The Blog
The latest articles by Department of Product program leads and product thinkers to help you learn new skills and build winning products.
Explainers
APIs Explained for Product Managers
APIs are confusing. Make sense of REST, GET, endpoints, headers and payloads once and for all as we explain the 10 key things to know about APIs.
Strategy
How to run Product Strategy Workshops
Practical ways to get the most out of workshops...
Crafting Ecommerce Product Strategies
How the customer lifecycle can help...
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.
How to Think Strategically
A classical definition of strategy applied to...
How to Differentiate Your Product
Fighting the forces of product inertia...
Product Monetization Strategies
Bridging the gap between creative and commercial...
Process
How to Nurture a Culture of Product Innovation
You may have sat in a room or on a call where the agenda is innovation and whilst everyone is sharing ideas, one or two ideas sound so outlandish that the person sharing it laughs to themselves about it. These are sometimes just bad ideas, but they’re also often the source of true innovation.
How to Send Internal Product Updates Stakeholders Will Read
If you’re ever tasked with writing internal product updates, here’s a few ideas on how you can spice them up so that your stakeholders feel energised and excited the next time you update them on all the wonderful work the product team is doing.
How to Make Cross Functional Teams Work
Getting the most out of groups of...
How to Build Better Internal Tools
Celebrating the unsung heroes of the product...
Scope Management is Product Management
Defining the boundaries of your first iteration...
Component Oriented Thinking for Product Managers
Components mean many things to different members of a modern product team. For a product manager, using components means building reusable pieces of value which cut down future development time and leads to shipping more value faster.
Skills
SQL Skills for Product Managers
How to get the data you need whenever you need...
The Product Manager’s Guide to Drawing on a Whiteboard
How to become the superhuman who can draw...
5 Essential Business Skills for Product Managers
Products are businesses. A solid foundation of...
Podcasts
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Resources
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Career development
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Weekly briefings
Product Briefing – August 17, 2023
Google Maps’ new rival and ChatGPT usage declines. Plus: NYT bans LLMs, a new tool for multi-user collaboration, TikTok shuts off its algorithm
Product Briefing – August 10, 2023
Slack’s major redesign and Square’s blockbuster earnings. Plus: a beautiful tool for knowledge, APIs explained and RIP Cortana
Product Briefing – August 24, 2023
Snap’s Dreams, Peloton’s churn and Jira’s new competitor
Product Briefing – August 3, 2023
Uber’s profitability and hidden blue checkmarks. Plus: a new tool for disputes, Meta’s Reels rakes in billions and retention benchmarks
Product Briefing – July 27, 2023
Shopify’s $1600 meetings and Netflix’s ad-funded success
Plus: a tool to free your mind, how to use developer tools and a summer reading list
Product Briefing – July 20, 2023
Microsoft fights AI fatigue and Roblox’s vision for a new economy. Plus: a new tool for task automation, TikTok’s new music app and Google Docs gets a notebook
All articles
Why Product Teams Should Hire Tech Leads
Realising the power of the product management tech lead partnership The composition of any product team will typically include a blend of: Software engineers UX / product design Product management The team may also include a UX content writer, a user researcher or...
React Explained for Product Managers
Everything you need to know about the component-oriented library“Building applications with React feels like building a Lego car. You use the blocks to build the parts you need, and then connect the parts together one by one to make the car that slides back and...
Negotiation Skills for Product Managers
Negotiation is a fundamental part of a product manager’s life. So it’s probably worth spending a bit of time understanding the different types of negotiation and how you can excel as a negotiator in day to day product management.
How Product Managers and Sales teams can work effectively together
Mastering the delicate relationship between the builders and sellersIn my experience, product managers can often be quite snobbish when it comes to sales. I think it’s the cliche of sales people being Wolf of Wallstreet chest thumpers. But sales people don’t (always)...
Web3 For Product Managers: A Guide For The Crypto-Curious
If you're open to taking risks and love working in a fast-paced environment, Web3 PM'ing may be a good fitWeb3 has become one of the most talked-about concepts today. Just try to count how many times "crypto", "NFTs", or "DeFi" appear on your Twitter timeline. To...
How to Write Impactful Release Notes as a Product Manager
High impact releases deserve high impact release notesDo release notes matter any more? Back in the days when operating systems like MacOS or Windows used to get updated every few years I’d get extremely excited about what this next release might include. Fast forward...
How to Get the Most out of a Product Beta Phase
Why running a well managed beta program can be a lot of fun as a product manager There are typically 3 reasons why product teams decide to introduce a beta phase into their product development cycle: To soft launch new products To test new ideas To migrate from...
5 Ways to Keep Teams Aligned as a Product Manager
Why building a shared understanding is critical for building successful productsOne way to guarantee that your product will fail is to create a culture where nobody knows what they’re supposed to be building and why. Engineers build whatever they want, designers have...
How to Keep on top of Trends that Matter to Product Managers
Of all the different trends that product managers need to be aware of, technical trends are some of the most difficult, since the space is constantly evolving and no one is ever sure whether a new technology is actually going to become widely adopted, or whether it’s just another flash in the pan.
How to Read API Documentation
Equip yourself with the ability to speak confidently about API integrationsAPIs and product management Product managers are not engineers. But there is an expectation that product managers are both technical enough to to have conversations with engineers and to...