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I am taking a week off of work to help with some issues with my aging father, and have a fairly slack day. Since it ’tis the season to send thanks, I thought I would indulge in a - for me - rare reflection of things I am thankful for professionally. My original entrance into Product Management I was an early 30’s applications engineer who jumped into the that role from life as an analytical chemist and process engineer at a wafer fab.
In our product team, I have a reputation of being the sponge of institutional knowledge, the person that everyone asks when they need to know something. I am not sure how I got that reputation, but it just ain't true. Sure, I have a lot of tribal knowledge, and a large library of links to arcane and dusty corners of our institutional knowledge.
The Product Bistro is undergoing a massive evolution. It started during a 6 month hiatus in employment, where I took some time to reflect on my career, and to make a run at freelance or piecemeal work. Originally I built it on one of the lower tier paid Wordpress commercial sites, just to free myself of the back end hassles associated with the setup and maintenance of a clean professional site (and, if I was able to crack into the consulting game, I could write it off as a business expense).
A while back, I read a blog that got me thinking. Its premise was that developers should always have the fastest, best hardware to minimize down time. Waiting 12 seconds to compile a module was too long, and encouraged the developer’s attention to stray to Reddit, or some other time suck, and then they would lose a half hour. To reduce this tendency, developers should have wicked awesome machines to reduce this tendency.
The role of Product Management brings many responsibilities, some great, some awful, and many that are just “there” One of the “there” responsibilities is forecasting. Being at the center of the organization, Product Management is the logical focal point for this activity, even though it requires input from groups outside their control. i.e.
Way back, when I started the Product Bistro, I had a lot of spare time (between gigs), and I was using the blog to drum up some consulting, and piece work to fill in the gaps and time. I created this site to first describe what I could offer, and how my prior expertise could be leveraged. It worked – somewhat. I didn’t completely replace my salary, but it was interesting experience.
A recent round of staff reductions at work has led to the expected “goodbye” emails, where departing colleagues send notes of their departure, some memories, and contact information. Alas, the ones I have recently seen were somewhat, uh, pedestrian , and uninspired. I wistfully remember the art and creativity that people used to put into it.
I’m going to tell a story that will ultimately show how misguided many supposed “good ideas” are, especially in relation to business cases, strategy, and planning. One site that I hang out on is Slashdot , an old school hang out that bills itself as “News for Nerds.” On /. (see what I did there?) there seems to always be a thread on the front page about Apple and their business practices.
An interesting topic today, what it must be like to sell to someone who lives and breathes products, and all aspects therein. This post revolves around selecting a realtor as the trustee of my Stepfather’s estate. Synopsis : In late 2018, my Stepfather, my father figure for over 40 years, passed away. He had been ill for a while, so it wasn’t a surprise that his health deteriorated and he slipped off this mortal coil, it was a turning point for me personally.
Having participated recently in the screening process for a product management position we are seeking to fill, scanning through a curated list of resumes, I was taken aback by the wide range of competencies that I saw. Then, while perusing Twitter, I saw a prescient post: “A Product Manager doesn’t need to know it all. they need to know enough “ This was part of a discussion about whether a product manager needed to be conversant in some hot new framework to be effective le
Christina Wodtke’s latest is a gripping read, combining a compelling story line, with some novel, and useful ideas to help team dynamics and how to lead. Without giving too much of the story away (trust me, this is a page turner) the main protagonist is Allie, a product manager of a studio at a game company. The studio is like a little business unit with a lot of autonomy, yet strong responsibilities to the executive staff.
It has been a while since I have picked up pen and drafted a post, but I came across a Tweet last week that really made me pause and think. As a Product Mentor, I've seen these career paths to Product Management: – Business Analyst – Product Marketer – Software Engineer – Visual/UX Designer – Project Manager What was your path?
That is the question. In the way back time, before Agile, before OKRs and other fads, product managers wrote MRDs, or Market Requirement Documents. This was the artifact the began the process of developing a new product, or a variant of a product. Now, the general consensus seems to be that the MRD is dead as the Dodo, replaced by a product backlog, groomed by a product owner, and lean startup techniques that encourage build/test/evaluate/pivot cycles until you achieve the magical “produc
Lately, I have been in a funk. Part of it is the isolation of the Covid era, and the enforced working from home. But a big part of it is the expectation I have that I am productive every second I am at my computer. However, I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. Product management is a role unlike any other. Not just because of the wide variance between companies and even organizations within a company of what they expect from their “product manager” (and, honestly, there is a
Almost 5 years ago, I found myself starting a job that focused around training, and skills validation, and my area of focus was in the future of work, as well as the seismic change that “Digital Transformation” was having on the workplace ecosystem. A major part of my early research on this was reading a lot of papers, white papers, articles, and just general digging into the topics related.
The most powerful phrase in product management isn’t something witty about product market fit, or positioning, or market segmentation. No, it is a very simple 3 or 4 words, depending on whether you employ a contraction or not. It’s my fault. That is it. Simple, but very difficult. Perhaps one of your developers pushed a bad bit of code to production, or you have lost some customer data, or your procurement team failed to buy enough 1% tolerance resistors, and you are getting 100% f
Ask ten product managers what their life is like, and you will get ten different answers. However, there will be one constant. They will complain that they do too much “Tactical” work. It is a complaint, and one that people both inside and outside of product management will make, but it ought to be a cause for thought. First, Tactical is not a great term.
A little history. When I originally bought my Honda S2000, I became very interested in keeping it in great condition, and to do that, I picked up a habit of detailing. It was fun, relaxing and rewarding practice, a Saturday ritual to wash, and clean my car, with waxing happening several times a year, and at least once a year a full paint maintenance cycle.
A little history. When I originally bought my Honda S2000, I became very interested in keeping it in great condition, and to do that, I picked up a habit of detailing. It was fun, relaxing and rewarding practice, a Saturday ritual to wash, and clean my car, with waxing happening several times a year, and […].
The most powerful 3 words in a Product Manager's vocabulary is "It's My Fault." The blame game should not be in your toolbox, you own the product, act like it. Your team will thank you.
Product Management is different from most roles in that you are always thinking about the product, and the myriad threads that it takes to make it. So, when you need to unplug, do not feel guilty.
In the modern era, it seems that product management and organizations have eschewed the venerable MRD or marketing requirements document. However, it still has a place in the toolkit, and it should be leveraged more often.
A topic that often comes up is where to find new product managers, and often people with certain titles are mentioned. But there are other important or more important) considerations.
Christina Wodtke’s latest is a gripping read, combining a compelling story line, with some novel, and useful ideas to help team dynamics and how to lead. Without giving too much of the story away (trust me, this is a page turner) the main protagonist is Allie, a product manager of a studio at a game […].
Product Managers don't need to be experts on the technology, they merely need to know what is enough. Mastery of the role is synonymous with the zen of knowing what you need to know.
An interesting topic today, what it must be like to sell to someone who lives and breathes products, and all aspects therein. This post revolves around selecting a realtor as the trustee of my Stepfather’s estate. Synopsis: In late 2018, my Stepfather, my father figure for over 40 years, passed away. He had been ill […].
I’m going to tell a story that will ultimately show how misguided many supposed “good ideas” are, especially in relation to business cases, strategy, and planning. One site that I hang out on is Slashdot, an old school hang out that bills itself as “News for Nerds.” On /. (see what I did there?) there […].
A recent round of staff reductions at work has led to the expected “goodbye” emails, where departing colleagues send notes of their departure, some memories, and contact information. Alas, the ones I have recently seen were somewhat, uh, pedestrian, and uninspired. I wistfully remember the art and creativity that people used to put into it. […].
Way back, when I started the Product Bistro, I had a lot of spare time (between gigs), and I was using the blog to drum up some consulting, and piece work to fill in the gaps and time. I created this site to first describe what I could offer, and how my prior expertise could […].
The role of Product Management brings many responsibilities, some great, some awful, and many that are just “there” One of the “there” responsibilities is forecasting. Being at the center of the organization, Product Management is the logical focal point for this activity, even though it requires input from groups outside their control. i.e.
A while back, I read a blog that got me thinking. Its premise was that developers should always have the fastest, best hardware to minimize down time. Waiting 12 seconds to compile a module was too long, and encouraged the developer’s attention to stray to Reddit, or some other time suck, and then they would […].
Product management is a discipline where there is an unending to-do list, a fixed amount of time in the day, and enough outside influencers to make even the best multi-tasker whither and die. Yet good product managers always appear to be in control of the situation. This is a testament to several traits that are […].
If you work at a startup, or a small company, chances are this three letter acronym is alien to you. However once you graduate to a mid sized company, with multiple products, and, more importantly, multiple divisions or business units, the construct of a PLC is inevitable, and even welcomed. PLC is an acronym for […].
When starting a new job as a product manager, you are occasionally handed the reins on a product that has never had ANY product management, whatsoever. There are many reasons for this. In this specific case, it was a hardware technology product that came out of a small startup. My then current company provided some […].
So you want a product management job? How should you prepare for the interview? Especially if you are junior or looking for your first step on the product management ladder. I will share my experiences of several hops, and over 20 years of experience, on both sides of the interviewing process. Or you have been […].
I read a post today by Tom Leung on his blog, “Always be Shipping” that got me thinking. The premise of the posting was that only superstars need to apply. As someone in my earlier days who viewed himself with many of the qualities that are being sought, and to a large degree still lives […].
One day, I was musing about the job of product manager, and what differentiates a good product manager from an okay one, and an analogy sprung to mind. Think about a golf swing. There is the addressing of the ball, the back swing, the forward swing, and ultimately the follow though. When you are teaching […].
One of the most difficult part of a product manager’s job is pricing. Too low and you don’t make enough money (or leave money on the table), too high, and the product fails to take off. Getting it just right is part alchemy, part luck, and often just a bit of a guess. There are […].
I wish I had the secret to time management and how to control the beastly amount of tasks that build inexorably in the typical product manager’s “to-do” list. Alas, Product Management is one of those roles that collects the odds and ends of the organization, either by design (formally assigned), or by being the “buck-stops-here” […].
In my more than two decades of product management experience, with many different engineering and development organizations. Regardless of how great the teams are/were, there are always slips in schedule. I am puzzled by this. Even when with a great team, populated with hugely talented, and highly productive engineers, programs take longer than planned.
Revenues are softening, some long term decline is suddenly accelerating, and you are missing plan. Senior management wants to know why, and – more importantly – what are you doing about it. They point their fingers to Product Management to right the ship. The Problem – Product Management has many tools in its bag that […].
During a calorie laden splurge for lunch, I stopped in at the local Five Guys franchise. While waiting for my grilled gut-bomb (which was delicious) I watched the Coke Freestyle machine. It was an illuminating experience. The machines weren’t new to me, having seen a couple in the past, I figured out what I wanted, […].
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