Archive of the PRODUCTHEAD newsletter, a regular newsletter of product management goodness, curated by Jock Busuttil (@jockbu).
» Keeping your users’ attention means minimising cognitive drain
» Customer onboarding is a continuous process
» Video games use contextual nudges to teach players how the game works
» A new customer success team builds trust by prioritising people, then process
» Use sensitivity analysis to identify the make-or-break metrics for your business
» Your analytics approach needs to change over time to keep up with your evolving product
» Blindly copying best practices results in an imperfect copy
» Analytics tools don’t do the thinking for you
» A milkshake is really just a way to pass the time and stave off hunger on a long drive
» Users struggling to use your product to complete their tasks have unmet needs
» Christensen emphasises the higher order goal, Ulwick the task at hand
» Jobs To Be Done is often misunderstood, making it difficult for some to begin applying it
» Amazon warehouses are gradually moving towards full robotic automation
» Greater automation creates new types of work, but not necessarily for people
» Smart contracts are already automating financial transactions, but can be susceptible to coding flaws
» Increased use of machine learning in insurance places greater burden on regulators to ensure fairness
» Emotional intelligence is more important than technical skills
» Hire people who will increase your rate of learning
» A head of product needs prior experience as a product manager
» Good candidates have initiative and passion to pursue their opinions
» “Requirements” is another way of saying “just shut up and build it”
» A user story is deliberately sparse on detail to provoke a team conversation about the user’s goal
» We often incorrectly assume everyone does something the same way
» The mental model to describe epics, user stories and tasks can be clarified with visual artefacts
» Don’t ignore technical debt
» Devote time for removing some debt in every sprint
» Debt can be a prudent choice in some situations
» It’s harder to read code than write it — so resist the temptation to start the code base again from scratch
» User research needs to be proactive as well as reactive validation
» Some research techniques are more useful than others at different stages
» You must safeguard the welfare of your user research participants
» There are many ways to recruit participants for your research without outsourcing
» Use a simple format for sharing research findings memorably
» A product manager works at the intersection between business, technology and user experience
» A product manager is not a replacement for absent specialists
» The product manager is accountable for ensuring the solution is both valuable and viable
» Product managers use their knowledge of user needs and business goals to frame problems and set priorities for their delivery teams
