One of the things I love about product is that it’s a discipline that’s still evolving — there’s a constant stream of new ideas on the best way to manage a product. However, I’ve found having some rules of thumb to follow can help keep you on track, regardless of what you’re working on. I’ve been building up my collection over time, and here are my top five.

Data matters

When you’re building a product from scratch, you usually can’t look at existing usage data to help you make decisions about your product. However, even when I’ve worked with existing products in the past I’ve found that the way the product has been tagged has meant that I can’t always get all the data I need when making a product decision. …