Jock Busuttil's Blog: I Manage Products, page 11

PRODUCTHEAD: Beliefs and uncertainty

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADi might be wrong

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

In business, certainty tends to be rewarded, even if artificial

Beliefs save cognitive effort and so are difficult to dislodge

The scientific method allows us to constructively try to disprove beliefs

We can retrain ourselves not to associate uncertainty with...

PRODUCTHEAD: A red team mindset

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADa product at the door

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

A red team mindset benefits information gathering, sense-making, decision-taking and planning

Red teaming is similar to ethical hacking, in which a simulated attack uncovers flaws

Consquence scanning is a technique for clarifying intended and unintended eff...

PRODUCTHEAD: Personal user manuals

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADi product

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

Written well, personal user manuals can build psychological safety

However, they can also be abused to excuse certain counter-productive behaviours

hello

It’s become fashionable for people in tech to publish a personal user manual (aka “personal README” or “manu...

How can I keep track of all these product metrics?

Hi Jock,

Do you have any advice on productivity tools for tracking product metrics? I’m seeking guidance on streamlining feedback and metrics management. Juggling continuous discovery insights, team feedback, and metric tracking has become increasingly overwhelming.

How do other teams effectively prioritize and process this information? I’m particularly interested in recommendations for tools, routines, and methodologies for focusing on the most critical data points. Any insights or best ...

PRODUCTHEAD: The most popular of 2023

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADno products

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

Most read: Choose your own adventure — discussing better product roadmaps

Most clicked: How to sharpen up your vision and strategy — a practical set of prompts and worked examples

hello

I’m calling it a smidge early, but it looks like we’ve made it through to the en...

PRODUCTHEAD: “Hello computer!” — the lure of conversational programming

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADif you say the product

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

Conversational programming changes the nature of the developer job, but doesn’t do away with it

Describing needs and context is more valuable than giving instructions or requirements

hello

The sci-fi trope of talking to computers has been around for so lo...

PRODUCTHEAD: Pragmatism is (im)perfectly fine

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADproduct by product (caribou rmx)

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

There are 3 reasons why a discovery should end:

It is purely performativeIgnored / unknown contextUnconnected to value

Everything on your product roadmap should have lots of context that is easy to find

hello

By serendipity, two lov...

PRODUCTHEAD: On OpenAI’s ideological conflict

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADman of product

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

By reinstating Sam Altman, OpenAI has chosen financial success over its altruistic principles

When Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, the board believed he wasn’t ready to be CEO

Google was quick to fire ethicist Timnit Gebru when she challenged its lucrative search adverti...

PRODUCTHEAD: Should you do custom features for paying clients?

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADpulk/pull revolving products

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

Product models are more scalable and have higher investor valuations than service models, but can be more difficult to implement and require a longer sales cycle

If you find your team is biasing towards delivering custom features (= output), refocus on discov...

PRODUCTHEAD: Don’t wait. Just find out.

PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.

Subscribe to PRODUCTHEADproduct order

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

tl;dr

When designing an experiment to test a hypothesis, ask how might it fail, and what you need to find out

Luck and uncertainty mean that even good decisions can have a bad outcome (and vice versa)

Framing our beliefs with a confidence percentage makes us more willing to ac...