A good product is one that makes your users feel some emotion(s). Empathy in product management is to understand those emotions. Good products are those that take you on an emotional journey — whether it is the rollercoaster of emotion experienced through seeing your friends’ photos (Instagram, Facebook, etc) or…

Crafting user stories is an art. And like any art, the more you do, the better you’ll get at it. Writing stories in a silo without feedback, from peers, seniors, and the development team alike would be pointless. A circlejerk of one. Like many art forms, you develop your styles…

Two different approaching design work within your development flow. — A few days ago, a product manager asked me how I fit the design workflow within a sprint. Notably, how exactly I manage the sporadic outputs from the design team within the constraints of Scrum. The Problem Their problem, they said, was that design stories were unpredictable and could not be properly…

It’s not dying… in fact, it’s just getting started. There are some challenges though… — The algorithm on Medium is weird. I ventured to read one article on the death of product management, and now I’m inundated with articles that carry garbage claims that the PM function is dead. …

Re-imagining popular delivery methodologies in terms of edges on a triangle — Let’s cut to the chase — there are too many frameworks out there for delivering products. If you’re lucky, you get to participate in a couple. If you’re unlucky, you get to work with SAFe (yuck!) Regardless, it helps to understand the trade-offs each method is proposing. The Delivery Triangle I’ve chosen three…

A deep dive into the reasons why the PM function is unintentionally set up for failure by businesses and how they can avoid it. — Many product managers I speak to have similar complaints about support from business. While most of those voices hail from corporate PM functions, there are a few from the startup world too. …

The What, Why and How of ensuring you’re not surrounded by idiots — Note: This is a long one. You can skip to the bottom and read the tl;dr. Do you think that the other team/dept is full of idiots? Do you feel that management of a particular issue was ruled by a clear attempt to demonstrate the levels of stupidity humanity can…

A look at the conditions that enable successful agile organizations and the reasons why it fails — Recently, I was discussing why SAFe (which is not Agile) feels safe for corporate organization. As of 2021, SAFe growth has increased steadily: And, make no mistake — I am a firm decrier of SAFe — it is possible to see reason why SAFe is comfortable for larger organizations: it…

Two new maturity models designed to guide you to decide if your organization is ready for product management. — Overlooking the obvious — if you have to ask, then you probably need it — there are conditions where you don’t really need a product management function. Similarly, there are conditions wherein you really need a PM function. In this article, I’ll introduce two maturity models, that are being evaluated…