Product Managers are like cooks 🧑‍🍳...

And like a great cook, measurements of ingredients make a good meal. Let me explain...

💡 Measurements are boundaries.

💡 Measurements mean efficiency.

💡 Measurements is a ‘no’ to too much/little.


In the world of products, our ingredients are 🧂 Design, 🥦 Tech, and 🌶 Business.

Effective product management means saying no to stakeholders whenever a new idea threatens to throw off this delicate balance of ingredients.

Also remember, too many cooks spoil the broth...

Product Management is massively overhyped! A thread...

Reading some posts on social media it seems that product management is this mystical thing, in which only a few chosen ones will ever achieve mastery….

At least you need an MBA, write code since you are 13, or have successfully founded several startups….

I think this is a load of BS! 💩


Product Management is a job like many others. 

👉 Sure, it is challenging.
👉 Yes, you have to work hard.
👉 You get better at it with years of experience. 
👉 And yes, it is constantly evolving.

But to which job in tech do these not apply?


The only new or special aspect is that it brings the realm of management into a truly cross-functional setting. 

You need to develop skill in several areas. Strategy, understanding tech, analysis, design fundamentals, decision-making, diplomacy to name a few.

But these are all learnable and you’ll pick them up over time on the job.

Also, you don’t need to consistently work 60+ hours a week. That’s Silicon Valley elitist propaganda from people who still follow the cult of busy.


Product Management is a job like many others. You can be a great product manager without an MBA or the ability to program your own crypto currency. You can do it in 40 hours or less a week. Don’t let these limiting beliefs stop you!

#productmanagement #yesyoucan

I'm a freelance product manager. This means I regularly have to understand new products very quickly. This is my framework to get depth and width quickly.

Company Vision

Why does this company exist?

e.g. DuckDuckGo: "Your personal data is nobody's business."

Company Strategy

How does this company choose to achieve their vision? Which choices have they made?

DuckDuckGo: Provide tracking-free online browsing tools

Product Mission

On the product level, how does the product fit into the company vision & strategy? Which parts does it address?

e.g. DuckDuckGo Search Engine: Search the web without being tracked.

Product Strategy

Which choices have been made to achieve the product mission? How does the product make money?

DuckDuckGo: private ads on our search engine

Product Goals

Which are the defined goals, KPIs, & metrics?

Monthly Searches & Downloads, Average Rating on App Stores

Epics / Features

Which features have been implemented? Which features are they working on and are thinking about?

private relay email

Roadmap

What are the priorities for the next weeks & months?

Once I collected answers to all these questions, I have a very good understanding what the product is about, priorities, and also what they might be struggling with.

Note, that not all questions might be answered. Or you might get conflicting answers. These are usually the points I start working on right away.

I’m a product manager. I’m also a freelancer. How is this even possible? 🤔

Quite surprising to me a lot of people ask me this question. This is what I have to say 👇



Does it work? 100% yes ✅. I’ve been doing this for 6 years, so yeah it’s working for me. And if you look at the testimonials on my LinkedIn profile you can see that it is working for my clients, too.


I think there are 3 reasons why people think freelancing is not a great fit for product management:


1️⃣ The far-sighted thinking needed for a product to be successful long-term.

2️⃣ The domain knowledge needed to take optimal product decisions.

3️⃣ That Marty Cagan said, you need evangelists not mercenaries.



👉 Product mangers need to think ahead

We build products in a volatile world. This means planning in detail longer than let’s say 18 months ahead is pretty useless for many products.

So, long-term in the context of digital product is not that long at all. Also, there is nothing stopping me from thinking beyond the end of my engagement as a freelancer and setting my clients up for success. This is what good freelancers do. 🥸



👉 Product mangers need deep domain knowledge

It is true that in many industries domain knowledge is needed to make good decisions. However, my job as a product manager is not to know everything in detail but to build products with the highest value for my clients and their customers.

To do this I need to understand the context, the market, comparative strengths & weaknesses, ambitions, vision, strategy, and so on. In many cases this does not exist in a structured way and part of the value I bring is to create structure and clarity.

Deep domain knowledge already exists in house. There are always experts who know all the ins and outs of various aspects of the business. I just have to find and connect to them.

So, the question then is. Is it better to teach a domain expert product management? Or bring in an experienced product manager with their toolkit and let them collaborate with the experts? I know my answer to this question! 😃


👉 Product managers need to be evangelist


Well, in some companies freelancers are treated as mercenaries. And I’m sure some contractors behave like them, too. This is not true for the clients I work with. I’m usually a fully integrated part of the team. Temporary, sure. But isn’t every employment temporary as well?


To be fair, I don’t think Marty Cagan was referring to contractors when he wrote this. I think he means that you need people who believe in the product. I 100% agree with this and I always believe in the products I’m working on. If not, I leave.

Also, I don’t like the term evangelists. We are developing software, not founding religions. Take it down a notch! 🤓

#productmanagement #freelancing

One of the most valuable things you can do as a product manager is to create an environment of openness and collaboration 🤝. You want people to feel to come forward with ideas and criticism!

I once worked with a junior QA engineer who had a wealth of ideas.

At nearly every meeting he asked multiple questions and volunteered suggestions.

The solutions were often not actionable ones, and some of them could have been dismissed as unhelpful or irrelevant.

But his commitment and enthusiasm were invaluable.

Totally invested in delivering the best possible product, his contributions energised and inspired others.

An attitude like that is contagious!

❗️Make sure you don't shut people down. Ideas inspire, whether or not they become relevant, and the last thing you want to do is stem the flow of creativity and communication.

What do you think? Is this feasible for you? Or do you fear get buried in suggestions?

#productmanagement #collaboration

Effectiveness comes BEFORE efficiency! Always.

I've seen this done wrong too many times and fell in this trap myself a surprising amount of times 🤔... A thread 🧵

🎯 Effectiveness = achieving your desired outcome
🐜 Efficiency = getting something done with minimal input

1️⃣ When you build something new the first thing you need to do is to prove that it works, you should not really care about the unit cost (the cost of delivering one unit of your product or service).

2️⃣ Once you proved it worked, you can focus on improving the process and making delivery more efficient.

💭 Imagine you are inventing this amazing new umbrella ☂️. Before you invest in production capacity, you build a prototype to see if it actually works and repels water ☔️. Obvious, right?

Nevertheless when it comes to new digital products I've seen this simple concept being disregarded more times than I feel comfortable talking about. 🙈

❗️ Just remember Effectiveness BEFORE efficiency! Always.

Really curious if someone disagrees with me on this one?

#productmanagement #effectiveness #efficiency

If you don't set yourself up for success, you will fail as a product manager! 😫

These are the questions that will guide you:

❓ Why are we doing this?
❓ What does success look like?
❓ How will we know if we’re doing it well?

These questions act as a compass 🧭.


Newly suggested product features?
🧭 The compass will guide you.

Any internal conflict?
🧭 The compass will guide you.

Any stakeholder requests?
🧭 The compass will guide you.


At the start, it is essential that everyone agrees on a shared vision for the product’s success and on a set of metrics that will be used to measure progress.

⛵️Sticking to the compass cannot guarantee a product's success. But it will make collaboration a lot smoother and help you draw the right lessons. Even if the product stays behind expectations.

#productmanagement #whatdoessuccesslooklike #why

Sales had a "great" idea again? This is how I deal with crazy requests. 👇

The important thing is to keep your cool and take your time.

#productmanagement #stakeholdercollaboration

First of all I listen very carefully for any emotions or desires that might be behind their request, often what at first seems like an unrealistic request can lead down a positive path with the right approach.

1. 🤓 I give them my undivided attention.
2. 🧐 I ask why. Not necessarily 5 times, but at least 2-3x.

3. 😊 I listen with my mind and heart (looking for rational arguments but also emotions).
4. 📝 I take notes & ask for time afterwards to process it.

5. 🤝 I follow up with a suggestion a few days.

How do you deal with outlandish request?

I've seen this so many times. A junior pm comes to me flustered and says "We can't release like we planned!" or "We need to change the roadmap!"
😩

When I ask why, the answer is "Because [name of senior stakeholder] said we need to build [some random feature] asap!"
😃

👉 If there is one thing I'd advice junior product managers to work on, it is not to take stakeholder ideas for granted!

The thing you have to understand is only we product managers define what gets build in which order. No one else does that. Not even the CEO.

Chances are we are the only ones looking at our product 360°. While we will have active conversations with everyone who wants to speak to us and will listen carefully where they are coming from, everything being suggested is an input into our thinking.

👉 It's NEVER to be taken at face value until processed & proven.

What do you think? Do you have the last word as PM in your organisation?

Do you need a product manager, a product owner, or even a project manager?! A thread 🧵 👇

So, you are building your SaaS business and you realise that you need help. Which role should you look for? While I can't completely answer that for you, I can help you understand what the differences are.

Project Manager (PM, PJM)

Project Managers are responsible for delivering a project. This means they are responsible to deliver a defined scope of work within time and budget. And they are responsible for everything to make that happen.

Projects always have an end date and before the project starts it is exactly defined what the result should look like.

Imagine you are planning a wedding. You and your spouse talk to the wedding planner and tell them exactly what you want. You also tell them when the wedding takes place and how much money they can spend on the whole thing. This is a project.

Product Owner (PO)

Is a SCRUM role and actually only exists in the context of building software using SCRUM. Like a SCRUM Master. They are responsible for prioritising the work of the product team.

Concretely, this means they make sure that the highest value user stories are at the top of the backlog and that the user stories are written clear enough, so that the team can take them up and implement them.

Product Manager (PM, PDM)

Responsible for finding the sweet spot for digital product and balancing what users want, what the business needs, and what technology can deliver. They are responsible for finding relevant insights and prioritising the most valuable features.

However, they are not responsible for delivering the software. Product Managers work in agile environments and in these the team is responsible for delivery. This is one of the major differences to a Project Manager.

Next to the facts that products have no end date, no defined scope, no fixed budget. But instead a fixed team and focus continuous improvement.

Hope this clear it up a bit! Let me know if you have questions!

I recently signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. {Reason1}

2. {Reason2}

3. {Reason3}

Over the next 30 days, I plan on writing about {Topic1}, {Topic2}, and {Topic3}.

Join me on this adventure—and let me know if you have any questions along the way!

I'm excited to start sharing what I know online.