PRODUCTHEAD: Context changes everything
PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.
banana product #
every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to
tl;dr
At C-level, focus more on “what’s in it for you” and less on “here’s what I need”
Get your strategy, priorities, risk-taking heuristics, and goals straight, and treat allocation as a hypothesis
hello
This week I had lots of fun being interviewed by Richard Rodger, who hosts the Voxgig podcast. The podcast is all about developer relations (DevRel), which has plenty in common with product management. I’ve been his guest before, so I clearly didn’t manage to put him off last time.
Richard wanted to chat about the current state of product management. He was a bit envious of how we have got our act together, with so many conferences, talks, books and blogs available to advance the state of the art. Given how much handwringing there has been recently about whether our profession is doomed (spoiler alert: it’s not), I found it surprising that this wasn’t as obvious from the outside as I thought.
In our chat, we did end up talking about what’s going on with product management at the moment, and did a quick round-up of the issues that have been discussed far and wide already. We also had a chance to explore why context matters so much, particularly when it comes to our working relationships, a subject that is core to both product management and developer relations.
The episode is currently being edited, so I’ll drop a link on the website when it’s available for you to listen to.
For you this week #
Rich Mironov calls out how product people from CPO downwards have become a bit like the boring person at parties, who lectures you for the longest 30 minutes of your life, except about how and why we built the product that way. We need to remember why it’s so easy for a sales person speaking the language of the CEO to slide that deal-breaking, one-off feature to the top of the list.
John Cutler talks about the effect of context on how we allocate time to tasks of higher and lower levels of value and urgency. A company that is in fire-fighting mode has a very different context to one that is cruising along comfortably. As a result, the desired outcomes of each will be markedly different, as will the activities each prioritises and allocates time to.
Speak to you soon,
Jock
what to think about this week
Coalition-building and corporate anthropology
We (product leaders) often engage our C-level peers in development process discussions about why they can’t have exactly what they asked for, exactly when they’d like it. We talk inside baseball.
Instead, we should be applying our product skills to understanding what matters to our C-level partners, and using that to build executive coalitions around key issues. Think of it as corporate anthropology rather than decision-making algorithms.
[Rich Mironov / Mironov Consulting]
How to reconcile prioritization and $/time allocation
Over the years I have been seduced by using allocation %s as a primary way to describe strategy deployment. I was wrong. My thinking has changed.
[John Cutler / The Beautiful Mess]
recent posts
What to expect from your face-to-face product manager interview
Your product manager interview is as much about you getting to know your interviewers as it is the other way around. Here’s what you can expect along with my tips for standing out from the crowd.
Go a bit meta and challenge the premise of the exercise
[I Manage Products]
Moving up to a CPO or VP Product role
Stepping up to a Chief Product Officer (CPO) or VP Product role doesn’t so much change what you do. Rather it amplifies everything. This guide lets you know what to expect.
Liberating and terrifying in equal measure
[I Manage Products]
I want to update my pricing strategy. Where do I start?
“My product currently has one tier of per-seat pricing for all customers. I want to change my pricing strategy to cater differently for SMEs and enterprise customers. Where do I start?”
A few pricing concepts to consider + further reading
[I Manage Products]
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 a picnic to feed an army.
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.
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