product10 min readProduct10 min read
Published in Bootcamp·Sep 29, 2022Make “Evidence-based” Decisions, Not “Data-based” DecisionsThe shift in language leads to a shift in context, thinking and action, all for the better. — TL;DR — Thinking about “evidence” vs. “data” when making decisions, expands the thinking, actions and discussion. It allows for a broader set of information to be considered. …Product Management8 min readProduct Management8 min read
Aug 18, 2022Product Managers — Don’t Fake It ’Til You Make it.How to minimize imposter syndrome and quickly build a solid foundation to be effective when starting a new Product Managment role. — TL;DR — Onboarding Product Managers and getting them up to speed needs to be a deliberate act that is planned and executed by the Product Manager and their manager. Given the amount of knowledge and context needed for Product Managers to do their jobs well, it’s important to take an…Product Management18 min readProduct Management18 min read
Aug 1, 2022The Product Manager’s SongA modern take on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Major General’s Song. — NOTE: I originally published this on my personal blog in 2009. I thought it deserved to be seen by a new audience. …Product3 min readProduct3 min read
Jul 9, 2022The 5 Dysfunctions of Product Management TeamsYou’ve almost certainly heard of the book, the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It’s a fairly popular book in technology organizations and provides some great advice in identifying and addressing key issues found in ANY team. The 5 dysfunctions that Lencioni cites are: 1: Absence of Trust 2: Fear of Conflict 3: Lack of Commitment 4: Avoidance of Accountability 5: Inattention to ResultsProduct Management14 min readProduct Management14 min read
Apr 12, 2022How to say “No” as a Product ManagerActually, it’s not about saying “No”, it’s about defining and educating on the Why and What? — There’s a quote from Steve Jobs that goes something like this: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick…Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Jan 8, 2022Why You Should Avoid Prioritization Frameworks and How To Do It RightPrioritize based on objectives and strategy, not spreadsheets and formulas — I sometimes get asked about product/feature prioritization frameworks. In particular, which one(s) do I suggest people use. Before getting into the answer to that question, let’s define what we mean by prioritization frameworks. These are framework like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), WSJF (Weighted Shorted Job First) etc. …Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Nov 18, 2021Product Management is NOT a gap fillerWe need to get past bad metaphors and analogies for describing Product Management — This article was originally published in June 2009, on On Product Management, a personal blog that is no longer available. It was titled: So why do we undermine ourselves? I updated and republished it here because I saw an article talking about Product Ops — a relatively new Product role…Product Management3 min readProduct Management3 min read
