Jock Busuttil's Blog: I Manage Products, page 36

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...

Q&A: Getting into product management

This is an interview I did a little while ago with a user experience author living on the US East Coast. She was interested in moving into freelance product management.

We cover:

how to move into product management; differences between working in the private and public sectors; KPIs and financial modelling; and the pleasures and pains of being a product manager.

If you’re interested in asking a question, you can do so in the comments below.

SA: You started with Classics and ended up in pro...

Q&A: what’s the one thing retailers are doing wrong in ecommerce?

Another question:

When it comes to the ecommerce checkout process, what’s one thing that retailers are doing wrong? What’s one thing they’re doing right?

 

From a product manager’s perspective, there’s no one thing everyone gets wrong – it depends entirely on the circumstances.

This is why context and understanding of user needs are so important. Figure out what people need – their goals, frustrations, distractions… everything – then figure out how well your ecommerce capability meets those n...

58: What Eurovision taught me about product management

For a glitzy song contest, Eurovision has a lot to answer for.

There is a product management angle to this post. Eventually.

The annual Eurovision Song Contest is somewhat of an institution over here. It has brought special moments to our television screens, such as:

inexplicable pratfalls by dancers,

Baila el Chiki Chiki (Spain) from Eurovision 2008

some non-traditional Polish milk churning,

Donatan & Cleo (Poland) from 2014

and who can forget these monstrous Finnish metalheads?

Lordi (Finl...