Weeknotes #284
This week I did:
Full swing
It’s been an interesting week at work. I’ve been working on understanding strategic programmes, figuring out my objectives, recruiting for a product manager and developer, and getting into the current projects. It feels good to be able to get involved in a project and focus on turning uncertainty into certainty, and thinking about how the team and our ways of working might evolve as we grow.
Big questions first
I spent some time reviewing tenders for learning management systems. They are obviously similar in many ways as they perform the same function, but in thinking through how to approach comparing them it occurred to me that a good way to approach decision making is to start big and work towards the small if the bigger questions don’t provide an answer. So, the first question isn’t, ‘how does the cost of this platform compare to that one?’, the questions is, ‘how does a build or buy technology strategy fit with the organisational strategy?’ If you can answer that, then you’ve made the next level of question twice as easy to answer because you aren’t trying to compare a build solution with a buy solution.
The practicalities of being a digital nomad
I wrote a bit about some of the practical things about how I live as a digital nomad. Thanks to James for the inspiration, as its the first time I’ve written about my lifestyle. Speaking of the practicalities of the nomad life, I had a visit from the heddlu after a call from someone who had seen me sitting in my car all day. We had a quick chat and all was fine but it made me think about how things outside the mainstream are often assumed to be somehow ‘wrong’.
I read this week:
Aniket’s Product Management Resources
Aniket’s Product Management Resources is handy guide of, yes you guessed it, product management resources. I’m sure there are lots of these kinds of guides, which makes me think that no one has yet solved the problem of collecting and displaying resources , but this has some good stuff on it.
Radarban roadmap
This is an interesting look at Radarban roadmaps by Eleanor Mollett, and how to solve the problem the problem of communicating product development with stakeholders in ways that don’t create the expectation of commitment to a specific date.
The Laboratory for Complex Problems
This piece by Packy McCormick presents an interesting take on the challenge of web3 for 2022 and how it acts as a laboratory for challenges in healthcare and climate of giving people the means to own as well as rent.
Thought about:
Charity product management
For a while now I’ve been pondering the question, ‘What makes product management in charities different to in other organisations?’ The answer: We tackle wicked problems. Product managers who work in charities aren’t optimising for button clicks or retention, they’re optimising for solving social issues and climate change. When we bring together systems thinking and product management, it’ll be a game changer.
Creative work
I’ve been thinking a bit about some of the concepts around modern creative work. I listened to the Akimbo podcast episode on creative practice and read Kevin Kelly’s piece on scenius. Although I don’t really have any fully formed thoughts yet, I feel like this stuff is connected to me trying to figure out what to focus my efforts on, and what my process looks like for making my side-projects happen.
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