Top product management reads in August

From an updated view on product requirements to the realities of continuous discovery, here’s a look at the most-read posts on Mind the Product in August.

In this post Aakash Gupta outlines the template hell that many product people go through when putting together a product requirements document (PRD). There are four factors at play here, he says: PRD templates have become too long, the PRD has to do too much for too many people, the entire burden falls on the product manager rather than a team, and product managers are too time poor to pull together everything the document needs.

His answer is to organise multi-stage PRDs, or a series of checklists, and he runs through five suggested stages of these checklists. These are:

Aakash then runs through how checklists have worked for him. He says: “When we implemented this on my teams, the feedback was immediately positive: from both PMs and their cross-functional partners.”

Ditch the PRD template and embrace the PRD checklist

In this article, Nikita Kirane, a Senior Analyst at Lowe's, explains why we should focus on developing data-oriented products and how to do so effectively.

She runs through her top five ways to implement a cohesive data-product-analytics approach, namely:

Bridging the gap between data, product, and analytics

This post from Marta Rolak, Product Director at Springer Nature, looks at how to combat the "us versus them" mentality in the workplace and foster collaboration and a positive company culture.

Marta says that “us versus them” is a mindset and a range of behaviours that may result from a strong sense of belonging to a group that’s in some way opposed to another. She explains that product managers occupy a unique position within companies, often at the intersection of teams and departments, and are often in situations that can lead to tension, interpersonal conflict, and unhealthy competition, which in turn can trigger the "us versus them" mindset. It can lead to reduced collaboration and productivity, biased decision making, and lowered morale. 

Marta has some strategies for avoiding this mindset. She suggests promoting open communication, making space for personal connections, encouraging social interaction across teams, and shifting to inclusive language and making a commitment to say “we” and “us”.  She closes: “Hands up, product managers, have you ever talked about "the business" wanting to do one thing or another? Most of us occasionally fall into the trap of the "us versus them" mentality. The good news is, once we've recognised it, we can take concrete actions to counteract it.”

Navigating the ‘us vs. them’ mindset in product management: Practical strategies

This article from Gabriyel Wong, Chief Product Officer for RAiD, examines how to evaluate the return on investment of continuous discovery and its role in identifying key opportunities.

He starts by considering how the continuous discovery process can help to unravel issues related to the main issue through finding local maximas. For example, a product team may be trying to solve the problem of reducing the time to get a taxi (the global maxima). The hypothesis to be tested is to increase the supply of drivers through ride-sharing. Through continuous discovery, other related issues such as the need for advance booking on rainy days when the supply of drivers is low, or the need for personal and corporate payments may be found as local maximas around the main problem. He says local maximas can develop into new business lines through experimentation and constant user engagement by understanding needs and opportunities related to the initial core problem.

He points out that continuous discovery can lead to feature factory syndrome if it’s not carefully managed, and that discovery needs to be balanced with delivery. He also shows that continuous discovery in the later stages of a product lifecycle would likely yield only diminishing returns as adoption and sales taper. He comments: “Instead of focusing on implementing the process, understanding the construct and objective continuous discovery is designed for, can help product teams leverage its strength in an agile manner amid an ever-challenging technology landscape.”

Unpacking the realities of continuous discovery

In this Product Experience podcast episode, Arne Kittler, Product Leadership Consultant and Co-Founder of Product at Heart, delves into the importance of providing clarity in building great products, and what it means in practical terms. Arne explains what he means by clarity and what can get in the way of achieving clarity, like time pressure and conflicting priorities. He also offers advice on how to escalate conflict gracefully if you can’t resolve it. He adds: “Sometimes clarity is hard, it can be painful. You may not like the result of the clarity that you get. I think that's one reason why we shy away from it.”

Clarity: The key to product success – Arne Kittler (Product Leadership Sidekick, Product at Heart)