PRODUCTHEAD: Dear younger me …
» In product management, people matter most
» Diverse teams build better products
» A mentor or coach can be like a north star for your career
» Care for the craft and remember to pay it forward
Archive of the PRODUCTHEAD newsletter, a regular newsletter of product management goodness, curated by Jock Busuttil (@jockbu).
» In product management, people matter most
» Diverse teams build better products
» A mentor or coach can be like a north star for your career
» Care for the craft and remember to pay it forward
I’m mixing things up a bit this week with a special offer for you. Product School have kindly given me 9 VIP tickets to their November #ProductCon Online, so I’m offering them to you.
» Piles of books by experts in disciplines you’ll be working with on your product team
» Meetings are for information exchange, workshops are for solving problems
» With hybrid working, adopt a “remote first” mindset to avoid divisions in your team
» Poor workshop facilitation discourages future participation
» Reflection gives everyone a chance to contribute and listen
» Charities’ strategy should focus on the future, not the annual planning cycle
» Break the habit of surveys and focus groups with user interviews
» The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated growth in digital fundraising
» Commodity services free teams from reactive and defensive development patterns to truly innovate
» Learning is more valuable than being successful and not knowing why
» You can experiment with the content and layout of any web-based product with basic skills
» The success rate of experimentation is higher if there is no penalty for failing
» “If you have a good idea on a Monday and can design, test and learn by the Friday, then innovation explodes.”
» More specific questions yield better user research findings
» User research works well when the team collaborates with a specialist user researcher
» Increased team user exposure hours correlates with more successful product improvements by the team
» The sooner you start user research, the greater impact it will have on your product
» A Kanban board helps the team to collate and track the questions to be researched
» To build trust, mutual respect and transparency are critical
» Becoming a product leader means letting go of the day-to-day product management
» Being good at your job means training others to be good at theirs
» Equip your team to make good choices without needing your input
» Developing people is the single most important part of your job
» Saying no to a good idea requires confidence in your product strategy
» Even if saying no to an opportunity, take the time to understand its value and context
» Keep ideas and suggestions separate from your product backlog
» Clear company goals and strategy make it easier to say no to unaligned requests
» Saying yes habitually to one-off custom features will usually kill your product business
» A selection of the best product management podcasts by product people, recommended by product people