What the Board Wants to Hear in a Product Presentation
When product leaders need to present to the board, they often talk about the product. But the board doesn’t want to hear about features. They want to know that they can trust you. Here are the important points to make sure you cover.
The Mental Load of Attacking at All Fronts
Managing companies, like households, come with an often overlooked mental load. But ignoring it doesn’t take away its impact, which could eventually lead to not being able to meet any of your goals. Here is what the mental load means for a company and how to deal with it.
Product Leadership Is a Team Sport
Influence without authority has always been the foundation of product management. As product leaders, this is even more important. To succeed, we must influence areas that are way beyond our control, and that’s a completely different ball game. Here are the things you must master in order to succeed.
Minding Your Manners With Stakeholders
Working well with stakeholders is crucial for your success. We often feel that they keep coming with requests that we have to deal with, which might lead to negative dynamics. Since it’s such an important topic, here are some guidelines to follow to make sure you are doing well.
3 Surprising Product Strategy Benefits
Not having a product strategy is often painful. You feel the impact of not knowing where you are going. But when you want to convince the company to invest in building such a strategy, you need to be able to explain what good it will bring. Here are three benefits of having a solid product strategy in place.
Product Strategy Iterations
A solid product strategy takes time to build. It usually involves hard decisions and non-trivial questions, which take time to answer well. It can’t be done in a rush, things need to sink in so that you can think it through. Here is the method I use for creating a product strategy that makes sense.
The Power of Not Understanding
One of the places where product leaders add the most value is by connecting the dots. Seeing a broad picture and making sure everything fits together is one of our superpowers. But what happens when the dots don’t connect? It’s your responsibility to call it out, even if you don’t fully understand why.
3 Misconceptions About CEO Communication
As product leaders, we constantly struggle to balance between getting guidance from above and setting the direction ourselves. The CEO, or any of the founders if you are in a startup, seems to rightfully want to set the tone. Or do they? Here are 3 things you want to pay attention to.
How to Lead Your Audience to the Result You Want?
As product managers, we can’t succeed without others agreeing with our direction and doing their part. Meetings are an important tool in that mission. First, you need to prepare and understand what is the desired outcome of that meeting. But then comes the hard part – how to get everyone onboard? Here are some guidelines for how to run the meeting itself and get to the outcome you want.
What Your Customers Won’t Tell You
Product managers need to talk to customers. It’s not always easy, and they don’t always tell us what we want to hear. But if we listen carefully, we can learn much more than what they actually say. Here is what my boss once taught me about how to really listen to our customers.
Working Well With People Can Become Your Glass Ceiling
It is a known fact that product people need to work well with others. Our ability to succeed fully depends on it. But as a product leader, this can also become a problem. To make a real impact, you might need to apply new ways of communication and collaboration. Here is how to stop impeding yourself.
Some Things Simply Take Their Time
We all want results, and the sooner the better. But some things – especially the impactful ones – cannot be rushed. How can you tell if it’s time to push harder, or should you let things move at their own pace? Here are three examples of areas that usually take longer to demonstrate results, but progress happens whether you see it or not.
