The Product Bistro

article thumbnail

Thankful for Product Management

The Product Bistro

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.

article thumbnail

The power of "I don't know"

The Product Bistro

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.

Events 195
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Big Changes at the Product Bistro!

The Product Bistro

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).

article thumbnail

User Experience is more than just the UI

The Product Bistro

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.

article thumbnail

Forecasting - A Product Management Task

The Product Bistro

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.

article thumbnail

It's a Major Award!

The Product Bistro

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.

article thumbnail

Saying Goodbye

The Product Bistro

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.