This week I learned….
The sky’s the limit!
Yes, that’s a bit tongue in cheek… I just came down from flying in my friend’s little experimental plane, and honestly I’m still a little high.
Clearly the most important thing I learned this week is that my friend has a plane! But there were a few other interesting things these past 7 days….
Mind the Product Conf!
Lots of amazing talks. Here is the number 1 highlight from each of my 4 favorite talks at the event:
1 From Ken Norton of Google & Google Ventures:
We don’t do out best work when we’re too comfortable, so try to cultivate uncomfortable excitement in yourself and your teams.
2 From Scott Belsky of Benchmark, Behance & 99U:
The best solutions reduce the product. It’s easy to solve something by adding a toggle.
3 From Maria Giudice of Autodesk:
Because it worked at all, we used to forgive poor digital experiences. Now that digital tech is no longer magic, users have higher expectations.
4 Des Traynor of Intercom:
We’re all moving forward through time, but if you’re focused on what you’re doing, you’re actually looking backward as you go… and on your way to going extinct. Look forward, the future is your only hope for the present.
Actually, a few more from Des, since his talk really hit my marrow:
- We’re “product managers” not “app managers” .… The product you build is not a destination. Your users don’t think of it that way, so stop trying to force them into single-serve experiences. Wow. Ouch. So good.
- There’s always something better coming, and it won’t look like you. It will make you laugh and scoff, and you may not take it seriously, but if it makes your customers’ jobs-to-be-done any easier, faster or cheaper, they’ll leave before you know it.
- Price is the cheapest part of your product: it cost much more in time, attention, migration costs, learning curves and beyond.
Learned on the job at Yammer this week:
- Notes are the new “pics or it didn’t happen”…. Dropped the ball on a couple things when I didn’t document what we discussed. Painful lessons: On one, I lost a bit of time reconstructing the action items from memory and bits of conversations in the product. On the other, we didn’t fix a usability bug before launching a feature… all because I didn’t document an in-person conversation.
- Oh, speaking of launching features — I launched my first at Yammer this week!
- And on that note, I learned that you can patent random software features.
- … and MSFT will give you money if you do. (TBD if the team is actually going to do that).
- Learning a lot about the pain of ambiguous experiment reports; All the success metrics are flat… but all the nice-to-haves are all up… but it fits with the strategic vision… but it’s not clear this experience is better… but it’s less code complexity…. Jury’s still out. Meanwhile:
- Figuring out how to tease out more product learning from the experiment regardless of the ship/kill call. So simple in theory. So gnarly in practice.
- Attended a couple more product reviews and learned more about how to listen to all voices. A tricky balance, as you need to truly hear & understand everyone in the room, but not acquiesce to every opinion.
Reading:
- First Round article on growth at Eventbrite with Brian Rothenberg
- How “Food Tech” is just making masculine what women have been doing for decades.
- Absolutely game-changing concept for me: How much is your Chair worth? As in… what marginal benefit do you bring to your role that’s worth more than anyone in your position — chair — would do?
Writing:
- Why I Love Mindy, a story of my love for the diva, the doctor, the ditz.
- How to Onboard as a Product Manager — thoughts from my coworker and myself on how to most effectively onboard at a new company.
Parting thought… are their any lady PM groups called “PMs with PMS”?
Still learning,
Anna Marie
