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On Medium’s new ‘applause’ feature
I really like Medium’s new ‘applause’ feature for ‘liking’ articles. The idea is that the extent to which you like something is not binary… it’s not either “I like it” or “I don’t”. It’s a spectrum. There are other ways they could have done it. They could have made it a star rating, a rating…
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Product Transparency, and some tips to help increase it
A little while ago I ran a retrospective with a product team where we focussed specifically on the product process. We invited a cross-section of the company: engineering, design, marketing, operations and the founders. Everyone present in the retrospective had the opportunity to give feedback on what was working and what wasn’t with regards to the way product…
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How to prioritise your time and stay sane as a Product Manager
I recently finished training a new Product Manager and on-boarding him onto a project. After his first week alone on the job full-time, he came to me on a Friday afternoon with a frazzled look on his face and asked me: “How do you cope with the continual and immense demands for my time as…
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Three Core Characteristics of Great Product Teams
There are many characteristics of great product teams. But when I think about what the very best teams have in common, there are a few common core elements that I think tend to lead naturally to many other great attributes. Characteristics like high levels of trust and motivation, proactive attitude, open communication and knowledge sharing…
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A simple framework to triage and prioritise new ideas
For any product startup, prioritisation is everything. Spend time working on the wrong things, and you’ll waste both time and money – two things you have in very limited supply as a startup. Lots has been written about prioritisation in product teams, and it’s often cited as one of the biggest challenges facing startups and…
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The value of talking to customers
I spent about 4 hours last week conducting usability tests. No matter how often I do this, it always amazes me how incredibly valuable it is. Every test reveals something new about the product. As a coincidence just this week I also came across this article talking about how many Product Managers lament that they…
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Great PMs don’t work alone
Sometimes there’s a perception of Product Managers that the best ones are product geniuses who always and immediately have the right answers for every product problem: PMs whose product instincts are so sharp they can arrive at the best solution at a moment’s glance; who can look within themselves and find the solution deep down…
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On copying well: apply with caution
The Exponent podcast this week on the history of messaging apps talked a lot about copying. They referenced a previous piece from Ben called “The Audacity of Copying Well”, where he talked about Snapchat stories, and how this was so obviously and shamelessly copied by Instagram to make Instagram Stories. They argued that in business,…
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The danger of copying
It’s normal when building and optimising a product to take a look at how others have solved similar problems in the past. In fact, this is a critical part of the design and product research phase. But be careful with assumptions like “Company XYZ does it this way, and they know their shit: they wouldn’t…
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Good Speed: 6 ways to build product faster
I recently wrote about why Speed is not the same as Velocity. Speed is just moving fast, whereas velocity is moving fast in the right direction. Fred Wilson also posted this week on Urgency, and how in his role as a board member and advisor he presses startups to foster a healthy Sense of Urgency…