» A component team’s focus on a specific technology can result in being less user-centric
» Feature teams are better suited to deal with innovation, uncertainty, and change
» Centralised skill teams should aim to make themselves redundant by disseminating knowledge
» Federation squares the circle of having both a cohesive design system and autonomous product teams
» A successful design system closely meets the needs of developers of apps and the end-users of those apps
» For a design system to appeal to third parties, it has to accommodate their brand identity and niche audience needs
» Performance appraisals fail to take into context whether the organisation is permitting them to succeed
» Deming: “a bad system will beat a good person every time”
» Personal development and performance are different things
» Shift performance management from the individual to team, group, or organisational level
» Service maps help teams and stakeholders to understand interactions with a service across touchpoints over time
» They provide a visual representation of an abstract and often wide-reaching process
» Think of your service like a theatre: front stage, backstage and behind the scenes
» Service mapping helps your team to tell their story to the wider organisation
Jason Shah says that joining a web3 company can be “an opaque process and a risky decision”. I’d add “ethically challenging and morally grey” to that description.
» Outcome-driven product roadmaps shift the focus from building features to solving user problems
» A product roadmap is a communication tool first and foremost
» A now/next/later roadmap helps teams to focus on the bigger picture
» Delivering outcomes instead of outputs is harder, but more valuable
» A product coach should measure their own job performance by the successes of their team members
» Strive to develop a capacity for learning in the people you supervise
» Coaching taps into an individual’s own wisdom and keeps them accountable for achieving their goals
» People who are genuinely committed to change but nonetheless dig in their heels may be unwittingly self-sabotaging
» Async working lets you set aside time for deep thinking
» Forced remote working led naturally to more async work
» Async relies on three main tenets: multiplexing, communication and action
» Find the right balance between flexibility and cohesion, independence and togetherness
» In-person time is important to sustain the human relationships that enable you to get work done
» Over time, communities of practice risk themselves becoming new silos
» Be intentional about what you want to learn, and about your own behaviour to others
» Delivery by itself is worthless — deliver value
One of the most important, and arguably hardest jobs we have as product managers is to work with our team to sift through information, read between the lines, and verify what is fact and what is merely opinion.
