Finding Empathy
It took me a while to gain confidence in what I was doing when I started as a Product Manager. Hell, some days I still suffer from Imposter Syndrome, but I’ve found a little bit of a secret weapon to keep in my arsenal when I feel that I’m starting to lose my way – Finding Empathy with the Product and the Customer.
Product Management as an Introvert
I’m a classic Introvert, and I’m a Product Manager. When I first started this blog, I was tempted to call it The Introverted Product Manager. Any extroversion that you have seen from me really is just manufactured for the masses, and by the end of a heavy day of pretending to be an Extrovert, it really takes its toll. I’ve always thought of it more as putting on one of those dollar-store white masks that heist movies have made popular. Sometimes it can be stifling if you wear it too long.
What does Product Success Look Like?
For the last month, I’ve moved completely out of my comfort zone, taking a job in a totally different industry. I’m still in a (nascent) Product group, but it’s not in media for the first time in my career. I’ve been more than a little lost when it comes to defining product needs and also the Big Kahuna, Product Success.
Turning Off the Developer Brain
The hardest thing sometimes is not looking at a product that’s being put together as a Developer.
Fighting for your Product
Everyone is overworked these days, especially when your product is part of a larger entity that has multiple versions of yourself all vying to be the top of the priority list. How do you compete and fight for your Product’s success?
What Do You Do?
Product Manager. Product Management. What are these roles and responsibilities?
Developers: Documentation is Your Friend
Most developers that I’ve worked with over the years will either cringe or scoff at writing their own documentation. The most that you’ll get from a select few will be a few lines of comments within their code that they’ll refer to as documentation. If you’re planning on making a move or not to the […]
Working Through The Fraud Police
Back in 2011, Amanda Palmer gave a Commencement Speech to the graduating class of the New England School of the Arts that resonated with me more than I really would have liked to have admitted. Prefer the transcript? Head over to her forum post. i am going to tell you today about something that my […]
The 20-Minute Rule
When I first started at my current company, my technical manager said something that I carried with me through my entire development career. “If you make no progress on a task after twenty minutes of work, find someone to help you.” That simple phrase carried me through multiple league-level redesigns & more tentpole events than […]
The Move
The phone rang and I knew that this would be the offer. After 14 years as a front-end developer, I was going to be moving into the true business side as a Product Manager for a large-scale site. No, I wouldn’t be the only one, and the person that I was going to be backfill […]