TL;DR — Behold! A handful of free & valuable lessons product managers can glean from Twitter’s latest changes to their user experience. Thank goodness for ‘Jeff Bezos and Alexa buying Whole Foods by Accident’ memes. Without them, we might still have to endure the weeping and gnashing of teeth both from, and about the world’s grumpiest social…
Category: Product Management
My thoughts on all things product management I hope add value to your day.
The Convergence of Search & Machine Learning is already here.
TL;DR — In making search results more relevant & in detecting anomalies, ElasticSearch & Solr have baked-in machine learning features. The week before last I made a mistake … … I was attending a not-so hush-hush meetup of 25 Raleigh product managers, where no secret handshakes were exchanged, nor did there occur covert conversations about overthrowing our scrum…
Of course it’s okay to selectively incorporate SAFe® practices
TL;DR — As waterfall survivor I understand concerns over SAFe®. That said, I don’t think it’s necessary to toss the baby with the bathwater. I came up with the term ‘HyperScrumDamentalist’ a few years back in response to an overly-zealous scrum master who was more concerned over the letter of the law than the ‘Heart of Agile.’…
Of course it’s okay to split unfinished Product Backlog Items
TL;DR — The best refined stories of mice and men sometimes go awry. This includes dealing with stories sized with the best of intentions. I’m often intrigued — and sometimes amused — by broad and definitive proclamations made on behalf of the Agile manifesto. The following blog post showing up in my LinkedIn news feed being an example I’d like to…
Sometimes, a feature toggle may not be enough …
TL;DR — For immense apps with an equally girthy user base, you may want to support early adoption via a feature toggle + group rights combo. Let me state up-front and for the record, I am fully aware that feature toggles are primarily a developer tool to ease the pains of merge madness caused by branch extravaganzas….
How I spent a Memorial Day weekend chasing a mobile ghost
TL;DR — How I lost a 3 day weekend but won a stronger team overlooking an atomic feed write delivered to an early MVP served by an eager CDN. It’s been a few years, and a different place of employment, yet I remember the conversation and the events that followed as if it were yesterday … … it…
Software delivery is a lot like Pizza Delivery
TL;DR — How I pulled an F up to a B+ in grad school with only a pizza box, a prayer, and an assertion that customers don’t give a crap about ‘how’ apps are delivered. Let me tell you a story about how I almost failed grad school by failing to communicate how software delivery is a…
6 Product Management Predictions for 2017
With a new year comes our one legitimate chance as product managers to plan waaaaay ahead into the future with our usual level of accuracy, but in behemoth batches, and without all those pesky KPIs to which we’re held accountable. Given this liberty, I offer for your edification and entertainment 6 product management predictions for…
A more Pedestrian Path to User-Centered Product Management
tl;dr: How not to be a stubborn jerk when behaviors reveal user paths you didn’t initially anticipate. User Story As an end-user, I want the software to work for me; not the other way around. Description The internet is replete with images of inefficient park and greenway designs where users have beaten their own, more…
When Cultures — and gym members — Collide.
My almost-daily reminder to consider culture when developing user personas. tl;dr: Neglecting to ‘bake-in’ i18n into our products is a bad idea. Failing to consider cultural practices could cook your goose. h1.User Story As an end-user, I want an application that takes into consideration my culture. h2.Description The W3C offers an easy-to-read and understand explanation…