What's this? The War Stories podcast is a collection of stories from people working in various disciplines. Learn who they are, how they got there, and what they learned along the way.
@loganmeetsworld asked a question about incident management and problem solving discipline. Alas, I had too many thoughts for a Twitter thread, so here are my ramblings. In this post I talk about the importance of calm as a natural precursor to being able to problem solve effectively, and how to focus on the problem at hand.
Read MoreIn this post, I'm sharing my tried and tested approach for thinking about DX. I've applied this to API design, documentation design, event management, support processes, content strategies, and more. I've found it to be an effective way to kick off ideation in this space, and a great way to get discussion started.
Read on to see how I use the DX Ideation Toolkit, what's in there, and how you can download it. Please share your feedback and thoughts in the comments!
Read MoreI'm chatting with a couple of people at the moment who are curious about getting into Product Management. They're asking similar questions, and one that we keep circling around is essentially "what do you actually do?"
I wrote this post because it's easy to find lists of the high level responsibilities and skills that people say Product Managers need. It's a lot harder to take those lists and bring them to life for someone at the start of their journey into Product.
This is a list of what I actually did this week, broken out by day. Real tasks, not high level responsibilities.
Read MoreWhether we care to admit it or not, imposter syndrome stalks us all. Sometimes we feel it more or less acutely than others, but it's there and a fact of life. Most commonly in my discussions with other Product Managers I find that we think obsessively about three key themes; we aren't developing ourselves, we aren't sharing enough with the community, and we lack hustle.
I decided to try to put some numbers around this thinking, to help us to understand how we really stack up against our peers. In an anonymous survey, 51 Product Managers shared their habits in several important areas. In this post I share the results.
Read MoreI'm interested in the habits that Product Managers have when it comes to what we do outside of the office. In particular, our reading, writing, and public speaking habits, among other things.
If you're a PM, please fill in and share this very short survey. Results will be published in a post to follow.
Read MoreSo, you have a question that you think can be solved using some qualitative user research. You email a bunch of people, and nobody replies. Tumbleweed.
Here are my tips for avoiding who-the-frack-is-this-person-itis (aka people scratching their head at your email and never responding).
Read MoreBelieve it or not, marketers are a clever bunch. They are possibly the best at putting behavioural economics research to use, and never more so is this on my mind than over Christmas and throughout January. The internet, TV, and stores are awash with marketing messages designed to take advantage of my natural biases. Here are five plays, taking advantage of our cognitive biases, that you’ll see everywhere in January. Beware!
Read MoreYou’ve been told that your career is yours to manage and that opportunities are out there for you to find. You find yourself master of your own destiny, but don’t really know what that means, or how to effect change. This post is for you.
Read MoreRelationship mapping is one of the most powerful techniques I learned in my career. It’s the most effective method I’ve ever come across for making sure that the right people hear my message, and react to it favourably. In this post, learn exactly what it is, why it’s a useful technique for managing your career goals or winning complex deals, and how to do it.
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