P.S. I am looking for a new role. I'm a Senior Product Manager and ex-software engineer with 12+ years in B2B SaaS looking for my next senior IC or first Product Lead role. If you think I can add value to your team and org remotely in the UK or hybrid in London or Cambridge please get in touch!
The full post covers scope management, knowing your customer, the "buy vs build" trade-off, and more.
You can read all 6 lessons here on my new Substack. Subscriptions are free and very much appreciated!
open.substack.com/pub/lawrence...
#ProductManagement #Agile #MVP #Strategy
2/ Get to "Good Enough" Early
We had a "shippable" product (mountain, train, track) 25 minutes in. The last 20 mins were a low-stress bonus round for adding "nice-to-have" features.
A true MVP de-risks the project and stops the last-minute panic to ship anything out the door.
1/ Turn Disadvantages into Advantages
The sand was full of sharp razorfish shells. Other teams threw them away. We saw them and thought: "That's our railway track."
In product, your constraints (a legacy API, a small budget) can force simpler, more elegant solutions. Build with them.
My son & I won our family sandcastle contest (again!).
The 45-minute build was a masterclass in product strategy. I wrote up the 6 key lessons on my new Substack, "The Definition of Ready".
A thread on two of my favourites: 🧵
Tanya Cordrey, CPO of @motorwayuk.bsky.social, describes important it is to know your users.
If you expect users to photograph their car:
- They're more likely to do it at the weekend or in the evening
- They're not likely to do it in the rain.
Don't remind them on Monday at 9am when it's raining.
Tanya Cordrey, CEO of Motorway, speaks with Carlos González De Villaumbrosia, CEO of Product School, on stage at The Barbican Centre in London during a live recording of The Product Podcast at #ProductCon.
Tanya Cordrey, CPO of @motorwayuk.bsky.social, tells The Product Podcast how the used car market is "broken" on both sides. Consumers lose money when part exchanging & dealers end up with cars they don't want.
It's an interesting insight: identifying & fixing a broken market is a great opportunity.
Listening to Tanya Cordrey of @motorwayuk.bsky.social (previously Instagram, eBay) explaining the concepts of "extreme clarity" and "canonical everything".
She says these are a #ProductManagement "superpower".
naomi.com/canonical-ev...
"There will be miscommunication. We have different contexts and history. The best way to guide a team through this is to ask them to assume the best intent."
- Pénélope Carlier, VP Product at TIER-dott, talking about teams working together at #ProductCon
"You won't be in the room for most decisions - and that's expected. Give your team guiding principles they need to make decisions."
- Pénélope Carlier, VP Product at TIER-dott at #ProductCon
"Anger and fear are the two most common emotions people experience at work. Put people in a transformation and they'll feel these, but they're also the people who make your transformation a success!"
- Carlos González De Villaumbrosia, CEO of ProductSchool at #ProductCon London
"Play to people's heart. Get people excited. Assuage their fears. That's what gets change done."
- Debbie McMahon, CPO of @financialtimes.com, speaking about driving change as a #ProductManager at #ProductCon
FT CPO Debbie McMahon speaking at #ProductCon London.
Debbie McMahon, CPO @financialtimes.com talks about Augmenting Product Value with AI at #ProductCon
Steps with big change:
- Look for precedence in org in past
- Demystify (give everyone access)
- Friendly guidance for everyone on use and guardrails
- External comms
The stage at the Barbican, set for ProductCon London. The stage is empty and the screen displays a Welcome message.
I'm at The Barbican for #ProductCon London by Product School.
#ProductManagement #ProdMgmt #Conference
"It would be a lucky break for you if at least part of the problem were a result of YOUR behaviour. Then you could improve the situation by improving your contribution. The more you contribute to a bad situation, the more power you have to change it."
- #GettingItDoneBook by R Fisher & A Sharp
3/3
"Ascribing all fault to coworkers is a dead-end. If the problem is that you work with bad people, then there is nothing to except resign yourself to the current situation or resign your job and go elsewhere!"
- #GettingItDoneBook by Robert Fisher & Alan Sharp
2/3
"Ascribing all fault to coworkers is a dead-end. If the problem is that you work with bad people, then there is nothing to except resign yourself to the current situation or resign your job and go elsewhere!"
- #GettingItDoneBook by Robert Fisher & Alan Sharp
2/3
Why is it hard to get people to collaborate? Maybe they are not sophisticated enough, don't like working with others, too controlling?
You should be suspicious of these 👆, because they "exonerate YOU".
"Knowing your own bias, you should doubt self-serving explanations."
- #GettingItDoneBook
When it seems impossible to get people to work together together or improve your team or org (or anything), you might think...
"What can you do about it?!?! You might start by thinking seriously: what CAN I do? After all, the situation is not hopeless."
- #GettingItDoneBook by R Fisher & A Sharp
"The easiest conduct to change is your own. You empower others by first empowering yourself..."
"Your ability to help others get things done would be greater if you had a systematic way of getting things done by yourself."
- Roger Fisher & Alan Sharp, #GettingItDoneBook
The book coins the phrase "lateral leadership". It has some interesting tips on how to influence others.
I'll share some insights and quotes using the hashtag #GettingItDoneBook over the next few days.
The cover of the book "Getting it done: how to lead when you're not in charge" by Alan Sharp and Roger Fisher.
I read "Getting it done: how to lead when you're not in charge" by Alan Sharp & Roger Fisher & assumed it was a recent book about working in tech teams.
It turns out it's from 1999 and not trivial to get a hard copy of. The advice remains relevant and universally applicable.
#GettingItDoneBook
Most product managers suck at sharing progress updates.
They waste everyone's time with too much (or too little) information.
Here’s how to create the perfect Progress Update Email:
Many orgs have leaders who are so busy and overstretched that they can barely pay attention to something for more than ten minutes. Meanwhile, armies are working to boil complex things down into "simple" summaries, so those precious 10 minutes are "productive"
cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-242-th...
One of the best pieces of productivity advice I was given was:
Stay in control by offering options on the timeline you define. They can have:
The Bronze option now
The Silver option soon
The Gold option later
#ProductivityTips #TimeManagement
My horrible secret is that I haven't really "read" a book in years. I can easily digest info online or in a doc and very quickly scan for info I need in some big impenetrable PDF, but as soon as I start reading a book I tend to find myself going through the motions of reading then having to go back.
I intend to use "read" as a shorthand for "listened to an audio version of", especially if it's an audiobook rather than a podcast, etc.
Just setting parameters for how I will discuss things on Bluesky without feeling like I need to justify each time. 😂
Does anyone else feel dishonest when they say they read something when it was actually listening to an audiobook?
I do. Not sure why. It's the same content, and I digest it better. But I always feel a need to explain I read it but actually it was an audiobook, or say I listened but it was a book...
When the product manager tries to persuade the CEO with book talk
