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Good product management

Good product management

What is a product manager? What are the characteristics of a good product manager?

Roo Reynolds

March 12, 2015
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  1. Roo Reynolds
    @rooreynolds
    Good product management

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  2. What is a product manager?

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  3. ‘mini CEO’ ?
    responsible
    influence
    usually without much formal authority
    (not a great way to describe yourself to a team)

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  4. ‘single wringable neck’ ??
    responsible
    committed
    (but so is the rest of the team)
    clear point of accountable contact
    (not a great way to describe yourself to
    stakeholders)

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  5. mindtheproduct.com/2011/10/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager

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  6. Seven characteristics of
    good product management

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  7. (IMHO)

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  8. 1 - Putting users first
    ensuring the team makes decisions
    based on data and user research,
    not instinct or just scratching our own itches

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  9. 2 - Bringing the most useful problem for the team
    to solve next
    having identified the most urgent things,
    the most useful things, the hardest things,
    what’s the current priority?

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  10. 3 - Owning a prioritised backlog
    what are the next few things?
    planning ahead (a bit)
    not being the only one adding to backlog

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  11. 4 - Not coming up with the solutions
    (that's the team's job)
    helping define testable hypotheses

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  12. 5 - Listening. A lot.
    being constantly aware of user feedback, data,
    research, what's hurting users most, what the team
    needs, internal priorities, external pressures...

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  13. 6 - Defending the team
    saying no to lots of requests,
    communicating upwards and outwards,
    shielding the team from noise

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  14. 7 - Strong opinions, weakly held 1
    having a clear vision,
    while still being able to change your mind
    1 saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-held

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  15. Roo Reynolds
    @rooreynolds
    Thank you

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