PRODUCTHEAD
PRODUCTHEAD is my free curated newsletter of the best articles, videos and podcasts from product leaders and commentators all over the world. All neatly packaged up in a weekly email delivery for your reading, viewing and listening pleasure.
Recent editions
PRODUCTHEAD: On OpenAI’s ideological conflict
» By reinstating Sam Altman, OpenAI has chosen financial success over its altruistic principles
» When Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, the board believed he wasn’t ready to be CEO
» Google was quick to fire ethicist Timnit Gebru when she challenged its lucrative search advertising business
PRODUCTHEAD: Should you do custom features for paying clients?
» Product models are more scalable and have higher investor valuations than service models, but can be more difficult to implement and require a longer sales cycle
» If you find your team is biasing towards delivering custom features (= output), refocus on discovery and problem solving instead (= outcomes)
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Should you do custom features for paying clients?
PRODUCTHEAD: Don’t wait. Just find out.
» When designing an experiment to test a hypothesis, ask how might it fail, and what you need to find out
» Luck and uncertainty mean that even good decisions can have a bad outcome (and vice versa)
» Framing our beliefs with a confidence percentage makes us more willing to accept contradictory evidence
PRODUCTHEAD: AI is word of the year
» Anyone can access generative AI, so simply using it is not a competitive advantage
» SEO has long sought to game search engine rankings; AI provides a new tool for doing so
» LLMs trained on AI output become increasingly detached from reality: “model collapse”
PRODUCTHEAD: How product teams can measure discovery
» We can and should measure discovery activity and its impact on the team and users
» Discovery cycle time and cadence are critical to adopting a continuous mindset
» Avoid vanity quantity metrics such as number of research activities; measure quality instead
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How product teams can measure discovery
PRODUCTHEAD: Sunsetting a product or feature
When sunsetting a product or feature:
» Explain why honestly and be transparent about how it will impact your users
» Be understanding as they may be disappointed or frustrated by the change
» Be responsive and supportive by answering your users’ questions and helping them with the transition
» If possible, offer your users alternative features or solutions
PRODUCTHEAD: Becoming a service organisation
» Context helps to make a service good as opposed to simply existing
» By not consciously designing our services, we instead force our users to link actions together
» Outcomes for users are core user needs that a service helps them to meet
» A starting point can be to ask different teams what ‘good’ looks like to them
PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with engineering (or avoiding developer disengagement)
» Rather than focusing on engineering team productivity, examine the causes of their low / negative value work
» When asked for development estimates, ask why they need the information and what they’ll do with the answer
» Different development tasks need varying amounts of user story detail
» Treat your developers with the same thoughtfulness as your users
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with engineering (or avoiding developer disengagement)
PRODUCTHEAD: Empowered teams can’t simply do whatever they like
» Empowered teams can only succeed if the leadership team is on board
» Leaders can’t scale or have all the answers; empowered teams stand a better chance
» Leadership needs to be open and transparent when issuing a “must-do” edict to an empowered team
» Product leadership is continually striving for coherence of approach and clarity of purpose
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Empowered teams can’t simply do whatever they like
PRODUCTHEAD: Training wheels and learned helplessness
» Motivation comes from making progress in meaningful work
» A mission-focused team tackling poorly understood problems may appear unproductive to outsiders
» It is everyone’s responsibility to act upon negative behaviour / thinking, but without assigning blame
» Even in the most controversial negotiations, the other party is just like you and aims to walk away happy
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Training wheels and learned helplessness
PRODUCTHEAD: Is there a standard product development life cycle?
» Success at every life cycle stage hinges on the same challenge: being able to solve problems for your users
» Early on, focus on learning about your users and their context and the constraints that affect your problem
» Maturity is the most difficult stage for a product, so you have to make the absolute best out of what you have
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Is there a standard product development life cycle?
PRODUCTHEAD turns 3 🎂 / The changing realities of product management
» In product management, “the basics never change, it’s the more advanced stuff that changes”
» Oft-cited company frameworks such as the Spotify model were just a moment in time — everything moves on
» When all is changing around you, be an anchor of stability and trust for your team
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD turns 3 🎂 / The changing realities of product management
PRODUCTHEAD: Charting your career path
» Early in your career, focus on building one skill at a time
» Find out what a company’s really like by meeting a contact there informally before the interview
» Practice experts can enjoy a varied career, but may find it harder to work in some domains
» As a product leader, what are your identity, superpower, mission and impact?
PRODUCTHEAD: Who’s in charge? You or the process?
» An inflexible process means working with incomplete information and making the wrong decisions
» Treating work as closed-ended projects leads to context switching and discontinuity
» A way to increase value in Scrum is to involve the team members in the discovery and strategy work
» Respect is not deference; it demands that we challenge each other to be the best we can be
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Who’s in charge? You or the process?
PRODUCTHEAD: Wartime vs peacetime product leadership
» Wartime vs peacetime leaders employ different skill sets
» Airbnb’s changes to product management could be just what is needed in wartime or equally a retrograde step
» Working from home is a particularly polarising debate because it aligns with the leader-employee divide
» Discussions about productivity are often a proxy discussion for some other dysfunction
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Wartime vs peacetime product leadership
PRODUCTHEAD: The value of a drink in the desert
» To buy your product, the value users perceive from the product must be greater than its price
» The biggest, worst-kept secret of monetisation UX: ask, ask and ask again
PRODUCTHEAD: How to align vision, strategy and action
» Every decision is a trade-off — deciding what not to do is just as important as deciding what to do
» A good product vision captures customer, user, value proposition and links to organisational objectives
» Interrogate your goals: “For this to happen, what must be true?”, then mark which are facts or assumptions
» Avoid jumping on the first idea — check what problem we think it solves, then ask, “How else could we do this?”
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to align vision, strategy and action
PRODUCTHEAD: Defending against ‘Dawn of the Dumb’ product ideas
» User and market research is more easily accessible, yet the opinions of senior managers still bias product decisions
» Confidence in an idea only truly comes from gathering evidence
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Defending against ‘Dawn of the Dumb’ product ideas
PRODUCTHEAD: Exploiting inertia for fun and profit
» When strategic frames grow rigid, companies, like nations, tend to keep fighting the last war
» If organisations (incorrectly) view change as gradual they will have resistance to the change
» The innovator’s dilemma: cater to current needs or attempt to anticipate future demands?
» Many common financial tools distort the value, importance, and likelihood of success of investments in innovation
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Exploiting inertia for fun and profit
PRODUCTHEAD: Traditional, SaaS, usage and surge pricing models
» Match your product’s units to how your customer measures value
» Changing your pricing model regularly needn’t be a bad thing — it just has to be done carefully
» With usage-based pricing, help your customers to anticipate their likely costs
» Care has to be taken to keep dynamic / surge pricing transparent
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Traditional, SaaS, usage and surge pricing models
PRODUCTHEAD: Product-led growth
» Moving to a product-led growth model takes time and will encounter resistance
» A product-led model does not replace the sales-led or marketing-led approach completely
» Growth loops operate on a similar principle to compound interest
» Software companies with a frictionless product approach displace custom-built apps
PRODUCTHEAD: How to evaluate product opportunities
» Take a systematic approach to evaluating multiple solutions to the same opportunity
» ‘Assumption’ is just another word for ‘things we believe’
» When there are many opportunities in contention, assess whether it’s worth solving the problem
» We tend to come up with solutions before defining the problem they solve
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to evaluate product opportunities
PRODUCTHEAD: There’s hope for us (and AI) yet
AI is:
» accelerating the design of novel proteins, enabling a new wave of vaccines and drugs
» predicting extreme weather events, helping to protect residents
» listening to the rainforest and sends real-time alerts for chainsaws, trucks, cars and signs of incursion
» monitoring the world’s oceans for illegal fishing activity
PRODUCTHEAD: Seeking control in a crisis
» To reduce coordination cost, partition the work by time or space
» Behavioural design considers customers’ levels of mental energy, cognitive biases, and their existing patterns
» Successful organisations reinforce psychological safety in different ways
» Adding more people to a team makes communication a more significant overhead
PRODUCTHEAD: What do you worry about on a Sunday night?
» To reduce coordination cost, partition the work by time or space
» Behavioural design considers customers’ levels of mental energy, cognitive biases, and their existing patterns
» Successful organisations reinforce psychological safety in different ways
» Adding more people to a team makes communication a more significant overhead
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: What do you worry about on a Sunday night?
PRODUCTHEAD: ‘Better’ decision making
» Decisions should be the result of rational and deliberate reasoning, but not all are perfectly rational
» Almost every decision has associated downsides or compromises
» Avoid trying to please people or to allow individuals to dominate the decision-making process
» It’s easy to conflate transparency on the decision-making process, with transparency on the actual decisions
PRODUCTHEAD: Games and customer onboarding
» The best moment to teach a user to use a new feature is when it is valuable for them
» Uncompleted tasks stick in a person’s memory, completed tasks are more easily forgotten
» Provide a safe, controlled environment to help users experiment and learn a new skill
PRODUCTHEAD: How technical does a product manager need to be?
» Developers and managers often have conflicting views of what constitutes value in software
» Software engineers should ideally understand both what they are building and why
» Unforeseen edge cases can cause headaches at roll-out, but provide valuable lessons
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How technical does a product manager need to be?
PRODUCTHEAD: 3 ways to handle team conflicts
» When delivering difficult news at work, you are not there to seek sympathy
» Tie business impact to deprioritised work to highlight the problem to your CEO without sounding whiny
» An organisation’s emotional culture governs which emotions people express and suppress at work
» Many organisation equate “fixing” to basically “patching holes in the slowly sinking boat”
PRODUCTHEAD: The strange attraction of desire paths
» Desire paths spring up as users’ needs and goals change
» The effort paradox: the effort of forming a new path versus the desire to take the path of least resistance
» In digital products we use analytical tools to help us observe desire paths
» When a new desire path emerges, question your old assumptions — user behaviour is changing
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: The strange attraction of desire paths
PRODUCTHEAD: How to transcribe and analyse your user research recordings
» Thematic analysis identifies the main themes emerging from qualitative data, such as interview transcripts
» It can be a great activity to do with your team for establishing empathy with the users and their context
» Good research means being intentional, conscientious, and ethical at every step
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to transcribe and analyse your user research recordings
PRODUCTHEAD: How to record your user research interviews
» A mobile phone may be all you need to record an interview
» For in-person recordings, keep your setup simple and portable
» The simplest way to record video calls is to use the local or cloud recording option
» Consider carefully whether to record an interview or to have a dedicated note-taker
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to record your user research interviews
PRODUCTHEAD: How to plan a user research interview
» Ask your team: what do we actually need to know, by when, and how confident do we need to be?
» Don’t ask users what they do. Ask them for an example of a time they have done something, and then ask if it was typical
» When recruiting participants, say what the study is for, how long it will take, and what’s in it for them
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to plan a user research interview
PRODUCTHEAD: Trade-offs and negotiation
» Ask “why” to understand the other side’s position and interest
» All negotiations involve both rational and emotional elements
» Whatever decision you make as a product manager will disappoint some people
» Teams benefit from a shared understanding of the trade-offs of decisions
PRODUCTHEAD: The perils of pitch presentation culture
» Asking about a specific problem causes people to ignore the other problems they have
» Make time for product discovery in small steps, not all at once
» Biases reduce cognitive load for our brain when it processes new information
» An opportunity solution tree is a way to externalize your thinking
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: The perils of pitch presentation culture
PRODUCTHEAD: What can product managers learn about discovery from a superhero costume maker?
» Don’t specify rigid requirements to your delivery team, have a collaborative conversation instead
» Try out lots of different solutions to the same problem
» Don’t be pressured to rush through discovery and prototyping
» Share knowledge around your team
» Avoid misunderstandings through constant communication with stakeholders
PRODUCTHEAD: Everyone is losing their mind over ChatGPT
» ChatGPT’s inability to produce exact quotes from web pages is what makes us think it has learned something
» The biggest problem for AI chatbots and search engines is their propensity to generate bullsh*t
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Everyone is losing their mind over ChatGPT
PRODUCTHEAD: Place your bets, please
» It can aid a team’s progress to make lots of small bets, rather than one large one in a quarter
» Separate your outputs in a release plan from the outcomes in your product roadmap
» Parkinson’s Law: work always expands to fill the time available
PRODUCTHEAD: More than making the right moves with frameworks
» Frameworks help to spur thinking; they don’t provide the answers
» “I would be nothing without my dev teammates, but my devs would probably get on pretty well without me.”
» Use frameworks with discretion – and expect a bit less of them
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: More than making the right moves with frameworks
PRODUCTHEAD: This article was NOT written by AI
» When there is a financial incentive, people will industrialise technology to automate money-making activities
» Authoritative-sounding yet factually inaccurate content generated by AIs is harmful
» Product managers should be primarily concerned with what is best for users from an ethical point of view
PRODUCTHEAD: Choose your own adventure
» A good product roadmap needs good leaders and clearly articulated goals
» Make every roadmap goal specific and measurable
» Ensure your team owns your roadmap as much as you
PRODUCTHEAD: How to protect your startup’s product idea
» Rarely can we attribute inventions in digital technology to one individual or company
» The best ideas can’t be copied — it’s all in the execution
» Guides to patenting inventions in the UK and US
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: How to protect your startup’s product idea
PRODUCTHEAD: 2022 in review
» Reflecting on product management in 2022
» The most opened PRODUCTHEAD editions of 2022
» Back in the new year :-)
PRODUCTHEAD: The demented game show
» Some people think about problems directly; others think through the problem via potential solutions
» Organisations often jump straight into action without establishing a foundation for coping with uncertainty
» If one group has all the decision-making power, others cannot properly contribute
PRODUCTHEAD: Writing a product manager job description
» The wording of your product manager job description could be putting off good candidates
» Listing excessive requirements for the role will deter risk-averse candidates
» Think about why you’re hiring and the candidate attributes you need most
» Don’t copy-and-paste other job descriptions — they won’t describe what your organisation needs
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Writing a product manager job description
PRODUCTHEAD: Trust and transparency
» Humility and authenticity go a long way in building trust
» It is hard both to share data when expected, and to do so in a way that is trustworthy and acceptable to the public
» “Nobody ever read a simple sentence and thought ‘well, that was too easy to understand.’”
» With care it is possible to create valuable products with user data while maintaining trustworthiness
PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with the engineering team
» Create space for your engineering team, understand the ebbs and flows of work, and help them to avoid burn-out
» Work to understand the technical complexities facing the engineering team
» Engineers typically focus on a small number of large tasks
» Product and engineering overlap: clarify who does what
PRODUCTHEAD: Products with a fatal flaw ☠️
» Encourage continual scrutiny of your product’s central flaws — talk openly about the elephants in the room
» Cognitive biases lead us away from rational thought and objective truth
» Research and evidence help us to neutralise biases
PRODUCTHEAD: Understanding the user’s perspective
» A common language about research is vital for building a team’s capability
» Customers are only reliable sources about their own experiences
» The way we think about product is determined by the language we use
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Understanding the user’s perspective
PRODUCTHEAD: Do the hard work to make it simple
» Focus helps to reduce cognitive load without losing sight of the underlying complexity — it is different to simplifying
» The challenge of simplifying a complex legal process was to find simpler language that didn’t sacrifice essential points of law