Biweekly we select for you the best articles in product management.
Enjoy and have a PRODUCTive week!
Interesting Reads
1. How To Lead a Tech Discovery Without a Tech Background
2. Escalation Is OK (If Done Right)
“Alignment is important because it helps to build trust, avoid waste and trigger decisions. Contrary to common belief, alignment does NOT mean that everybody always agrees. In dissent one may need to escalate and trigger decisions higher up in order to reach clarity through escalation. Often we shy away from this, because it is emotionally inconvenient.” Arne Kittler, VP Product Management at XING, looks into why escalation is not only necessary but also totally OK if you approach it the right way. (Medium)
3. How To Read At Work
Product designers and product managers spend much of their day reading and writing. If you work in technology, your job involves probably constant reading. Product briefs, research insights, presentation decks, and executive summaries occupy our screens, seemingly without end. Bill Chung, Product Designer at Shopify, suggests methods on how to read at work that can help you do your job better.(UX Collective)
4. How a Product Manager Paints a Vision With Storytelling
Storytelling makes your product more relatable and it makes you more effective as a Product Manager. Everyone likes a good story. Be it stories that have a plot twist, a happy ending, or even the ones that wrench your soul out – a good story always tugs at our hearts. Connie Kwan, Founder of Product Maestro, shares ideas of storytelling and tells you how to use it as a PM. (Product Maestro)
📢 Women in Product Management in Europe 2020 nominations are now open! Let’s recognize the stellar female PMs out there and the impact in PM and on PM communities they have! Don’t let us miss someone: your colleague, friend, mentor or manager!
Submit your nomination by 07 October at https://bit.ly/WIPEUR20
5. Product Goals: Using Objectives And Key Results (OKRs) For Agile Teams (2020)
Besides knowing what success might look like “in the end,” it can be even more important to know how your activities and progress match your ambitions while you are moving ahead. Tim Herbig, PM Coach at herbig.co, shares his guide to product goals and addresses questions and topics about what are product goals and why they matter, the difference between outcome and output product goals, proven techniques to set product goals and lots of advanced tips, strategies, and tactics. (Tim Herbig)
6. You Don’t Have To Pivot In A Crisis
Conventional wisdom says that the smart move when a crisis hits is to pivot quickly and decisively. But pivoting isn’t always the right move for every company. Daniel Isenberg, president of Entrepreneurship Policy Advisors and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, and Alessandro Di Fiore, founder and CEO of the European Centre for Strategic Innovation, look at the stories of three companies who opted to stay the course when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and why the decision worked for them. (HBR)
7. Six Problem-Solving Mindsets For Very Uncertain Times
“Great problem solvers are made, not born.” These leaders learn to adopt a particularly open and curious mindset and adhere to a systematic process for cracking even the most inscrutable problems. Charles Conn and Robert McLean of McKinsey, share six mutually reinforcing approaches, which underly leaders’ success. (McKinsey)
We wish you a great week!
The Product Management Festival Team