Jock Busuttil's Blog: I Manage Products, page 34

69: It matters what you say and what you do

One of the things I find myself advising product teams to do most often is to work on their product vision. Rather than trying to be the market leader in X or achieve Y% market share, they need to identify the positive human impact of their product why it matters a goal which in turn will inspire the team to work hard to achieve.

What I perhaps naïvely assume each time is that words are backed by actions that the stated product vision and company mission are in fact what the organisation...

68: 4 common user persona mistakes

User personas can be a valuable visual reminder for your teams about the people relying on your product. More often than not, user personas instead end up being just a laborious way to decorate the walls. Are you making these common mistakes?

1. Writing them too early

One of the first things many people do when embarking on a new product is to write their user personas. They then declare them complete, dont update them again for years, then wonder why they never bore any relation to their...

67: Why cake is important for product leaders

I have a patchy record of baking cakes.

Right back when I first started, I’d look at the cake recipe as more of a guideline and then freestyle it. Unsurprisingly, my early cakes were complete rubbish.

As I went along, it began to dawn on me why the recipe’s method was telling me to do things in a particular way, and little by little, my cakes become increasingly edible. After some time, I realised that to achieve a decent result, I needed to have the right ingredients for the thing I was...

66: Show the thing

I’m writing aboutone hundred things I’ve learned about product management.

I was introduced to the concept of ‘show the thing’ sessions back in 2014 when I was interim head of product for the Ministry of Justice Digital team. I’ve encouraged every subsequent organisation I’ve worked with to start running ‘show the thing’ sessions weekly to foster a culture of openness, to spread ideas and learning between teams, and to erode the reluctance to demo anything that wasn’t considered ‘perfect’....

Podcast: Learning Product Leadership

I’ve just been on Ross Webb’s new Product Coach podcast talking about product leadership. You can listen to it on the widget below or at Buzzsprout.

We cover a fair amount, including:

why I think 9 out of 10 recruiters haven’t a clue should you hire product managers with market specialism? frustrations for new product managers does following a process drive product success? the skills and abilities of a product leader getting the non-tech parts of the organisation to buy into product failing versus learning time management: personal, project and roadmap a quick w...

Q&A: Interview for Working Products conference

Here are my answers to three questions I was asked recently during an interview for the forthcoming Working Products 2019 conference in Hamburg. I’ll be speaking and running a workshop there in June.

Do get in touch if you’d like me speak at your event.

What exactly is a “Freelance Head of Product”?What is a great product?What are the key criteria for a great team?

Read on for my replies.

1: What exactly is a “Freelance Head of Product”?

I typically work with organisations for short periods of tim...

Q&A: What makes a good UX designer?

I’m asked questions about product management from time to time. Here’s one I’ve answered recently:

Hi Jock,

Based on your experience, what makes a good UX Designer from the perspective of a product manager?
Cheers,

S

Read on for my reply.

Hi S,

Ooh – a tricky question :-)

In no particular order:

Experienced in their own discipline but still keen to learn moreWilling to share their knowledge with others (so everyone gets to know the principles of good UX / design)Open to discussions with / perspective...

Speaking at DevTalks Romania 2019

My next speaking engagement is at DevTalks Romania in Cluj on 16 May 2019. I’ll be talking about product management ethics, almost certainly with some kind of classical mythology thrown in for good measure.

As a special bonus, there are also five free tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis – when they’re gone, they’re gone. Use code E2E962 when registering for any type of ticket at DevTalks Romania for the Cluj event. See you there!

Q&A: Can I pick your brain about roadmaps?

I’m asked questions about product management from time to time. Here’s one I’ve answered recently:

Hey Jock,

I would love to pick your brain about roadmaps.

To give more clarity to my team (which is working on two mandates/sub-projects), I would like to empower them with a roadmap/timeline of the project. We already have one, on Confluence that I’ve printed next to our whiteboard. But it’s not “ours”.

Any recommendation in terms of shape/content? Should it be extremely detailed or high level? Mor...

65: The secrets of meaningful product roadmaps (redux)

Product managers often struggle to keep on top of their product roadmap. I recently gave this talk at Landing Festival Berlin to explain where people often get lost and show you how to make your product roadmaps more meaningful, user-centric and measurable.

I’ve spoken and written about this before, but this talk goes into more detail.

Transcript of the talk to follow, but if you’re impatient, there’s a summary of the key points.