Knowledge shared by our community

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.

Taking The Lead As A Manager In Crisis

This article discusses the role of a product manager and the lessons learned from the experience. The author had to quickly figure out what to do when hired for the role and worked with the team to understand the project. The team had to integrate middleware to increase efficiency and adapt to new emerging systems. The author learned that it is important to start slow, understand the process, build the foundation, and work as a team to identify gaps and weaknesses.

Product Management Requires Skill, Not a Degree

This article discusses the journey of a product manager who did not have a formal business background. Through self-study, an MBA, and experimentation on different products and managers, the product manager was able to gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed. The article also highlights the lessons learned, such as the importance of due diligence, accepting failure, and doing proof of concepts.

Recruitment Strategies to Implement When Hiring Niche Talent

When hiring for a product manager role, it can be difficult to find a candidate who has both product and industry experience. To find the right candidate, the author used a combination of interviews, design challenges, and take-home assignments. After the first hire didn't work out, the author learned to focus on the strengths of the candidate and to be honest about the role.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Learning From Your Mistakes

This article discusses the importance of learning from mistakes and taking action to prevent them from happening again. It emphasizes the importance of transparency and visibility when it comes to understanding the nuances of the domain, and encourages people to take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is that mistakes are inevitable, but we can use them to become better.

Telemetry in the QA Process

This article discusses the introduction of telemetry into the gaming industry and how it has enabled game developers to make better decisions. It describes how the author asked two QA folks to manually track various stats in an Excel sheet, which was then sent back to the Director of Design. The introduction of the technology was met with enthusiasm, and the data collected taught the developers a lot about their own gameplay. The article also highlights the importance of data in decision-making, as well as the value of first-hand feedback from real users.

How to Wear a Lot of Hats

This case study outlines the process of reducing the release cycle of a game from three months to two weeks. Executive buy-in was key to making this change, and automation of end-to-end tests, smoke tests, and assigning owners to each step of the process were all important steps in the process. The author also learned lessons about going above and beyond in their role, being a systems-thinker, and the value of filling gaps in the team.

Strategic Ways to Stop Losing Customers

In order to address customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover, the author implemented quarterly planning and bug prioritization processes. This included forming a group with the TPMs, meeting with account managers to put SLAs in place, creating an Excel sheet of customer features, and meeting bi-weekly to track progress. The author also learned the importance of building relationships with peers and sharing successes with other teams.

Leading Cultural Change in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of a company that was still using paper records and how they were falling behind in the industry. It outlines the steps taken to migrate to an electronic system, including forming a committee, documenting workflows, demoing the system, and providing incentives. It emphasizes the importance of empowering people in teams to make decisions and removing barriers to ensure strong communication.

Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important

At the Institute for Disease Modeling, the author managed a team responsible for multiple domains, including web apps, internal tools, and data services. To solve the challenge of driving forward work with multiple priorities and complex projects, the author worked with the team to define quarterly goals and build relationships with research scientists. This allowed them to identify straightforward projects and create a prototype that worked for all of them. The team also tracked milestones and tasks in GitHub and delivered features to the research scientists for feedback. Through this process, they were able to automate the research scientists' workflows faster than expected.

Finding the Right Fit as a Product Manager

This article provides a rubric of 11 questions to help product manager interviewees assess a company's technology, business aptitude, product and user experience, and company culture. It also provides advice on how to ask questions to uncover the company's inner dynamics, such as how frequently releases happen, how engineering, product, and design collaborate, and how the company shares information with the product team. The article emphasizes the importance of finding a company that fits the individual's style and interests, and encourages product managers to ask questions to uncover the company's culture and decision-making processes.

Delivering Outcomes on a new platform in the first 180 days

The Knot Worldwide team was struggling to balance the needs of their editorial and SEO team with their display advertising business teams. To address this, a new framework was developed to prioritize different options, and Google's AMP format was chosen due to its compatibility with the current design layout and ad placement specification. This resulted in double-digit increases in advertising inventory, a 30% increase in ad inventory, and a 20% increase in revenue. Lessons learned from this experience include the importance of building credibility, focusing on the outcome, and having the courage to resist the status quo.

Managing New Team Members

When my team doubled in size, I faced the challenge of managing the sudden growth, ensuring existing members were not overburdened, and keeping the new members motivated. To address this, I created a “buddy” system, conducted onboarding sessions, and identified core groups to groom stories. However, I should have identified the capability of our automation and regression suits from the start. As a lesson, I learned to collaborate with team leaders and take accountability for responsibilities.

How to Be an Effective Manager During a Crisis

A billing report release caused a loss of around XX$ for the company, which was identified by the finance team a month later. The biggest mistake made was not communicating the issue to senior management on time. The team identified the root cause of the problem and took steps to backfill the costs, while setting up validation, monitoring, and alerting for the next time. A 3-month plan was laid out to ensure the issue did not repeat itself, and updates were sent out on a daily basis. The lesson learned was to keep managers in the loop and communicate effectively to manage a budget.

Tips on How to Improve Backlog Grooming Meetings

A team was having difficulty with their grooming meetings, and senior engineers took the lead to understand the requirements and groom stories outside of the main room. They introduced release-when-ready strategies and feature flags to help with the release process. They also implemented data-driven standups and encouraged team members to dig deeper to understand the root cause of the problem before bringing in solutions.

Retaining Top Talents

A manager faced the challenge of motivating a high-performing team member who was not interested in the tasks assigned to them for the quarter. Instead of forcing them to do the work, the manager allowed them to explore other opportunities within the company and eventually found a team where the team member could work on data cleaning tasks. This rotation gave the team member the chance to keep adding value to the company while growing and learning new tasks. The manager learned the importance of prioritizing the company and its goals, and giving team members the chance to work on their weaknesses to keep them motivated and challenged.

Hiring Niche Talents in a Fiercely Competitive Market

ThousandEyes experienced rapid growth after being acquired by Cisco in August 2020, and needed to increase their headcount by 2x to sustain that growth. To do this, they took steps to supercharge their hiring funnel, from sourcing to virtual onsite interviews and offer stages. They also implemented best practices such as diverse panel members, well-calibrated questions, and clear rubrics to ensure a successful hiring process. Lastly, they focused on hiring candidates who had the ability to learn new tech stacks on the job, while also making sure that the candidate had a clear understanding of the opportunity ahead.

Three-Phase Approach to Onboarding Engineers in a Distributed Services Environment

At ThousandEyes, a distributed services environment can be overwhelming for new engineers. To simplify the onboarding process, a three-phase process was defined. Phase 1 focuses on product knowledge, Phase 2 on processes, and Phase 3 on priorities. Lessons learned include having new hires go through a common phase and allowing them to explore on their own. Onboarding buddies should also time box the time they spend with new hires.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Expert Antidote to Repair a Toxic Culture

A mentor was helping a fresh graduate transition from college to professional life. The mentor took notes on the issues the mentee was facing and identified the core problem as a lack of a mentor or coach to guide her. The mentor then provided advice on how to align expectations with her manager, invest in learning, and provide effective feedback. In the end, the mentee was able to gain credibility and set herself up for professional success. The mentor learned the importance of listening and paying attention to detail, educating mentees on providing effective feedback, and helping them maintain professional boundaries.