In the early modern period clocks worked through an engineering miracle of pendulums and springs. You would wind a clock, to tighten the spring, which provided the tiniest of nudges to keep a pendulum swinging. This regular, periodic swing of the pendulum is what allowed clocks to tell time. People […]
Product Management
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Coherence, Outcomes, and Dictation
What we want from our leaders is for them to set a direction. To inspire us to advance a strategy or realize a vision. What we get too often is dictation, where they tell us what they want us to build. Changing this relationship requires us to change how we […]
Product Management / Product Ops / Product Strategy
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Problems in the Solution
“I don’t get to set the direction. Leadership tells us the big projects they’ve decided to do, it’s up to us to elaborate and execute.” This is a common situation for a lot of product managers. They’ve been told that some big initiative is happening, and it’s up to them […]
Product Management / Product Ops
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Being Wrong vs. Being Late
Which is the bigger risk for your product right now? Shipping with a feature your customers don’t value? Or delaying your release in order to ship with something they do value?
Prioritization / Product Management
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Sequencing the Solving of Problems
Most people and teams conflate prioritizing and sequencing of work. Prioritization is the process of deciding what is important to do, and sequencing is deciding what order to do it in. Shaping a product strategy involves both. First you decide which problems are important to solve. Then you decide which […]
Product Management / Product Ops
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Feeding Your Business Case
Product strategy manifests as a collection of bets, investment decisions to do something or not, to do things now or later. A business case requires you to compare the predicted costs with the expected benefits. Your problem statement must articulate the expected benefit in economic terms to support your decision […]
Product Management / Product Ops
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Stunting Collaboration Before It Can Begin
Your process can prevent collaboration. The language you use in your problem statements can stop collaboration too. When you use proxy variables instead of economic measures of outcome you prevent your teams from collaborating and you reduce the likelihood of achieving product success.
Product Management / Product Strategy
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The Wrong Measure Will Misdirect You
When deciding what to measure, we often choose metrics which sound good or metrics which are easy. These mistakes can make a product strategy incoherent, excessively expensive, and ineffective. How we talk about what we choose to do sets our teams up for success. Or failure.
Product Management / Product Ops / Product Strategy
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Uselessly Wide Estimation Ranges
Estimating with ranges requires a level of transparency which may be uncomfortable because you are acknowledging what you don’t know. Doing this, however, cascades into multiple positive consequences. This is also a necessary component of outcome orientation.