Knowledge shared by our community

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Avoid Failure: Know Your Hypotheses

This article reflects on three failed projects and the lessons learned from them. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the assumptions made about a product and testing them before implementation. As a product manager, it is important to ask questions that could be blind spots and to double-check fundamental assumptions before major development. Doing so will increase the chances of achieving the expected outcomes.

Handling Frustrating Feature Requests

This article discusses how to handle incoming feature requests as a product manager. It suggests that instead of feeling anxious and overwhelmed, PMs should take the opportunity to learn more about users and build rapport with stakeholders. The author proposes a framework to do this which includes acknowledging the request, understanding the customer problem, and responding with how the proposed solution might fit into the existing roadmap.

Getting a Team More Efficient and Excited in a Remote-First Environment

When the Covid Pandemic hit, the company had to go remote first and rethink how they worked. This caused a decrease in engagement scores, so the team took action to address the challenges. They increased communication, provided work-life integration guides, rotated power, and held virtual events to improve team bonding. These efforts helped improve the engagement scores, but the team will continue to make the remote work environment inclusive, engaging, and inspiring.

How to Deliver Complex Cross-Functional Projects

Working on a large initiative that involves multiple groups can be difficult due to conflicting objectives. To get the initiative off the ground, it is important to meet with teams, present a feasible solution, and have multiple rounds of meetings to reach an agreement. If agreement cannot be reached, a disagree & commit approach should be taken. Additionally, it is important to identify and address dependencies early, communicate changes and new findings, help approvers make decisions, and maintain clear communication with the leadership team.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Learn or Die!

The manager in this text discusses the problem of newcomers quickly surpassing more experienced team members in knowledge and skills. To address this, the manager recommends following technical blogs and podcasts, dedicating half an hour each morning to learning, and using tools like Feedly or Inoreader to gather and prioritize interesting articles. The manager also encourages sharing knowledge with others and creating a space for discussion and best practice exchange. Consistency in learning is emphasized, and the manager highlights the long-term benefits of cultivating a culture of learning within the company.

Horizontally Scaling the Engineering Organization

As an organization grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency without splintering and fractioning teams. To transition from a monolith team to a number of smaller teams, it is important to define the atomic constructs that maximize local decision making and create a layer of technical governance to coordinate how tasks are handled. Transparency is key to ensure the same level of efficiency. Doing more things in a horizontal manner without letting everything turn into chaos ensures the most significant wins for startups.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Cultivating the Company Culture in a Hyper-Growth Startup

When an organization goes through rapid growth, it is difficult to retain certain aspects of culture. To maintain culture, it is important to identify the key aspects and codify them. Hiring and onboarding should assess if people value the same fundamental values as the organization. Culture cannot be controlled by documents, but by the people hired, promoted, or retained. Leadership should understand the values foundational to the company culture and be aware of the changing nature of the organization. Bias for action, meritocracy, and transparency are essential values to cultivate.

How to Drive Product Strategy in a B2B Sales-Driven Company

This article discusses the problem of a sales-driven company taking on too many projects and not having a product strategy. It outlines the actions taken to align product priorities with stakeholders, develop a roadmap to assess the impact of new initiatives, and proactively identify projects that could have an impact on the roadmap. It also highlights lessons learned, such as the importance of early-stage assessment and the difficulty of leveraging past experience in a fast-paced environment.

Adapting the Existing Product Suite for a New Market

In order to launch a product suite in a new market, the product team had to do extensive product targeting to find the right product-market fit. After identifying the products that were ready to be launched, the team presented a 'Land and Expand' strategy, starting with the most mature products. To demonstrate proof of value, the team had to find a different way to demonstrate it, often with more modest examples or acknowledging that they were seeking a first partner. Finally, they had to build a material adapted for the new market. Lessons learned included never saying no, demonstrating confidence in the product, and pursuing goals rather than trying to explain the differences between the two markets.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

Creating an Evolving Process to Address Customer Issues

The team was facing an increasing number of issues from different sources, which was disrupting the engineers' workflow. To address this, a community engineer role was created and rotated throughout the team, with the responsibility of handling all ad hoc issues and requests. However, as the team grew, this was too much for one engineer to handle, so the role was decreased and the process was evolved. The importance of having processes and enabling engineers to work undistracted was highlighted, as well as the need for managers to encourage their team to share their thoughts and ideas.

Creating an In-House Mentorship Program

This article describes the process of creating a mentorship program at a company with two hundred engineers. After receiving positive feedback from the VP of Engineering, the author created a Google form to match mentees and mentors, and then created an automated tool to make the process more efficient. The author also included a checkbox for underrepresented groups and other minor tweaks to the program. The author learned that the program was well-received and beneficial, and that mentorship is a great way to improve morale and help people grow in their careers.

Fostering a Culture of Experimentation

As a manager, it is important to create time for team members to work on their ideas and to create psychological safety so that they feel comfortable taking risks. Regular check-up points should be established to ensure that ideas are materialized, and honest feedback should be provided to help team members modify their ideas if necessary.

Introducing Design in the Roadmap Creation Process

A product line had been successful in terms of user adoption, but the commercial version had not been as successful. The executive team was perplexed why the product line couldn't drive more revenue and why customers were churning. The EPD (Engineering, Product, and Design) leadership got together and created a roadmap based on customer personas and customer journey, which was then presented to the executive team. The feedback from the executive team and leadership was invaluable in creating the most detailed and thoughtful version of the roadmap. The lessons learned from this process were that Design should be a first-class partner in the EPD trio, and feedback from leadership and the executive team is essential.

Even High Performers Need Direction and Support

A leader inherited a team with a high-performing employee who was stressing themselves out by trying to do too much. To prevent burnout, the leader helped the employee prioritize their tasks and provided support and direction. The leader also shared their own experience of burnout to build trust and credibility. The employee was able to streamline their focus and improve their work-life balance. The lesson learned is that high performers should not be left to manage their work on their own and should be provided with direction and support.

How to Level Up Your Design Team

The team was having difficulty owning their work and was spinning in circles without clear objectives. The leader applied a three-part approach to help the team: providing context, clarifying objectives, and leading by example. Through this approach, the team was able to better understand their performance and how it was perceived, and thus improve. The leader also learned the importance of balancing being a caring listener and a candid guide.

How to Overcome a Sense of Worthlessness

Many first-time managers are overwhelmed and have difficulty adjusting to their new roles. Companies often do not provide adequate training for engineers transitioning to management roles, leaving them feeling lost and without a sense of self-worth. It is important to ask yourself if you really want to become a manager and to understand the differences between managing people and managing code. Companies should provide training and support to help engineers make the transition to management, and managers should focus on the success of their team as their measure of productivity.

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.