#productmanagement (17 links)
- The Feature Factory: A 10-Year Retrospective cutlefish.substack.com
A thoughtful and much more nuanced view on the feature factory idea, exactly what one would hope for with another 10 years of thought.
The projects → products thing caused a lot of companies to name everything/anything a “product,” over-hire product management, set design/UX back, “install” an “operating model” as if it was plug and play, and generally lose sight of first principles. During ZIRP, even “high performing” product orgs tried to go “multi product” and turned everything into products even when it made absolutely no sense to customers. It also had the effect of turning anything further down the stack (platforms, etc.) into a second-class citizen, or forcing it to adopt customer-facing product language to justify existence. Another thing: teams/companies forcing premature convergence, premature hiring, and premature branding around “new product teams,” when the context was completely off. A lot of layoffs were caused by this logic.
- TBM 399: 10 Prioritization Traps cutlefish.substack.com
I put together this list of prioritization anti-patterns and traps to watch out for. If we can detect and filter out a meaningful percentage of the duds and traps, it can make a big difference.
- Directly Responsible Individual vs Single Threaded Leader | by Oliver Hu | Keqiu’s Management Notes medium.com
STL is short for Single Threaded Leader. Different from previous approach, this [...] makes the leader exclusively dedicated to a project. The individual ONLY works on this single top level initiative.
- TBM 305: Stop the (Goal) Cascade Madness cutlefish.substack.com
Goal cascades are compelling, but they don’t work nearly as well as we think they do.
So many familiar notes in this tale.
- Entropy Crushers randsinrepose.com
Project manager, product manager, and program manager. Let’s clear that up. A project manager is responsible for shipping a product, whereas a product manager is responsible for making sure the right product is shipped. A program manager is an uber-mutated combination of both that usually shows up to handle multiple interrelated projects like, say, an operating system. Different companies use the names differently, but for this article, project = ship the product, product = ship the right product, and program = ship many interrelated products, usually at the same time. Got it?
The role of product manager (PM) is often referred to as the “CEO of the product.” I disagree because, as Martin Eriksson points out, “Product managers simply don’t have any direct authority over most of the things needed to make their products successful — from user and data research through design and development to marketing, sales, and support.” PMs are not the CEO of product, and their roles vary widely depending on a number of factors.
- Escaping the roadmap trap - Product Crunch productcrunch.substack.com
The problem with [timeline] roadmaps is that they are linear and one-dimensional. They suggest that the product team knows exactly what needs to be done in the future, and that it’s only a matter of correct estimation and timely execution. But these are in fact release plans, not product roadmaps. They do not reflect the core concepts of modern product development, such as uncertainty, discovery and small pivots.
- Product Manager vs Product Owner. “What is the difference between a… | by Melissa Perri | Medium medium.com
Product Owner is a role you play on a Scrum team. Product Manager is the job.
...but there is so much more in this article.
- airfocus airfocus.com
Prioritization platform built to help you make the right product decisions.
- Product Management: priorities and people | Student finance digital studentfinancedigital.blog.gov.uk
So, what exactly is a Product Manager?
- Hacker News | What does a product manager do? news.ycombinator.com
A product manager enables the team to execute the company vision.
- Transitioning from User Experience to Product Management - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design boxesandarrows.com
Becoming a product manager is a logical move for many UX practitioners, as it requires many of the same skills, traits, and competencies involved in crafting a user experience. Additionally, product management is a common role within many organizations, m