Product Thinking

We have to understand the problems we’re solving, our users, and our business. If we don’t, we’ll create products that fail. Those products may be small feature sets, or they may be bet-the-company initiatives like Twitter Blue. Either way, we can all learn some lessons from these failures.

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Weekly newsletter: Product Failures From Twitter and Others: Learning From Past Mistakes
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Like we love to say, a roadmap is not the project plan. It won’t include all the technical details for the next year. Nor should it. There is a time and place for those, but it is not the roadmap. Just like there is a time and place for nuts, but it is not in chocolate chip cookies.

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Weekly newsletter: Ingredients of a Roadmap: Like Cookies, You Need Some Key Elements
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The Innovator’s Handbook provides a range of practical tools, strategies, and insights for anyone involved in the innovation process. It’s a fun read, and a well-designed book (it looks like a post-it note pad, so I love it). It’s a good one to add to our growing list of books about innovation.

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Weekly newsletter: The Innovator's Handbook: Book Review
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Another month, another host of great articles, listens, books and other finds from Product Thinking and around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed.

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Weekly newsletter: Skepticism, Martian Westerns, and Better Call Saul: Monthly Wrap from April
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Healthy skepticism is an important ingredient to work and life. It keeps us from being manipulated or from making the wrong decision—whether that’s taking a job that seems too good to be true or building a product feature simply because the CEO is passionate about it. It is the first step to truth, which should be our main goal. It’s not about doubting everything, but about being humble enough to question assumptions until we can identify the truth. And then being willing to adjust as we get more information.

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Weekly newsletter: A Healthy Dose of Skepticism: Finding the Signal in the Noise
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Product managers and engineers often come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives. We need this for great product development. But it can lead to misunderstandings. Different groups value different things. But we can work together to create the right outcomes. It starts with understanding each other better, respecting the way we work and what we each bring to the group, and building on our shared goals. 

By focusing on clear expectations, a shared understanding, an iterative feedback process, and building trust, product managers and engineers can foster a strong working relationship that drives successful product development and delivery.

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Weekly newsletter: Product Management and Engineering: How to Effectively Communicate and Work Together
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The world is awash in bullshit. Mostly the figurative kind. Which is why it is critical we’re able to discern between fact and bullshit, especially as the bullshit becomes increasing dressed in data.

Which is why this month we’re reviewing the book Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West. This is a book that aims to equip us with the tools to critically evaluate data-driven claims and arguments that we encounter in various aspects of our lives. From our work to the news to the posts we see on social media. 

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Weekly newsletter: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World - Book Review
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Another month, another host of great articles, listens, books and other finds from Product Thinking and around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed.

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Weekly newsletter: Decision Demons, TikTok, and Emoji Watches: March Monthly Wrap
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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TikTok is an incredible platform for anyone to reach an audience, find their voice, and join a community. There isn’t anything else like it. Banning apps out of fear or lack of understanding is dystopian-level sci-fi. I like to think we’re better than that, but I’m not so sure. Which is why we probably can’t have nice things…

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Weekly newsletter: Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Curiosity, TikTok, and Free Speech
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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Hopefully SVB will hold its spot as the second-largest bank failure for a long time. We don’t need bigger ones any time soon. But for those of us not running banks or working as founders or in finance, there are still some good things to learn. We can take courage knowing that no one really knows that much. We also need to diversify in most areas of our businesses and our lives. And watch out for the unintended consequences.

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Weekly newsletter: 3 Lessons from Silicon Valley Bank: What The Rest of Us Can Learn from the Failure of SVB
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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