Author: Jock Busuttil

Jock Busuttil is a product management and leadership coach, product leader 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, X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn.

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» Wartime vs peacetime leaders employ different skill sets

» Airbnb’s changes to product management could be just what is needed in wartime or equally a retrograde step

» Working from home is a particularly polarising debate because it aligns with the leader-employee divide

» Discussions about productivity are often a proxy discussion for some other dysfunction

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» Every decision is a trade-off — deciding what not to do is just as important as deciding what to do

» A good product vision captures customer, user, value proposition and links to organisational objectives

» Interrogate your goals: “For this to happen, what must be true?”, then mark which are facts or assumptions

» Avoid jumping on the first idea — check what problem we think it solves, then ask, “How else could we do this?”

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» When strategic frames grow rigid, companies, like nations, tend to keep fighting the last war

» If organisations (incorrectly) view change as gradual they will have resistance to the change

» The innovator’s dilemma: cater to current needs or attempt to anticipate future demands?

» Many common financial tools distort the value, importance, and likelihood of success of investments in innovation

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» Match your product’s units to how your customer measures value

» Changing your pricing model regularly needn’t be a bad thing — it just has to be done carefully

» With usage-based pricing, help your customers to anticipate their likely costs

» Care has to be taken to keep dynamic / surge pricing transparent

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» Moving to a product-led growth model takes time and will encounter resistance

» A product-led model does not replace the sales-led or marketing-led approach completely

» Growth loops operate on a similar principle to compound interest

» Software companies with a frictionless product approach displace custom-built apps

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» Take a systematic approach to evaluating multiple solutions to the same opportunity

» ‘Assumption’ is just another word for ‘things we believe’

» When there are many opportunities in contention, assess whether it’s worth solving the problem

» We tend to come up with solutions before defining the problem they solve