Data is the lifeblood of product companies, but with access to lots of information come big challenges. As our brains were not designed to process large amounts of facts and figures and we can easily be overwhelmed and distracted. Cognitive biases may kick in to create simplified and often wrong narratives based on a few salient […]
4 Levels of Data Proficiency Read More »
In part 1 of this article series I discussed the principles high-performing companies use to accelerate and improve the quality of their decisions. In this article I want to give you specific techniques to do the same, including the ACID model, not judging decisions by their results, and publicly killing HiPPOs. This is a long
A Culture of Good Decision-Making (Part 2) Read More »
Many organizations struggle with decisions-making: both speed and quality are well below where they need to be. Key contributing factors include: While these challenges are common, slow, bad decisions are not a universal problem. Some organizations are able to make good decisions fast and at scale. In this two-part article series I’ll cover the most
A Culture of Good Decision-Making (Part 1) Read More »
I regularly ask product people how they choose what to develop. Today, an increasingly popular answer is “we focus on the most important user problems”, or its more modern cousin “we prioritize opportunities”. Underlying these answers is a classic model that asserts that product development has to start with mapping out and prioritizing customer problems,
You’re Not Just Solving User Problems Read More »
Product companies tend to manage the lifecycle of projects (AKA ideas) — from the moment the project/initiative is approved until it is shipped. But in a reality where most ideas fail to create value, it is far more important to manage the lifecycle of goals (what we’re attempting to achieve)— from the moment the goal
The Lifecycle of Goals: Research, Discover, Deliver, Monitor Read More »
If you’re a product person Generative AI should be firmly on your radar, not least because some think that it will replace you soon. Hyperbole aside, it’s very reasonable to assume Gen-AI will affect, maybe transform, product development. But what’s going to change? And are there any downsides? As this is a very new technology,
What Does Generative AI Mean For Product Development? Read More »
It’s no secret that product management is often a misunderstood and misused role. Many companies restrict PMs to narrow, stereotypical jobs, hindering their potential impact. Without strong role models, some PMs fall victim to these product management myths and perpetuate them to new hires. Here are six wrong ways to think about the product managers,
6 Product Manager Stereotypes To Avoid Read More »
Observing tech companies you may notice a broad, disturbing phenomenon: everyone’s hard at work “selling” their product ideas — stakeholders and engineers are selling to product managers, product managers are selling to management, and management is selling to everyone (just listen attentively in the next all-hands meeting). As a product manager I too had to
Don’t Let Hype Run Your Product Read More »
When talking to product managers, company leaders, and customer-facing folk, a common belief surfaces: if enough customers (b2c), or an important customer (b2b) ask for something, then we should build it. This axiom is reflected in prioritization discussions as well as in many product management tools that rank ideas by “customer votes”. Customer feedback, whether it
Your Customers Are Not Always Right Read More »
Recently the product sphere had boiled-over over Airbnb removing product managers from product teams and converting them into product marketing managers. The Airbnb transformation may be a one-of (essentially an attempt to adopt the centralist Steve Jobs / Apple model), but the story and the discussion that followed surfaced an age-old debate: who should rule
Who Should Rule the Product? Read More »