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How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.

How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.

How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.

How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.

How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.

How do you know you are making the right product before you launch?

Product Managers (PMs) must have an expert level understanding of their target user and the problem they are trying to solve in order to create an MVP and launch a successful product. It is important to talk to customers in the environment that is contextual to the product and to have a CX touchpoint. Additionally, feedback should be gathered right away and usertesting.com can be used to validate concepts and UX decisions. Finally, PMs must consider how to scale the product if it is successful.

Being A New Manager On a Dispirited Team

A manager took over a troubled team with low morale and output. To build trust and start fixing the deeper issues, they had 1:1s with each team member, dealt with low hanging fruit issues, and fixed the scrum process. To deal with deeper issues, they built a career plan, roadmap, and an open and transparent environment. The two lessons learned were to listen to the team and build an environment for feedback.

Balancing Time Between Work and Home Life

This article discusses the challenges of balancing a career and family life. The author suggests building a support system, setting boundaries between work and personal life, and understanding the importance of caregivers' family time. By doing this, the author was able to focus on their work and family, and come home feeling satisfied with what they were doing.

Building the Right Team is More Important than Building a Team

This article discusses the problem of hiring the wrong people for a team and the steps taken to address it. The author learned that it is important to hire for the team, not just the role, and to observe and ask probing questions during the interview process. With a new hiring process in place, the author was able to find people who could be trained and eventually make significant contributions to the team.

Learning to be Your Authentic Self as a New Manager

When the author became a manager, they lacked the professional degree in management and felt like they lacked the necessary skills. To overcome this, they adopted a growth mindset and began speaking up in team meetings, starting with one-on-one conversations. Through this, they learned to express their opinion without fear, double up in areas where they lacked strength, and recognize their own worth. After two years, they were more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Restructuring Teams Around Products

In order to better scale their engineering organization, leadership decided to organize teams around products rather than functions. To help engineers adjust to the new structure, the team implemented a share-out meeting and restructured their work to be more collaborative. This allowed for faster iteration, better understanding of each component, and more collaboration within a sprint. Reflecting on the experience, the team wished they had thought of this earlier to get a sense of team unity sooner.

Managing and Engaging a Temporary Team

In this case study, the engineering manager faced the challenge of managing a cross-functional team of engineers on loan from other projects. To address this, the manager implemented an agile process, held weekly meetings with the individual managers, and sent out regular company-wide updates. Ultimately, the team was able to ship the MVP of the project and the engineers were able to return to their regular teams. The lesson learned was to be proactive in recognizing potential challenges and to put in place solid processes to increase engagement and productivity.

Restructuring a Team in Order to Allow for Scale

A team was spread thin due to rapid growth, so the team leader restructured the team to better align with product roadmaps and give individuals more ownership. The team was involved in the process and the changes allowed for more hiring and projects. The leader learned that it is important to get ahead of problems and involve the team early on.

Prioritizing with the Aid of Tools

In 2014, the first feature team at an organization faced many issues while establishing a proof-of-concept. To manage prioritization and dependencies, the team used tools such as Rice, Jira, and Slack. However, it is important to remember not to be too reliant on the tools, as they can sometimes steer you in the wrong direction.

Rapidly Scaling and Roadmapping for High Demand

This article is about the experience of creating an app for deaf people that could be used worldwide. The team quickly scaled and roadmapped the app in a few weeks, and it was soon in use by a major French company. The biggest challenge was educating people about the technology and training them on how to use the app. The experience highlighted the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to disability.

Understanding Variants in Motivation and Building Trust as a Manager

This article discusses the lessons learned by a manager transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The manager learned to treat everyone as an individual, as there is no one thing that works across the board for everyone. They also learned from the DISC Profile program that everyone has a different profile and if you can understand that person's profile, then you can adjust your own communication patterns to match. The manager also established two-way trust, had personal relationships with everyone on their team, and asked 'why' questions to build understanding. Through these actions, the manager was able to help an employee take steps towards their goals and become more trustworthy.

Setting Up a Product Roadmap

This article discusses the evolution of product roadmaps and how to create one. It suggests starting internally by understanding the user journey and their emotional needs, and then mapping out step-by-step actions for the user to take. It also suggests building features based on the user journey and understanding the user by who they are and what they are trying to achieve, rather than by demographics. Finally, it suggests using an iterative product roadmap to build and test the product, and to use the user journey as a default to see if new ideas fit into it.

Saying ‘Not Right Now’ Instead Of ‘No’ to Pay Raise Requests

A design intern was offered a full-time position, but asked for more money. The company decided to not cave in to the request, but instead laid out a series of goals for the intern to prove himself. After 6 months, the intern had met those goals and was given the pay raise he had asked for. The company also learned that their cutting-edge and fast-paced environment helps them attract and retain junior employees.

Staying Agile Without Standups

This article discusses the challenges of implementing a daily stand-up in a fast-paced environment with multiple projects. After trying different times for the stand-up, the team decided to move the stand-up to Slack. This proved to be successful and the team was able to move quickly and communicate roadblocks efficiently. The article highlights the importance of challenging industry practices and finding solutions that work for the environment.

Networking Facilitates Product Manager Growth

Product management is a difficult job, and networking with other product managers is a highly leveraged activity to improve. Through networking, one can learn more than from books and blogs, and can brainstorm with the other person about the problems they are aiming to solve. Through networking, one can also learn about how to improve processes and onboarding partners, which can have a big positive impact on the company. At least two to three networking activities per month is recommended.

Motivating a Development Team Through User Empathy

In order to get a disengaged development team to take ownership of their work and care about the user, the speaker took action by finding an alpha partner to test the product and a beta partner to provide feedback. As a result, the team developed a sense of ownership and empathy for the user, and were excited to get the product to production.

Gaining credibility with internal teams and end users

Product managers need to strike a balance between staying strategic and getting their hands dirty. To do this, they should take time to understand the roles of their internal and external partners, shadow them to understand their functions, and build relationships with them. Doing so will help them gain a better understanding of their end users and make them more credible product managers.

Remote Working For All

This case study outlines the issue of two contract engineers being hired to work remotely for two days per week, which caused resentment among the permanent on-site engineers. The lesson learned is that transparent and proactive communication is essential in a hybrid delivery team. To address the issue, a remote-working policy was created and approved by the CTO and Head of HR, and communicated to the engineers.

Remote Team Conflict Resolution

During a daily stand-up, an engineer assigned a task to a remote engineer without telling him and went on leave. The remote engineer became frustrated and insulted the engineer who assigned the task, which was heard by the team. The team leader spoke to the engineer and the team, and the engineer apologized and agreed to a plan of action to regain the team's trust and respect. The team accepted the apology and the lesson learned was that communication between distributed teams must be proactive and clear.

Learning to Manage Meetings

When the speaker became a manager, they were overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend. To manage their time better, they decided to reduce the frequency of team meetings and make them more interactive. Through this experience, they learned the importance of respecting other people's time and using group chats to solve problems instead of calling a meeting.