Category Archives: Product Management

Thanks to the hard work of Dennis Crothers, Michael Ogrydziak, and Ryan Aipperspach, the first version of Double-Loop is ready for early users. This post is meant to explain why and how to use version 1.0. If you’d like access, please fill out the form at the bottom of the post. And thanks to Peter Fenyvesi for suggestingContinue reading “Double-Loop 1.0”

See my answer to the Quora question What’s something product managers know that others don’t?  

Ostensibly, building a product implies creating value through addition. But each extension of a product comes with a risk of unintended subtractions. Some ways to fuck up a product are obvious, like introducing horrific bugs. Other changes create tensions that lead to injuries down the road. The nature and maturity of a product influences the company’s tolerance of risk. E.g., in 2014 Facebook changed their motto fromContinue reading “A Map of Ways to Fuck Up a Product”

Most people that work for a company have ideas for how the product should evolve. Product managers serve, in part, as a gateway for product changes. This requires filtering, crystalizing, and prioritizing the ideas that emerge from across the organization. Product managers are biased to act on suggestions that cohere with their own vision. But they are also consciousContinue reading “Dissolving the politics of product ideas”

Many fundamentals of product development are straight forward in theory but difficult to apply reliably in the real world. With each launch, teams should define clear objectives with measurable success criteria. They should communicate launch strategies and details to the broader company. After time passes, they should analyze whether a launch met success criteria. Periodically, teams should step back to evaluate the efficacy of their overall process and identify opportunitiesContinue reading “The Double-Loop Vision”

Hierarchical thinking makes our western minds feel comfortable. When looking at the messy, apparent randomness of the world, we find ourselves searching for core truths that, when understood, make everything seem clean and logical. We want principles that fork into sub-principals like tree roots. Sometimes this impulse pays off big. Science and medicine are rewards for breaking phenomena down intoContinue reading “Let’s rethink product roadmaps”

In a world where a piece of writing will only get traction if it can be teased effectively in a tweet, it’s possible to invest significant effort crafting an article that will barely see the light of day. Thus, I’d like to incorporate readers earlier into my writing process so I can gauge interest in potential subjectContinue reading “What should I write about next?”

See my answer on Quora.

The spectrum of design skills necessary to create successful software applications has been chopped up into an excessive number of overlapping disciplines like graphic design, visual design, information design, interaction design, user interface design, user experience design, and information architecture. As plentiful as our vocabulary is for describing the layers of the software design process, forContinue reading “A Nameless Design Craft”

I was excited to discover that leading product thinker, Marty Cagan, referenced my article A Map of White Space for Product Managers in his post The Role of Product at Apple. Cagan’s book, Inspired, is the first thing I read that seemed to get to the essence of product management. Here’s what Cagan wrote about my article: …Continue reading “How “filling white space” fits into the overall picture of product management”