I Manage Products blog
& PRODUCTHEAD newsletter

» Product managers need a blend of skills, of which commercial acumen is a part » Which does your company pay more attention to: the immediate or the long-term? » Selling to everybody is selling to nobody

Off the back of his recent article for Mind The Product, Liam Smith interviewed me about my experiences in freelance product management. I started as a freelance product manager in 2012 when I founded Product People Limited, and had been blogging about product management for a couple of years before that. (You can read my first ever blog post if you like.)

» Accept that some customers will never migrate to your new platform » Products do not fail in vain if you learn something valuable in the process » In 1979 Intel realigned its 2000-strong company around a new set of objectives in just 2 weeks

» Balancing opportunity with strategy in the midst of competing distractions is hard » You wouldn’t let genAI write your product strategy without checking it, right? » Product strategy discovery focuses on the problem space

Coding in the open benefits public sector organisations and can yield a strategic advantage to commercial organisations also. I explore how and why.

» Strategy is a coherent set of choices about what we’re going to do to achieve our vision » Negotiating estimates ultimately leads to disappointment — it will still take as long as it was going to » The necessary conditions for any behaviour to be enacted include capability, opportunity, and motivation

» Product ops is an enabling function that streamlines the logistics of product management » It is particularly valuable in larger organisations with fragmented product practices » Product ops is just as focused on context as product management is

As a freelance product manager, think about two things: how you can deliver value as quickly as possible, and how to ensure you do at least the one main thing they brought you in to do.

» Companies hire freelancers because they need to address a specific issue or are not ready to commit to a full-time hire » Excel by being a problem-solver — pay close attention to potential clients’ challenges » Don’t apologise to your client for your (hopefully reasonable) day rate

» A pursuit of job stability can easily translate into an unproductive ‘inertia’ instead » Self-sealing arguments are no-win situations: every defence you make is co-opted the by other party as evidence you’re wrong

I’m chatting with Voxgig’s Richard Rodger about common challenges in product management and DevRel: » Why learning by soundbite gives a superficial understanding of the craft » Why we’re finding it hard to communicate value to our bosses + more 🙂

» The Spotify Model was only ever a snapshot in time at Spotify » It existed in the context of a company whose leadership valued trust, self-organisation and change » As Spotify grew, it failed to strike the right balance between autonomy and collaboration » Alignment to product strategy remains crucial for autonomous teams to deliver valuable work