Normally the question I focus on in my work and in my writing is “How can we leverage the best practices of the very best companies in order to give ourselves the very best chance for continuous innovation?” While there are many practices that are important and contribute to this … | Continue reading

In my last article I highlighted one of the major pathologies leading to weak product managers and weak products.  While the CSPO pathology is large and growing, it is relatively new compared to the MBA pathology. I have not written as much about the MBA pathology.  It’s alluded … | Continue reading

Fair warning that this and the next article will be a tough read.  It was a tough one to write, and I expect for many of you, it will be a tough one to read.  But in my view, we as an industry are suffering from a pandemic, but unlike COVID, there is no vaccine […] | Continue reading

Fair warning that this and the next article will be a tough read.  It was a tough one to write, and I expect for many of you, it will be a tough one to read.  But in my view, we as an industry are suffering from a pandemic, but unlike COVID, there is no vaccine […] | Continue reading

In my last article I discussed the two different product worlds that I straddle, and I heard from quite a few people from each of the two camps, as well as several that shared that they’ve worked in both.  I thought it might be useful to share the most common follow-up questions … | Continue reading

Now that the world is starting to see the rollout of vaccines, many of us are, at long last, looking towards seeing our friends and colleagues again. For nearly a year now, I have been coaching people and teams remotely, and very often coaching them specifically on how to collabo … | Continue reading

To continue with the series on common confusions regarding product discovery, in this article I want to tackle a very damaging anti-pattern that can sometimes arise where the product team essentially devolves into two different teams, where one team is doing product discovery (ak … | Continue reading

To continue with the series on common sources of confusion regarding product discovery, in this article I want to talk about the critical role of judgement in product discovery. This may in fact be the single most common confusion I encounter.  I think the source of the issue is … | Continue reading

There has never been more interest in becoming a product manager.  There has also never been so many strong and helpful voices that can help these aspiring product managers (at the end of this article I’ll share several of my favorites). However, there has also never been so much … | Continue reading

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The product vision is one of the most important and highest-leverage tools for tech-powered … | Continue reading

Now that more people have a clearer understanding of the differences between feature teams and empowered product teams, by far the most common question I get is how to move to true product teams? This is essentially a question of transformation.  Most companies have figured out b … | Continue reading

After many years of being a very vocal advocate for the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) technique, in the majority of companies I meet, I have stopped recommending the practice. That’s because, in so many companies, even though conceptually the technique is simple and sound, it … | Continue reading

Over the past months, SVPG has published several articles on coaching product managers. Many of these have focused on how to cultivate the right PM mindset: things like customer-centricity, true collaboration, and thinking like an owner rather than an employee, to name just a few … | Continue reading

I promise this will not be one of those navel-gazing exercises.  This is going to be a very pragmatic article about a critical and fundamental topic. One of the consequences of the popularity of the earlier article on empowered product teams is that it uncovered several significa … | Continue reading

This article is certain to upset many people. I’m sorry for that, but the degree of ongoing noise and confusion surrounding the role of product at tech companies is only getting worse.  Moreover, I see the issues and problematic behaviors getting institutionalized in conference t … | Continue reading

Note: This is the narrative article version of a talk I’ve started giving recently at conferences, product meetups and corporate leadership teams.  It is a long read, but I believe it’s a critically important topic, and it lays out for people many of the topics I will be writing … | Continue reading