Jock Busuttil's Blog: I Manage Products, page 35

64: Good product management

Good Product Management from Jock Busuttil

What does it mean to be a good product manager in 2018?

For a while now it has no longer been solely about participating in the time-honoured rituals of whatever agile methodology your team happens to use. Nor is it only about creating products your users need.

We know that product managers have always needed to stay abreast of the advances in technology that could potentially revolutionise their products or render them obsolete. Lately it feels tha...

Speaking at DevTalks Bucharest in June

Hello!

I’ve not published a great deal on the blog recently. In my defence, I’ve been doing a fair amount of paid writing work and my brain has run out of words temporarily.

If you’re interested, I’m writing (then delivering) a new training workshop on metrics and analytics for the lovely Mind The Product folks for their 2018 London conference; and I’m in the midst of writing a new talk on ethics in product management for DevTalks Bucharest.

Tickets are on sale for both, and the first lucky five...

Q&A: How do I make myself more suitable for a senior product role in UK government?

Here’s a question I’ve been asked recently:

Hi Jock,

I’d appreciate your advice on working for the GDS and different ministries. I have recently applied for senior positions (Deputy Director and Head of Product) at GDS and another UK government department.

On both occasions I was told that while I had the skills, my previous products had not been used by the millions of users, rather the hundreds of thousands, and therefore I was not considered the right person for the role.

This seems unusual gi...

Q&A: I need a product manager with specific experience, can you help?

Dear Jock,

I need a product manager with specific experience in machine learning and AI, can you help?

Yours,

C

Hi C,

If you’re looking for a product manager to join your team, I’d like to offer some advice:

Good product managers are agnostic of technologies (and markets); they’re more bothered about what user/customer problem they’re trying to solve. Only then do they determine (with their team) what technology will solve that problem most effectively.

If the product you’re building incorpo...

63: The whole agile thing

Lovely Wife announced the other day that she is now an agile worker.

I’ll not lie: my eyebrow involuntarily rose an inch or two. I wasn’t aware such a product development methodology had reached the legal profession.

Office musical chairs

She clarified: ‘agile’ is the new business buzzword for ‘hot-desking’, which itself was the updated term for ‘office musical chairs’. In other words, there are more people than desks at her office, so each morning everyone needs to grab the nearest availabl...

Q&A: How on earth am I going to start managing a second product?

Hi Jock,

I’ve been happily looking after my product (buying and selling cars online) for the last couple of years. I still think product management is a complete mystery to me, but my boss thinks I’m doing fine. In fact, at the end of this week she will be announcing internally that I will be product managing a second product, which will put me across the entire post-login customer journey!

I am freaking out about how on earth I’m going to do this. Any words of advice?

Yours,

K

Dear K,

Advic...

62: How to measure product manager performance

Early on in my blog, I wrote one of my most popular posts – 4 key ways to spot a successful product manager – about measuring the performance of product managers. The problem is that a lot – and I mean a huge amount – has changed in product management, and my own approach, since I wrote it.

I found myself describing to Martin Eriksson at his recent book launch some work I did at the UK’s Ministry of Justice on measuring product manager performance. So here’s an update to my original article f...

61: The 16 most important technical skills every product manager needs

In addition to the ‘soft’ skills I discussed in the last post, a good product manager also needs ‘hard’ skills (product management techniques).

Read on for my list of the 16 most important technical skills a product manager needs.

(There is a point to these two listicles. It’s coming next post.)

Defining product vision – being able to describe clearly, concisely and memorably how your product will make life better for people

Managing stakeholders – working with the broad group of people who...

60: The 12 most important soft skills every product manager needs

I’m often asked what skills a product manager needs. In my view at least, a good product manager needs both ‘soft’ skills (emotional intelligence) and ‘hard’ skills (product management techniques).

Read on for my list of the 12 most important soft skills a product manager needs.

Empathy – the ability put yourself in the shoes of the user to understand their needs from their perspective

Communication – ability to speak your audience’s ‘language’ and tailor what you say to their needs

Vision –...

59: Find the tipping point in your research

I bet you’ve found yourself in this situation. You’re trying to get your head around the main user problem your new product is going to solve. The thing is, for every question you try to answer, several more questions arise.

The more I know, the less I understand1

On a recent product I was helping with, we were trying to make it easier for academics to exchange information with each other. “Simple,” everyone thought to begin with, “just use Dropbox.” And for some users sharing certain types...