Observations on Product Management

Dan Hill Dec 30, 2017 · 3 min read

I’ve spent 10 years now building products — from consulting, to startups, to larger teams like Airbnb. I wanted to capture some of the things I’ve learned, mostly for my own memory. But if others find them useful, great!

Mostly these are things that are either obvious but no-one ever says them, or non-obvious but important.

Establish Clear Priorities Using ‘Even Over’ Statements – Tool

Make priorities matter again

You become what you focus on.

Confusing priorities drive confusing results.

Prioritization requires clarity but, most importantly, sacrifice. Saying yes to what’s important is easy. What you say ‘no’ to defines your success.

An ‘even over’ statement is a declaration of priority. You are saying you will prioritize one good thing even over another good thing.

Use this tool to establish clear team priorities. Your team will become what they focus on.

Essentialism — The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Johan Steenkamp Feb 10, 2018 · 4 min read

Notes from the book, Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

The problem is that we have too many choices, too much social pressure, and believe we can “have it all”.

If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.

Our lives get cluttered with well-intended commitments and activities that do not have an expiry date, consequently we need a system to clean up.

Commencement Address, American University in Beirut

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Aug 14, 2016 · 8 min read

This is the first commencement I have ever attended (I did not attend my own graduation). Further, I have to figure out how lecture you on success when I do not feel successful yet –and it is not false modesty.

Success as a Fragile Construction

For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.

Pitching Ideas – It’s Not About Perfect

I realized a long time ago that I was not the type of person who could create, build & polish ideas all by myself. I need collaboration with others to hone and build ideas. More than not, I’m not the one who starts the idea. I pick up something from someone else – bend it, twist it, and turn it into something different.

Lean into your imposter syndrome

I was recently asked an interesting question:

“Now that you’re responsible for a broader scope of work and a team, how do

you get over the fact that you always feel like you’re doing a bad job?”

And after thinking about it, I answered truthfully:

“To be honest, I don’t really feel like I’m doing a bad job at all. I used to

feel that way a lot, especially earlier in my career when I was more affected

(more…)

Recharging is for batteries, not people – The Art of Ass-Kicking

Last year, journalist Anne Helen Petersen wrote a widely shared piece in Buzzfeed naming millennials the “Burnout Generation”. According to Petersen, we’re overworked, underpaid, and often paralyzed by the systemic dysfunction of our increasingly volatile world. As a result, many of us struggle with even the most basic tasks of “adulting,” like paying bills or registering to vote.

One year later, things seem worse than ever. Wages have continued to stall, the U.S. is on the brink of war with Iran, and raging wildfires have killed more than a billion animals in Australia. Fifty-seven percent of tech workers are currently experiencing burnout, according to a survey conducted by Blind of 11,500 workers.

Normalization of Deviance

Normalization of deviance

Have you ever mentioned something that seems totally normal to you only to be greeted by surprise? Happens to me all the time when I describe something everyone at work thinks is normal. For some reason, my conversation partner’s face morphs from pleasant smile to rictus of horror. Here are a few representative examples.

There’s the company that is perhaps the nicest place I’ve ever worked, combining the best parts of Valve and Netflix. The people are amazing and you’re given near total freedom to do whatever you want. But as a side effect of the culture, they lose perhaps half of new hires in the first year, some voluntarily and some involuntarily. Totally normal, right?

How to Build a PaaS for 1500 Engineers

*This article is based on a presentation I gave as part of

AdevintaTalks in Barcelona on November 2019.

I’m experimenting with this format: I went through the slides typing what

I’d speak over them, edited the text, and added some of the most

relevant slides inbetween paragraphs.

Let me know how it works.*

Discussion in Hacker News

–

Today’s topic is about Technical Infrastructure, a term I found first in

Radical Candor: Software Edition

Rina Artstain Follow

Jan 6 · 19 min read

I was lucky to be in Dropbox’s headquarters when Kim Scott came to speak about her (then) new book “Radical Candor”. Dropbox was nice enough to hand out free copies (yay! free books!) so I actually ended up reading most of the book on the flight home.

Even though the book was written with managers in mind, I found myself referring back to it pretty often. Its insights proved quite useful in my daily work as a software engineer, especially in processes which require written or in person interaction with our co-workers. A little bit of Radical Candor can totally change how we do and react to code or design reviews, driving better results and higher satisfaction.

Habits vs. Goals: A Look at the Benefits of a Systematic Approach to Life

Nothing will change your future trajectory like your habits. We all have goals, big or small, things we want to achieve within a certain time frame. Some people want to make a million dollars by the time they turn 30. Some people want to lose 20 pounds before summer. Some people want to write a book in the next six months. When we begin to chase an intangible or vague concept (success, wealth, health, happiness), making a tangible goal is often the first step.

CrossFit’s Founder Has an Easy Health Care Fix: More CrossFit

It’s a hot August morning in Madison, Wisconsin, and Greg Glassman is sipping iced tea in an air-conditioned, glass-walled room perched above a preternaturally green field. Below, two dozen ripped athletes are hanging by their feet from bars, performing upside-down sit-ups in sync while Kendrick Lamar’s “Loyalty” blasts from the speakers. The sun-warmed bleachers are a blur of taut and bulging skin, fans already drinking beer and getting rowdy above signs that declare this event the “Ultimate Proving Grounds for the Fittest on Earth.” It’s the 2019 CrossFit Games, the annual competitionthat brings together athletes from around the world to prove themselves worthy of this title. Here, the high-intensity workout regimen happening in nondescript gyms across the globe becomes a sport. And for the millions of CrossFit enthusiasts, it’s a big deal.

Pursuing the Perfect Project Manager – Tom Peters

Pursuing the Perfect Project Manager – Tom Peters

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Pursuing the Perfect Project Manager

Tom Peters

One theme has poked its head through the lines of these columns time and again—tomorrow’s corporation as a “collection of projects.” I’ve also discussed “networking” beyond the firm’s borders: Companies will work as equals, on new products, delivery systems and the like, with a shifting cast of vendors, middlemen, and customers.

Reclaim unreasonable software.

Big Ball of Mud was published twenty years ago and rings just as true today: the most prominent architecture in successful, growth-stage companies is non-architecture. Crisp patterns are slowly overgrown by the chaotic tendrils of quick fixes, and productivity creeps towards zero.

After a couple years wallowing at zero, many companies turn towards The Grand Migration pattern and rewrite their software. These rewrites are quite challenging and often fall.

On Drafting an Engineering Strategy

During the first weeks in a new role, one of the things I’ve most recently focused on is to assess the direction of the engineering department as a whole. Will Larson has written at length about the first ninety days in a senior engineering leadership role. He also mentions documenting the existing strategy as one of the key milestones to take care of.

At the time I started there was no explicit strategy in place. Which is also not an unusual thing for a young company, just to be clear. So I set out to draft one.

The Rise of the Outrage Machine — The Creative Factor

Hello, Amanda writing from a rainy San Francisco this week. After attending an art show recently, my husband and I found ourselves standing outside the venue chatting with groups of other attendees. Although strangers, the discussions between all of us were easygoing and lively, spurred by a feeling of familiarity through our shared experience. It was fleeting – after a while the groups broke apart, phones were fired up, and we all retreated back into our technology and out into the night.

Your first 90 days as CTO or VP Engineering.

Whenever I transition to a new opportunity, I think about how to start well. How can I ramp up as effectively as possible? How do I balance the urge to “show value” early with making the right decisions?

The canonical book on starting a new role is The First 90 Days, and I got a fair amount out of it when I read it six or seven years ago. That said, its advice skews generic at times. Yes, I should learn as much as possible. Yes, I should achieve alignment and negotiate for resources. Yes, I should build a team and partner with other organizations. In my first leadership role, these ideas reshaped my perspective, but these days I want more.

Sending weekly 5-15 updates.

The trendy thing to do on the internet is to start publishing a newsletter.

Trendy enough that even I started sending out my blog posts each week in email format.

I’ve consistently noticed that emails generate far more discussion than other distribution

methods, which really shouldn’t have surprised me: I’ve been sending company-internal updates for some time

and they’ve frequently created important, spontaneous conversations.

About a year ago I started my most recent approach to sending weekly updates to relevant public (within the company)

Exerting Influence Without Authority

Congratulations—you’ve been asked to lead a change initiative! But there’s a catch—its success hinges on the cooperation of several people across your organization over whom you have no formal authority.

If you’re like most managers, you’re facing this sort of challenge more often these days because of flatter management structures, outsourcing, and virtual teams. For those reasons, a greater number of managers now need to get things done through peers inside and outside their organizations. In this age of heightened business complexity, moreover, change itself has grown increasingly complicated. A majority of change initiatives now involve multiple functions within and even between companies, and many such efforts encompass an entire firm.

The “Care” in “Self Care”

Credit: Pixabay / Alexas_Fotos

On my weekly todo list, there is an item “do something nice for a friend”. Last week, I assembled a care package. I asked myself, “what does a useless man need but won’t buy for himself?” – the answer, incidentally, was an exceptionally fluffy blanket, some really nice chocolate, vitamins, and assorted skincare.

As I impatiently waited for it to be delivered, I thought about care, how easy it is for me to do things like that, and the journey I’ve been on to have that care for myself. That perhaps the clearest outcome of the year I spent in therapy (I finished at the start of December, a move that felt both completely right and completely time and absolutely terrifying), is the shift in my attitude and approach and how I relate to the idea of “self care”.

40 Lessons From 40 Years

Steve Schlafman Oct 6, 2019 · 4 min read

I turn forty today. I can’t even believe I just typed that sentence. Over the past month, I’ve been reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned directly through experience or indirectly from family, friends, mentors and teachers.

I wanted capture and share these learnings for one important reason: I’m now a father to a beautiful baby girl and I’m not going to be here forever. Preserving myself digitally is becoming more important as I enter middle age.

The new drugs of 2019

The 48 medicines represent another highly productive year for the pharmaceutical industry, with cancer and rare-disease drugs again dominating the list

by

January 17, 2020

| APPEARED IN

VOLUME 98, ISSUE 3

Credit: Will Ludwig/C&EN/iStock Photo

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Most Popular in Pharmaceuticals

• The new drugs of 2019
• EQRx launches to develop me-too drugs at a steep discount
• The new drugs of 2018
• It was back to earth for new drug approvals in 2019
• C&EN’s Year in Pharma 2019
• n-Lorem Foundation launches to develop individualized therapies for ultra-rare diseases

Although pharmaceutical companies last year were unable to top the record-shattering 59 new drugs approved in the US in 2018, they were still on a roll. In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration green-lighted 48 medicines, a crop that includes myriad modalities and many new treatments for long-neglected diseases.

Effective Mental Models for Code and Systems

Cindy Sridharan Dec 30, 2018 · 16 min read

As always, I’m greatly indebted to Fred Hebert for reviewing a draft of this post and offering some invaluable insights.

A little over a month ago, Carmen Andoh gave a talk at a meetup in Copenhagen about visualizations, though it really was a talk on mental models. In her talk, Carmen described a mental model as:

The Lesson to Unlearn

December 2019

The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn’t something you

learned in any specific class. It was learning to get good grades.

When I was in college, a particularly earnest philosophy grad student

once told me that he never cared what grade he got in a class, only

what he learned in it. This stuck in my mind because it was the

only time I ever heard anyone say such a thing.

Defining Aggregators

(Note: this is not a typical Stratechery article; there is no over-arching narrative or reference to current news. Rather, the primary goal is to provide a future point of reference)

Aggregation Theory describes how platforms (i.e. aggregators) come to dominate the industries in which they compete in a systematic and predictable way. Aggregation Theory should serve as a guidebook for aspiring platform companies, a warning for industries predicated on controlling distribution, and a primer for regulators addressing the inevitable antitrust concerns that are the endgame of Aggregation Theory.

2019 in Review

1w agoJanuary 2, 2020 (1w ago)28,526 views

This post is a quick summary of the evolution of our company, our open-source work, interesting news and lessons in product design and engineering throughout 2019.

#Static is the new Dynamic

Throughout 2019 we have continued to see the growth of the JAMstack. The idea is quite simple: Any website or app you build and deploy will use the stack of client-side JavaScript, APIs, and Markup.

AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source

In 1999, music industry revenue in the United States peaked at $14.6 billion (all numbers are from the RIAA). It is important to be precise, though, about what was being sold:

• $12.8 billion was from the sale of CDs
• $1.1 billion was from the sale of cassettes
• $378 million was from the sale of music videos on physical media
• $222.4 million was from the sale of CD singles

In short, the music industry was primarily selling plastic discs in jewel cases; the music encoded on those discs was a means of differentiating those pieces of plastic from other ones, but music itself was not being sold.

Quality and Effort

It seems as though the opposite of “careless” ought to be “careful.” That the best way to avoid avoidable errors is to try harder, to put more care into the work.

This means that if surgeons were more careful, there would be fewer errors. And that so many of the mistakes that mess things up would go away if people just tried harder.

And this is true. For a while. But then, it’s not effort but systems that matter.

Bill Gates Says You Must Provide This Perk if You Want to Hire and Keep the Best Employees

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at its lowest level in more than four decades. In response, companies have been in a veritable arms race to offer bigger and better perks and win over employees, from the cliché office ping pong table to quirky Google Nap Pods.

According to Bill Gates, these efforts and many others miss the mark while the most important perk is hiding in plain sight: flexibility.

Google Spent 2 Years Researching What Makes a Great Remote Team. It Came Up With These 3 Things

As someone who’s worked remotely for several years, I know the challenges of a virtual workplace. Building relationships with colleagues I’ve never actually met (in person), working across various time zones, technology that doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to– handled wrong, any of these can sabotage your team’s chances at success.

Google knows this, too. The company has nearly 100,000 workers spread over 150 cities. In more than 50 countries. On five continents.