Posts

The value of product management

I’ve spoken with a lot of CEOs from engineering led organizations who don’t understand how a much a good product manager helps their bottom line.

Here’s what I tell them.

Great product management drives down the cost of development because it front loads mistakes where the cost of being wrong is low.

In other words, if you’re learning that you’ve built the wrong product after you’ve released, you just ran a $$$$$ experiment that I could have probably done for less than $1000 and some interviews conducted via UserTesting.com.

Always Be Testing

Make sure that you use checklists when you are testing anything that is sent to a user.

What are the hidden costs of a company policy?

Company policies have hidden costs. Have you thought through them?

How-to quickly clean old newsletters in Apple Mail

I receive a ton of email newsletters. I try to unsubscribe but let’s be honest who really wants to go through and manually click “unsubscribe?”

I know there are paid services that will manage your inbox for you. I just don’t feel like spending the money.

Here’s a way to nearly automate batch deleting tons of email in macOS Mail.

So, if you want to follow along, launch your Mail app and let’s get going.

Product Manager & UX Interview Exercise

When I interview Product Managers or UX designers I usually block off time for an interactive exercise to see how a candidate tackles product problems. This involves designing a feature for app or website. Not to design the “right” solution but to observe thinking. I don’t want “free work” from the candidate so it’s never about my company’s products. Rather, I’ll take an application that I’ve used recently that I find particularly irksome.

Product Ownership is Taken, Not Given

Ownership is taken, not given. If you are starting out in product management, don’t wait for your boss to give you responsibility over a product line. Prove that you deserve it and then take ownership. How do you prove you deserve it? Understand the company’s strategic vision. Be able to articulate that strategic vision and how the current product fits (or doesn’t.) Understand your product inside and out. Understand your competitors inside and out and know why they make the choices that they make.

How to Build Better Products by Asking Yourself One Question

As Product Managers we’re constantly running around in 50 million different directions. It’s easy to lose focus under the barrage of feature requests coming at your from sales, marketing, customer support, customer interviews and internal stakeholders. You end up spending too much time looking at your product as “that thing that you’re selling” when you should be really asking yourself “What am I really selling?” There is a classic analogy used in sales to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Want to build a better product? Stop obsessing about it (here’s what to focus on instead)

This post was updated from an earlier piece Assume for a moment that you just returned from a cross-country trip. You’re sitting at home looking at your credit card statement with all of the trip expenses. Which companies are most likely to show up on your bill? If you flew, maybe it’s USAir or JetBlue. If you drove, you’re likely to see Exxon, Lukoil or some other gas stations.

What John Mulaney can teach us about bad UX design

Last night we went to see John Mulaney at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. We arrived at 6:45 to find two lines wrapped around the block. I expected a line, COVID screening takes time. What I didn’t expect to find was a second line inside the theater where people were taking our phones and watches and putting them into security bags. I was really looking forward to this evening. It was the first time I’ve seen a popular comedian in a venue like this.