Yesterday I was asked how a designer differs from a product manager. I found the answer surprisingly hard to give. Everyone designs, but not everyone is a “designer,” which encompasses both a skill set and a mindset. I look for designers who bleed into product management and product managers who bleed into design. The venn… Continue reading
Cultivating a Leadership State of Mind
The product and design team at Axial is only 6 people (3 in each discipline, excluding me) so we run as a very flat group, working in cross-functional teams. But the flatness of an organization doesn’t mean that everyone in the team can’t try to improve their leadership game. Leadership isn’t bossing people around. It’s… Continue reading
Advice to junior product managers, part 2
One of the most important things a product manager has to do is avoid giving surprises, in a context where surprises are coming at you all the time. What do I mean? Never let someone who cares about a particular product change be taken off guard. This applies to changing timing, changing design, changing messaging,… Continue reading
Trying the “User Manual to Me” to Good Effect
A few months ago, Brad Feld wrote about a cultural exercise that I just tried with my team to very good effect (Brad in turn had referenced this post from David Politis). Instead of taking pysch tests and then trying to make sense of the results, the team answers a few written questions as honestly… Continue reading
Lessons from Tesla on how not to react to an unfortunate event
There is a lot I admire about Tesla, but their recent reaction to the death of someone driving in autopilot mode is a lesson in what not to do for a product manager. I hold no blame for Tesla for the accident itself. From what I have read, the victim was a brave man who… Continue reading
My next chapter in helping entrepreneurs
Last Thursday, I started a new gig as VP of Product for Axial. Given that the company is both B2B and has a target market largely outside of tech, I’m guessing that most people have not heard of it. Axial is a 100-person startup that runs an online network for connecting business owners who want… Continue reading
Lessons for New Managers of Creative Teams
I recently took on a new hobby: singing in our church choir. I’m a total noob at the singing part, but it is clear that a successful choir is greater than the sum of its parts. Great outcomes require great leadership, and not just about music but also about people. It got me thinking about… Continue reading
Reduce bias and resentment with a transparent salary and skills matrix
(Originally posted 0n Medium as I experiment with the platform) As employers and employees, we have a choice as to how we conduct ourselves. We can choose to “get away with what we can,” or we can set our values and live by them. I believe that most people want to work in fair, meritocratic,… Continue reading
How your team’s qualitative metrics act as the canary in the coal mine
There are three qualitative metrics I find interesting to use with a product team to help spot, and deal with, changes that could be opportunities or problems. 1. Retrospectives: scoring the “sprint” My former colleagues from Edgecase used to have every product team “score” how things felt since their last retro on a 1 to 10… Continue reading
Getting Tactical: the experiment design studio
If you are trying to get your team to think more creatively in terms of experiments, this exercise might be useful. Why? When it comes to creating new products (or even features), experiments help you make more informed decisions. Ideally you make your experiment as small as possible to get believable insights, but they come in all… Continue reading