6. Prepare your intent. A little preparation goes a long way toward saying what you wanted to say and having a conversation achieve its intended impact. Don’t prepare a speech; develop an understanding of what the focus of a conversation needs to be (in order for people to hear the message) and how you willContinue reading “On Communicating”
Tag Archives: management
Management and Practice
The dog days of summer continue. I’d like to say that this gives me lots of time for careful reflection and reading but that hasn’t been the case. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of good material this week. First, the Wall Street Journal talked to Henry “Managers not MBAs” Mintzberg to find out What Managers ReallyContinue reading “Management and Practice”
Getting a New Team to do Cool Stuff
When I took on my current job I was given an established product team and a mostly-new engineering team. We also had a brand new engineering manager, QA manager, and program manager working with us. Our job was to launch an all-new version of Toolbar while we maintained our existing versions and continued to supportContinue reading “Getting a New Team to do Cool Stuff”
Design by Objective
I’m a big fan of managing by objective. Wherever possible, I believe that PMs, engineers, testers and designers should begin their work by first agreeing to (or at least accepting) a list of user and business objectives that a feature or product should fulfill. This will be useful in framing the many discussions that willContinue reading “Design by Objective”
Rule 2: Don’t be a victim.
As a product manager it is tempting to blame failures on the action – or inaction – of others. This is dangerous because it allows one to avoid responsibility for the commtiments they make. To be a great product manager you have to be a good leader. That means holding yourself accountable. The best definitionContinue reading “Rule 2: Don’t be a victim.”
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