Applying the 3 Horizons Framework to Product Management | Michael Rutledge from Michael Rutledge First presented at Product Tank, a division of Mind the Product, February 2019. Product leadership often requires developing the most compelling vision for a given area, balancing execution needs with demands from senior leaders to constantly innovate. To embody this duality, leaders must not stick in the operational weeds with incremental optimizations. Rather, she/he must balance the long term future horizons to ensure opportunities are not left to the side. The 3 horizon framework, origina ..read more

Mentors are all around us when we look through our life and workplace. For me, 2018 was filled with inspiring and varied individuals and leadership styles. Several leaders had a big impact on my personal and professional development in 2018, as I made a transition from consulting on product and engineering strategy and execution with TribalScale in MENA to an internal product role with OLX Group in Europe. It was an incredibly challenging transition, but learnings from these leaders helped me navigate and succeed through the experience. Sheetal (CEO, TribalScale): Lead the team boldly, be unco ..read more

I recently presented at the IT Arena conference, talking about how Product Managers need to become more active in trade off discussions and prioritization of product quality. Below are the slides from that talk. What a Product Manager Needs to Know About Code Quality from Michael Rutledge ..read more

Product Manager interviews are like running the gamut: you need to impress everyone from engineering to design (and sometimes execs too!). As a result, attempting to prep for the wide range of varying questions you might face is daunting. Faced with that challenge, one exercise can be extremely helpful: a product deep dive. Running a product deep dive builds your knowledge and insight around the product and provides a foundation to build on. Each deep dive is a little different, but this five-step framework will give you a solid starting point: Use the product Talk to customers Model the core ..read more

There’s really 3 areas to prep for any Product Manager interview. First, update your resume. You may even want to target the resume for the role you’re going after. For example, in an application to a smaller company PM you may want to highlight your ability to “do it all”, or for larger companies your ability to think strategically. At a minimum, make sure your resume is up to date and give it a read through to make any last tweaks. While resumes have become less important over time, it just takes one typo or mis-statement in a competitive market to hurt your chances. Second, get recent proje ..read more

When to use a Beta Program: A beta can be a great tool for deep & robust customer insight in a variety of situations. But it’s not always necessary. To run an effective beta you need a lot of oversight. You’ll also need good understanding of what types of feedback you’ll bring in and how to action it. Based on the need, there are a few approaches and tools to get the most out of the program. Your team will need to be ready to consume the data and react quickly. Types of beta programs – Fully managed: usually best for new products. Fresh launches to a small tightly monitored user group. Be ..read more

Across the globe, companies are investing in Agile transformations primarily for two reasons — to increase speed, and improve the quality of their technical product delivery. We’ve all been sold “Agile” for over 10 years, told to treat “waterfall” as a curse word to be uttered with disgust in boardrooms. However, migrating from old school methods to new is a process fraught with challenge. It’s painful for those on the ground, as existing working models are discarded, and confusing for leadership to adapt management techniques to support these new teams. Change can lead to feelings of resistan ..read more

Are We Nearly There Yet? If you’ve got kids and have ever been on a long car journey with them, that phrase will probably sound annoyingly familiar. Maybe you even remember saying it yourself when you were younger. How about this phrase: “Is that ticket done yet?” Or this one: “When will your project be finished?” Or this one: “Can you tell me when the next release be shipped?” All these questions boil down to the same thing: “How long will that chunk of software development take?” As product managers it often isn’t our responsibility to provide an answer, but we’re frequently asked the questi ..read more

On the 4th November the Product Manager Club attended JAM 2016 in London. It was pretty awesome! We met a lot of great people and we learned a lot of interesting things and we thought it was only right to share our experience! Yeah but what’s Jam 2016?! So in the words of the founders Mathilde Leo and Sebastian Powell, We often asked ourselves how other companies go about designing and building great products. What goes on behind the scenes? How do product managers, designers and engineers make it all happen? We realised we really wanted to catch a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes of ..read more