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Maybe you should build a faster horse
2021-04-09
Building features no one uses is the cardinal sin of product work, and building features merely because users are asking for them is a well-known way of committing it. To keep us from falling into this trap, product leaders often quote Steve Jobs: I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.…
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Some Tips for Delivering an Effective Roadmap Presentation
2019-07-13
I recently delivered a presentation of our (outcome-based) roadmap. Several people approached me after the presentation to tell me that they found it useful and informative, so I thought I’d jot down some of the things that I think contributed to the warm reception of the presentation. Hopefully, these tips will come in handy both for others and for my future self. …
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How to Automate Common Jira Tasks with Go Jira Custom Commands
2019-07-03
in all but small teams I typically recommend separate people for the separate roles [of product managment and project management]. But in every case I believe that developing strong project management skills is a big advantage for product managers – at the least your product will get to market faster, and it could make the difference between getting your product shipped at all. –Marty Cagan, “Ebay’s Secret Weapon” Every morning, I get the following slack message reminder:…
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Why PMs Should Study Statistics: An Interactive Essay
2019-06-02
Marty Cagan – seasoned product manager and author of a book and blog that makes practically every recommended reading list for new product managers – says that there are two academic courses that “every product manager should take”: finance and computer science. In this interactive essay, I suggest we add another course to this list: statistics. A strong understanding of statistics facilitates three key responsibilities of product managment: understanding analytics, implementing cooprorate change, and making accurate forecasts.…
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Some thoughts on the moral implications of building habit-forming products
2019-05-11
I recently finished the book Hooked: How to build habit-forming products I challenged the author’s view on the moral permissibility of creating habit forming products here on medium (It was picked up by product coalition and selected by medium curators 🙌) and again as an interactive essay using idyll.
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iPhone Q1 Revenue Forecast
2019-04-17
This is my first crack at making a forecast as a part of what I’m calling the “Cassandra Project.” The gist of the motivation for the project is that product management and entrepreneurship requires smart bets on the future and that you can’t get good at making smart bets on the future without practice. You can read more here. The forecast I’m making relates to this question: Will the percent change in iPhone revenue growth from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019 be greater than the percent change in revenue growth from Q4 2017 to Q4 2018?…
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Hilarious Heresy: A Review of Jessica Powell’s "The Big Disruption"
2019-03-23
If I had to pick a few words to describe Jessica Powell’s The Big Disruption they’d be the words “hilarious heresy.” “Hilarious” because the book is surprisingly funny. My wife actually kept commenting on how much I was chuckling as I read the book. “Heresy” because it’s a good way of capturing what Powell is doing in the book with all of her criticisms: she’s challenging the silicon valley gospel that tech companies are here to save the world, and given all of the attention and good will towards those companies, “heresy” feels like an appropriate label for this message.…
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Some problems with the impossibility of achieving OKRs
2019-03-01
In many ways, OKRs are a neat way of structuring goals for a company. According to Marty Cagan, product managers should be especially interested in OKRs as a goal setting framework since they are a better way of tracking product work than a “product roadmap.” I agree with Cagan. OKRs are often better than typical product road maps. However, there’s an aspect of OKRs that I think is morally and psychologically problematic: the idea that OKRs should be impossible to entirely achieve.…
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How The Lean Principle Became Profound
2019-02-02
There are certain books that are required reading for product managers. Eric Reis’ The Lean Startup and Marty Cagan’s Inspired both come to mind. They’re great books with lots of useful techniques and important ideas. Lately, however, the fact that these books are popular and useful has struck me as rather odd. If you take a step back from these books — and the many books, articles, talks, podcasts, etc. like them — they really rest on a pretty simple idea:…
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How Startups Can Do Better Cohort Analyses
2018-12-29
If you’ve ever looked at analytics for software products, you’ve probably run across a graph that looks like this: Graphs like this one depict cohort analyses.1 This particular graph is from Google Analytics. Apple also has one for app analytics. So does Fabric.2 Cohort analyses can be very useful. For example, Eric Reis, in The Lean Startup, recounts how cohort analysis helped his startup realize that their efforts at improving their product weren’t working:…