Industry News

The Buzzfeed News article Behind Twitter’s Plan To Get People To Stop Yelling At Each Other is not the kind of thing I usually link to here, but I found it really fascinating from a product management perspective. Author Nicole Nguyen goes deep into the research and development process of the team responsible for “twttr” — an external, public prototype to experiment with new features. The sections that give us insight into the thinking of Sara Haider (Director of Product Management) and Lisa...

Last Friday I reported about potential Google search ranking updates and then SEJ reported that I was wrong and it was an infrastructure update. Well, we both were wrong according to Google - Google said there were no recent changes around algorithm changes or infrastructure changes.

Andy Johns wrote a 4-part series on product growth that is worth digging into. In Part 1: A Single-Minded Perspective on Growth he points out the trap many product companies fall into:

The point I’m making is that today’s startups very quickly fall into the optimization trap where they think future growth will largely come from optimizing their existing product. The better approach is finding the right balance between optimization and innovation since both methods can produce future...

This interview with Ryan Hoover from Product Hunt on how to develop products people love is really interesting. For example, here he makes a really good point about the importance of systems thinking in product management:

Most products can be broken down into a math equation, where multiple variables need to be true for it to work. Many newer product managers don’t break this equation down as much as they should. Then, they don’t test some of their hypotheses soon enough. If you have...

This is an older article, but it was brought up in a recent thread on the Elezea Community (join us!) and I hadn’t seen it before. In Applying Leverage as a Product Manager Brandon Chu explains how PMs can have the biggest impact in an organization:

Managerial leverage is the idea that some things a manager does creates more output than others, and for each possible thing, the amount of output created per unit of time is its leverage. That’s the basis of how you should decide whether...

Just an FYI, Google did not simply flip the switch last week and turn on the new GoogleBot, the evergreen GoogleBot, over night. Google said it was already indexing 10% of the web back in November. It scaled from less than 1%, to 1%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 75%, to 100% over several months and just reached 100% last week.

I am seeing some limited chatter around a possible Google search algorithm update around May 9th, maybe starting May 8th. The chatter and signals are not super high, like some other updates, but there is enough for me to bring this to your attention.

I’m a big fan of the product forces aspect of the Jobs-to-be-Done framework to help teams think through the challenges they need to overcome to get customers to adopt their product. In Product adoption: how to get customers to embrace your product the Intercom team discusses the product forces, as well as some strategies for overcoming those forces. For example, on decreasing attachment to the status quo:

What can you do to draw your prospects’ attention to your benefits over their...

Google UX Designer David Hogue shares his thoughts on How to Reverse Over-Complication in Product Design and How to Avoid It Altogether. It’s a very good read for product managers. Here he describes how do build a process to avoid over-complication:

Critically evaluate every new and existing feature for the value it provides weighed against the costs of including in a product or service. Does a feature introduce friction or ambiguity? Does adding something more make flows, paths, and...

Training company Onfielder published a comprehensive list of learning resources for new product managers called PM Starter Pack. Topics include what the role is about, overviews of the skills required (such as strategy, user experience, and analytics), and how to apply a job hunting strategy. Each section provides an overview of the topic as well as links to external resources. Highly recommended for new product managers.