PRODUCTHEAD: Skills we need to have, use and adapt

my product lung #

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

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tl;dr

Learning their skills hands-on is the best way to appreciate specialists’ roles

A good roadmap can be a valuable way of showing reliability and building trust

CEOs fall on a spectrum of ‘only assigning work’ and ‘collaborating with staff’

Master the genAI tools relevant to your skillset before someone less experienced makes you redundant

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hello

An exercise-induced injury this week has meant I’m temporarily only comfortable in 90-degree orientations: bolt upright or entirely horizontal. Somewhat annoying, but on the plus side, an excuse to lie about and read more. A relatively recent book by Amy Edmondson (she of psychological safety fame) may have passed you by also: Right Kind of Wrong: How the Best Teams Use Failure to Succeed. This dovetails neatly with her earlier work and covers the psychology of failing well (learning from things that didn’t succeed), as well as the practicalities of doing so in a typical organisation.

If there’s a loose theme for this week’s edition of PRODUCTHEAD, it’s all about skills: the skills we need, how we use those skills, and how we need to adapt our skills in the face of evolving enabling tech.

For you this week #

This week Michael Hyzy reflects on his journey from a nonprofit business director to a VP of strategy and innovation, driven by mastering his ‘Elite Eight’ product management skills. Hyzy draws inspiration from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, who took on most of the operational roles for his early film El Mariachi. Hands-on experience in multiple disciplines gave him the confidence and empathy needed to become a better filmmaker. Hyzy feels the same for product management.

Leah Tharin breaks down how a well-crafted product roadmap can go a long way to demonstrating a product manager’s commercial and strategic chops to senior leadership. She outlines three critical components for the roadmap: ‘Table Stakes’, which are the bare minimum expectations required for the product to participate in the market; ‘Differentiators’, which distinguish products from competition by addressing underserved needs; and ‘Focus’ through continuously assessing and addressing drag factors on the product. (Partially paywalled.)

Roger Martin makes a scathing comparison between executive leadership styles, dividing the senior executive world into ‘Technocrats’ and ‘Strategists’. Technocratic CEOs view their role as 100% managing people, assigning out all the work, and placing enormous faith in formal processes, which they audit for completeness. Conversely, Strategic CEOs define their job as solving the most critical organisational problems, often working collaboratively alongside direct reports. They prioritise outcomes over process completeness, and readily abandon or alter the process if it doesn’t yield the anticipated results.

To wrap up this edition, Jeff Gothelf argues that genAI dramatically shrinks the time required for idea visualisation – from days to minutes – enabling UX teams to move at the speed the business wants them to. As is the case with many genAI tools, UX practitioners have to adopt and perfect their usage or run the risk of being made redundant by less skilled but quicker colleagues.

Speak to you soon,

Jock

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what to think about this week

Eight skills, one journey: How mastering product management transformed my career

In 2014, at Sundance, I met filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. At the time, I was captivated by his book “Rebel Without a Crew”, inspired by how Rodriguez single-handedly filmed “El Mariachi,” playing nearly every role himself—director, actor, sound technician, grip, even the gaffer. When I spoke with him after a screening, Rodriguez told me that doing everything himself early on taught him each role’s strengths and weaknesses intimately, preparing him to effectively manage larger teams later in his career. Little did I know then how significantly this advice would shape my career path in product management.

Knowing enough to have empathy

[Michael Hyzy / Mind The Product]

How to be a commercial PM

One of the hardest concepts as a product manager is to step out of this notion to ship products and to be “commercial” or more “strategic”. I heard this phrase directed to me as well a couple of times, and I never really knew what it meant or how to achieve these expectations from my higher-ups.

[PAYWALL] Reliability always beats optimism

[Leah Tharin / Leah’s ProducTea]

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Technocrats vs. Strategists

For me, the senior executive world divides into two camps: technocrats and strategists. Though I will describe it as a duality, that is just for purposes of simplification. It is really a spectrum with pure technocrat at one end, pure strategist at the other and an even mix of inclinations in the middle. In my experience, the biggest segment of executives are clustered around the technocrat end of the spectrum.

Managing the work or working with the people?

[Roger Martin / Medium]

Why AI Will Do What Apple and Netflix Couldn’t for UX

My entire career I’ve heard the same battle cry from UX folks, “We need a seat at the table!” I have been on all sides of this conversation – as a young designer trying to influence, as a middle manager supporting my design team and as a company leader balancing the needs of the various disciplines and stakeholders. 25 years in, this still seems to be a real concern for user experience designers and their leaders. I think AI is going to be the transformation driver that finally makes UX indispensable.

If you wait too long, someone else will do it

[Jeff Gothelf]

recent posts

Are developers vibe coding themselves out of a job?

And is the increasing reliance by junior developers on AI coding assistants storing up a generational skills shortage for the future – ‘professional debt’, if you will?

So simple, anyone could do it. Wait – don’t fire me

[I Manage Products]

Cloud computing for non-technical product managers

To understand how cloud computing works, we’re going to start with the basic building blocks and work our way up.

And why is it a cloud anyway? (All is revealed)

[I Manage Products]

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]

PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from standing desks and floors.