This presentation discusses my experience transitioning from UX to Product Management. I include some skills that UXers need to successfully make the move to Product.
Animating the UI is a talk that I've given at SXSW, amUX, IXDA, amongst other meet ups.
This presentation is comprised of the uses of animation in UI design, how animation can achieve essential interaction design principles, and tools that designers can use for prototyping.
I will be leading a 6-hour workshop with demos and exercises using best tools on May 16-17, 2016. Find more information here: http://bit.ly/1TbF32v
NR_2016.3.1_SociaL for a $50 discount.
No One Team Should Have All That Power (Expanded Version)Monet Spells
In the product development process, we understand that design is important. So the next question is: who owns design in the product development process?
Utopia - An imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. - Wikipedia
UXtopia- An imagined work environment that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for UX teams.
Based on input from UX professionals, we’ll explore the facets and qualities that lead to a satisfying work environment and positive experiences for customers/users, such as:
• Team Structure
• Process
• Strategy
• Market Position/Impact
• Community Contribution
• Career Development
We’ll also take a look at some steps that both UX leaders and individual contributors can take to create the work life they want.
Is it really possible or necessary to reach perfection? Maybe not. But if you can’t imagine it, you can’t even get close.
Treat your career like a design project. A brief overview of a coaching framework and career design workshop that enables managers and employees alike.
Design Process: The Art of Guided ChaosEric Toledo
Design is messy. Bringing structure to design is a challenge when the business is moving fast and your team is learning to scale. It’s all about the art of guided chaos. Participants will learn about what goes into “design process” for the product design team at MailChimp, and how we think about healthy, collaborative environments.
Eric Toledo is the Director of Design Operations at MailChimp where he runs the talented product design team. He is a storyteller, tinkerer, problem solver, and champion of fostering a shared vision across an organization. With more than 15 years of design lead experience, Eric is driven by a fascination for how design teams work, a passion for building highly collaborative environments, a fearless pursuit of delightful experiences, and an unending curiosity for the customers that MailChimp serves. Previously, he served as the product design lead at TestFlight before it was acquired by Apple in 2014. As part of the iTunes design team, Eric led the design effort for TestFlight for iOS and tvOS as well as release management tools for the App Store.
Satyam Kantamneni, former Managing Director of UX at Citrix, explains how to grow and nurture your UX team to meet business objectives. Based on 15 years experience across Citrix, Paypal, and other companies.
You'll learn:
- When to hire generalists vs. specialists.
- How to drive business outcomes from day 1.
- How to evaluate design culture as you build it.
- How to build a long-term governance framework.
Design Thinking Process And Strategy For A New ProductUXDXConf
How could you use Design Thinking to find a compromise between users and business needs? How do you balance craftsmanship, communication and commercial awareness, managing external stakeholders?
In this talk, Roberta, Senior UX Designer and Team Leader at Booking.com, will walk you through her strategy to implement a challenging new product that defined her growth as leader in one of the world’s leading digital travel companies.
UX Maturity: Research and Analytics to drive an impactUXDXConf
As the largest marketplace in the region, Allegro is one of Poland's most distinguishable brands. With millions of users, how did Allegro establish a strong foothold in the region against the marketplace giants?
In this session, learn how Alina and her team use data and analytics to create a UX strategy that allows their business to scale and grow in such a competitive market. She will touch on:
How a localised approach to UX has created loyal users
How to embed UX in your product development
How to take change as an opportunity for improvements for the team
Animating the UI is a talk that I've given at SXSW, amUX, IXDA, amongst other meet ups.
This presentation is comprised of the uses of animation in UI design, how animation can achieve essential interaction design principles, and tools that designers can use for prototyping.
I will be leading a 6-hour workshop with demos and exercises using best tools on May 16-17, 2016. Find more information here: http://bit.ly/1TbF32v
NR_2016.3.1_SociaL for a $50 discount.
No One Team Should Have All That Power (Expanded Version)Monet Spells
In the product development process, we understand that design is important. So the next question is: who owns design in the product development process?
Utopia - An imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. - Wikipedia
UXtopia- An imagined work environment that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for UX teams.
Based on input from UX professionals, we’ll explore the facets and qualities that lead to a satisfying work environment and positive experiences for customers/users, such as:
• Team Structure
• Process
• Strategy
• Market Position/Impact
• Community Contribution
• Career Development
We’ll also take a look at some steps that both UX leaders and individual contributors can take to create the work life they want.
Is it really possible or necessary to reach perfection? Maybe not. But if you can’t imagine it, you can’t even get close.
Treat your career like a design project. A brief overview of a coaching framework and career design workshop that enables managers and employees alike.
Design Process: The Art of Guided ChaosEric Toledo
Design is messy. Bringing structure to design is a challenge when the business is moving fast and your team is learning to scale. It’s all about the art of guided chaos. Participants will learn about what goes into “design process” for the product design team at MailChimp, and how we think about healthy, collaborative environments.
Eric Toledo is the Director of Design Operations at MailChimp where he runs the talented product design team. He is a storyteller, tinkerer, problem solver, and champion of fostering a shared vision across an organization. With more than 15 years of design lead experience, Eric is driven by a fascination for how design teams work, a passion for building highly collaborative environments, a fearless pursuit of delightful experiences, and an unending curiosity for the customers that MailChimp serves. Previously, he served as the product design lead at TestFlight before it was acquired by Apple in 2014. As part of the iTunes design team, Eric led the design effort for TestFlight for iOS and tvOS as well as release management tools for the App Store.
Satyam Kantamneni, former Managing Director of UX at Citrix, explains how to grow and nurture your UX team to meet business objectives. Based on 15 years experience across Citrix, Paypal, and other companies.
You'll learn:
- When to hire generalists vs. specialists.
- How to drive business outcomes from day 1.
- How to evaluate design culture as you build it.
- How to build a long-term governance framework.
Design Thinking Process And Strategy For A New ProductUXDXConf
How could you use Design Thinking to find a compromise between users and business needs? How do you balance craftsmanship, communication and commercial awareness, managing external stakeholders?
In this talk, Roberta, Senior UX Designer and Team Leader at Booking.com, will walk you through her strategy to implement a challenging new product that defined her growth as leader in one of the world’s leading digital travel companies.
UX Maturity: Research and Analytics to drive an impactUXDXConf
As the largest marketplace in the region, Allegro is one of Poland's most distinguishable brands. With millions of users, how did Allegro establish a strong foothold in the region against the marketplace giants?
In this session, learn how Alina and her team use data and analytics to create a UX strategy that allows their business to scale and grow in such a competitive market. She will touch on:
How a localised approach to UX has created loyal users
How to embed UX in your product development
How to take change as an opportunity for improvements for the team
Karen Bachmann and Lisa McMichael presented different types of listening skills and how those techniques help UXers at the December amUX meetup.
Like many UX practitioners, you are continuously engaged in user research, meetings and workshops. These activities require observing and taking good notes, and listening. But are you really listening or simply hearing what people have to say? For most of us it’s the latter. During the Listen up! Workshop, we’ll discuss the obvious and nuanced differences between listening and hearing, along with some of the barriers and causes that affect attuned listening. And, we’ll get you out of your seat to practice listening methods so that when you leave, you’ll be armed with a better mechanism for listening.
Based on his experience at Airbnb and research with companies like Pinterest and Gusto, Jason offers a clear framework for scaling UX quality, processes, and teams.
Lean UX in the Enterprise: A Government Case Studyuxpin
You'll learn:
- How to quickly identify user groups despite vague assumptions.
- How to define clear features amidst complex requirements and business objectives.
- How to establish efficient UX processes across disjointed teams.
Lean Product Management: The Art of Known UnknownsNatalie Hollier
(This presentation was given at the Lean Strategy + Design Salon meetup in New York: http://www.meetup.com/LeanStrategyPlusDesign/events/200913392/)
"Innovate or die” is the mantra of successful companies. So how can we build innovation into our product development process? By combining design thinking, lean startup and agile we get a recipe for repeatable innovation: lean UX. Lean UX and lean startup methods are being used today by many startups and innovation labs to take a learning approach to discovering and building the best product for customers.
But what does repeatable innovation look like scaled across an enterprise? This talk will share how to apply lean product practices as a continuous process across multiple products and agile development teams in an organization. With real examples and artifacts you will learn how to manage - and thrive - in uncertainty to create awesome products.
Democratising UX: how to spread user research education and insights throughout your organisation
With demand for UX insights within organisations outstripping the capacity of UX teams to deliver research, there is a growing need for greater UX knowledge and capability across different functions within businesses. But how do you spread user research beyond the walls of your UX research team? What is the value of everyone having access to UX insights—or having the ability to run research themselves?
On 26th March, we gathered a range of speakers to share their successes, challenges and expert advice around democratising UX. Learn from a variety of different perspectives on the topic, and have the opportunity to share your own experiences with the community.
In this presentation, AutoTrader's James Barley talks about UX research for the masses.
The State of Enterprise UX 2016: Panel Discussionuxpin
You'll learn:
- The most pressing challenges faced by enterprise product teams today.
- The emerging themes of enterprise design for 2017 and beyond.
- Effective solutions for overcoming the hurdles of enterprise UX.
You'll learn:
- How to get buy-in from executives and stakeholders for user research
- How to choose lightweight yet effective research methods
- How to document your results to prove ROI
I Have No Idea What I'm Doing, and That's Okay! Laura McGuigan
Perhaps you've been presented with an opportunity that scared you. Challenged you. Pushed you. That's been Laura's experience since joining TrackMaven almost 3 years ago. Now leading a team of 5 on the Design team, she'll talk about the importance of pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, taking on responsibilities you've never had before (like hiring, managing and leading a team) and how to keep growing when your job changes every 6 months. This talk should provide value and insight to anyone feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed, or just plain curious of what happens when you join a rocket-ship of a startup as the first designer.
First presented at RefreshDC, October 2015.
Psychology & UX: Evidence-Based Techniques to Improve Your Customer ExperienceSitback Solutions
Join Cynthia Tang, XD Team Lead and Registered Psychologist, as she talks about how marketers can review their website for UX design best practice, and use a powerful understanding of human psychology to improve the customer experience .
You will learn:
- How to go from behavioural insights to behavioural change
- How to leverage the subconscious to improve customer experience
- How human biases affect the way we design for - and interact with - websites
- The UX design features that increase conversion rates and drive engagement
- How to make a compelling case to your organisation to invest in a UX review of your website
Learn More: https://www.sitback.com.au
Imagine if designers conversed with you in a way that felt like object-oriented programming. Imagine if they handed off a design where, page after page, the objects you needed to code were edged in neon, so clearly defined they popped off the wireframe or comp. Imagine those objects were consistently presented; no one-off cases or guesswork required. Imagine you could take a design and almost create an ERD or rough out an API with it.
Well, good news. There’s no need to imagine it. It exists, and it’s called Object-Oriented UX (OOUX).
OOUX is a design methodology that helps us define usable, consistent products that naturally align with end users’ mental models. Similar to OOP, it asks us to define the objects in the real-world problem domain and design the information and relationships in each object before designing how the user might manipulate them. It's a powerful tool for any digital team, it's relatively easy to do, and it pays dividends fast.
Whether you are a developer, a designer, a content modeler, or someone who has influence over digital teams, OOUX offers a new and exciting option to add to your toolkit that will allow you to deliver better digital projects, quicker and more efficiently, and at a higher level of quality than ever before.
Presentation originally given at THAT Conference 2019
Architecting Your UX Career: Interview and Presentation Techniques to Land Yo...UXPA International
Approaching a job search can be a daunting task for any professional, but the UX world has a unique set of challenges. Our field is still relatively new, job titles and responsibilities are fuzzy, and there are varying understandings of what we can and should provide. There is no one clear path or set of experience that sets us up for success. Deliverables are often collaborative, covered by NDAs, and it can be hard to capture the many facets of UX expertise into a small set of documents. So how do we navigate the world of resume-writing, portfolio-creation, and interviewing to find a job that will be the best fit for the skills we currently have and allow us to grow into the practitioner we want to become? Get the inside scoop from a current UX consultant and former interactive designer, both of whom are experienced with vetting UX talent.
2016 talk from Lean Product Innovation event at The HUB in Singapore. Stories from the trenches about building successful products: product design & testing, pivoting the product strategy, and building an org culture of continuous testing & learning.
12 Qualities of Effective Design OrganizationsPeter Merholz
It's not enough for a team to have great designers. Great design requires a well-run team, taking care of it's organizational, managerial, and operational needs. In this presentation, I outline 12 qualities of effective design organizations, and provide tools for assessing how well your organization is performing.
Pursuing Elegance - Introduction to Elegance in Digital Product Design @amUXZach Pousman
As UX designers, we're always looking for the good in the world. We're constant observers of people and observers of the world so we can make it better!
In this talk I will give you my tools that I use to find elegance in user experiences that others have built. And I'll share my techniques for desiging elegance into your sites, apps, and products. I promise that the discussion won't get stuck in the world of platonic theory — I'll help you find better customer problems, solve them with more elegant structres and, in your way, to create a world that's just a little bit better too!
Presented at #amUX (a local ATL UX community) on 5/4/2016
Karen Bachmann and Lisa McMichael presented different types of listening skills and how those techniques help UXers at the December amUX meetup.
Like many UX practitioners, you are continuously engaged in user research, meetings and workshops. These activities require observing and taking good notes, and listening. But are you really listening or simply hearing what people have to say? For most of us it’s the latter. During the Listen up! Workshop, we’ll discuss the obvious and nuanced differences between listening and hearing, along with some of the barriers and causes that affect attuned listening. And, we’ll get you out of your seat to practice listening methods so that when you leave, you’ll be armed with a better mechanism for listening.
Based on his experience at Airbnb and research with companies like Pinterest and Gusto, Jason offers a clear framework for scaling UX quality, processes, and teams.
Lean UX in the Enterprise: A Government Case Studyuxpin
You'll learn:
- How to quickly identify user groups despite vague assumptions.
- How to define clear features amidst complex requirements and business objectives.
- How to establish efficient UX processes across disjointed teams.
Lean Product Management: The Art of Known UnknownsNatalie Hollier
(This presentation was given at the Lean Strategy + Design Salon meetup in New York: http://www.meetup.com/LeanStrategyPlusDesign/events/200913392/)
"Innovate or die” is the mantra of successful companies. So how can we build innovation into our product development process? By combining design thinking, lean startup and agile we get a recipe for repeatable innovation: lean UX. Lean UX and lean startup methods are being used today by many startups and innovation labs to take a learning approach to discovering and building the best product for customers.
But what does repeatable innovation look like scaled across an enterprise? This talk will share how to apply lean product practices as a continuous process across multiple products and agile development teams in an organization. With real examples and artifacts you will learn how to manage - and thrive - in uncertainty to create awesome products.
Democratising UX: how to spread user research education and insights throughout your organisation
With demand for UX insights within organisations outstripping the capacity of UX teams to deliver research, there is a growing need for greater UX knowledge and capability across different functions within businesses. But how do you spread user research beyond the walls of your UX research team? What is the value of everyone having access to UX insights—or having the ability to run research themselves?
On 26th March, we gathered a range of speakers to share their successes, challenges and expert advice around democratising UX. Learn from a variety of different perspectives on the topic, and have the opportunity to share your own experiences with the community.
In this presentation, AutoTrader's James Barley talks about UX research for the masses.
The State of Enterprise UX 2016: Panel Discussionuxpin
You'll learn:
- The most pressing challenges faced by enterprise product teams today.
- The emerging themes of enterprise design for 2017 and beyond.
- Effective solutions for overcoming the hurdles of enterprise UX.
You'll learn:
- How to get buy-in from executives and stakeholders for user research
- How to choose lightweight yet effective research methods
- How to document your results to prove ROI
I Have No Idea What I'm Doing, and That's Okay! Laura McGuigan
Perhaps you've been presented with an opportunity that scared you. Challenged you. Pushed you. That's been Laura's experience since joining TrackMaven almost 3 years ago. Now leading a team of 5 on the Design team, she'll talk about the importance of pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, taking on responsibilities you've never had before (like hiring, managing and leading a team) and how to keep growing when your job changes every 6 months. This talk should provide value and insight to anyone feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed, or just plain curious of what happens when you join a rocket-ship of a startup as the first designer.
First presented at RefreshDC, October 2015.
Psychology & UX: Evidence-Based Techniques to Improve Your Customer ExperienceSitback Solutions
Join Cynthia Tang, XD Team Lead and Registered Psychologist, as she talks about how marketers can review their website for UX design best practice, and use a powerful understanding of human psychology to improve the customer experience .
You will learn:
- How to go from behavioural insights to behavioural change
- How to leverage the subconscious to improve customer experience
- How human biases affect the way we design for - and interact with - websites
- The UX design features that increase conversion rates and drive engagement
- How to make a compelling case to your organisation to invest in a UX review of your website
Learn More: https://www.sitback.com.au
Imagine if designers conversed with you in a way that felt like object-oriented programming. Imagine if they handed off a design where, page after page, the objects you needed to code were edged in neon, so clearly defined they popped off the wireframe or comp. Imagine those objects were consistently presented; no one-off cases or guesswork required. Imagine you could take a design and almost create an ERD or rough out an API with it.
Well, good news. There’s no need to imagine it. It exists, and it’s called Object-Oriented UX (OOUX).
OOUX is a design methodology that helps us define usable, consistent products that naturally align with end users’ mental models. Similar to OOP, it asks us to define the objects in the real-world problem domain and design the information and relationships in each object before designing how the user might manipulate them. It's a powerful tool for any digital team, it's relatively easy to do, and it pays dividends fast.
Whether you are a developer, a designer, a content modeler, or someone who has influence over digital teams, OOUX offers a new and exciting option to add to your toolkit that will allow you to deliver better digital projects, quicker and more efficiently, and at a higher level of quality than ever before.
Presentation originally given at THAT Conference 2019
Architecting Your UX Career: Interview and Presentation Techniques to Land Yo...UXPA International
Approaching a job search can be a daunting task for any professional, but the UX world has a unique set of challenges. Our field is still relatively new, job titles and responsibilities are fuzzy, and there are varying understandings of what we can and should provide. There is no one clear path or set of experience that sets us up for success. Deliverables are often collaborative, covered by NDAs, and it can be hard to capture the many facets of UX expertise into a small set of documents. So how do we navigate the world of resume-writing, portfolio-creation, and interviewing to find a job that will be the best fit for the skills we currently have and allow us to grow into the practitioner we want to become? Get the inside scoop from a current UX consultant and former interactive designer, both of whom are experienced with vetting UX talent.
2016 talk from Lean Product Innovation event at The HUB in Singapore. Stories from the trenches about building successful products: product design & testing, pivoting the product strategy, and building an org culture of continuous testing & learning.
12 Qualities of Effective Design OrganizationsPeter Merholz
It's not enough for a team to have great designers. Great design requires a well-run team, taking care of it's organizational, managerial, and operational needs. In this presentation, I outline 12 qualities of effective design organizations, and provide tools for assessing how well your organization is performing.
Pursuing Elegance - Introduction to Elegance in Digital Product Design @amUXZach Pousman
As UX designers, we're always looking for the good in the world. We're constant observers of people and observers of the world so we can make it better!
In this talk I will give you my tools that I use to find elegance in user experiences that others have built. And I'll share my techniques for desiging elegance into your sites, apps, and products. I promise that the discussion won't get stuck in the world of platonic theory — I'll help you find better customer problems, solve them with more elegant structres and, in your way, to create a world that's just a little bit better too!
Presented at #amUX (a local ATL UX community) on 5/4/2016
Emojis are probably the most prolific pictorial language used today, but why? And what does it mean for conversation between businesses and customers? Is there a place for emojis in your dialogue with customers? In this talk, we’ll look at why we use emojis, some emoji history, and what we can learn from emojis about communication with others. I’ll share examples of emoji use from different brands and people, some with positive results and some exchanges that didn’t go so well.
ABOUT RACHEL PETERS
Once upon a time I was a high school English teacher. When I ran away screaming from that and into the arms of grad school, I discovered the world of UX, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Currently I’m the UX Lead for Launch Interactive, an agency in downtown Atlanta. You can learn more about Launch at http://www.launchjourney.com/.
This presentation explores gender identity and why an understanding of gender identity will help designers make effective designs even stronger. We’ll focus on the “gender question”—form fields that ask users to indicate their gender. We’ll determine how to ask this question in a world where gender is more than the male/female binary.
As a remote worker, it’s easy to feel left out of the in-person connections that can happen in a traditional office. Audio and video for meetings is often miserable for those not attending in person. For those in the office, it can be hard to remember to include team members who aren’t physically present, and to make sure all can see, hear, and be heard.
But remote work doesn’t have to feel so remote!
In this talk, Nate will present general tips for staying connected as a remote worker, specific hardware and software recommendations for improving collaboration, and some best practices for setting up different types of meetings with remote team members so that all are included.
Product and UX - are the roles blurring?Jesse Gant
For most web-based companies, it appears that product managers have started to evolve their user experience (UX) skills in order to sell key concepts to developers, executives and even customers. On the flip side, UX folks contribute significant requirements and user stories in their design process and user research. So are the two roles becoming one? This covers the roles and why they are unique or not and even delves into the creation of annotated wireframes or prototypes instead of long-winded requirements docs - in an attempt to speed up the process to validate features and designs sooner rather than later with customers.
Director of Product at Glassdoor Talks: How to Transition to Product ManagementProduct School
How to transition into Product Management with Phillip, who shared his experiences transitioning from Engineering into Product Management and discuss the following topics:
How to transition from an Engineer role to a PM role.
How to overcome the challenges that arise while transitioning from Engineering to Product Management
What you can do now to get a job in Product Management
Takeaways:
What is expected of a product manager
What tech startups look for on a resume for a product manager candidate
How to ace a product management interview
How to keep up with the product management discipline
User Experience and Product Management: Two Peas in the Same Pod?Jeff Lash
What is the difference between User Experience and Product Management? Where do you draw the line between the two? How can UXers work better with Product Managers? How can a UXer transition into product management? All these questions and more, answered in this presentation by Jeff Lash for the 2011 St. Louis User Experience conference on Feb 25, 2011.
New is Easy but Right is Hard: Hacking Product ManagementBernard Leong
Talk given on 15 Nov 2013, in Hackers & Painters (http://http://hackersandpainters.sg/), Singapore @ Blk 71.
Synopsis: A great product is a synthesis of technology and business thinking. How do we decide what goes into the product and determine the roadmap of the product? How do we establish the balance between the business and technology of the product? In this session, we discuss some interesting lessons learned on product management and why both business leaders and technologists don't get it.
From talk to CTO School in NYC
- what is good product management
- how engineering can be a good partner to product (and how to structure product leadership)
- how to hire
Practical Product Management for new Product ManagersAmarpreet Kalkat
This presentation provides tips and tools for a professional who is new to Product Management function (in software).
It does not cover the full lifecycle of a product and primarily focuses on the product development/product building phase. As such, it is more usable for professionals working on existing products than for those in the process of building new products from scratch.
Product Management by Numbers: Using Metrics To Optimize Your Product by Dan ...Dan Olsen
Best practices in using metrics to optimize your web product. I gave this webinar on Dec 17, 2008, as part of FeaturePlan's series "The Product Management View".
As products and technologies continue to evolve, so too does the role of Product Management. We take a look at what Product Management is in 2016 and also ask some product experts and influencers what it will look like in the future.
Product managers drive the vision, strategy, design, and execution of their product. In this presentation I share my lessons learned on the art behind each of these four dimensions of product management.
Enjoyed this presentation? Subscribe to my weekly essays at sachinrekhi.com
This Brainmates presentation seeks to answer the question "What is product management?"
This presentation investigates this important strategic role and illustrates its responsibilities and functional applications.
A useful reference for people working in product management or who are interested in a career in this field.
** About Brainmates:
Brainmates is an Australian based business that has is championing the important role that Product Managers perform in delivering a product's that are loved by their customers and deliver a return on investment to the businesses that provide them.
Brainmates trains coaches and supported Product Management Professionals in all kinds of industries and business sizes. Contact the team on +61 1800 272 466 to see if we can help your products and business.
** Connect with Brainmates online:
Visit the Brainmates WEBSITE: http://bit.ly/1lQ51mE
Like Brainmates on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/2c0RVaO
Follow Brainmates on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/2bNhKft
Brainmates - Product Management Training and Expertise
Product Management for Startup Founders, CEOs, and CTOsChris Cera
This presentation was given to participants in the Philly Startup Leaders Bootcamp Accelerator. I have realized that many startup founders struggle with figuring out what to build, and then how to manage building it (i.e. product management and project management). This presentation is meant to be an introduction to these topics.
A Day in the Life of a Product Manager by Expedia Senior PMProduct School
Take aways:
-As the "CEO" you are responsible for the success of your Product despite never actually "building" anything
-As the "Coach" you are responsible for pushing the team to succeed and always remaining optimistic
-As the "Router" you are responsible for directing the overwhelming questions, feedback and other communication to the right place
-As the "Super User" no one should know your product better than you
-As the "Janitor" you do the dirty work to keep the team moving forward
Case Studies in EEAT - Going the Extra Mile to Leverage Businesses' Real-life...Liv Day
Slides from a talk delivered at Sheffield DM in February 2024 - titles Case Studies in EEAT - Going the Extra Miles to Leverage Businesses' Real-life Expertise. Covering a recap of E-E-A-T fundamentals, why E-E-A-T isn't just an SEO's problem, and why agency marketers need to lean more heavily on in-house expertise to really set apart the whole digital marketing strategy.
Product development at NerdWallet: Why user research is pivotalUserTesting
In this webinar, Jeff will cover the pros and cons of NerdWallet’s embedded research structure, their learnings on working with product designers and PMs, as well as the toolkit of techniques they have developed to maximize speed and insights.
Being a Successful User-Centred Product ManagerAndrew Mayfield
This workshop is about building an effective and nimble user centred product team building great products for a global audience. It’s about deciding what a Minimum Viable Product really is and [the hard part:] what to do once you’ve got one. I’ll go behind the scenes at Optimal Workshop to discuss our design and development process, how we handle customer support and how the two are intertwined for the good of our customers.
Tapping into your market: how to develop a framework to make sense of user fe...Emma Hill
As a Product Manager turned Customer Success Manager, I share my tips on creating a manageable framework for making it easier for your organisation to get value out of your feedback from internal and external stakeholders.
Notes on Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love by Marty CaganIvan Nashara
I made this note and presentation for the executives in my company. We discuss how the product organization should be evolving and how we can create a strong innovative company.
Inspired is one of the best books to introduce you to product management. And it's also a strong one that can be easily read and understood by the business and non-product people in the company.
ion's monthly webinar for February 2015: Get the real-world, behind-the-scenes insight you need to produce interactive content - the tools, the milestones, the skills, and the timelines.
As a culture, we love to see how things are created, whether that’s a movie or a snack or a song (think VH1’s Behind The Music or Food Network’s Unwrapped). It fascinates us to see what backstage secrets go into the final product. So have you ever wondered what it really takes to bring interactive content to life?
We go behind the scenes on two real interactive content launches—a “Static to Interactive” white paper and an “Interactive First” infographic—and give you insight into how you can produce interactive content of your own.
In the 3rd of 3 joint webinars with Beezy and CardioLog Analytics, we discussed the basics of gamification, and how you can develop a "motivation hacking" strategy within SharePoint or Office 365 to help shape user behavior and improve adoption and engagement.
How to Break Down PM in Startups vs. Big Companies by WeWork PMProduct School
Main takeaways:
- Know the difference in roles and responsibilities of a product manager at a large company vs a startup
- Learn the skills necessary to succeed in a large company vs a startup, and where the similarities are
- Leave with a better understanding of both, and an idea of which environment might be better for you
Presentation from the 2014 Product, Customer and User Experience Summit in Chicago on June 16, 2014. The presentation discusses the context for UX as strategy, provides an example of applying a UX approach to informing your business and experience strategy, measuring the impact of UX and what's needed to sustain and build upon the value of UX within an organization.
Here is the portfolio of Stuart Silverstein, User Experience consultant: Strategy, Research, Design and Process. eGood, PowerBar, Fandango, Smithsonian, Garmont USA, Kitson
Becoming agile with Peapod Labs Sr. Product OwnerPromotable
What is Agile and what does it have to do with Product Management? We always hear companies use jargon like Agile. We know it's important, however many people don't understand what it is, when or why to use it and how to get started implementing Agile into your company's processes.
Takeways:
What is Agile? A mindset, not just a process
How to get started?
Development Cycle: From Project to Backlog
Agile Product Development Live cycle
Building an Agile Mindset into a Company’s Transformation.
About the Instructor: Rodrigue Carneiro is a Senior Product Manager at Peapod Digital Labs. He was previously a Sr. Product Manager at Ahold Delhaize, a large European company with a total of 21 brands with 6500 stores. Including Peapod Digital Labs, Food Lion, and Giant grocery stores.
Keys to Engaging and Collaborating with Stakeholders for Product ManagersBecky Flint
Product leaders are responsible for leading a cross-functional development team in building and iterating on a product and driving business outcomes. A big part of that responsibility is collaborating with people in your organization who aren’t on the team but are interested in the product. Maintaining collaboration and alignment with these stakeholders can be challenging, but it's essential for delivering a successful product. Engaged stakeholders can provide helpful feedback and advocate for your product. Conversely, disengaged stakeholders can create needless obstacles in your path. How can you create an efficient and engaging stakeholder culture? Becky will outline some tips for product leaders who want to learn more about stakeholder management in this talk!
About Becky Flint, Founder, CEO
Becky Flint is a veteran executive in the Silicon Valley, having scaled product teams and built portfolio management for companies like PayPal, Bigcommerce, Shutterfly and Feedzai. Currently Becky is the founder and CEO of Dragonboat, the fastest-growing product portfolio platform for outcome-driven leaders to strategize, prioritize, deliver and improve industry-leading products.
Visit https://dragonboat.io/
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Alt. GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using ...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
GridMate - End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid...ThomasParaiso2
End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid regressions. In this session, we share our journey building an E2E testing pipeline for GridMate components (LWC and Aura) using Cypress, JSForce, FakerJS…
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
7. "A balanced team is an
autonomous group of people
with a variety of skills and
perspectives that support each
other towards a shared goal. It
has all the resources and
authority it needs to complete
projects on its own. It values
cross-disciplinary collaboration
and iterative delivery.”
http://bit.ly/2kvS5hf@janerguthrie
21. collects and prioritizes requirements,
requests and user research/feedback
@janerguthrie
22. Maintains the backlog -- ensuring it
reflects current priorities with MVP in
mind
Breaks down big ideas into
manageable pieces
Establishes a reliable way to estimate
stories
34. •Soft skills - this is probably the hardest - this not something that is necessarily natural
for people, but it can be learned!
• Leadership
• As a Product Manager, you’re the mini-CEO of your domain
• You’ve gotta know what you’re talking about so you can lead by example
• Strategic Thinking
• As the PM, you need to have a vision for your product
• on Balanced Team, you and the team come up with the Vision together, so
that everyone has had input and can buy into it
• [share template]
• I put our Vision Statement in front the team so that we always have that
in mind
• It’s really useful when we onboard new people as well
• We also collaborate on our Persona
• With a lean approach, we collaborate on a provisional Persona and
iterate on it over time
• Build empathy and shared understanding with your team
• Building relationships with all stakeholders
• Influencing
• Cheerleading
• This also includes being the internal face of and cheerleader for the product.
Especially in organizations with many products, product managers need to
generate interest and excitement within the organization about their vision
and roadmap.
Soft Skills
41. “The best way to learn
about Product
Management is to
speak to people who
have been doing it for
longer than you.”
- James Gadsby Peet
Mind The Product blog
@janerguthrie
42. Upcoming Workshop:
Product Discovery: Preparing
for Lean User Research
March 25, 2017 | 9am-12pm
More Info & Registration:
www.theuxlabs.com
25% off
w/code
“amux”
I work at Slalom and have worked at a variety of agencies in LA and Atlanta.
Spent a lot of time thinking…what’s next?
Do I go into Management? Do I worry more about growing other people’s careers?
Do I specialize in something?
Do I start exploring more connected devices? Designing without an interface?
How do I stay challenged and engaged?
Do I write a book?
I started speaking at conferences; that gave me a lot of exposure into what other people were doing
Mostly, I wanted to make cool things, but to do it in a way where I got more control over the entire experience.
I love working on a team and collaborating, so I had an opportunity crop up around Product Management in an Enterprise, on a Balanced Team using the XP Agile framework.
The product I work on is used by employees in a retail setting; I just wanted to mention that up front.
How many of you work Waterfall?
How many of you work Agile SCRUM?
How many of you work XP?
How many of you work Balanced Team?
How many of you have heard of Balanced Team?
On a balanced team, team members take joint responsibility for the work.
Where I work, the balanced team consists of the Product Manager, the UX Researcher/Designer and the Engineering Anchor. There is no SCRUM master.
Anchors are experienced developers, who, in addition to coding full-time, lead the technical aspects of the project from start to end. The anchor acts as a resource for the rest of the team for technical and non-technical issues.
UX designers create and lead designs; update designs based on user and stakeholder feedback- participate in user research, wireframing, and visual design in collaboration with the rest of the team - are on-site and embedded with the team full time
It also means that we do a lot of cross-functional pairing to check each other. I will often pair with my UX designer and vice versa. Because I have a really long history of UX, I am very, very focused on making sure that everything we do is something the user wants and is tested with our users before it’s ever coded.
One of the most interesting aspects of balanced team is the idea of shared ownership. I think of it as running a business, where you entire team owns the business. You can’t just go off and make decisions for the rest of the team. It’s a very collaborative kind of thing.
I tend to think of the 3 of us as business owners. We are running a business, creating a business product and are jointly responsible for the business.
There has to be a sense of joint responsibility and trust.
I have to trust the engineers to do their job, the UX designer to do his/her job and they have to trust me to do my job. This doesn’t mean that was always agree. In fact, we disagree pretty often. But the team, together, has to agree on outcomes.
One of the benefits of sharing ownership is that you should also work towards a “shared understanding”. Everyone on the team should understand the problems you are trying to solve and have some understanding of each others’ work. This means that transparency is super important and may not always feel natural at first.
I’m highlighting balanced team because the Product Management role that I’m doing is maybe a little different from other Product Manager roles. I sit with my team. We are co-located all day. Things come up all day, every day with both UX work and Development work.
I may run off to a meeting here and there, but generally, I’m there all day, every day.
It’s not always warm and fuzzy.
We disagree. Team members switch in and out. Some people get along together better than others. So this cycle happens frequently…especially when people are working together very closely.
It can be weird going from UX to Product.
I was thinking about plate-spinning as an analogy to what I do all day as a product manager and I found this! I didn’t know that you could even do this!
But there are time when I’m definitely not popular. There are times when I have to make a call on not doing something as fast as UX may want. Or overhauling a piece of the experience. That’s really hard. I may really want to overhaul a piece of the experience, but then always have to think about the value of that overhaul and if there’s something more pressing that will bring more value.
There’s also a lot of pressure that comes from stakeholders who may not support something users are asking for. This is such a different feeling than doing UX. When I was just doing UX, I definitely felt like I had air cover. Like someone had my back. As product, now I’m the one who provides air cover for the team. So I’m on the front line. So this is where I have to conduct a lot of experiments in Discovery and then collect data from the pilot to support my decisions.
There are a lot of sources of input to Product. I guess that’s one of the things that stands out. You have a lot of plates in the air.
I don’t want to spend too much time talking about SCRUM v. Balanced Team
At a very high level, PMs sit between UX, Tech and the Business
Because user experience professionals are often already fluent in understanding customer needs and knowledgeable about the markets for which they are designing, they have the potential to make good product managers.
It’s really tempting to get into the UX design, especially. But while I am happy to look at a design or interaction, ultimately, I have to let go and let the UX designer run with it. It’s more about delegation. It’s a hard thing to do sometimes, but Product Managers should try to be more strategic than tactical. When you’re in the weeds too much, it’s hard to see where you’re going.
I get into this conversation with UX a lot and it’s really hard. As a UX designer and researcher, you go out there, talk to your customers and come back with the most kick-ass design ever. It meets all of the user’s needs. Then you talk to your engineers and your Product Manager, and it can’t be done. At least, not yet. Or not quite how you envisioned it. Due to constraints. Can you live with something less than ideal? I think this is also something that’s really different. You have to live with less than ideal, less then perfect…the good enough. When you’re putting together an MVP, this is especially important because you want to get something out there quickly that you can learn from and get perfect. Perfect takes time.
I like the analogy that the Product Manager is like the bus driver. We are not the expert in any particular area, but know a little about all the areas. But we are steering the bus in a particular direction. Getting the team on board is not always easy. Some folks may want to get off the bus! But learning to lead a team is really cool.
I think that coming from UX into Product gives you a really stellar advantage. While you may give up the day to day control over the specific features and the UI, you do get to work at a higher, more strategic level, shaping the future of the product. And you get to evangelize UX! A PM who comes from UX is your biggest champion.
What skills do you need to transition Product Management from UX?
Soft skills - this is probably the hardest - this not something that is necessarily natural for people, but it can be learned!
Leadership
As a Product Manager, you’re the mini-CEO of your domain
You’ve gotta know what you’re talking about so you can lead by example
Strategic Thinking
As the PM, you need to have a vision for your product
on Balanced Team, you and the team come up with the Vision together, so that everyone has had input and can buy into it
[share template]
I put our Vision Statement in front the team so that we always have that in mind
It’s really useful when we onboard new people as well
We also collaborate on our Persona
With a lean approach, we collaborate on a provisional Persona and iterate on it over time
UX skills
This is the best part!!
As a PM on a Balanced Team, you get to pair with your UX resource!
That means that you get to go along to do customer research and work together on the solution.
This is where you really get to let the customer/the user shape the product and make sure that the stakeholders understand that.
Research, research, research
Presenting research
Understanding data
Analytics
Sketching, prototyping and iterating quickly
UX might feel like they own the experience and Product may feel like they own the experience.
Product managers feel as though they should be responsible since they manage the product, but user experience professionals feel as though they should be responsible since they spend time researching user needs and interacting directly with customers and users.
Good product managers should be just as close to the customers as the UX folks. Some weeks are better than others, but I feel so much more centered and confident when I go do the research with UX. I feel like I’m on the right path and that gives me the courage to really fight for what’s right for the customer.
I’ve talked about this before in other talks, but I feel it’s worth a mention here as well.
It’s been fairly recent that UX has gotten a seat at the big table and has been part of C-level conversations.
This means that as a UX Designer, you’re being taken more seriously…
Knowing a lot about all aspects of the business
This takes time, but when I did just UX, I didn’t go as broad in understanding the business or all the details
As a PM, you have to know EVERYTHING - or at least try to!
People will come by and say, “hey, did you think of [x]?” and at least most of the time, you want to say, “yes”.
You’ve gotta be curious about the details
Because I have so much responsibility, that really increased my level of curiosity!
What I was good at
Being a Product Manager is tough!
You can read everything out there, but nothing can prepare you for actually doing it.
I’ve been at it for 8 months –
I think I’ve done really well at the things you’d expect – Product Discovery, helping to come up with a really easy to use UI
But I’ve also done well with:
Making allies with a diverse set of stakeholders
Getting disparate stakeholders to come together and talk
Being transparent
Sharing our Discovery process, findings
We hear a lot about failure these days. How cool it is to fail. How much we learn form failure.
I’m not sure I like the term “failure”. What I can say is that it’s better to fail small and often, rather than fail big. That means that we need to conduct lots of small experiments and get a lot of feedback.
Get fresh eyes on your product. You get in the weeds and stop seeing things. We’ve got a very challenging QA environment. The product I’m working on has a lot of downstream dependencies of various services being up. When a service is down, we just retry. Well, we got so used to things being down, that we stopped talking about it. We got used to services being down and for a while, we didn’t do anything about it! Then we got a new person on the team and she was like, “why is everything down all the time? That’s not acceptable.” That was a real wake-up call. In big organizations, fixing things isn’t easy or quick. But you have to be persistent.
We had a retro last week and the guy leading the retro asked the team to come up with one thing they’d change about our product. That was so brilliant. We are so in the details every day, that taking a moment to step back is really important. And to also give a voice to every person on the team.
I, personally, need to let go more. To not get in the weeds and let other people on the team do more driving. As we gel more as a team, I think that will happen more and more. And when people make mistakes, don’t play the blame game. Just figure out what happened, learn from it and try not to make the same mistake again.
There are a million books, articles, blogs out there on Product Management, so I’m not going to bore you with a giant list of resources. But I will say….
There’s no guide to Product Management. The most valuable tool I have is my peers. I can go sit in on their meetings, they can sit in on mine. We share findings, resources, etc. If you want to give Product Management a try, do it in a place where you have support. The same is true for UX, right? If you are just starting out, you want to be in a place where you have peers. You can ask questions, go to their meetings, watch them in action.