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Mind the Product

Product Management

Sunday Rewind: Whose job is it anyway? The rise of Product Ops and why it deserves to be an independent function

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🌎 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/world-product-day/" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Happy World Product Day!</a> Be sure to celebrate product, yourself, and your peers today! 🎉

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I've been in the digital industry for over 10 years and have worked across small and large charities, as well as my own freelance projects. I am now Director of Digital at the sector leading creative agency William Joseph. 

Having been at Cancer Research UK for the last four years, I have been able to work on high volume, high profile campaigns such as Race for Life, Dryathlon and the much-quoted #nomakeupselfie. 

In that time I helped drive forward the charity’s digital product and marketing capabilities to be some of the most respected and successful in the sector. 

I'm always excited to work with other organisations, share expertise and swap cat gifs. Give me a shout!

Director of Digital

James Gadsby Peet

The word &#8220;build&#8221; originally comes from using atoms to construct things. In 1884, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier were innovators who were looking to build the world’s largest structure out of rarely used materials &#8211; steel &amp; iron &#8211; for their employer Mr Eiffel.
The grander your idea, the greater the risk that whoever you are pitching to needs to take on. That’s why smart people always relate their idea, no matter how big, back to something that already exists.
Maurice and Emile did this on their original designs for the tower, by including existing buildings to compare it to. After an initial rejection by Eiffel, the two of them employed a designer to add some majesty to the project and it was signed off.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12309" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x683.jpg" alt="Creativity by Scott Berkun at #mtpcon" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h2>1. All ideas are made of other ideas</h2>
As such, you should keep looking at those ideas that have already been made into reality, and build on top of them. It isn’t coincidence that &#8217;email&#8217; has &#8216;mail&#8217; in it, and that there’s an envelope icon when a new message arrives.
Eiffel certainly didn’t invent the arch; it’s a shape that’s been used for hundreds of years. But he did completely re-imagine it through the use of wrought iron, which allowed it to be transparent. This represented a completely new end result, building on ideas that already existed.
At the same time, everything that you want to make is intended to solve a problem. These problems are not new, either &#8211; even if the end product might be. Look into how your customer&#8217;s problems have been solved in the past to find new ideas for solving them now.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12308" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x684.jpg" alt="Scott Berkun at #mtpcon" width="1024" height="684" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-768x513.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h2>2. Great ideas often look weird (to begin with)</h2>
Even Eiffel faced tremendous backlash during the build of the tower. 300 artists, noblemen and architects actually got together and wrote a letter to try and get him to stop. It’s hardly surprising, given a beautiful stone and brick city with wide promenades, and how the tower must have looked during its construction.
Even for him, and for every great piece of work in history, it began as an experiment that looked weird to most people.
In real life, you have to make sure that you investigate the ‘weird’ ideas every now and again, to make sure you’re not missing out on the paradigm shift in your midst.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12310" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-is-Unavoidable-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x684.jpg" alt="Creativity is Unavoidable by Scott Berkun at #mtpcon" width="1024" height="684" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-is-Unavoidable-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-is-Unavoidable-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-is-Unavoidable-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon-768x513.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Creativity-is-Unavoidable-by-Scott-Berkun-at-mtpcon.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h2>3. Our minds are naturally creative</h2>
Create is a verb &#8211; it&#8217;s something that you do. It’s not a state of mind or something that just happens. However, you can improve your own creativity by improving your own mental state and self awareness, working towards an environment that is conducive to creativity.
We are the smartest species in the world &#8211; we can create, experiment and innovate like nothing else. Our creativity is sparked by problems that need to be solved. This happens throughout the whole of our life, but is not seen as something everyone can do at work. This is down to the environment which is set in your team, and it’s down to leaders to create the safe space where creativity can happen.
When anyone is suitably motivated by a tough problem, creativity is unavoidable.

core/freeform

What good product design looks like – Miguel Fernandez (VP of Product Design, Slack)