Product Management
Interesting take from Marty Cagan on the topic of Product: Art or Science:
There can be real art and beauty in the engineering, real art and beauty in the design, and real art and beauty in the solutions we build, and this beauty can contribute to the value and desirability of our products.
I’ve always considered product management to be ~ 70% science and ~ 30% art, and over the years that’s been a somewhat controversial opinion. It’s cool to see Cagan acknowledge this important blend of perspectives.
I’m lucky to work on a product team that builds solutions in close partnership with our users. David Allison (engineering lead on our team) describes our process on the REI Engineering blog. This approach creates such a high signal to noise ratio, and it shows in the work we are able to deliver.
As other retailers divest from curbside order fulfillment, Target continues to go all-in by deepening its ties into mobile ecosystems like Apple CarPlay:
Once connected to CarPlay, the Target app will automatically display the Target store where the purchase was made on the car display. Then, shoppers can view order details, get directions to the store via Apple Maps, and notify the store once they have arrived in their Drive Up parking space.
Target is the only place I do drive-up orders anymore, due in large part to how easy their retail technology makes the experience. Kudos.
If You Love It, Set It Free
It’s release day for my team at REI. We’ve been working tirelessly for the past few months to build a tool that makes pricing product in our stores easier and less painful for employees. Our goal is to replace an archaic, manual & paper-based workflow with a modern, scalable, digitally-supported tool and standard operating process (SOP) that streamlines sales floor operations across the Co-op.
This morning, we deployed the tool to our first group of pilot stores. Exciting! As a data-driven product manager, these days are like Christmas morning. It’s like I woke up to some new datasets under the tree and I can’t wait to unwrap them to see what insights might be inside.
Every now and then I catch myself lamenting that I don’t work on products with millions of users or billions in revenue. But then I catch myself on days like this when I can see the thing we’ve built in the hands of REI’s amazing employees. I can see them using it and the positive impact it makes in their daily lives. I can hear the pain points surfaced in our feedback channels rapidly fade off into the distance. I can watch the thing we’ve built make our stores a better place to work for more than 10,000 people who wear the REI green vest with pride.
I think that kind of direct, measurable impact is something special.
The next few weeks will likely be hectic as the team analyzes and responds to usage data, fields feedback from employees, and optimizes for rollout to all 190 locations. When we get to that point, I’ll circle back with some insights.
Dang, the Bluesky product teams have been crushing it. They just dropped some very good anti-toxicity features like detaching quote posts, hiding replies, improved user controls for notifications & blocking lists.
Implications and Insights of the Modern Product Leader
I’ve been a subscriber to Implications, a monthly Substack newsletter written by Scott Belsky, for some time now. The issues I’ve read so far have been quite enjoyable, as Belsky provides deep analysis that explores what we might expect to come from rapid advancements in technology, shifts in culture, and the evolution of product design & management.
The latest installment includes a section called Insights from the Modern Product Leader and there are some great thought nuggets for product managers to consider as we work on our individual practices.
On the topic of resources versus resourcefulness, and the nuances that exist between them, Belsky writes:
I like to say, if resources are carbs that you can throw at your problems, resourcefulness is muscle that has far longer lasting power and is worth building (despite the pain of doing so).
This is great context for approaching resourcefulness with a growth mindset. It’s something the triad of my product team works on consciously and regularly. Building that muscle is important to ensure our resiliency through ongoing organizational change.
And on product vision, he proposes a thoughtful triad of considerations:
Clarity In Product Strategy: Does every product have a flag planted and a roadmap for how to get there? We should always have a 3-year vision coupled with an annual plan, and your teams should be aligned around what this is throughout your organizations.
Great product teams have a clear strategy and are able to articulate the path to achieve it. Great organizations position product teams to ladder their product strategies up to a broader set of strategic objectives for the company._
Steward The Narrative for Your Segment or Function: The narrative of why your work matters and how your strategy impacts customers is yours to write, share, and iterate.
The internal PR for a product is often overlooked by teams because they are largely, and rightly, focused on executing the work. Telling the story of the work – the impact it will create, the benefits it will provide and the process used to deliver – is an important piece to a product team’s success, and can lend weight to the resiliency efforts outlined above.
Optimistic About Future, Pessimistic About Present: Do you lead with a balance of excitement and vision for the future of a segment/function — and willingness to take big bets — coupled with a pragmatic focus on obstacles and tasks to be done? Are you direct with what is going right and what is going wrong?
This is great. Balance is vital. Great product leaders are simultaneously able to understand long-term goals, but are also realists about current state. They can see either the stepping stones of incrementality and/or the seismic shifts they need to force in order to get to the objectives, and they have the wisdom, empathy, and creativity to understand when to employ each.
One of the greatest rewards we get as product managers is seeing the thing we’ve built create joy in the lives of those who use the product. I don’t consider myself in the operational efficiency business; I’m in the delight creation business.