Weeknotes 470
I did:
Happy new year
The 1st of August marks the start of the new academic year. Nothing changes but everything changes. All those things we said were for next quarter are now the things to be getting on with.
Also did this stuff:
- Wrote and talked about how to create a product strategy.
- Talked through stakeholder feedback with one of the product managers. It’s good to see that everyone shares the same opinion about how fantastic they are.
- Discussed ways of coordinating cross-team work. It’s one of those bottleneck patterns of having to start from scratch every time because each situation is different.
- Led an in-person workshop with technology leaders to turn a complicated technology strategy into action briefs. It was a lot of fun, but it meant wearing socks.
The numbers
- Minutes in meetings: 915
- Tasks completed: 27
Product strategy workshop
Got around to actually writing up my approach to a workshop for creating and deploying a product strategy.
How I think about epics, features and user stories
Basically, they are different things that exist in a network not a hierarchy.
I read:
The Great Distractor
Interesting essay about the attention economy. Especially important for product managers to understand the history of products like Instagram and how they maintain engagement. I bought B.J. Fogg’s book to learn more.
Increasing luck
In this piece, Cate Hall writes about how to increase our surface area of luck. It resonates with me because I’m interested in luck and skill at the moment, and because I’ve noticed what she describes fits the change in my life over the past few years. More caring responsibilities equals less time and energy for doing the kinds of things that make me lucky. Years ago I was involved in more online communities, doing product advising, side-projects (perhaps the decline of social media played a part there too). Luckily for me, Doug’s Thought Shrapnel is in my feed so I find things like Cate’s newsletter.
AI Ethics Literacy
Some really useful links from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics about AI ethics, which product managers should be learning about even if they aren’t building products with AI.
I thought:
Product teams change behaviour
Product teams change user’s behaviour. That’s my overarching definition of the difference between a product team or a project team. If you aren’t trying to change the behaviour of your users in a way that benefits the organisation (you know, outcomes) then you aren’t a product team. There’s nothing wrong with being a project team, I just like having a definition of a product team that is nothing to do with implementing technology.
It is inevitable
Matrix management has reared its ugly head again recently, which always baffles me given that it’s been well demonstrated since the late eighties that it’s a bad idea. But it took me down me a Tom Peters rabbit hole and the eight themes for successful organisations he developed with Robert Waterman.
- A bias for action, active decision making – ‘getting on with it’.
- Close to the customer – learning from the people served by the business.
- Autonomy and entrepreneurship – fostering innovation and nurturing ‘champions’.
- Productivity through people – treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.
- Hands-on, value-driven – management philosophy that guides everyday practice – management showing its commitment.
- Stick to the knitting – stay with the business that you know.
- Simple form, lean staff – some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.
- Simultaneous loose-tight properties – autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralised values.
Asking unanswerable questions
I pondered the asking of unanswerable questions this week. Why we do it, are we really asking that question or trying to express some deeper unknowns? And how to turn them into answerable questions that move things forward. Asking good questions is a real skill.