Don’t look back in anger – 2012 round-up

2012 was a real roller-coaster ride for me, both personally and professionally.  Surprisingly (to me), it was only my first full year of blogging – I only started I Manage Products back in February 2011[*] June 2010.  But 2012 was the year I decided to step things up a little: yes, I procured a domain name.  That made it official.

Oh yes, I also started a company and wrote some articles on product management…

* Lies, damn lies and statistics. The more observant among you will have noted that my first blog post was actually in June 2010, so my first full year of blogging was therefore 2011. <Sigh>.

At the beginning of the year, in a vain attempt to maintain a semblance of control over an increasingly-demanding job running a product team and a stack of software and data products, my focus was on how to manage stress, distractions and heaps of email more effectively.  Because my mother brought me up to be a polite child (she wished), I also advocated the importance of remembering one’s manners – after all, you never know when you may need a favour in return.

As a follow-up to the one of my very first and still most popular articles on the site about product management key performance indicators (KPIs), I wrote about seven KPIs for insight into your customers.  It was also a pleasure to share with you some useful sites, articles, tutorials and videos as part of my occasional links of the day, of which my personal favourite is still this video summarising what an Agile product owner does in 15 minutes and pictures.  That choice probably says a few things about me.

Prize for the article I enjoyed writing the most goes to my daft attempt to liken a student drinking game with the increasingly stalky nature of Facebook; hard-hitting writing there, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I started this blog to write about 100 things I’ve learned about product management.  In just under two years, I’ve only just made it to number 30.  At this rate, I’ll hit number 100 some time in 2017, though I suspect I’ll still have more to learn at that point.

Thank you all for reading, subscribing, commenting and guest posting, and in particular to my close friends and family who diplomatically showed me where I should improve my writing by pointing and laughing.

I hope that 2013 brings you success and happiness – cheers!

P.S. Here are a couple of better-written, more aesthetically-pleasing and statistically-laden retrospectives of 2012 from MailChimp and Kickstarter.


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The Practitioner's Guide to Product Management book cover

The Practitioner's Guide To Product Management

by Jock Busuttil

“This is a great book for Product Managers or those considering a career in Product Management.”

— Lyndsay Denton

Jock Busuttil is a freelance head of product, product management coach and author. He has spent over two decades working with technology companies to improve their product management practices, from startups to multinationals. In 2012 Jock founded Product People Limited, which provides product management consultancy, coaching and training. Its clients include BBC, University of Cambridge, Ometria, Prolific and the UK’s Ministry of Justice and Government Digital Service (GDS). Jock holds a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of the popular book The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management, which was published in January 2015 by Grand Central Publishing in the US and Piatkus in the UK. He writes the blog I Manage Products and weekly product management newsletter PRODUCTHEAD. You can find him on Mastodon, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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