A curated list of Product Management essays.
How to listen to customers
Another nice one by Ken Norton. It tells you how to interpret what users are saying / filter it. Some users are influencers, they’re connected with the zeitgeist. But some passionate users are way outside your market and you might be best ignoring them; he cites the example of passionate Linux users who disliked the iPod when it launched as it had less storage per $ compared to basic MP3 players. So interpret then observations and feedback you’re getting.
Roadmaps and Prioritization
Building roadmaps and prioritizing is hard. How do you do this? What frameworks can you use? An important starting point is the metrics you prize. Metrics probably should get organized: which are driving ones and which are sub-metrics. What metrics are leading indicators to influence and which are reporting metrics that lag. Secondly, how do you sequence what’s important? Adam Nash proposes to start future back.
Solve the product maze backwards
Another essay by Adam Nash. This one is about teasing out the importance of a feature as you prioritise. Should we build it, when and how? As you answer these questions you get closer to sequencing.
Choosing, refining, and tracking product metrics
This is a great essay by Shreyas Doshi who was the first PM at Stripe. I like the taxonomy of metrics and how to bucket them. Health of the product, usage, adoption, outcome, ecosystem. It also clarified the distinction between leading and normal metrics (and let’s not forget lagging indicators). Useful stuff.
Product metrics: Growth, engagement, churn, $
Short article by Amar Virk. Track 4 buckets: growth, engagement/transactions per user, churn, monetization. Churn is usually measured as cohort curves, and the goal is to improve the cohorts as you improve the product. Engagement / transaction varies if you’re a comma or social service vs an e-commerce service. Useful framework.
Prioritization beyond algorithms
By Rich Mironov. How do you decide what part of the backlog gets built next. He reminds us that it’s not possible or useful to reduce the entire backlog to numbers to drive the roadmap and prioritization that way. There’s too much uncertainty baked into the benefits / effort estimates. It’s more useful to either bake a % of each release to a cluster of functionality / bug fixes (qual / tech debt) / other. Or to guesstimate on order or magnitude potential: is this feature upside $50k, $500k, $5m ,etc
Now, Next, Later: Roadmaps without the Drudgery
Article from Noah Weiss on roadmapping at Foursquare. Now, next, and Later are the 3 buckets to place work. Now is the next 1-2 weeks, Next is this quarter (so next 2-3 months), and later is the next year. The goal is to focus the team on what needs doing now (and out the door), hard prioritization on the upcoming committed work (Next), and a placeholder for the un-prioritized list of what should come after. He’s also the VP of Product at Slack.
The role of a Product Manager
A few nice essays on what the job entails. Mainly this means you own the vision and strategy, the: what problem are we trying to solve and for whom. Secondly, it means you are relentless at prioritizing what gets done next, what matters most, this gets articulated in the roadmap and at a granular level, the backlog. Thirdly, on your shoulders is impact and delivery: that stuff gets done and user benefits happen. And throughout you’re the orchestra conductor, the communicator, the facilitator.
Be a great product manager
Adam Nash was a product leader at eBay, but we didn’t overlap; he left before I arrived, though not by much. This essay is about the 3 things you need to be sharp on: strategy, prioritisation, execution.
The role of a product manager
An essay on what things you need to do well to be a good PM. By Michael siliski, ex-Google and now at Stripe. The key things are vision and strategy, and communicating that well to your team and others. Execution and impact, so that you make sure stuff gets done, releases get shipped, users benefit. And ownership, the buck stops with you.
What to do in your first 30 days as a PM
This is a nice essay on your first 30 days as a PM from Ken Norton. A few useful lessons. Meet with everyone on your team, don’t change anything, ask everyone how you can solve their problems, go listen to customers, drill down on the tech.
The DNA of Product Management
Roles of a PM by Hunter Walk (ex YouTube). Nice article highlighting the tensions and trade offs. Reminds us that PMs are part project managers (keeps trains running, over communicates), part product managers (defining what features get built, what’s the product), and part CEO (buck stops with you). As you get more senior the mix changes.
Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager
This one is a classic Product Management essay by Ben Horowitz, from A16Z. It’s very elegantly written and very succinct. Describes what a good product manager does and the counterpart of bad product managers. For example, a good product manager is the CEO and measures themselves in terms of the outcome of the product. While a bad product manager winds up making excuses. Lots of other comparisons like this make this essay quite memorable.
Characteristics of Great Product Managers
Key competencies of Product Managers by Elad Gil, ex-Google and Twitter. A nice list of what’s needed for a PM to be excellent. I tend to look for these qualities myself when hiring PMs. 1. Product Taste (a sensibility to your customers’ needs) 2. Ability to prioritize 3. Ability to execute 4. Strategic sensibilities (do you understand the landscape you play in) 5. Top 10% comms skills (communication is essential for the role) 6. Metrics and data-driven approach (keeping score well)
Building up a Product Management org
How to hire a Product Manager
Great essay by Ken Norton. Lots of insights on what to look for when doing these interviews. I particularly like the “has spidey-sense”. This is useful if you’re say, a founder of a startup looking to hire your first PM. Or a director of product, needing to build up your team with PMs and group PMs. It articulates what many of us who’ve hired before tend to look for.
A certain ratio: Engineers to PMs
If you’re in a startup that’s never had a PM org, or a legacy org that’s trying to infuse a PM org, how big would PM be? What’s the ideal size of a PM org as a function of the existing engineering function? A rough answer is about 1 PM per 7 engineers. By Ken Norton.
The feelings of being a PM
Non-technical PMs
An interview to Hunter Walk who led PM for YouTube in its growth phase (post google acquisition). Nice learnings, with transcript. As a PM you’re in service leadership, you’re serving something greater than you and you’re only there for a period of time to hand the product over to the next generation. Also, what it’s like to lead product when you have a non-technical background. It might feel a bit daunting, but it’s quite common actually.