There’s a rather annoying trend that’s been showing up within both job postings and resumes that’s just crawled under my skin in a way similar to the “ninja” and “rockstar” appellations that developers have adopted. The description that I’m talking about is that of the “full stack” product manager. Now, i totally get where this […]
How Much Technical Debt is Too Much?
Let’s face it, technical debt is something that every Product Manager has to deal with on a constant basis — whether it’s making snap decisions that unblock your team so that they can keep working, short-cutting an ideal architectural solution because you have time-to-market pressures, or deciding to put off working on bugs found after […]
Story Points are a Signalling Tool
I was called into a meeting with a team here in the office a couple weeks ago because they told me they had a “question” about the estimations that they were doing. As we started talking, it became immediately apparent what the problem was, they were getting into arguments about whether their estimates were “too […]
Five Common Myths About “Iteration”
Everyone in tech has seen the word, repeated ad nauseum as the “silver bullet” for everything from go-to-market timing to quality to product discovery. But like many terms bandied about by those both within and on the periphery of Product Management, the term “iteration” often comes with connotations or meanings attached to it that aren’t really […]
Agile Roadmapping is NOT a Contradiction!
Many companies struggle with the challenges of reconciling the need for strategic planning and the desire to execute in an “agile” or Agile fashion. Generally speaking, this is because they’re stuck with the perspective that a “roadmap” must be a set of promises regarding what’s to be delivered, and not merely a strategy that will and must change over […]
Five Ways to Be a PM That Developers Actually LIKE!
Product Managers sometimes have a bad reputation when it comes to Development teams — and we often unintentionally earn these reputations, by the way that we work with them. There are, however some things that Product Managers can do to build a strong relationship with their development teams — something that is, in fact, essential […]
Tending Gardens & Herding Cats: Maintaining a Healthy Rapport with Your Development Teams
Several times in my career, I’ve joked to someone or another that my next job title will be “Senior Cat Herder” rather than “Senior Product Manager” — and for good reason. Cats, for all of their cuddly cuteness, are independent problem solvers, much like most of the better developers that I’ve worked with. Add to […]