Jock Busuttil’s (@jockbu) series “100 Things I’ve Learned” is what he’s learned about product management over the years – usually the hard way.
One of the easiest traps for a product manager to fall into is unquestioning routine or habit. I learned about this most through my time at university training to fly with the Royal Air Force. Let me explain how it applies.
Sometimes when I’m stuck doing the same thing at work I joke that the repetition is causing my brain to harden. Turns out this isn’t so far from the truth. Here’s why it’s important to keep challenging yourself and learning new things.
As the Olympics approached, I was salivating greedily about the twenty-four live streams of coverage the BBC would be providing. As I’m not on cable or satellite, this ended up being just three. You’d think I would be disappointed but I’m not – this is going to improve my enjoyment immeasurably as a result. Here’s why.
As a product manager, people will take credit for your hard work – unless you trumpet your own successes!
Knowledge is power for product managers, but you have to gather and interpret the right metrics. Here are seven suggested KPIs that you can use to expand your customer insight and to drive better performance.
Here’s how to sleep more soundly at night and avoid setting unrealistic expectations about how much you can get done in a given amount of time
Product managers just loooove solving problems and answering questions. Emails present us with an enticing list of both, which is why we find it so hard to tear ourselves away from them. I reveal how you can regain control of your inbox after the break!
As product managers, our workload intensity tends to be cyclical and sometimes these cycles can stack up. Distractions can seriously dent your ability to Get Stuff Done™, so here are five things you can try out to manage distractions more effectively.
My folks brought me up to remember my manners. I consider I’ve perhaps taken this a little too far when I find myself apologising to people in London who have just shoulder-barged me into the path of an oncoming bus. But manners are important, especially for a product manager, where your success relies on the help of many others.
People value something most when they’ve just lost it or come close to doing so. If your product prevents this happening, take some advice from Joni Mitchell: you need to save your client the heartache of loss by helping them remember how much they value what they have now so that they don’t take it for granted.
