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TBM 203: Fixing Messy Problems

TBM 203: Fixing Messy Problems

Over the years, I have observed many instances of this situation: There is a general agreement about what great looks like. There is disagreement about the “root cause” or “problem definition.”…

Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo)

Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo)

Christine Itwaru is a longtime product operations leader at Pendo and more recently has taken on the larger role of Principal Strategist there. Before leading product ops, Christine spent 12 years in product management. In this episode, we delve into the rapidly growing field of product ops and discover how Christine is part of shaping the role industry-wide. She helps us define the role of product operations, what kind of person would be a good fit for the product ops role, when your company would benefit from product ops, and what red flags to look for if you decide to go down this path. 

When to invest in optimizing user onboarding and activation

When to invest in optimizing user onboarding and activation

For many product managers, improving activation is synonymous with optimizing the onboarding process. They identify key steps on the value journey of new clients, calculate user dropout rates, create hypotheses for making improvements, and start testing these hypotheses experimentally. These changes will probably be targeted and small: tweaks to form logic, rewrites of notifications and emails, mobile-friendly design, and so […]

Forget Scrum Masters. Focus on Outcomes.

Forget Scrum Masters. Focus on Outcomes.

The year was 1995, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction wasn’t the only chaotic thing shaking up the world. Javascript had just hit the scene and everyone in the software development industry was frantically trying to build things as quickly as possible, mostly leaving process to happenstance. At best, any attempt to build faster was ineffective. At worst, it was counterproductive.

Product Portfolio Management

Product Portfolio Management

Why do some companies decide to have more than one product? How do they manage this product portfolio? Why do other companies prefer to focus on a single product? Focus or diversification, which is the most appropriate strategy? How to organize the product development team according to the chosen strategy?

Why objective vs. perceived product value matters for activation

Why objective vs. perceived product value matters for activation

In our previous articles, we showed how people change the way they get a job done after finding a new product whose benefits outweigh the cost of switching. But it’s not enough just to make a product that does the job significantly better. People make decisions based not on a product’s objective value, but its subjective perceived value—how that particular […]

Behind the scenes of Calendly’s rapid growth | Annie Pearl (CPO)

Behind the scenes of Calendly’s rapid growth | Annie Pearl (CPO)

Annie Pearl is the Chief Product Officer at Calendly. Previously, she was Chief Product Officer at Glassdoor, as well as Director of Product Management at Box. She was named one of the most influential women in Bay Area business by the San Francisco Business Times. In today’s episode, Annie shares three paths into product management and advice on how to get your foot in the door.

TBM 8/52: Top 1% Product Managers

TBM 8/52: Top 1% Product Managers

Why is product management so obsessed with tropes and bromides like “Top 1% Product Managers” and “Good Product Managers _____ Great Product Managers______”? Is it something unique about the profession?

How to build the wrong things

How to build the wrong things

If you want to build the wrong things, there’s an easy way to do it:  Don’t talk to your customers.  As product managers, we can get wrapped up in the excitement of designing a solution without the partnership of our customer base. But this ultimately wastes time and resources, and leads teams to build software…

3 tips for improving feature adoption at scale

3 tips for improving feature adoption at scale

You’ve done your market research. Surveyed your community. Figured out exactly what problem is plaguing your users. Worked with your development team to build a killer new offering (then QA’ed the heck out of it). And, finally, released your shiny new feature into production. The only problem is… no one is using it.

Testing user activation fit for diverse use cases

Testing user activation fit for diverse use cases

We previously have discussed how to design activation mechanisms for a particular use case. This approach involves working backwards, starting with product value and culminating with acquisition channels and landing pages. But what about situations when a product has product/market fit for several different use cases? Users will come to the product with different jobs they want to get done. Depending…

TBM 200: Product Team / Enabling Team Collaboration

Introducing the new TBM numbering scheme! This is my 200th TBM post since January 2020, so it is as good a time as any to redo the numbering scheme. How can product teams work more effectively with enabling teams like education (external and internal), documentation (external and internal), support, content and communications, product marketing and customer marketing, internal tools, legal, etc.?