Quarterly planning is an event where teams who have work that build towards a desired outcome and their stakeholders get together and discuss their plans for the next three months.
Getting started on your tech product delivery shouldn’t take long – rarely longer than a week. It is more than just diving in, though. Taking the time to prepare now will save you time, effort and aggravation later on many times over.
People who work in product are an ambitious lot. There should be no surprise here as they are constantly looking to build something release it and think about how to improve it. Their career is likely to be built on this same principle.
We’ve put together a few of our favourite questions for potential tech product manager hires. Whilst not exhaustive, you can use this as a basis for getting a good conversation started with a candidate. This is aimed mainly at seasoned or experienced product managers, new entrants in to the field may need a bit of an easier time, though many of the questions are still relevant.
Ed talks to Niko Vijayaratnam about the difference between an internal and external tech product.
There is a large difference between start up and scale up. The organisations will have very different characteristics. Moving from one to another won’t happen overnight, sometimes you only realise you have transitioned when you are well into the change. Here’s some things to look out for.
A major shift in tech delivering tech product has been achieved with the concept of rapid experimentation.
Referring to JFK’s 1961 speech in which he said “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth”, the moonshot has become tech product legend. So what is it and why does it matter?
Most companies will want some form of predictability about what is going to happen, what they will get and especially what they will get for their money in terms of return on investment.
The term proxy product owner is common in many agile environments, but what is it, why does it exist and is it useful?
Thanks to Ollie Killinger who got in touch to ask how product managers can make the time to run experiments.
Watch the video here.
Actually, instead of asking the question “How do I write an agile business strategy?’, what we really should be asking is “How can I make a business strategy agile?”. Let’s explore why.
A good tech product is derived from the guidance of a good business strategy. Building a business strategy needs good analysis tools. There’s loads to choose from so we’ve picked some oldies but goodies and some newer tools here too, all of them helping you get the info you need to make the informed decisions needed to get off on the right foot.
How does Conway’s Law apply to Tech Product?
Firstly, what is Conway’s Law? Well, according to Wikipedia, Melvin Conway said in 1967 that:
Any organisation that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organisation’s communication structure.
Lead and lag indicators are helpful in getting you to realise your vision and outcomes, keep on track and give confidence to those around you.
The phrase ‘Individual Contributor’ is having a resurgence. It’s another phrase that’s not new. It’s largely being used as the Amazon and Google favoured Single Threaded Owner model gets more widely adopted. So, what is it and why does it matter?
Connor Hodges got in touch to ask “what’s the difference between a target and an outcome?”.
One of the most frequent questions we get asked is how can I measure tech product success with OKRs?
Let’s build up to that answer. Firstly, let’s briefly consider the difference between a target and an outcome.
Quite often, the biggest mistake a company can make in product management relates to how it is set up in the first instance.
Using a persona to pivot your product is a classic use of the tool. A scenario:
Let’s imagine Amina is the Single Threaded Owner (STO) of a puzzle app. Amina is a big fan of personas and created a couple for it when she started. The personas were instrumental in driving product decisions, which led to it being a big success.
We can’t possibly understand the needs of every single user or customer we have on a personal basis, so we often use a tech product persona.
What is a tech product bet?
A product bet is a simple way to capture a hunch you have about some potential value. These are sometimes used as a precursor to writing an epic user story or a user story. They follow a simple pattern.
How do I write a tech product vision?
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there. You need a vision. So, how can you write a quick, simple, effecting tech product vision?
Establishing an operating rhythm is a great way to bring transparency and build trust.
Many product managers feel that their senior teams interfere with what they do. This can range from simply telling them which features the business wants next (undermining the ability to drive progress though experimentation) to constantly badgering them for more information on metrics, timelines and the like.
Thanks to Katie for getting in touch and asking ‘What’s the best approach to tech product discovery?’.
Business model innovation is the process whereby a business re-positions itself by considering why it exists and what its purpose is. This is different from product innovation which is about thinking about developing new products or services that will give you a competitive edge.
In his 2011 book Thinking fast and slow Daniel Kahnerman unpacks the cognitive bias Peak End Theory. Peak end theory hypothesises that the experiences we have at both the peak and the end of a journey leaves a disproportionate impact on us compared to everything else.
OpEx and CapEx is terminology used often in corporations to categorise spend. Here’s a simplistic way to think about it:
The roles of business owner, product manager and product owner are often confused, so what is the difference between them?
Why does page speed matter in tech product? Google ranking loves a page that loads quickly. In order to make a page load fast the product manager needs to know some basics. Every webpage goes through four stages. Let’s look at them one by one.
Product Managers beware! Keeping tech product simple is crucial to product success.
Minimum viable product (MVP) is a useful term in tech product.
Minimum = smallest thing you can get away with
Viable = actually works
Product = provides some value
In tech product you’ll often hear people ask ‘what are the levers’ they can pull to make something happen.
Think that you have to work in a ‘high-tech’ Silicon Valley start-up to work in tech product? Think again! A digital company is simply a company that interacts, transacts and enacts its business through digital channels. If you don’t think that’s you, you’re almost certainly mistaken.
I’ve got a tech product interview. How can I smash it?
Nice work! You’ve done it. Your tech product interview is now scheduled and just a week away. Whilst every company and interviewer will be different, there are some solid things you can do to prepare. Let’s cover some of them.
To establish what tech product is we need to both contrast it to something else and interpret the name.
Establishing a common language is one of the simplest ways to make progress in tech product. Often confused are the terms vision and mission, programme. What’s the difference?
“Single-threaded teams” or “single-threaded ownership” as it is sometimes known, are terms that have been popularised, some say coined, by Amazon. It is a concept designed to side-step the problem of focus being diffused by unnecessary business distractions. Ultimately, the single-threaded owner becomes the leader of one deliverable, valuable, business outcome.
