Product Management Skills
Martin Eriksson defines product management as the intersection between business, technology, and user experience. He believes that a good product manager must be experienced in at least one of these areas and passionate about all of them. But what exact skills does a product manager need? From communication and strategic thinking to prioritisation and analytical skills, the list is long. This content looks at product management skills in different ways.
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Matt LeMay: A conversation about clarity
Matt LeMay tells the story of a meeting he had with author and publisher Mike Shatzkin a long time ago: “I was just out of college, and I was trying to describe what I do. He had a moment of recognition, slammed his hand down on the table, and said, ‘synthesis and articulation, that’s what you Read more »
Are you a Builder or an Optimizer?
As I’ve moved through various product roles over the last 10 years, I’ve come to realize that there are two types of product people – builders and optimizers. I fall very naturally and easily into one of these types and have found that it can be helpful to think about my own skills and career Read more »
Joe Leech: A Scientific Approach to Product
If you work alongside Bristol-based product strategy and UX consultant Joe Leech then chances are you’ll also work alongside his dog Little Dude. The fox terrier travels everywhere with him – to London once a week, wherever it is, where Joe goes, he goes. That said, you’d be lucky to find yourself working alongside Little Read more »
Transitioning to product from a functional role
If you speak to five product managers about how they got their jobs, you’re likely to receive five different answers. Transitioning from a functional role such as marketing or engineering to product can seem daunting, especially if your education and experience aren’t specifically tailored to product, but it can be done. Why is product management Read more »
How to Train Your Hippo By Ozlem Yuce
In this MTP Engage Manchester talk, Ozlem Yuce, Chief Product Officer at Agile at Heart gives us some insight on how we can better deal with the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO) in our organizations. She explains why the HiPPO can be so damaging and what to do about it as a product person. Her key Read more »
Making the Unspoken Spoken
In this excerpt from her recent book, The Team That Managed Itself, Christina Wodtke looks at how teams can deal with the office housework jobs that no one wants to take on. Within teams, there are the spoken roles, as in designer, marketer, engineer, etc. There’s also a host of additional unspoken roles. There will Read more »
Where Do Good Ideas Come From? - Gal Josefsberg on The Product Experience
One of the hardest skills for product people to acquire is that of saying no. After all, when everyone comes at you with ideas, prioritisation can be a massive challenge. So it’s refreshing when we get a chance to come at it from the opposite direction in order to generate good ideas. Gal Josefsberg, VP Read more »
Janice Fraser: Knitting at the Edge of new
Not many product people can claim to have coached staff at the White House. “It’s my most proud achievement,” says Silicon Valley veteran Janice Fraser, “It was such an honour to be invited to support our public service… it was a peak life experience for me. For four years, every six months during Obama’s second Read more »
Ground Rules for Applying AI to Product Management
The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning has led to lots of jargon, so that this very powerful technique has become more difficult to understand. The tips below have all helped me, so I hope this article will help product managers to cut through the noise and better understand how AI can fit Read more »
Useful Web Accessibility Checks and Tools
You will find a wide range of free, accessibility tools online. These include everything from colour contrast checkers and readability tools to open-source screen readers. For example, you can make some quick checks using the WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool (input a URL and the tool will immediately highlight errors) while the Gunning Fog Index can be Read more »