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2020
All onboard!At Mobilize Dublin’s January meetup, I shared some of the work we’re doing at Intercom to help our customers to give their app users an amazing onboarding experience. I talked about how we explored the problem, decided on a solution, and shared a sneak peak at what we’re building right now. Video Slides
Strategy sounds scary. An hour a day will scare the demons away.Over the last six months, I’ve chatted with a bunch of Product Managers about approaches for building a long term strategy for their products. The theme that came up time and time again was that the whole idea seemed daunting. How could they find the time to do the research and analysis needed to build […]
2019
iPadOS and Catalyst: Blurring the lines between desktop and mobileIn a recent talk, I shared a few thoughts on what Apple’s iPadOS and Catalyst announcements at this year’s WWDC might mean for us. If Apple gets its way, we’re in for an interesting shift in the way that we think about mobile products and how we organise our businesses around them. Apple has been […]
My Apple conspiracy theoryThis week I gave a talk at Mobilize Dublin about Apple’s WWDC 2019 announcements and where I think Apple could be going next with things like iPadOS, Catalyst apps, and Sign In with Apple.
Great teams map dependencies. Amazing teams map ambiguity as well.Great teams know who else they’re dependent on to get something done. Even with highly autonomous teams, dependencies are unavoidable. Great teams make sure dependencies are made visible somehow. I’ve found that this is often not quite enough. “We have a dependency on Team X for Y” is a good start, don’t get me wrong. […]
‘Just get out there and make products’ is bad advice, and here’s whyAre you the kind of person who has significant financial means, or who enjoys working long hours to the detriment of your family, physical health, mental health, or social life? If so, this post, “Want to be a Product Manager? Just get out There and Make Products”, on the Mind The Product blog is for […]
Thoughts on switching goals from financial reward to social goodI read “Facebook throws out traditional performance bonuses, will instead reward employees for social good” with interest. Facebook’s comment that “[..] in a nutshell: Facebook’s moving from a focus on growth, to a focus on change” really got me thinking about how the systems, processes, tools, and culture of an organisation have such a heavy […]
2018
Calm and focus in a crisis@loganmeetsworld asked this on Twitter, and @karminker prodded me to share my thoughts. Alas, I had too many for tweets, so here are my ramblings. I’m coming at this with a few things in mind: To have focus, you must have calm.The kind of focus you need will be different before, during, and after an […]
Developer experience ideation toolkitDeveloper Experience (DX) encompasses many things. If you have a developer focussed product, like an API or SDK, it’s the experience from when a developer first hears about it, through to using it, and eventually choosing not to use it any more. Throughout that journey there’s a multitude of things to think about. How should […]
A week in the life (aka ‘What does a Product Manager do?’)I’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?” It’s hard to convey the breadth of work that you cover as a Product Manager. Many have added their […]
You don’t suck. You just think you do.Whether 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 […]
2016
Hey sucker! Five cognitive biases you’ll see being abused everywhere in JanuaryBelieve 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 […]
Get your message across every time with relationship mappingRelationship 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 […]
Feature fixation – Tweetbot and regexFor some strange reason, I’ve thought a lot about regular expressions lately. I’ve even played a game (or two). As a result, my feature fixation for this post is Tweetbot 4 for iOS and its regular expression mute filters. It’s reasonable to say that regex would be an advanced feature of any consumer product like […]
2014
Analysis foundations for process improvementProcess improvement is all about getting from where we are now (As Is) to something better (To Be). It’s about finding out the things we can do better, and then actually doing them better. One very easy way of making that happen is simply to have your ears to the ground and listen out for […]