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A deep dive into internal product management

Lessons from my first year as a Prod Ops Manager

It’s the Strategy, stupid – Andrew Martinez-Fonts (VP Product, Honeysales)

Poll results: What tools are product managers using the most?

Leadership coaching: 5 reasons why you should do it

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

<p>This week, 1,775 product people from across the globe came together for #mtpcon London 2019. Proceedings kicked off with workshops and leadership discussions on Thursday, followed by the conference itself at London&#8217;s famous Barbican Centre. Here&#8217;s a quick look at what we learned:</p>
<figure id="attachment_17511" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17511" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17511 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Martin-Eriksson-Mnd-the-Product-2019-1024x683.jpg" alt="Mind the Product London 2019" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Martin-Eriksson-Mnd-the-Product-2019-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Martin-Eriksson-Mnd-the-Product-2019-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Martin-Eriksson-Mnd-the-Product-2019-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Martin-Eriksson-Mnd-the-Product-2019.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17511" class="wp-caption-text">Martin Eriksson takes to the stage</figcaption></figure>
<p>Since we started <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ProductTank</a> 9 years ago, product has become a lot less lonely. And what we&#8217;ve learned as the community has grown is that we all face the same challenges, wherever we are. To kick-start a day of listening and learning, we began by asking ourselves the most important question of all &#8211; are we building the right thing?</p>
<h2>Reduce the Gap Between Makers and Users</h2>
<p>With this question in our minds, we settled in for the first of our keynote speakers, <a href="https://www.crisp.se/konsulter/henrik-kniberg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Henrik Kniberg</a>. Henrik reminded us that if we want to create products people love (like <a href="https://www.lego.com/en-gb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lego</a>, <a href="https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mincecraft</a> and <a href="https://www.spotify.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spotify</a>) then we need to reduce the gap between makers and users. We can do this, he explained, by limiting handoffs, using lots of different data sources, building empowered autonomous teams, committing to radical transparency and focussing on curiosity rather than pride.</p>
<figure id="attachment_17515" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17515" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17515 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Andy-Ayim-1024x683.jpg" alt="Andy Ayim" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Andy-Ayim-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Andy-Ayim-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Andy-Ayim-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Andy-Ayim.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17515" class="wp-caption-text">Andy Ayim</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Change up your decision making</h2>
<p>Next up, <a href="https://andyayim.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Andy Ayim</a> showed us how mental models can help us make different types of decisions. By using specific frameworks, Andy discussed how we can focus on solutions that aren’t immediately obvious. First principles, he told us, get you to think about the individual components of a situation. Second order thinking looks at the unintended consequences of our actions and finally, Inversion gets you to think backwards through a problem.</p>
<h2>Ask the Right Questions</h2>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/@iamctodd" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">C Todd Lombardo</a> reminded us that all product managers make bad decisions and, to minimise the number we make, we need to spend more time doing effective product research &#8211; a combination of user research, market research, and product analytics. He explained that by getting more curious about your data and asking the right questions, you can inspire action with insight. And, to be really effective you’ll need to build habits around your organisation so that this happens constantly.</p>
<h2>Reflect the Diversity of Your Users</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/sharma_kriti?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kriti Sharma</a> gave a personal account of how all around the world, robots are starting to make decisions for us that have real human impacts. The result of which, if we don&#8217;t think about the consequences of our decisions, will be the creation of a less fair society as these products start to scale. The best way to tackle this issue, Kriti explained, is to ensure that our teams reflect the diversity of the users they serve.</p>
<figure id="attachment_17514" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17514" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17514 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC3827-1024x683.jpg" alt="Kate O’Neill " width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC3827-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC3827-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC3827-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC3827.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17514" class="wp-caption-text">Kate O’Neill</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Preparing for a Data-Driven Future</h2>
<p>Just before lunch, <a href="http://www.koinsights.com/about/about-kate-oneill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kate O&#8217;Neill</a> carried on the theme of AI and explained how we need to prepare society for an increasingly tech and data-driven future. She showed us that to do this, we must build products that create meaningful human experiences now and in the future. To avoid the unintended consequences of our decisions, we must ask ourselves difficult questions throughout the product design process.</p>
<h2>Focus on Continuous Learning</h2>
<p><a href="http://jonnyschneider.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jonny Schneider</a> came all the way from Melbourne to show us that by using all of design thinking, agile, and lean we can make better products. Jonny explained that when you are comfortable with all of them, you can focus on continuous learning, designing the right experiments, measuring things that contribute to decisions and solve for next order problems.</p>
<figure id="attachment_17513" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17513" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17513 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jonny-Schneider-at-Mind-the-Product--1024x683.jpg" alt="Jony Schneider at Mind the Product" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jonny-Schneider-at-Mind-the-Product--1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jonny-Schneider-at-Mind-the-Product--300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jonny-Schneider-at-Mind-the-Product--768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jonny-Schneider-at-Mind-the-Product-.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17513" class="wp-caption-text">Jonny Schneider</figcaption></figure>
<h2>The Importance of Emotional Intelligence</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/profile/Kate" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kate Leto</a> pushed us all to realise that emotional intelligence is more important than any of the technical skills we use in our roles. If we want to build our product teams to be better at it, we need to design our hiring processes to look for it. To achieve that, we must be better with our role descriptions, use behavioural interview questions and never stop learning about the people we hire.</p>
<h2>Expose Bad Ideas</h2>
<p><a href="https://monzo.com/blog/authors/lindsey-jayne" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lindsey Jayne</a> succinctly explained how there&#8217;s too much noise in our working lives. She showed how we&#8217;re bombarded by words and thoughts which are difficult to understand. By being clearer in our writing we can bring more people with us and expose bad ideas before they cause harm. If we combine this with sharing our thoughts early and often, we will collaborate more, make braver decisions, and diversify our thinking.</p>
<figure id="attachment_17518" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17518" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17518 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lindsey-Jane-at-Mind-the-product-1024x683.jpg" alt="Lindsey Jane" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lindsey-Jane-at-Mind-the-product-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lindsey-Jane-at-Mind-the-product-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lindsey-Jane-at-Mind-the-product-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lindsey-Jane-at-Mind-the-product.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17518" class="wp-caption-text">Lindsey Jane</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Respect the craft of product</h2>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/women-in-product-blogs/women-in-product-breakthrough-interviews-ezinne-udezue-vp-product-bazaarvoice-c234b0e161ba" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ezinne Udezue</a> explained how, as product managers, we have to create the conditions for our teams to be successful. We can do this by valuing people, relentlessly focussing on impact, develop continuous empathy for your customers, and respect the craft of product management.</p>
<figure id="attachment_17516" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17516" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-17516 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product-1024x683.jpg" alt=" Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Brendan-Dawes-at-Mind-the-Product.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-17516" class="wp-caption-text">Brendan Dawes</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Using Universal Themes to Connect</h2>
<p>Finally artist and designer <a href="http://www.brendandawes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brendan Dawes</a> blew our minds open at the end of the day with his talk about the spaces between analog and digital. He showed us how we should be using universal themes to connect with people and how we can boil, simmer, and reduce to get the best out of our products and ideas.</p>
<p>In the coming weeks, you&#8217;ll be able to watch each of these individual talks in full but for now, remember to go out and use what you’ve learned from this #mtpcon snapshot (or the conference itself if you were there!) to move intentionally and build great products.</p>

What we Learned at #mtpcon London 2019

James Gadsby Peet

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