PRODUCTHEAD: Take a walk in the landscape
» Services are inherited, messy, and rarely a clean slate
» There are different types of prioritisation, and we should consider them in combination
» The knowledge economy is being upended by genAI
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.
PRODUCTHEAD: Everything you wanted to know about ROI but were afraid to ask
» Why is it so hard to forecast return on investment (ROI) for a product?
» ROI is not the only measure of product value
» You can take account of uncertainty in your estimates in a systematic way
PRODUCTHEAD: When empowerment is a façade
» Defend against short-termism by making your team’s strategic thinking visible
» People are increasingly working to live, not living to work
» Teams should only split their Decision Stack when their answers to “How?” diverge
» Repetition and reward are intrinsic to behaviour change in teams
PRODUCTHEAD: Yanking, coupling, bubbles and massive gaps
» Rank stacking has fallen out of favour because it breeds internal sabotage and mediocrity
» Orgs drift between varying degrees of horizontal and vertical ‘coupling’
» We are arguably in 3 AI bubbles: speculative, infrastructure and hype
» Better methods than roadmaps exist when there’s a broad gap between vision and execution
PRODUCTHEAD: Dealing with handwavy strategy
» Product managers have to fill the gap when strategy is absent
» When taking a decision, first consider how reversible it it is
» Communities of practice evolve through different stages, which need different approaches
PRODUCTHEAD: Ending the enshittification era
» Fight enshittification by encouraging interoperability and openness in your product ecosystem
» You can prove a concept by building something janky and cheap that shows it working for real
» OKRs do not exist in isolation – context, strategy and culture set the scene
PRODUCTHEAD: Deliberately choosing to be different
» People are rarely idiots — assume they’re rational actors with good intent
» Sometimes you have to compromise on finding the ideal job
» What truly differentiates you from the rest of the market when anyone can build anything?
PRODUCTHEAD: The right kind of fast
» A PM’s vibe coded prototype is just another way to dictate requirements to the team
» Just because you can build features more quickly doesn’t mean you should build them
» Greater strategic discipline than ever is needed to build worthwhile products
PRODUCTHEAD: Escaping ‘analysis paralysis’
» AI may help you ship faster, but validating what you shipped still takes time
» In large complex organisations, transparent, written communication helps to avoid misinterpretation
» A strategy is just a wishlist if you never actually follow through on a decision
PRODUCTHEAD: Ignoring or embracing complexity?
» There may be multiple ‘truths’ about the work depending on how different people frame it
» Different groups of people will adopt strategy in stages, and have differing information needs
» Fostering collaboration is the necessary first step for an organisation to work with more agility
