PRODUCTHEAD: Frame performance in context

product flowers #

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

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tl;dr

Failure to adapt and iterate on team structures and processes will result in your strongest product people leaving

Accepting that an employee might thrive in another environment is accepting that you (as their manager) could have done a better job

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hello

Just a quick hello from me this week. I’ve been working on a long-form article for the main I Manage Products blog on what product managers can expect in their face-to-face interview. I’m planning to publish it later this week, so subscribe to the main blog to have it dropped straight into your inbox.

This week I’ve been reading about different ways to frame and foster product team performance. There’s an article from Reham Fawad, who builds and manages her teams as she would a product. And John Cutler’s recent article urges us to differentiate between assessing the person as an absolute and assessing their performance in context. There is a difference between saying how someone performs generally and how someone performs on this team at this company.

Enjoy the articles and have a wonderful week!

Speak to you soon,

Jock

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what to think about this week

Building high-performing product teams: The PDLC approach

Building product teams is a responsibility. Nurturing them is a privilege. Get both of these right and your organization’s innovation reaches new heights. The key is building teams on trust, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Throughout my two decades of product experience, I’ve led phenomenal teams and teams with endless room for improvement. Weak product teams struggle with misalignment and mistrust, creating toxic environments. Strong teams thrive on collective purpose and camaraderie.

Apllying product practices to the team itself

[Reham Fawad / Mind The Product]

Underperformer

There is a huge difference between labeling people as “underperformers” and labeling their “performance” as not meeting expectations.

“Lia is a __________” vs. “Lia’s performance here at Acme is __________”.

“Lia’s potential is __________” vs. “Lia’s potential here at Acme is __________”.

This seems trivial, but it isn’t. Imagine the beliefs and behaviors we reinforce when people imagine they are primarily assessing people rather than their performance in context.

Resist efforts to put you/yourself in a box

[John Cutler / The Beautiful Mess]

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recent posts

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]

How do I make my product roadmap a better communication tool?

“My product roadmap is not getting the right information across to other people in my company. In particular, my customer success and marketing teams are struggling to plan their work for upcoming product releases. I’m also not sure how I can show my roadmap’s relationship to the half-yearly OKRs we set. How can I improve it?”

Your product roadmap is a communication tool

[I Manage Products]

PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from binge-watching TV series before they leave a streaming service.