PRODUCTHEAD: World Product Day 2021
PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.
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tl;dr
Change in your organisation may be inhibited by a small number of constraints
Your product, your company is always part of a wider ecosystem
A product strategy needs to be clear on what metrics to focus on and how to move them
Finding product-market fit is the beginning, not the end
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hello
On Wednesday, it was World Product Day. It was started in 2018 by Mind The Product to celebrate the first London ProductTank that took place that day eight years earlier.
Unlike many other corporate events, World Product Day has a legitimate claim to being global in nature. From that initial gathering of a handful of frazzled product managers sharing war stories in a London bar, ProductTank has grown to over 200 city meetups worldwide.
Part of their appeal is that they encourage product people to share what they’ve learned with their local communities. They also provide that valuable support mechanism to meet and chat with people who understand your profession and its challenges. ProductTanks are always free to attend, so there’s really no excuse for not being involved as an attendee, speaker or organiser.
You can find your local ProductTank on Mind The Product’s website. And if there isn’t one in your area, why not start one?
There have been some great talks this year, so I’ve picked a few out this week for you to enjoy.
Happy World Product Day!
Speak to you soon,
Jock
what to think about this week
Change Is Hard
John Cutler from Amplitude joins ProductTank in Brisbane, Australia to share how to restart a stalled product transformation leveraging the north star metric.
[John’s talk starts at 00:12:34]
Overcome the constraints on your system
[JOHN CUTLER / MIND THE PRODUCT]
Beyond Human Centred
Human centred design isn’t enough, in fact it could be destroying the world. In this talk Eli Montgomery will take a closer look at human centred design, and the ways in which it’s broken.
In this talk Eli will cover how putting individuals at the core of what we measure is both bad for products and bad for business and what you can do instead to drive great products that are better for the world.
[Eli’s talk starts at 00:05:02]
[ELI MONTGOMERY / MIND THE PRODUCT]
Product Management Coaching
Whether you’re new to product management or have been a product manager for years, a coaching session can help you to step up your career.
We’ve coached people wanting to get into product management, product people with nobody in their organisation to manage them, and experienced product managers preparing to apply for a promotion.
We can help you prepare for your product manager interview, including mock interviews.
A proportion of the fees from every coaching session is donated to charity. Just reply to this email if you’re interested in finding out more.
Netflix’s 2021 Product Strategy
Gibson Biddle brings three product strategy frameworks to life as he presents a mock 2021 product strategy for Netflix. He then shows how strategy influences day-to-day decision-making through two modern Netflix cases, including a unique COVID-19 question: Should the company launch “Netflix Party” to enable worldwide members to engage in shared viewing experiences?
[Gib’s talk starts at 00:06:26]
[GIBSON BIDDLE / MIND THE PRODUCT]
Product Market Drift
In our pursuit to find our product-market fit we are armed with the belief that once we have achieved it, as well as scale the product to the point where most of our target users are consuming the product, success is inevitable.
Dave Wascha contends that what we fail to realise is that product-market fit is the easy part and it is only the beginning. Once a company achieves product market fit it must then contend with the powerful and insidious force of product-market drift.
[Dave’s talk starts at 00:02:46]
What’s in it for the customer?
[DAVE WASCHA / MIND THE PRODUCT]
recent posts
The product leader’s guide to interviewing
Because I tend to help organisations build up their product team from scratch, I’m often involved in the interviewing and hiring process, so I’d like to share with you my product leader’s guide to interviewing product managers.
Countering unconscious bias in recruiting
[I MANAGE PRODUCTS]
Mission to Mars
Imagine you’ve just been told that you’ll be a member of the team responsible for the first manned mission to Mars.
Now imagine someone asks you how much the mission’s going to cost. The whole thing. There and back. By close of business on Thursday.
[I MANAGE PRODUCTS]
The neverending quest for product-market fit
Often the biggest barrier to your product’s widespread adoption is going to be whether it reaches product-market fit early on. Even if you do, you’re wrong if you think you never need to worry about product-market fit again.
[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 the wettest May on record.
Read more from Jock
The Practitioner's Guide To Product Management
by Jock Busuttil
“This is a great book for Product Managers or those considering a career in Product Management.”
— Lyndsay Denton
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, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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