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.
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Recent editions
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» Customers care about your mission, less about how you’re achieving it » For rapid feedback in discovery, ship and learn from more users, earlier » Changing something that’s been that way for years is hard because of the inertia behind it
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» Product people are tired of being held up to unrealistic standards » It important to remember what’s in your control and what isn’t » Now is the time to be extra rigorous with finding product-market fit
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Product-led growth: » is a strategy where the product itself sells itself through features and usability » can create self-perpetuating growth loops » can be even more effective when combined with growth product management company-wide
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» Brand provides emotional context, which creates a contact between you and your customers » Brands evoke a subtle mix of people’s hopes, dreams and aspirations » Apple’s famous “1984” Super Bowl ad began a branding campaign that portrayed it as a symbol of counterculture
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» Larger companies are far more likely to hire for intern, junior or associate level PM positions, but competition will be greater » Product success comes from the way its product manager makes decisions, thinks, communicates and relates
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» “First comes the crowd, then comes the funding.” — Brad Guigar » Done well, a crowdfunding campaign helps with market validation and publicity, as well as raising cash » Make sure you repay your campaign backers’ loyalty, faith, and patience
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» Navigating change is hard because we don’t want to be seen as villains » Don’t simply cut-and-paste another company’s organisational model without understanding the context » Consider how the members of your team will understand the change, embrace it, and work through it
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» A precursor to alignment is a clear product strategy » Alignment needs you to tell the same story over and over » Creating an assumption map can help to verify whether the team is actually aligned
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» Scenario analysis frees you to consider how things would be different without limiting constraints » Innovation can occur when challenging received wisdom on what is possible or not » Scenario analysis can also help you to consider alternate strategies in a dynamic market
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» In business, certainty tends to be rewarded, even if artificial » Beliefs save cognitive effort and so are difficult to dislodge » The scientific method allows us to constructively try to disprove beliefs » We can retrain ourselves not to associate uncertainty with negative outcomes
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» A red team mindset benefits information gathering, sense-making, decision-taking and planning » Red teaming is similar to ethical hacking, in which a simulated attack uncovers flaws » Consquence scanning is a technique for clarifying intended and unintended effects of your product
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» Written well, personal user manuals can build psychological safety » However, they can also be abused to excuse certain counter-productive behaviours
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» Most read: Choose your own adventure — discussing better product roadmaps » Most clicked: How to sharpen up your vision and strategy — a practical set of prompts and worked examples
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» Conversational programming changes the nature of the developer job, but doesn’t do away with it » Describing needs and context is more valuable than giving instructions or requirements
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» There are 3 reasons why a discovery should end: 1. It is purely performative 2. Ignored / unknown context 3. Unconnected to value » Everything on your product roadmap should have lots of context that is easy to find
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» 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
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» 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)
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» 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
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» 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”
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» 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