Product Management and Leadership (B2B, Platform)
As a product manager, I often find myself immersed in the day-to-day challenges and tasks of my job. But every now and then, I like to step back and broaden my perspective by reading books outside of my field. This year, I’ve had the pleasure of reading a number of 5-star books that have helped…
More and more companies adopt a dual-track product management career framework, where one can progress as individual contributor beyond Senior Product Manager (towards e.g. Principal PM). This breaks the tradition that one had to forcefully go into management (Lead/Group PM, Director, etc.). But what’s expected of these novel “experienced individual contributors”? How can their impact…
The number of participants of a platform impacts the value they can perceive from the platform. This phenomenon goes by the name of network effects and dates back to the early 20th century (to the telephone’s early days). Because they’re specific to platform businesses (as compared to traditional, pipeline businesses), network effects are fundamental to…
Customer-facing products are usually a product company’s crown jewels. They look and feel great, which tends to be the result of an end-to-end process. Personas, canvases, journey maps, lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes — you name it. How about internal-facing products, the ones we build for our own coworkers? What does usually happen? An engineer is…
With less than two months to go, 2020 brings us an updated version of the Scrum Guide. Merits or demerits aside, Scrum is arguably a popular framework. It’s widely used as is or adapted by the adopting teams (to the dismay of the most purists). Because many product managers learn their ropes through delivery-focused on-the-job…
Platform businesses are among the most successful companies of the past few years (think Uber, Facebook, Airbnb, or Amazon). You might also have heard of this model as “multi-sided platform”, or “marketplace”. This isn’t a new business model, but as Internet connections becoming increasingly ubiquitous (first in every home, then in every pocket) spurred a…
Andrew Chen has recently published a pretty valid point on most advice on whether OKRs are appropriate for pre- Product-Market Fit / early stage startups. OKRs are most certainly harmful for [pre-Product-Market Fit] startups because it causes teams to optimize towards goals instead of constantly asking if the goal I even the right one to…
Last month I was one of more than 200 product people who got together for this year’s ProductCamp London. To make the most out of my first time, I proposed and ran three sessions. They all provided a safe space to share insights among peers, but I’ll focus on just one of them – a group…
Nothing amazes me more than the wonder of our existence. And nothing ever cried louder about that wonder than having become a parent. First, it’s a whole marvel of generating a new living being. But later, another wow appears: the way that this brand new living being learns. A technological mind that I am, it’s inevitable…
Winding down for the New Year in a remote village in Alentejo, I thought I might try being radically open about how 2018 went for me as a human being doing Product, and what I’m expecting for 2019. Regarding 2018 I’m not only showcasing achievements, but also being open about what I’ve struggled with and…