Managing UX debt
Why tension between product designers and managers is healthyI was recently asked by a colleague what I found to be the most challenging aspects of product management. Without much thought, I blurted out a response which surprised me a little. ‘Managing the...
Tools for making better product decisions
Practical tools and frameworks for when you're not sure what to do nextIn Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets, the author refers to a practice called ‘resulting’. And it’s a surprisingly common mistake most of us use in decision making: ‘When I consult with executives… I...
How to run product strategy workshops
Practical ways to get the most out of workshops Creating (and sometimes attending) workshops can be both a fun and stressful experience. When a group of humans are put into a room full of post it notes with no structure for hours on end with no set agenda or purpose,...
Crafting Ecommerce Product Strategies
How the customer lifecycle can help structure your product strategy The business of ecommerce With Amazon gobbling up almost 50% of ecommerce sales in the US, traditional high street retail in steady decline and paid online customer acquisition...
Why Products Fail
Agile and the fail fast culture prioritise failing as a means of learning as quickly as possible and moving onto the next experiment. It rewards failure – and actively encourages it as a mechanism to learn what works and what doesn’t. Not everyone is a fan.
4 Meetings to Master as a Product Manager
Whilst there are a number of different meetings we have to deal with on a day to day basis, some meetings tend to be more stressful than others. Here’s our guide to optimizing your meetings.
3 Ways to Develop a Metrics Oriented Mindset
Get yourself into the habit of continuously asking yourself, the product team and the wider business how you will measure feature requests and upcoming product developments.
Making Sense of Usability Test Results
Perhaps the biggest challenge product teams face is not necessarily how to conduct the usability tests in the first place but rather how to make sense of the wild variety of results your tests have produced.
DevOps Explained for Product Managers
Transition from tragile to agile with strong devops cultures So what exactly is Devops anyway? You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘devops’ used by your engineering team but you may not be sure exactly what it means. Sure, you know that is has...
How to Think Strategically
A classical definition of strategy applied to product thinking The problem with strategy Ask someone what their strategy is and you’ll often get vague responses relating to operational effectiveness, items from their to do list or a proclamation that their company is...
5 Useful Diagrams for Product Managers
Practical diagrams for when words alone don't quite cut it Why is diagramming useful? The ability to draw and produce clear diagrams are powerful skills for product managers. Here’s a few reasons why: Articulate your point of view / ideas -...
How to Differentiate Your Product
Fighting the forces of product inertia Overcoming the fear of thinking differently Suggesting different ideas or challenging conventional wisdom requires a certain level of tenacity. It also requires you to bulldoze through the fears that often beset the management...
Payment Terminology for Product Teams
Payment gateways, tokenisation, PCI compliance and webhooks explained Have you ever had the joy of working on a project which involved implementing a new payment provider? If you have, you’ll know that the process is not much fun if you don’t understand some of the...
The Product Council Guide
How to establish an effective Product Council What’s a Product Council? Popularised by Marty Cagan in his book, Inspired, the Product Council is a forum which includes key business stakeholders. The purpose of the Product Council is to set the strategic direction of...
GitHub Explained for Product Managers
Pull requests, merges, branching and all that jazz Look down at your keyboard. You’ll notice that the letters g, i and t are quite close together. You’ll also notice that the letters g,i and t spell the word ‘git’. In the UK, ‘git’ is a derogatory word, often used to...
Why is Slack popular?
A product management perspective Go to any conference and you’ll notice 1 thing: a small, but substantial number of hyperactive humans aren’t fully present at the conference. They’re physically in the room but they are far, far away. Where are they? They are on Slack....
Product Monetization Strategies
Bridging the gap between creative and commercial thinking Does generating revenue matter? A business is a repeatable process that makes money. Everything else is a hobby. —Paul Freet, Commercialisation Expert This is a neat way of summarising the definition of a...
Product Roadmaps – an Essential Guide
Let's talk about product roadmaps What is a product roadmap? A Product Roadmap is a device which allows product managers and product teams to communicate the direction, vision and priorities of their product. The roadmap is a living, breathing, dynamic tool which...
Writing BDD Test Scenarios
How BDD scenarios can make your testing more human The difference between BDD and TDD BDD stands for behaviour driven development. TDD stands for test driven development. Both BDD and TDD refer to the methods of software development employed by your engineering team....
Backlog Grooming – An Essential Guide
How clean is your product backlog? 1. What is backlog grooming? Backlog grooming sessions are designed to help product teams improve development processes and ultimately assist the whole team in building better products. Backlog grooming is also known as sizing,...