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: Performance appraisals are underperforming
» Performance appraisals fail to take into context whether the organisation is permitting them to succeed
» Deming: “a bad system will beat a good person every time”
» Personal development and performance are different things
» Shift performance management from the individual to team, group, or organisational level
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Performance appraisals are underperforming
PRODUCTHEAD: Service mapping for product managers
» Service maps help teams and stakeholders to understand interactions with a service across touchpoints over time
» They provide a visual representation of an abstract and often wide-reaching process
» Think of your service like a theatre: front stage, backstage and behind the scenes
» Service mapping helps your team to tell their story to the wider organisation
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Service mapping for product managers
PRODUCTHEAD: Outcome-driven product roadmaps
» Outcome-driven product roadmaps shift the focus from building features to solving user problems
» A product roadmap is a communication tool first and foremost
» A now/next/later roadmap helps teams to focus on the bigger picture
» Delivering outcomes instead of outputs is harder, but more valuable
PRODUCTHEAD: More product coach, less line manager
» A product coach should measure their own job performance by the successes of their team members
» Strive to develop a capacity for learning in the people you supervise
» Coaching taps into an individual’s own wisdom and keeps them accountable for achieving their goals
» People who are genuinely committed to change but nonetheless dig in their heels may be unwittingly self-sabotaging
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: More product coach, less line manager
PRODUCTHEAD: Async working and communication
» Async working lets you set aside time for deep thinking
» Forced remote working led naturally to more async work
» Async relies on three main tenets: multiplexing, communication and action
» Find the right balance between flexibility and cohesion, independence and togetherness
» In-person time is important to sustain the human relationships that enable you to get work done
PRODUCTHEAD: 3 product leaders share what they’ve learned
» Over time, communities of practice risk themselves becoming new silos
» Be intentional about what you want to learn, and about your own behaviour to others
» Delivery by itself is worthless — deliver value
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: 3 product leaders share what they’ve learned
PRODUCTHEAD: The ethics of information (data ethics)
» Data ethics studies and evaluates moral problems related to data, algorithms and corresponding practices, in order to formulate and support morally good solutions
» Product managers have ethical responsibilities that transcend career, company and profit
» Organisations need to assess and build their trust and trustworthiness
» Mitigate biases in your product that may have unintended discriminatory effects on individuals and social groups
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: The ethics of information (data ethics)
PRODUCTHEAD: Product ops — cynical rebrand or division of labour?
» 3 tenets of product ops: insights, research, and processes & practices
» Product ops is about enablement and coaching, not a rebrand of the product owner or product marketer roles
» Product ops is the ‘glue’ that binds different business functions and product focus areas together
» Product ops enables product teams to achieve better outcomes
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Product ops — cynical rebrand or division of labour?
PRODUCTHEAD: Exploring the solution space with prototyping
» Focus your prototyping on the moments that matter most to users
» Prototypes range in fidelity, but remain throwaway
» Prototyping brings tangibility to intangible experiences
» Be clear about what you want to learn, and what assumptions you want to test
» Design simply to deliver early and learn quickly
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Exploring the solution space with prototyping
PRODUCTHEAD: The joy of metrics
» Don’t be driven by metrics — be informed by them
» The mental tendency to replace strategy with metrics can destroy company value
» Onboard your users all the way to becoming your best users
» 3 kinds of innovation: method, market and product
PRODUCTHEAD: Obtaining an optimal organisation
» Your products will reflect your organisational structure (Conway’s Law)
» You can structure your teams around a central function, or as self-contained business units
» Periodically re-evaluate the right mix of innovation and optimisation for your organisation
PRODUCTHEAD: Dealing with discomfort
» Firing someone is a task you will always perform with some anxiety, but you still need to be able to do it well
» At Netflix, it’s not enough to be a hard worker achieving only B-grade results
» Founder of AngelList Naval Ravikant seeks happiness by trying to live in the here-and-now, neither obsessing about the past nor fantasising about the future
» If your team’s cultural norms cause you to feel uncomfortable, ask yourself why you think it’s not ok
PRODUCTHEAD: When your product is a blank canvas
» 5 useful canvases to help you frame your product ideas
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: When your product is a blank canvas
PRODUCTHEAD: The rise of the growth product manager
» Growth product managers are expected to focus primarily on revenue growth
» Growth hacking failed in part because it produced unsustainable growth
» Some companies stimulate growth by “infiltrating” offline communities
» With infrequent use products, market penetration is a better measure of product-market fit than retention
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: The rise of the growth product manager
PRODUCTHEAD: Managing mature products
» Ways to extend a product’s life cycle: frequent usage; varied usage; new users; new uses
» Sometimes removing features is more effective than adding them
» You can’t change the customer, but you can change your company’s process, strategy and culture
» Give your team time and permission to check you’re moving the right metrics
» Data is not a silver bullet and won’t solve your company’s trust issues
PRODUCTHEAD: New year’s resolutions
» Make small changes and embrace experimentation
» People may have a sincere commitment to change, while also unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden competing commitment.
» Extreme situations can build extreme understanding and can also push people apart
» Does our current worldview limit the way we think about organisations?
PRODUCTHEAD: Your favourite articles of 2021
» Good candidates have initiative and passion to pursue their opinions
» The transition from product manager to leader requires many new skill sets
» Discovery is about understanding the problem space experienced by people
» Becoming a product leader means letting go of the day-to-day product management
» Netflix on HR: “Be honest, and treat people like adults”
» Your North Star metric best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers
PRODUCTHEAD: Dear Santa …
» Get people to buy you stuff you actually want for Christmas :-)
» 5 touchstone books for product managers
PRODUCTHEAD: Incentives and behaviour
» Financial rewards alone for complex work can have the opposite of the intended effect
» Even a small perceived penalty is enough to discourage experimentation, learning and success
» A large part of our behaviour is influenced by our peer group
PRODUCTHEAD: John Cutler’s North Star Metric
» Plans for the short and long term are often easier to define than those for the medium term (1-3 quarters)
» A North Star Metric is a leading indicator of sustainable growth
» It is the single metric that best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers
PRODUCTHEAD: To specialise in product management?
» There are 4 emerging product manager specialisms
» You can recruit different flavours of product manager by thinking along 3 axes
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: To specialise in product management?
PRODUCTHEAD: Prize winners / reinventing HR
» Winners announced for the #ProductCon prize draw
» Netflix on HR: “Be honest, and treat people like adults”
» How commission-based recruitment usually works, from an insider
PRODUCTHEAD: Dear younger me …
» In product management, people matter most
» Diverse teams build better products
» A mentor or coach can be like a north star for your career
» Care for the craft and remember to pay it forward
PRODUCTHEAD: Win a VIP ticket to #ProductCon Online
I’m mixing things up a bit this week with a special offer for you. Product School have kindly given me 9 VIP tickets to their November #ProductCon Online, so I’m offering them to you.
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Win a VIP ticket to #ProductCon Online
PRODUCTHEAD: Tsundoku (piles of books waiting to be read)
» Piles of books by experts in disciplines you’ll be working with on your product team
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Tsundoku (piles of books waiting to be read)
PRODUCTHEAD: Facilitating workshops
» Meetings are for information exchange, workshops are for solving problems
» With hybrid working, adopt a “remote first” mindset to avoid divisions in your team
» Poor workshop facilitation discourages future participation
» Reflection gives everyone a chance to contribute and listen
PRODUCTHEAD: Product management in charities
» Charities’ strategy should focus on the future, not the annual planning cycle
» Break the habit of surveys and focus groups with user interviews
» The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated growth in digital fundraising
» Commodity services free teams from reactive and defensive development patterns to truly innovate
PRODUCTHEAD: Rapid prototyping
» Learning is more valuable than being successful and not knowing why
» You can experiment with the content and layout of any web-based product with basic skills
» The success rate of experimentation is higher if there is no penalty for failing
» “If you have a good idea on a Monday and can design, test and learn by the Friday, then innovation explodes.”
PRODUCTHEAD: Working well with user researchers
» More specific questions yield better user research findings
» User research works well when the team collaborates with a specialist user researcher
» Increased team user exposure hours correlates with more successful product improvements by the team
» The sooner you start user research, the greater impact it will have on your product
» A Kanban board helps the team to collate and track the questions to be researched
PRODUCTHEAD: Becoming a product leader
» To build trust, mutual respect and transparency are critical
» Becoming a product leader means letting go of the day-to-day product management
» Being good at your job means training others to be good at theirs
» Equip your team to make good choices without needing your input
» Developing people is the single most important part of your job
PRODUCTHEAD: Should we be saying no or not?
» Saying no to a good idea requires confidence in your product strategy
» Even if saying no to an opportunity, take the time to understand its value and context
» Keep ideas and suggestions separate from your product backlog
» Clear company goals and strategy make it easier to say no to unaligned requests
» Saying yes habitually to one-off custom features will usually kill your product business
PRODUCTHEAD: 9 of the best product management podcasts
» A selection of the best product management podcasts by product people, recommended by product people
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: 9 of the best product management podcasts
PRODUCTHEAD: (Re)discovering discovery
» Discovery is about understanding the problem space experienced by people
» When on a tight budget for discovery, mitigate bias where possible and document all the biases you see
» A relaxed participant will open up and be more honest with you
» A discovery can prompt one or more possible solutions, or tell you the problem is not worth pursuing
PRODUCTHEAD: Acting like a startup seeking funding
» Bootstrapped startups have free rein with their strategy
» Successful startups try to anticipate failure, and learn from it when they don’t
» Investors look for long-term defensibility of your product’s proposition and unique advantage
» Operational velocity is key to company success
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Acting like a startup seeking funding
PRODUCTHEAD: Starting your next role in product
» When starting your next role, gather opinions and evaluate them before making your own appraisal of the state of the product
» Think of your first month’s activity in terms of people, product and personal
» The transition from product manager to leader requires many new skill sets
» To set up a new starter in your team for success, be clear on their role and goals
PRODUCTHEAD: Success theatre
» Success theatre undermines the long-term potential of your team and organisation
» Small changes can incite a large culture transformation
» As organisations grow, they incorrectly start to value the importance of “process” over “product”
» Measuring process distracts you from determining whether you are creating value
» Quarterly planning is disruptive when it introduces too much new information at once
PRODUCTHEAD: Basics of finance for product managers
» Free, online courses are available to help you become more literate in the basics of finance
» There are three key financial metrics to track in a recurring / subscription business
» Gain a competitive advantage by interpreting annual corporate accounts
» Challenge received wisdom about key financial metrics and ratios to reveal hidden insights
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Basics of finance for product managers
PRODUCTHEAD: 5 product strategy tips
» The vision describes the future we are trying to create
» The strategy describes how we’ll make the vision a reality
» There are only 4 strategies after finding product-market fit
» Tesla subsidised more affordable car models with the revenue from their initial luxury roadster
» Storytelling helps to convince stakeholders to believe in your vision
PRODUCTHEAD: To err is human
» Customer research and validation is critical, but it can’t always make decisions for you
» Remedy mistakes quickly and honestly to earn respect
» Use the “rule of 10” to put mistakes in context
» People remember most your small defining moments
PRODUCTHEAD: Better than okay OKRs
» Objectives and key results (OKRs) set ambitious goals and track progress towards them
» Manage your desired outcomes separately from what you do to achieve those outcomes
» Make use of OKRs standard across all teams
» Learn from when you fail to achieve your desired outcomes
» OKRs go hand-in-hand with team autonomy
PRODUCTHEAD: Pimp my system
» 6 core concepts of systems thinking will help you start solving complex problems
» Systems thinking complements the more familiar analytical (reductionist) thinking
» It is a way of creating a shared understanding of how something works
» It provides useful tools for surfacing and breaking reinforcing cycles of blame
PRODUCTHEAD: Listen all y’all, it’s a sabotage
» Competing execs will sometimes sabotage by claiming features for their own product long before they plan to implement them
» Your product roadmap can reveal symptoms of underlying organisational dysfunctions
» We need to consciously remember that the needs of our users change over time
» Many biases are underpinned by shared psychological mechanisms, such as the desire to feel positively about ourselves
PRODUCTHEAD: Everyone needs coaching
» Coaching allows you to leap ahead — it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you
» Active listening helps you restrain the urge to jump in early with a solution
» Performance management is retrospective; performance development looks forward
» A lack of clear goals and simplistic evaluation are ways performance management goes wrong
PRODUCTHEAD: Product management post-COVID-19
» Mind The Product pivoted in 8 weeks, then spent the next 8 months refining the concept
» When working remotely, post information in at least 3 places to ensure everyone sees it
» Pivots that align with the existing corporate vision tend to be more successful
» The shift to digital during the COVID-19 pandemic will not be as sticky as some assume
PRODUCTHEAD: World Product Day 2021
» 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
PRODUCTHEAD: Stakeholders are people too
» Identify the key stakeholders whom you need to trust you and collaborate with you regularly
» Understand the real reason for anger – whether in others or ourselves
» Remember where stakeholders’ help starts and ends
» To be trusted, you need to demonstrate your competence
PRODUCTHEAD: “Don’t f**k up the culture”
» Problems come and go, but culture is forever
» Psychological safety presents a new set of social norms
» Product managers should be at the forefront of helping organisations to do things better for people
» The corporate vision explains why the company exists
» Open forums and communication lines between teams helps to maintain alignment
PRODUCTHEAD: Service design and product management
» Customers are seeking more value from digital technologies — “liquid experiences”
» Services by nature don’t always fit current organisational structures
» Service design and business analyst roles require a different type of focus and mindset
» Key to becoming a service designer is not finding a new job, but transforming your current job
» “Seamless services” means bringing together people from across professional boundaries
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: Service design and product management
PRODUCTHEAD: Ethical product management
» Product managers must understand the impact of their products on society as a whole
» Now is the time to push for broader product management accountability
» No company, individual or set of activities, yet provides a clear-cut example of ethical best practice
» What we build must not be at the cost of another group’s needs
» Nothing in traditional product training prepares you for making ethical decisions
PRODUCTHEAD: User personas or creepy caricatures?
» Avoid waste by by first researching “shallow” user personas then progressively elaborating as needed
» Product managers can and should conduct user research when demand outstrips the researchers available
» Connect user personas to people’s actual goals for more emotional impact
» Good interviewers listen, not talk
Read more › PRODUCTHEAD: User personas or creepy caricatures?