PRODUCTHEAD: Attitudes to technical literacy
PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.
inside my product #
every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to
tl;dr
Choosing not to learn is a choice to be left behind
4 types of “money story”: cost savings; upselling; new market; and customer satisfaction
Reflections on how we think about aspects of product management
hello
This week I’ve been thinking about a challenge often facing product managers: that feeling of helplessness, possibly inadequacy, when we don’t understand our products in as much detail as we feel we should. More often than not, it’s the technology components and architecture of our product that’s the mystery, although a specialised subject area such as regulatory compliance can be just as opaque to a newcomer also.
Differing attitudes to technical literacy #
On the technology side, I’ve observed a few basic patterns. Some product managers will make it their personal mission to learn about how their product works, why it was designed in a particular way and not another, and about the ecosystem of technologies that surround it. This is not the group with the problem.
Instead imagine a cohort of product managers that come from a professional background in which they’ve rarely had reason to care or learn about what is going on inside their products. They take a pragmatic approach – as long as the product performs its intended job successfully, they’re not overly bothered how it achieves it. I know my device will get electricity if I plug it into a power outlet, but I couldn’t tell you how the electrons make it to the outlet in the right quantities to begin with.
Another group of product managers will make the false leap of reasoning that because their product is simple to use, it must be straightforward on the inside also. While this is almost never the case, this perspective can breed an allergy to complexity. (“Why can’t you just make it do X?” – ‘just’ is the dangerous word here, even if it’s coming from a place of innocent naivety.)
There is little impetus for these product managers to deepen their knowledge (possibly they think they have it all figured out already), and they keep colliding with their developers who are struggling to convey the underlying complexity of their work to an unappreciative audience.
Knowledge gatekeeping #
Others will take the view that understanding how their product works is simply beyond their abilities. Of this group, some may have tried asking their development or engineering team to explain, only to be dismissed out of hand because of knowledge gatekeeping, lack of professional respect, or because the thought of having to explain everything from first principles doesn’t appeal to the developers. This can shatter one’s confidence and discourage further attempts at learning. (Or it might have the opposite effect, and motivate the product manager to prove them wrong.)
Thankfully this kind of assholery is in the minority. Many developers would love their product manager to appreciate their artistry at a deeper level, and in turn equip their product manager to defend their interests more effectively. That said, it’s fair to say that not every developer is a natural communicator, able to strike the right balance between detail and over-simplification. Hell, neither are some product managers.
That’s why I believe it’s up to the product manager to take the first step, either by doing their own research or by asking their developers for help understanding aspects of their product. The state of the art is progressing so rapidly that choosing not to learn is a choice to be left behind. But where to start?
How to learn about tech #
As the youngest of three kids, my childhood mainly revolved around being told I wasn’t allowed to touch my eldest brother’s expensive computer. Of course, that merely motivated me to do the opposite. It was all fairly goal-oriented – what did I need to know to reliably load up one of the games to play it. And when things didn’t work, I learned just enough to get them working again. It was all very pragmatic: if this happens, do this to fix it; if that doesn’t work, try this instead. There was no deeper understanding yet, but for the purposes of getting a decent result, it was enough.
This philosophy of ‘just enough knowledge to get by’ is a perfectly fine starting point if you’re daunted by learning about technical concepts. At the outset you don’t need to understand why things work to know that something tends to work in a given situation. It’s essentially pattern recognition, something we humans are quite good at.
In time, you do need to deepen your knowledge. You may notice that something that works perfectly in one situation doesn’t have the desired effect in others. Why is that? A closer inspection will reveal where the two situations are different, and that in turn helps you to understand why the approach works in one case and not another. The more you do this, the more you build your knowledge of the system, and so have a more accurate understanding of how it works in reality.
What tech concepts to learn about #
Many of the technologies we use on a daily basis boil down to basic building blocks. With even a basic conceptual understanding of a few technologies, lots of higher order concepts will begin to make more sense. I think even the least technical product manager should have a passing acquaintance with how the internet, world wide web and cloud computing work, at least for starters.
For you this week #
It was on my quest to find some good articles and videos explaining these technical concepts for you this week that I realised that everything I was researching was either AI-generated slop, too basic or assumed a fair amount of prior knowledge. That’s what sent me down the path of attempting to write something better myself. I’ll be publishing the first article explaining cloud computing on I Manage Products later this week.
To tide you over until then, Jason Knight interviews Rich Mironov. If you work in B2B companies, Rich has seen everything and written about it. Given the current product management anxiety is about not having enough commercial acumen, Rich offers his take and practical advice from his storied career.
John Cutler’s most recent article is more introspective than usual. He’s been thinking about different mindsets and positions he and others have held over the years, and how those modes of thinking have been beneficial and risky. If the mark of a good article is that it causes you to stop and reflect on your own situation and ways of thinking, then this is worth a read.
Speak to you soon,
Jock
what to think about this week
Product managers need to understand the language of money
Returning guest Rich Mironov is a B2B product management legend, long-time blogger and author of The Art of Product Management. He’s recently moved to Portugal to sample the best of European product culture, and is currently actively coaching and mentoring product leaders. He’s also the only product thought leader that I’ve had ice cream with in a deserted UK bowling alley restaurant when he visited a couple of years ago.
[Jason Knight / One Knight In Product]
Perspectives on change and improvement
I am continuously fascinated by how people think about problems and improvement in their companies. This fascination applies internally as well. I’ve noticed how my perspectives have changed over the years—sometimes without me noticing, and often with some internal rationalization where I justify my past views. While some perspectives are definitely “wrong” in context, you can usually identify strengths and weaknesses in all of them.
What traps have you caught yourself falling into?
[John Cutler / The Beautiful Mess]
recent posts
Navigating your product management career
Ross Webb and I have been chatting about product management career progression.
We cover topics including:
» Thinking of visibility as a strategic competency, not self-promotion
» Controlling your narrative through regular updates
» Building cross-organisational relationships deliberately
» Mapping your stakeholders’ preferred communication styles
A roundtable chat on moving into product leadership
[I Manage Products]
New technology alone is not the answer
New technology is not going to suddenly make all the challenges facing an organisation disappear overnight. Why? Because more often than not, those challenges are social not technological. Technology alone rarely solves ‘people problems’.
AI is neither a panacea nor a magic bullet just as digital wasn’t for UK gov
[I Manage Products]
What freelance product management is really like with Jock Busuttil
Off the back of his recent article for Mind The Product, Liam Smith interviewed me about my experiences in freelance product management.
We cover topics including:
» Should you hire freelancers in your product team?
» How to be successful as an external hire
+ more :-)
can we help you?
Product People is a product management services company. We can help you through consultancy, training and coaching. Just contact us if you need our help!
Helping people build better products, more successfully, since 2012.
PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from possibly a new martial art.
Read more from Jock
The Practitioner's Guide To Product Management
by Jock Busuttil
“I wish this book was published when I started out in product management. It gives a really wonderful overview of what product management is and involves on a day to day basis.”
— Keji Adedeji, product leader & coach
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.