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Aug 8, 2020
Building Trust with a Founder
First of all, make sure that you understand the founder's context, the things the founder cares about and worries about, and the overall vision.
One of the most important things is to get to the bottom of what the business goals are. In a startup, you'll typically have a short runway and run out of cash. Understanding that runway is super important because it defines how much time you've got, creates a constraint, and limits some options because... read more -
Aug 8, 2020
Tips for Aspiring Product Managers
As a Product Manager, you are given the opportunity to solve customer and business problems.
It all starts with learning about business goals and understanding how the business operates. Simultaneously, you study the market and discover challenges that your customers are dealing with.
Based on your learning you then formulate a strategy to address customer problems and ensure that the business excels. While formulating the strategy, you get to me... read more -
Jul 28, 2020
How to Get Into Product Management With No Experience
Getting into product management with no experience may seem daunting, but you can achieve your goal by breaking it down into smaller steps. Start by taking on a pet project, reading business books, getting a job at a tech company, and acting like a product manager. Keep building your skills, and you will soon be on your way to a career in product management.
You've likely experienced a number of painful problems in your life and thought, "I wish... read more -
Jun 23, 2020
How THE ICONIC continuously improves customer experience
At THE ICONIC we are passionate about creating great customer experiences. It's quite common for us to evolve our rituals and processes to support our customers' needs. Coupled with this, whenever we see an opportunity to break barriers between teams and departments, we grab it and work in tandem towards the same goal.
Even after having OKRs in place, aligning goals and priorities across the whole business is a tricky affair. Over time, we discov... read more -
Feb 4, 2020
Skills Over Tools, People Over Certificates
Product management advice often focuses on mastering tools, but tools are just a means to an end. Spending too much time on them can distract from what matters most - understanding customers and solving their problems.
Instead: Focus on learning customer research, prioritisation, and communication skills. Tools come and go, but these skills are timeless. Build your foundation on these, and the tools will follow naturally.
People overplay the impo... read more -
Apr 4, 2017
The benefit of a small product team
In an organisation, when a decision to create a new product is made, there is a high chance that one of the existing teams will be allocated to the task right away. Management expectation is always high, and it's usually assumed that the team can shift gears immediately and become productive in a matter of days.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. And let's not forget that it takes much longer for a completely new team to jell and perform.
T... read more -
Mar 13, 2017
Creating Successful Products in a Corporation
How do you go about improving your chances of creating a successful product in a corporation?
Have you ever tried to create a new digital product in a large corporation? You have? Well then, you know it's damn hard! And if you haven't…it's damn hard!
In a modern corporate environment, it is a huge challenge to build a digital product that is commercially viable, technically feasible and irresistible to customers. Business priorities change, often... read more -
Mar 13, 2017
Running Lean: Forget the business problem...for now
Often in companies of different sizes, the product team is either forced, or voluntarily switches, to ‘solution mode' hoping to solve a business challenge. A much better way forward is to fully understand the customer problem.
You might get lucky and guess the right customer problem to solve based on your experience, insights and gut feeling. But, realistically, what are the odds of that? It's a bet!
Sadly, in most organisations, stakeholders alr... read more -
Feb 29, 2016
The First 2 Weeks in a Product Role
Starting a new job is often thrilling and overwhelming. Like a rollercoaster ride, I get pumped up and excited to get on but also my heart starts pounding and palms get sweaty.
Do you get the same feeling?
I like all the new opportunities that come with a new job such as learning extra skills, applying my expertise, meeting new people and making friends. On the other hand, the first few weeks can be particularly stressful, trying to fi... read more -
Building a Thinking Team Culture
When a product leader decides to forge a new feature or even build a new product it's a good idea to brief the team and draw a couple of diagrams on a whiteboard. What does your team do next though?
I bet the chances are the devs have already started thinking about technical implementation, the designers are creating UI elements in their heads, and the testers are coming up with scenarios to break whatever they can.
At that point interru... read more
