Article archives
Here you can find links to all the articles published on this website.
You can also view the PRODUCTHEAD newsletter archive.
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Pay attention to local requirements
If you want to succeed in global markets with a ‘one size fits all’ approach, you may want to reconsider that strategy. Pay as much attention, if not more, to getting the local details right.
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By way of an introduction
Why write a blog? Up until recently if someone had suggested that I start writing a blog I would most likely have unfurled my ‘To Do’ list with a flourish, watched the unrolling end bounce off the floor and gestured vaguely into the distance. So what’s changed?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Coaching is outsourced willpower
- PRODUCTHEAD: A quick overview of discovery
- 92: Moving up to a CPO or VP Product role
- PRODUCTHEAD: A reality check
- PRODUCTHEAD: A little (self-)respect
- PRODUCTHEAD: Product-led growth product management (wut?)
- I want to update my pricing strategy. Where do I start?
- PRODUCTHEAD: On brand
- PRODUCTHEAD: When everyone’s using genAI to apply for jobs
- PRODUCTHEAD: A deep dive into crowdfunding
- PRODUCTHEAD: Navigating change
- How do I make my product roadmap a better communication tool?
- PRODUCTHEAD: In search of deeper alignment
- PRODUCTHEAD: What if …?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Beliefs and uncertainty
- PRODUCTHEAD: A red team mindset
- PRODUCTHEAD: Personal user manuals
- How can I keep track of all these product metrics?
- PRODUCTHEAD: The most popular of 2023
- PRODUCTHEAD: “Hello computer!” — the lure of conversational programming
- PRODUCTHEAD: Pragmatism is (im)perfectly fine
- PRODUCTHEAD: On OpenAI’s ideological conflict
- PRODUCTHEAD: Should you do custom features for paying clients?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Don’t wait. Just find out.
- PRODUCTHEAD: AI is word of the year
- PRODUCTHEAD: How product teams can measure discovery
- PRODUCTHEAD: Sunsetting a product or feature
- PRODUCTHEAD: Becoming a service organisation
- PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with engineering (or avoiding developer disengagement)
- PRODUCTHEAD: Empowered teams can’t simply do whatever they like
- Getting your first job as a product manager
- PRODUCTHEAD: Training wheels and learned helplessness
- PRODUCTHEAD: Is there a standard product development life cycle?
- PRODUCTHEAD turns 3 🎂 / The changing realities of product management
- Force multipliers
- PRODUCTHEAD: Charting your career path
- PRODUCTHEAD: Who’s in charge? You or the process?
- 91: How to sharpen up your vision and strategy
- PRODUCTHEAD: Wartime vs peacetime product leadership
- PRODUCTHEAD: The value of a drink in the desert
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to align vision, strategy and action
- PRODUCTHEAD: Defending against ‘Dawn of the Dumb’ product ideas
- PRODUCTHEAD: Exploiting inertia for fun and profit
- PRODUCTHEAD: Traditional, SaaS, usage and surge pricing models
- 90: Always have a plan B
- PRODUCTHEAD: Product-led growth
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to evaluate product opportunities
- PRODUCTHEAD: There’s hope for us (and AI) yet
- PRODUCTHEAD: Seeking control in a crisis
- PRODUCTHEAD: What do you worry about on a Sunday night?
- PRODUCTHEAD: ‘Better’ decision making
- 89: What games taught me about customer onboarding
- PRODUCTHEAD: Games and customer onboarding
- PRODUCTHEAD: How technical does a product manager need to be?
- PRODUCTHEAD: 3 ways to handle team conflicts
- PRODUCTHEAD: The strange attraction of desire paths
- Should I take a product manager job in a sales-led company?
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to transcribe and analyse your user research recordings
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to record your user research interviews
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to plan a user research interview
- PRODUCTHEAD: Trade-offs and negotiation
- 88: Control your narrative
- PRODUCTHEAD: The perils of pitch presentation culture
- PRODUCTHEAD: What can product managers learn about discovery from a superhero costume maker?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Everyone is losing their mind over ChatGPT
- Why can’t I rely on user research from other departments?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Place your bets, please
- PRODUCTHEAD: More than making the right moves with frameworks
- PRODUCTHEAD: This article was NOT written by AI
- PRODUCTHEAD: Choose your own adventure
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to protect your startup’s product idea
- PRODUCTHEAD: 2022 in review
- Will platforms conquer the world?
- PRODUCTHEAD: The demented game show
- PRODUCTHEAD: Writing a product manager job description
- PRODUCTHEAD: Trust and transparency
- As head of product, should I be a player-manager, or hire and delegate?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with the engineering team
- PRODUCTHEAD: Products with a fatal flaw ☠️
- PRODUCTHEAD: Understanding the user’s perspective
- PRODUCTHEAD: Do the hard work to make it simple
- Thank you for 10 years of support
- PRODUCTHEAD: Setting up a product support team
- PRODUCTHEAD: Playing Whack-a-mole with symptoms
- Billion-dollar platforms — how they did it
- PRODUCTHEAD: Communication toolkit recap
- PRODUCTHEAD: It’s okay to be proud of your achievements
- PRODUCTHEAD: Bad communication — how to annoy and alienate your users
- PRODUCTHEAD: Will platforms conquer the world?
- 87: An exercise in stakeholder alignment
- PRODUCTHEAD: Back to school
- PRODUCTHEAD: Should I retire … (my product)?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Strongly-held beliefs
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to influence stakeholders
- PRODUCTHEAD: Conversion funnel analysis — down the rabbit hole
- PRODUCTHEAD: Presenting to inform, educate and entertain (communication toolkit #5)
- PRODUCTHEAD: Efficient note-taking (communication toolkit #4)
- PRODUCTHEAD: Writing for the needs of your audience (communication toolkit #3)
- 86: The 4 unintended side-effects of risk aversion and what to do about them
- PRODUCTHEAD: How to read more effectively (communication toolkit #2)
- PRODUCTHEAD: Active listening (communication toolkit #1)
- What’s the difference between ‘measures of success’ and ‘definition of done’?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Dropping the masks at work
- PRODUCTHEAD: The difference between good and bad strategy
- PRODUCTHEAD: A primer on analytics for beginners
- PRODUCTHEAD: Defining services
- 85: The agency trap
- PRODUCTHEAD: Component teams, feature teams and centralised skill teams
- PRODUCTHEAD: The hidden patterns within design systems
- PRODUCTHEAD: Performance appraisals are underperforming
- PRODUCTHEAD: Service mapping for product managers
- Whatever this is, this web3 product manager role is not a product manager
- PRODUCTHEAD: Outcome-driven product roadmaps
- PRODUCTHEAD: More product coach, less line manager
- PRODUCTHEAD: Async working and communication
- PRODUCTHEAD: 3 product leaders share what they’ve learned
- Sorting the signal from the noise — a guide to fact-checking
- PRODUCTHEAD: The ethics of information (data ethics)
- What’s the difference between a growth hacker and a growth product manager?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Product ops — cynical rebrand or division of labour?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Exploring the solution space with prototyping
- 84: Start building a community of practice with the 3 minute challenge
- PRODUCTHEAD: The joy of metrics
- PRODUCTHEAD: Obtaining an optimal organisation
- PRODUCTHEAD: Dealing with discomfort
- PRODUCTHEAD: When your product is a blank canvas
- Should a growth product manager even be a thing?
- PRODUCTHEAD: The rise of the growth product manager
- PRODUCTHEAD: Managing mature products
- PRODUCTHEAD: New year’s resolutions
- 6: 6 tips for presenting slides that don’t suck
- My boss wants to set me an OKR on revenue growth. Is this right?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Your favourite articles of 2021
- PRODUCTHEAD: Dear Santa …
- PRODUCTHEAD: Incentives and behaviour
- PRODUCTHEAD: John Cutler’s North Star Metric
- PRODUCTHEAD: To specialise in product management?
- 83: 5 tips to ace your first impression at a new job
- PRODUCTHEAD: Prize winners / reinventing HR
- PRODUCTHEAD: Dear younger me …
- PRODUCTHEAD: Win a VIP ticket to #ProductCon Online
- PRODUCTHEAD: Tsundoku (piles of books waiting to be read)
- PRODUCTHEAD: Facilitating workshops
- PRODUCTHEAD: Product management in charities
- 82: Replatforming the cash cow
- PRODUCTHEAD: Rapid prototyping
- PRODUCTHEAD: Working well with user researchers
- PRODUCTHEAD: Becoming a product leader
- PRODUCTHEAD: Should we be saying no or not?
- PRODUCTHEAD: 9 of the best product management podcasts
- 81: The unifying principles of product management
- PRODUCTHEAD: (Re)discovering discovery
- PRODUCTHEAD: Acting like a startup seeking funding
- PRODUCTHEAD: Starting your next role in product
- PRODUCTHEAD: Success theatre
- What to do when service transformation goes wrong
- PRODUCTHEAD: Basics of finance for product managers
- PRODUCTHEAD: 5 product strategy tips
- PRODUCTHEAD: To err is human
- PRODUCTHEAD: Better than okay OKRs
- PRODUCTHEAD: Pimp my system
- I’m overwhelmed — can you help?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Listen all y’all, it’s a sabotage
- PRODUCTHEAD: Everyone needs coaching
- PRODUCTHEAD: Product management post-COVID-19
- PRODUCTHEAD: World Product Day 2021
- How do you find the balance between autonomy and focus for PMs you’re managing?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Stakeholders are people too
- PRODUCTHEAD: “Don’t f**k up the culture”
- PRODUCTHEAD: Service design and product management
- PRODUCTHEAD: Ethical product management
- 80: The neverending quest for product-market fit
- PRODUCTHEAD: User personas or creepy caricatures?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Trust and customer success
- PRODUCTHEAD: Why do my houseplants keep dying?
- Mission to Mars
- PRODUCTHEAD: What’s the fuss about Jobs To Be Done?
- PRODUCTHEAD: The new lamplighters
- PRODUCTHEAD: Recruiting the right stuff
- 79: The product leader’s guide to interviewing product managers
- PRODUCTHEAD: When did storytelling become so hard?
- PRODUCTHEAD: It’s payback time on technical debt
- Should a product manager have responsibility for profitability?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Wrap your ears around these podcasts
- PRODUCTHEAD: The what, why and how of user research
- 78: How to start a new product manager job
- PRODUCTHEAD: Remind me, what am I meant to be doing?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Rethinking product roadmaps
- What technical skills do I need to be a product manager?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Creativity is borne of constraints
- PRODUCTHEAD: Pricing – everything and nothing has changed
- 77: The only article you’ll ever need on prioritization
- PRODUCTHEAD: The good, the bad and the ugly of machine learning
- PRODUCTHEAD: Better teams need better leaders
- What lessons from antiquity would you apply to product management?
- PRODUCTHEAD: There are only 5 product strategies
- 76: Manage the whole product
- PRODUCTHEAD: Being able to see the chessboard
- PRODUCTHEAD: Digital inclusion and accessibility
- Managing product managers
- What’s the difference between a product manager and a business analyst?
- PRODUCTHEAD: Content design
- PRODUCTHEAD: Rearranging the deckchairs
- 75: The dirty little secrets of decision making
- PRODUCTHEAD: Have you been having visions?
- PRODUCTHEAD: The plummeting price of power
- Misunderstood metaphors: Product manager as conductor
- PRODUCTHEAD: Hardware’s harder to manage
- PRODUCTHEAD: Hieranarchy
- Growing together: developing and retaining your product team
- PRODUCTHEAD: A single point of failure
- Podcast: Voxgig Fireside for professional speakers
- PRODUCTHEAD: Introverts, extraverts and just a smidge of pseudoscience
- Open, honest and always improving
- PRODUCTHEAD: Tricksy interviews
- 74: The black art of content design
- PRODUCTHEAD: Living your brand values
- PRODUCTHEAD: Finding the positives
- Saving yourself from product management hell
- 73: You wouldn’t drive blindfolded – why you need user research
- Upcoming live talks – September and October 2020
- 5 product leadership lessons learnt from the UK’s Ministry of Justice Digital team
- How do I make my product manager CV stand out?
- How to measure product management – ProductBeats talk
- 72: All the world’s a stage – how to launch a product
- What’s the best way to focus teams on outcomes not outputs?
- Upcoming live talks – July 2020
- What’s the name for ‘continuing to find product-market fit’?
- Reading aloud
- 71: The PMO strikes back
- What does a product manager do (and not do)?
- 70: You need a delivery manager on your team
- May you live in interesting times
- 69: It matters what you say and what you do
- 68: 4 common user persona mistakes
- 67: Why cake is important for product leaders
- 66: Show the thing
- Podcast: Learning Product Leadership
- What exactly is a “Freelance Head of Product”? (Interview for Working Products conference)
- What makes a good UX designer? (from a product manager’s point of view)
- Speaking at DevTalks Romania 2019
- Can I pick your brain about product roadmaps?
- 65: The secrets of meaningful product roadmaps (redux)
- Speaking at Landing Festival Berlin 2019
- Should I take a different role before applying to become a product manager?
- How do you establish an effective product management team?
- Speaking at ProductCamp L’viv
- Product management has evolved. Has your company?
- What skills do I need to be a freelance product manager?
- 64: Good product management
- Speaking at DevTalks Bucharest in June
- How do I make myself more suitable for a senior product role in UK government?
- I need a product manager with specific experience, can you help?
- 63: The whole agile thing
- How on earth am I going to start managing a second product?
- 62: How to measure product manager performance
- 61: The 16 most important technical skills every product manager needs
- 60: The 12 most important soft skills every product manager needs
- 59: Find the tipping point in your user research
- How did you get into product management?
- What’s the one thing retailers are doing wrong in ecommerce?
- 58: What Eurovision taught me about product management
- 57: Cut through red tape
- How do you keep user needs front and centre?
- The secret behind meaningful product roadmaps
- 56: The coffee shop problem
- The benefits of open and transparent data
- What sources of information should people use to build products?
- What user trends do you see?
- What kinds of questions should I be asking in discovery?
- How UK government digital services gather and use evidence
- How closely aligned should product organisations be with marketing and personas?
- Why we can’t help jumping to conclusions
- How much evidence is sufficient for decision-making?
- Expensive and risky assumptions (and why you should check them)
- How do I get my waterfall organisation to be more agile?
- How do I distil users’ wish lists of requirements to a core handful?
- 55: How to beat writer’s block
- Modernising your product in 2017 – webinar for Logi Analytics
- Starting with a guess: how to use data creatively
- Building a product community in government
- 54: How to stop common B2B dysfunctions in the product team
- 53: THIS is what product-market fit looks like
- 52: It only takes one bottleneck
- The £20 bottle of Blue Nun
- 3 ways to build a better sales team
- Should I start a bank?
- How to show your team the benefits of experimentation
- 51: Assemble the right product team
- Getting better at public speaking
- 6 simple rules of product management
- 50: A novice’s introduction to service design for product managers
- 49: How to prioritise your product portfolio
- 48: Mac or PC? You don’t have to pick a side
- Making myself redundant
- Interview with Wade Danielson of The Entrepreneurs Library
- I’m about to launch a website. Any advice?
- Becoming a product manager at Ministry of Justice Digital
- Want a free copy of The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management?
- What’s it like working as a product manager at a startup?
- The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management – a best seller and selling out fast!
- The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management – out tomorrow
- 47: How I learned to stop hating job interviews
- 46: How to qualify yourself for a product management job
- 45: Three ways you’re DEFINITELY doing MVPs wrong
- Analytics and decision-making on Mind the Product
- Should the product manager and product owner be the same person?
- 44: A good picture can save 1,000 words
- 39-43: Four more things I’ve learned about product management
- Change management and product management on Mind the Product
- 38: Product managers learn by doing
- Product roadmapping, prioritisation and portfolio management on Mind the Product
- B2B Product Management on Mind the Product
- A day in the life of a product manager – guest post for Silicon Milkroundabout
- Product Management and the Internet of Things on Mind the Product
- 14th May: The $100 million assumption – MVP down under
- 37: Unexpected delights – a geek’s guide to the Kano model
- Product Management in Commerce on Mind the Product
- Back(log) to the Future – story arcs, roadmaps and product themes
- 36: Product roadmaps are like DVD box sets
- Product Management in Online Payments on Mind the Product
- 35: Product management skills to pay the bills
- Happy Christmas + where I’ve been hiding
- Product Management and the Internet of Things on Mind the Product
- 34: Pick your battles
- Link of the day: The Agile Business Gap by @brainmates
- Ich bin Produktmanager: round-up from inaugural Product Management Festival 2013 in Zürich
- Cycles within cycles
- Crack out the Ferrero Rocher*
- Needs, features and benefits
- Blast from the past
- Fun, fun, fun at ProductTank London!
- 33: The “Field Of Dreams” is fiction
- Win-win-win with Wigwamm – an interview with Rayhan Rafiq Omar
- 32: Be flexible
- 31: Learn to enjoy networking
- What you should expect when recruiting a product manager
- Product managers make GREAT dinner guests
- Don’t look back in anger – 2012 round-up
- My new favourite things
- 30: Reserve time for housekeeping
- How to price throughout the product lifecycle
- 29: Never commit to written word something you’ll be ashamed of later
- Link of the day: Agile Product Ownership in a nutshell
- 28: What’s the big idea?
- The 8 traits of a successful web API
- Why sales needs to align with product management to win more business
- Introducing Product People — interim product management, coaching, training and content creation
- 27: Don’t be scared of angry customers
- import.io – Live from Big Data London & Strata
- 26: The customer is king
- Link of the Day: Pricing your product – it doesn’t have to be so complicated
- 25: “Don’t let roUtINe draw U IN to danger!”
- Link of the Day: Kano tutorial via Mountain Goat Software
- Facebook is like the drinking game “I Have Never…”
- 24: Variety is the spice of life
- 23: Too much choice can be overwhelming
- 22: Blow your own trumpet
- 21: Seven KPIs for customer insight
- Big data – big deal?
- Cookie cookie cookie COOOKIE
- 20: Leave work when you’re meant to
- 19: How to regain control of your inbox
- 18: Five ways to manage distractions better
- 17: Remember your manners
- 16: You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone – Joni Mitchell
- 15: Product management is selling
- Drowning in product documentation? Start swimming – Part 2
- 14: There is always more work to do. Don’t burn yourself out
- 13: You’ve got to start the race before you can finish it
- 12: Keep it simple, stupid
- Drowning in product documentation? Start swimming – Part 1
- 11: You are allowed to say ‘no’ – it’s strategic
- 10: Give yourself time to think in a straight line
- Book recommendation – The Case for Working with Your Hands
- 9: Everything benefits from a good start in life
- 8: Empathise, empathise, empathise
- 7: Public speaking is as much about how you say it as well as what you say
- 6: Good presentation skills are not the same as good PowerPoint skills
- Lean, green, micro machines
- 5: The best possible way may not necessarily be the right way
- 4: Don’t focus on what’s stopping you
- 3: Know your subject matter
- 2: Find problems rather than guess solutions
- 1: Be fluent in the language of your audience
- OMG EOL – LOL (or: How to take a product to end of life)
- Painting the Forth Bridge
- Lo-fi usability testing – Part 3: Ten top tips
- Lo-fi usability testing – Part 2: Preparation
- Lo-fi usability testing – Part 1: Background
- What will your leaving speech sound like?
- How to get your sales team selling value instead of discounting
- ProductCamp London: Why product managers and entrepreneurs need to be more alike
- Pre-empting customer churn
- What should product managers keep an eye on in 2011?
- 7 guiding principles for product install / upgrade usability
- Easier product forecasting
- 33 cut-out-and-keep usability requirements for your product
- DIY Eco Linux Fileserver (part 2)
- DIY Eco Linux Fileserver (part 1)
- The thorny issue of pricing
- The problem with successful products
- Net Promoter EU Conference 2010
- Why aren’t sales selling my new product?
- Ill communication
- “Why the heck should I upgrade?” – 4 things you’re probably missing
- Positive procrastination
- 4 key ways to spot a successful product manager
- Context is everything
- Hello. I’m new.
- Questions you need to be asking
- Pay attention to local requirements
- By way of an introduction