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,...
How to Design Experiments for Your Product
Why changing button colors isn't enough Google Jedi Marissa Mayer allegedly tested multiple variations of the color blue until she found the perfect shade of blue to increase conversions at Google. This kind of experimentation may be reasonable when you have tens of...
How to Communicate with Engineers
Why communication with your engineering team is critical ‘We need to spend time refactoring the code for the next few weeks’, says the engineer. ‘Burn in hell’, says the product manager. Why communication with your engineering team is critical If you want to be a...
How to Master the Currency of Ideas
Become all powerful by mastering the art of ideas We create them, curate them, destroy them, idolise the people who generate them and cling onto our own as though they’re our children. To be known as the ‘ideas person’ is for some reason feels like the ultimate kudos...
Metrics that Matter to Product Managers
What are the metrics that matter to your product? As Product Managers, opening up Google Analytics and being confronted by the all options available can be a little daunting at first. But after a few tweaks here and there and a little trial error, we eventually get...
SQL Skills for Product Managers
How to get the data you need whenever you need it The power of data It’s painful, it’s brutal and it’s a little sadistic. But it’s wonderful. Data to product managers is like ammunition to an assassin; nothing gives us more pleasure than gently annihilating a loud,...
APIs Explained for Product Managers
The Product Manager’s Guide to Drawing on a Whiteboard
How to become the superhuman who can draw confidently on a whiteboard Are you terrified of whiteboards? Just the possibility that someone might hand you the pen in a meeting and say ‘go on then, draw it’, sends a shudder down many spines. A bunch of self-loathing...
What to do When Your Product Backlog Runs Dry
How to keep your engineers well fed when the food runs out It’s happened to us all. You stare smugly at your backlog. It’s perfect. It’s a work of beauty and you’re all set for sprint planning tomorrow. You pat yourself on the back, grab a coffee and make a few little...