One Knight in Product newsletter
issues
Optimistic Pessimists, Systems Overthinking & Should you try to connect product initiatives to revenue?
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Filled with optimism or pessimism? In this slightly eye-watering quadrant, I argue that you can be any combination of those two things.
Consultants not insultants, just what makes enterprise SaaS different, and getting Mehtaphysical
It's easy to feel a little chagrined when the leadership team bring in a consultant or advisor to help with some systemic issue that you think you already know how to resolve. It's easier said than done, but if we can put aside our egos we might just learn so…
Spreading PM cheer via memes, balancing your time as a PM & lightly holding onto your opinions
Hello! So yeah, it's been a while. Sorry about that. Holidays, life & work got in the way, but I'm back with some bits and bobs that will hopefully make up for it. I'll do my best to do better!
How to get that next Product Management or Product Design job (as long as it's not "Product Owner" 🤨)
I had a little break in Tenerife, where I failed to summit the tallest mountain in Spain for a second time (I use the term "summit" loosely here, since we went up in a cable car with the kids).I'm back and I'm already exhausted by thought leader Twitter..
Context switching, what you should know when working with engineers, and why product management isn't all that bad really
Hello!This is your regular reminder that, for all the wonderful developers out there, there's a vocal minority that loudly decries the value of product management. The intersection of these developers and the ones that complain about context switching wheneve…
The Lean B2B Pyramid, The Five Dysfunctions of a Product Team, Career Death Spirals and Books! Books! Books!
It seems like every 5 minutes I see some Tweet or Medium article about how things are or aren't agile, or are or aren't waterfalls. What if we're overthinking it?
Parking the Car as a PM, Coming out as Trans at Work, and the Perils of Customer Discovery
This is your regular reminder that product management is difficult and that no two products, or indeed companies, are the same. There's plenty of idealism in product management circles, and a sense of failure if you're not "doing product properly". But there …
The Swimming Pool Question, Mapping your Way to B2B Success and Considering Desirability vs Defensibility
Imagine the scene. You're on a work retreat and you've been working hard. You're taking a well-earned break at the on-site pool, but you bring your laptop in case you need it. You're also a reasonably successful recreational TikTok user. You record a short vi…
Playing poker at the big table, PMs having access to the code, being the first PM at a startup & more!
Hello everyone 👋 Here's your regular reminder that product management terminology and book talk is all well and good, but it's very unlikely to win you any admirers outside of the product team. Draw a line between the best product thinking and actual business…
Teams that manage themselves & the other type of developer tools
We'll talk a bit about working with developers in this issue. Before we get into that though, we need to call out that product people aren't developers and don't have to have a development background. However, some of us do have this background. This is great…
How to Make Managers, the dreaded BBQ question. and what the heck is DevRel?
There's probably a whole article to write about fake AI in products, but for now just remember that there are a non-zero number of products claiming to use AI that probably just use a bunch of if statements.
Boondockers, Wizard of Ozzing, landing on your feet in your next product leadership role
I've been a bit quieter on social media recently, and this newsletter is a little late too, mainly because I started a new job! I'm super excited to be working with the team at Unmind to revolutionise mental health support in the workplace. It's genuinely a p…
Mentorship, fixing your Scrum and, wait, do PMs need project managers?
I recently came off the back of a mammoth 76-person mentoring streak which has lasted from January through to this week. I originally put out a call in December expecting a handful of responses but was blown away by the appetite for mentorship.I've come to th…
The importance of teamwork, here comes the science bit & managing customer requests
One of the things that really bothers me about product development is the dynamic that can exist between product management and other teams... the constant back and forth where developers are fighting with designers who are fighting with product managers (or …
Users, buyers, not picking favourites & noodling on North Star Metrics
In B2B product management, the topic of users vs buyers often comes up. Who do you do discovery with? Who do you have to keep happy? Who do you optimise for?The answer is, of course, both. You need to keep buyers onside otherwise you won't make any new sales.…
The role of QA in product development, and why not read a book about sales?
It's always easy to make fun of the relationship between the product team & the sales team, but we have to call out the fact that both are essential if you want to sell big ticket products to big companies. I'll talk about sales teams in a future issue bu…
Slava Ukraini, the importance of mentoring, and engaging with engineers
No one signed up to this newsletter for political commentary, so I'll keep this brief but I've been really struggling to focus recently because of the situation in Ukraine. I had a few trips to Ukraine with school in the mid 90s and have fond memories of the …
Returning from holidays and thinking about technical debt
Showing typical lack of foresight I started a newsletter then went on holiday. I went snowboarding for the first time in 9 years and just about survive. Here's a picture of my taping my foot together to avoid having to spend hundreds of pounds replacing a boo…
Standing up for diversity & inclusion, the problem with thought leadership & more
Hello!I've migrated the mailing list over to Revue for its Twitter integration - thanks for sticking with me (and to the new signups from Twitter!). I'm aiming to keep this at one a week and summarise some great content alongside new podcast drops. I'll be tr…