Product managers often struggle to keep on top of their product roadmap. I recently gave this talk at Landing Festival Berlin to explain where people often get lost and show you how to make your product roadmaps more meaningful, user-centric and measurable.
People ask me from time to time about how they can get into freelance product management. Here’s a recent question: Hi Jock, I’ve been working as a product manager for 5 years now. I worked in different industries (financial, loyalty, …
Q&A: What skills do I need to be a freelance product manager? Read more
For those of us who are artistically challenged (read: crap at drawing), it can be daunting to contemplate the use of pictures over text to make a point. I’m a perfect case in point.
Last time I published an article explaining why I thought roadmaps were a little like DVD box sets. DonorDrive product manager Kasey Marcum (@kaseymarcum) asked in the comments:
“Always enjoy your posts, Jock! I really love the high level idea of this. What does this actually look like in the wild?”
Imagine your roadmap and sprints being as engaging as a hit movie – just think how much easier they’d be to “sell” to your stakeholders and customers! Let’s see how you can do this.
Curating the product roadmap is one of the most typical responsibilities of a product manager. But have you ever thought about why you bother with them in the first place and how you could make them more effective?
Business networking used to hold about as much appeal for me as speed-dating with alligators. It was only later that I came to tolerate it, even enjoy it, but only after I learned to think about it differently. If the prospect of a room of people at an event fills you with dread, read on, this may help.
You know how sometimes you read an email that incenses you so much that you have to craft a long, occasionally sarcastic, cutting BUT ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED reply explaining precisely why you think that person is a complete and utter d**k. Hmmm? Here’s why it may not be a great idea to send it.
Contrary to what you may think, most of product management is actually selling. You are continually selling new product concepts, ideas for improvement as well as pitches for projects. What you may not realise is that what most people think is selling isn’t actually selling.
We’re looking at the kinds of information that specific groups of people need to know during the lifecycle of your product and why they’re so interested in the first place.
Last time we covered the steps from idea through to convincing people to part with some cash to build it. Now we’re going to look at building it and onwards through launch to review.
I’m writing about one hundred things I’ve learned as a product manager. Product managers hate saying ‘no’. It’s not in our nature to disappoint people. We want everyone to be happy with our products. We’d much rather say a nice, …