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 …
This post roughly mirrors a talk I gave about a month ago to two product manager communities (Product School and Product Faculty). If you prefer watching video, a recording of one of the talks is here. Roadmaps are an important and necessary part of the product manager job. They allow us to refine our own thoughts, set expectations inside (and …
I gave a talk on roadmapping recently to a large group of product managers, and one asked the question: “Do companies really need product managers or is it just a facilitation role between the different other roles that can go away if they get better at collaboration?” It’s an understandable question, and one I’ve heard for years. Indeed, modern product …
I have this theory that product leaders can and should copy best practices, but you can’t copy someone else’s playbook. The job is way too context-specific. In addition, I believe that any good product manager can get to really good answers as long as they ask the right questions. The book I wanted to see in the world was a …
On Nov 9th, I gave a 20min talk at the NY Product Conference about a major change in how I think about hiring PMs. I now spend as much energy looking inside my company as outside. I’ve included the video below. The talk covers: a story about how I discovered a great PM in an unusual way spider graphs of …
Done right, product management is a highly multi-disciplinary role that requires a broad range of knowledge to master. The best books broaden our thinking and remind us of lessons we should have remembered. I try out (and reject) a lot of business books, but these are ones that passed my bar both at first read and over time. I have …
My former colleagues Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden have been writing a lot about OKRs and outcomes. I very publicly admit to my colleagues that I have a love/hate relationship with metrics, and a slight allergic reaction to phrases like “data driven” and “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. Impact goals are important, but there are times when dogmatically …
“I have no idea what the product team is working on!” Have you ever heard that? I did, on a recurring basis, when running product and engineering at the fintech company Axial. But hold your horses! I did lots of externalization! I was writing a bi-weekly (and sometimes weekly) internal blog post where I updated everyone on metrics, work-in-progress, and …
First Round Capital has a wonderful online network, basically a white-labelled quora, for people at their portfolio companies. I answer questions now and then. Here are some of the Q’s I have answered over the last year or two: What are best practices for including and leveraging the design team in your product development process? I boil it down to …