I’ve always been interested in figuring out what signifies greatness in PM, what makes a great PM? A source of signal for me has been the ability to deal with ambiguity. Great PMs have this innate ability to take ambiguous thoughts/ideas/strategies as input and come up with a coherent executable plan which then they execute […]
The anti-pattern I’d like to explore today is the Ponzi roadmap. It usually starts with the best of intentions but has extremely harmful effects as a company scales. When a company is in the initial stages and has a small engineering and product team the planning model that emerges is what I call the pooled […]
Product management is the new hotness. I regularly get asked advice on how to become a product manager. What follows are some tips!
Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory – Franklin Pierce Adams We’ve all read about how culture eats strategy for lunch. The internet is jam-packed with a million blog posts on the superficialities of culture. Its time for some inside baseball with some actual actionable things to watch out […]
It’s been 10 years since the 2008 financial crisis. Astute observers will correct me and point out that the crisis actually started in early 2007 when the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit collapsed. This was the first collapse of a hedge fund that was loaded up to the gills with subprime CDO’s. If you were following […]
Imagine the scene, its the end of the day, dinner is done, you are ready to turn in. The last thing you have to do is wash the dishes. Your spouse loads the dishwasher and just as she is heading to bed, she tells you “Honey put the soap in the dishwasher and turn the […]
Accountability is a fascinating topic. The textbook definition is “the quality or state of being accountable; especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions”. While a lot has been written about individuals, I’ve found in my experience, the actual mechanics of how to think about team accountability for product teams, pretty lacking. This […]
You’re the first PM at a startup. You are a small company with one product, searching for product market fit. You grind and preserve and you achieve the holy grail of product market fit. CEO walks over and says “It’s time to start scaling, give me a plan, how are you going to scale the […]
The Myers Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) is used to understand your personality type. The idea behind the indicator is that if you understand your personality and default preferences then you are able to play to your strengths. In addition, by knowing your team’s preferences, you can communicate better with your teammates and thus become a […]
This post is the final post in the series of “The ultimate guide to hiring PM’s”. Post #1, #2 and #3. This post is all about the close. What are the key areas you should focus on to make the hire? Open access to the management team