Techie learnings for the non-techies — I’ve written in the past about some technical concepts that non-technical product managers need to learn, however I only really touched the surface. If you really want to be a successful product manager then you do need to have some form of technical understanding in order to inform your decisions…

Why asking the right question is the most important starting point — I was watching a Stanford University YouTube video the other day all about design thinking and one of the lecturers quoted the American writer and philosopher John Dewey, who in his book Logic: The Theory of Inquiry said: “A problem well put is half solved” It was used in the…

Books that dive into the lives of business leaders — Here at Getting Started in Product, we run a bookstore that stocks a variety of books focused on the world of product management; from direct product management books like Inspired by Marty Cagan to stories of success within global organizations like NIKE. In this summary post we look at books…

Why sometimes the data you have helps you make the wrong decision — A recent design thinking lecture I watched covered a variety of topics, but one of the learnings that I took from it was that not all data is created equal. Sometimes you think that because you’ve managed to collect some data it will help you make a sensible decision on…

Hint: It helps you get the job you want — Question time. And be honest. If you’re a product manager and you have a CV, how many times have you actually included in your CV metrics that show the value that you’ve created in your roles? Be honest now :-) If it’s anything like the hundreds of product manager CVs…

Look at the whole package — It’s a very easy thing to do when you’re tempted to look at alternative jobs to take a look at the topline salary number and make a decision. “I earn $80,000 now so my new job must pay me $80,000 as I don’t want to take a pay cut.” The…

And what you can do about it — It’s annual review time and you’ve sat down with your boss and gone over the HR form that looks at how competent you are, and your boss says “Is there anything else you want to discuss?” and in your head, you’re screaming “What about a pay raise?”, …

Learning more about what can be done — I recently wrote a post to my mailing list all about why many offices don’t cater for neurodiversity employees and it got me thinking about what books were out there related to this subject and I was quietly surprised to find the answer was that there were quite a few. …

How AI can save PMs time creating wireframes — A couple of years ago I wrote a story that looked at 5 Wireframing Tools For Product Managers, which looked at how a wireframe can help a product manager get across their message and some of the tools that can be used to help do this. Well since then…