A year and a half ago, I gave a talk to the New York Product Conference about the Associate Product Manager (APM) program I started to put in place at Meetup when we were 200+ employees. This week, I caught up on Clubhouse with Tommi Forsstrom, who runs product at Teachable, about the APM program he has put in place …
Every once in a while, I see a wave of tweets discussing the sheer number of jobs a product manager is asked to do. The inevitable question arises, “is this an impossible job / how can we expect this of a single person?” Note that I’m not trying to throw shade on John, who I love, but I have noticed …
Whenever a team is heading into a high-stakes project of any kind, I recommend they run a 1-hour pre-mortem. This brainstorming exercise stretches the team to identify possible failure points. Once you’ve spotted items, you can then decide which ones deserve mitigating strategies. It creates a safe space to talk about concerns without fear of appearing overly negative or critical …
A young product leader I’m mentoring asked me a common question: “How do you set metrics for a new initiative when you don’t have a baseline, nor any idea what good looks like?” First off, it’s ok to begin with guesses. You just want to make sure that everyone knows that it’s a guess. Product managers can fall prey to …
In product, we swim in complexity, which is why it’s essential to seek simplicity wherever we can. If we accept or even indulge in complexity, I’m convinced it will show up in your product in unintended ways (not unlike Conway’s Law). Here are some questions you can ask yourself to chase simplicity: Your strategy: have you boiled your company (and/or …
It’s really hard to interview product designers and product managers. The most effective step I added to my cycles several years ago is a design challenge. The challenges themselves are a 2-hour take-home challenge, and then a 1-hour presentation with cross-functional members of the team. Because of the time commitment, it is best saved for late in the interview cycle. …
Alex Danco publishes an excellent newsletter Two Truths and a Take and today’s thought provoking essay is all about the limitations of having hypotheses: they can close our minds off to creativity and discovery. Danco writes, “when we analyze the results of an experiment, our mental focus on a specific hypothesis can prevent us from exploring other aspects of the …
Should you make some or all of your roadmap public? If yes, then what are some of the considerations? I had to answer this question recently. To hone my thinking, I reached out to Justin Gallagher, who’s been the head of product management for Trello since their earliest days. As a general rule, enterprise software companies have typically maintained a …
Like many of you, I’m constantly playing with how to run and scale effective communication across multiple product managers, cross-functional teams, and a broader organization. Here’s a quick take on some of my current approaches. Across PMs I typically run a weekly hour-long meeting for all PMs. The agenda typically looks like this: 20 min on goals/OKRs, 30 minutes on …
If you want a strategic seat at the table as a product leader, you need to have an intimate understanding of how product metrics turn into financial metrics and business value. This post is an attempt to help more product managers understand the connection their work has to finance and, in particular, business valuation. I’ve got a few cautionary tales …