OpenAI answers questions about product management
I put product management questions in OpenAI’s GPT-3 text generator.
Team health measures
Each team should develop it’s own measures for what the team members think is important to them. But here are some ideas:
Goals
We’re clear on the goals we’re trying to achieve.
Impact
We understand how to achieve outcomes that we want.
Processes and practices
We have the right processes and practices to help us work effectively.
We have the right tools to be experts in what we do.
Collaboration
We know how to work together to get things done.
Learning
We share knowledge, and take time to learn new things.
We help each other understand what skills we lack, and look for opportunities to learn.
Challenge
We are challenged by the problems we tackle.
Fun
We enjoy our work, and enjoy working with each other.
Speed
We can deliver quickly and easily.
Risks
We know how the recognise risks and what to do about them.
Support
We know when, how and who to ask for help.
Metrics
We know how to measure our work and use it to improve.
Difference & diversity
We seek out, accept and appreciate different ways of thinking and being.
Skills
We have all the skills we need to do our work.
Baseline skills for modern knowledge work
Modern knowledge workers need certain skills to work effectively.
Planning
Scheduling work.
Communicating
Writing and diagramming clearly, choosing appropriate channels.
Analysing
Understanding data, drawing conclusions.
Decision-making
Prioritising, hypothesising, managing risks.
Problem-solving
Considering opportunities, understanding constraints, assigning resources.
Collaborating
Facilitating workshops, empowering team members, agreeing responsibilities.
Instructing
Learning skills and information, training others.
How charities create change
Charities are too ‘respectable’ to win change, by Janey Starling, is a really interesting article about the role charities play in creating change in society through campaigning and political influencing.
Campaigning might not be the best means for charities to create change anymore.
I’ve written before about how charities are stuck in the ‘squeezed middle’ between social movements and socially responsible businesses, meaning they need to justify their place in the for-good landscape. Perhaps the place of charities in the political landscape is changing too.
Starling talks about how charities should re-establish their place in the political landscape by confrontation, but charities don’t decide the rules of that game, they can only choose or not choose to play the game. Confrontation of the political system might not lead to a change in that system. Why would it? Has it ever?
So, how can charities create change? Perhaps by intervening in other systems.
Why we need to be continually learning
Drucker coined the phrase ‘knowledge worker’ in 1959. Later, he said that knowledge workers should “continue innovation as part of their work, their task and their responsibility”. He saw “innovation as the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service”.
Being innovative also implies the need for “continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker,” “continuous teaching,” and prioritizing quality over quantity of output, activities which we can link with love of knowledge, love of learning, and tenacity.
Knowledge work demands continual learning. Without learning we aren’t in the position to create new knowledge that allows us and the organisations we work to keep pace with the changing world.
Can product management tackle wicked problems?
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems.
Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber
Product management, at least as typically practiced, uses the scientific method as the basis for answering questions and establishing new knowledge.
Rittel and Webber claimed that science cannot deal with wicked problems.
So, can product management tackle wicked problems?
Not the tactical product management as we usually think of it, and not even where product management is able to act strategically, but perhaps where product management can effect systems change.
Product management that seeks certainty will never tackle wicked problems. But product management that embraces uncertainty, and works with complexity, maybe that can.
Required reading for product managers
Why Software Is Eating The World, Marc Andreessen (2011).
The only thing that matters, Marc Andreessen (2007). Introducing the original concept of product market fit.
Manifesto for Agile Software Development (2001). The original document for developing software in agile ways.
The New New Product Development Game, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka (1986). The article that moved product development from waterfall to overlapping development phases with self-organizing project teams.
Brand Man, Neil McIlroy (1931). The memo that first started to define the role a product manager might play.
More businesses should hire philosophers
Everyone hired into organisations is there to do, to produce, deliver, create outputs. No one is hired just to think. Thinking that happens has to lead to action.
What if more businesses hired people to think?
Misunderstanding the mechanics
It’s easy to misunderstand the mechanics of the internet. Easy to apply an out-of-date understanding of how things work. Easy to think that the internet works in the same way as
Sometimes, when we talk about ‘vanity metrics’, we aren’t really being vane in what we measure, measuring things that make us look like we’re successful but don’t achieve an outcome, we’re just applying old thinking to new mechanics. We’re just misunderstanding what mechanics drive what behaviour and so what is the right thing to measure.
The long tail, for example, describes a power law distribution which explains how a few things are really popular and lots of things less popular. It’s an important model for understanding how some things behave on the internet.
Network effects is another model for understanding behaviour on the internet. It tells us how the more people using a product the more useful that product becomes.
In the pre-internet world, these models didn’t apply. But now they do. Which means we need to update our understanding.
Start fast, slow down as you uncover complexity
Things always seem easier at the start, before you’ve realised how difficult they can be. This is the time to move quickly. Make progress, even if it’s in the wrong direction. Learn quickly by doing quickly. Momentum matters.
As you realise the complexities in what you are trying to do, slow down. As you discover problems, give yourself time to understand them. Learn slowly to understand deeply.
Adjust the pace of the work to the complexities.