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Sharing Knowledge: From Product Manager to Engineers

This is the second post in a four part series on Sharing Knowledge in Product Management. The first part looked at sharing knowledge from customers to product manager. This part examines from product Mangers to engineers. Part three will examine from engineers back to product managers. Finally, part four will

Sharing Knowledge: From Customer to Product Manager

This is the first post in a two+ part series. I have content in mind beyond the first two parts, but want to gauge interest before deciding whether or not to continue. These first two parts are sections of a paper I wrote in a class called, "Creating and

Interesting vs. Meaningful

About a year ago, I was struggling. I was the CEO of a technology startup. We were going through some tough times, but we were okay. I wasn't. Looking back, I realized that my struggle was that while I was interested in what we were doing, it simply

Should You Learn To Code?

I'm launching a product today. I forgot how exciting it is to launch something that I made, from concept to launch. In this case, I didn't just define the product, I also wrote a good amount of the code. I haven't written code in

Build Your Visual Communication Skills

As product managers, we communicate with everyone: engineers, designers, sales, account managers, marketing, you name it. Our products are complex and we are seen as the resident experts. We clarify product requirements with engineers, help our sales team overcome objections, and assist our customer success team on getting the most

How To Talk To Your Customers (Despite Henry Ford and Steve Jobs)

"If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford (supposedly) "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to

The "Why" Behind Product Feedback

I was talking to a startup founder recently and he was telling me about the feedback he was getting on his recent product launch. To keep things simple, we'll describe his product as follows: he is creating a platform where buyers can meet with sellers to exchange information

How to Frame Your Product Vision

More often than not, I see product managers frame their product vision as a solution - sometimes even as a solution without a clear problem. In some cases, this happens because the product manager hasn't clearly identified a suitable problem. But other times the product managers have done their

Great Product Books: Where To Get Started

I often get asked for book recommendations related to product management. This is a hard question to answer. There are a lot of great books out there. But I think the most important aspect of being a good product manager requires working from the perspective of the whole business. It&

What Product Assumptions Are You Making?

When a team sets out to develop a product, they generate a series of hypotheses. In my experience, good teams are explicit about these hypotheses and test them before they invest too much time into a particular product plan. However, more often than not, I see that development teams are

Turning Big Ideas Into Great Products

I love seeing big ideas turn into great products. In this talk, Jack Dorsey talks about the big idea that eventually led to Twitter and his new big idea behind Square. Few people have the ability to go from big idea to successful product like Jack does. Even for ideas