Top tips for becoming a better product manager

The Von Restorff effect & why the odd one out counts

Apr 04, 2022

The Von Restorff effect, states that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. What does this mean for product managers?

Miller's Law & why users can't keep track of lots of things

Apr 04, 2022

Miller's Law looks at how individuals behave when they have multiple things they are trying to do, and this has an impact on how we develop our products.

Hick's Law & why too much choice slows you down

Mar 28, 2022

We've all been faced with choice paralysis: having too much choice to make a decision. This is an illustration of Hick's Law. What does it mean for product management?

Pareto's Principle & why focusing on just 20% of problem areas will solve the most of your issues

Mar 28, 2022

As product people, we want to focus the majority of our effort on the areas that will bring us the largest benefits to the most users. This principle is called Pareto's Principle.

Q&A - March 2022

Mar 19, 2022

Getting into a product career appears really challenging for many people, and this raises many questions. Every month I look at some of the questions raised and give advice on how to address them. In this post, we look at questions from March 2022.

Q&A - February 2022

Feb 19, 2022

What does a PM provide an organization?

Feb 13, 2022

There are many people who don't really understand what it is that having a product manager brings to an organization, and that's partly because what they do bring can be quite wide. This post looks at a number of the things that PMs themselves think they bring.

Your trajectory matters more than where you currently are

Nov 27, 2021

When we're at working or considering our life, we tend to focus on the now. What is today's problem? Have we met our latest goal? It's natural to think like that, but maybe it's not the most effective way of assessing how we're getting on.

Finding the time to think

Nov 20, 2021

Product management requires thought, but sometimes it's easy to get caught up with what's in front of you and not find the time to more deeply consider the problems that need solving. How do you find the time to do the hard thinking?

What you do is never enough ... and that's fine

Nov 07, 2021

As a product manager you spend your time serving the needs of many other people. Whether it is getting direction from the CPO, consulting with the business, or understanding the needs of the customer. The problem with having this many masters is that whatever you do, you will always manage to disappoint someone whatever you do. The question is, how do you handle this disappointment.

Keeping Your Stakeholders Happy Is The Holy Grail

Oct 26, 2021

If you leave stakeholder communications to chance, you become reactive and in need of responding to every query whenever it arises. This puts you on the backfoot and means you need to directly respond to whatever you’re asked. The goal should therefore be to be proactive and control the communications.

What to ask when looking at data

Oct 23, 2021

When you look at data you shouldn't just take it at face value, else you run the risk of making the wrong product decisions. There are certain types of questions you should ask yourself in order to really understand what the data is telling you.