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Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

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Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#101

Post by clementkao »

lewislin wrote: post #69
rchaud wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge in building such a community is that PM is a highly sought after job in the tech sector, so any forum or website built around PM discussion is inevitably going to turn into something like Medium, which today is a list of poorly written thought pieces by (mostly) amateurs.

Agreed. Good PMs are busy, and busy ones don't have time to just hang out.

While I agree that good PMs are busy, I'd argue that the bigger problem is that busy PMs aren't incentivized to share their knowledge.

I've been doing my best to try to share my knowledge as a product manager (disclaimer, I write for Product Manager HQ), but that's been a challenge - it takes anywhere from 8-20 hours for me to pull together a thoughtful article, especially because I'm keenly aware of the fact that there's an overwhelming number of low-quality product management articles. I've been lucky to have time on weekends to write, and I know that's not a luxury that every product manager has.

Many of my peers and colleagues are hesitant to jump into writing, specifically because they aren't incentivized to do so. (I'm incentivized by my personal mission "to make other people's lives happier, easier, and better", but personal missions can only incentivize a single person...)

Hackathons are a great way for engineers to share their abilities with others outside of their day-to-day work. I wonder whether there are similar outlets for PMs - maybe some sort of open-mic for best practices, or a company-sponsored "blog day" where every PM sits down for the day and pulls together learnings?

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#102

Post by clementkao »

tschwimmer wrote: post #4
polote wrote: post #2

There is clearly a lack of boards/forums/websites dedicated to product managers. But what I miss the more is a website, when we can get valuable insights about best practices. On HN you can get super useful information about any stack/language/framework by reading the comments, but when you are a PM you have nowhere to get that kind of information

Too true brother. Lots of fluffy thinkpieces that are really marketing or recruiting but very little substantive discussion about how to indentify and prioritize what’s important.

Out of genuine curiosity - which topics or questions would be most valuable to you?

I've written 50+ articles on Product Manager HQ, and the feedback I've heard from my readers thus far is that each one has been uniquely insightful, covering topics that they haven't yet seen discussed by other blogs.

I'm doing my best to close knowledge gaps - would love to hear what's on your mind!

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#103

Post by clementkao »

mud_dauber wrote: post #77
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can spin a clone up tonight if there is enough interest, cause it's something I think would be valuable. That said, we tried this before specifically for longer form hacker news discussions [1] and it died in less than a year. Not sure how to guage interest without seeming spammy, people can email me or just upvote this comment I suppose. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17091262 [2] https://hackerforums.co…

I wouldn’t do it until we had a way of enforcing the no-fluff rule - even more so than generic up/down voting. I wish there was an ArXiV for this type of knowledge.

I think the arXiv idea has a lot of merit!

The key challenge there is that while scientists are expected to produce papers and to review papers, product managers are not expected to do so.

We're expected to manage our products (which makes lots of sense), but that leaves us little time to curate a neutral and high-quality repository of product management knowledge.

While I've done my best to share my knowledge in my spare time (I've published 50+ articles at Product Manager HQ), I strongly believe there's a systemic challenge at play here.

Many of my colleagues are insanely good at what they do, yet they haven't written any articles on product management because that behavior isn't incentivized.

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#104

Post by clementkao »

NotAnEconomist wrote: post #29
captain_crabs wrote: post #5

General question I've been wondering tangentially related: Engineers: is working [edit: replacing 'under' with 'with' due to replies! good clarification, didn't mean under] with a non-technical product manager a dealbreaker for you? (Do you look to filter out places you'd work at while job searching?) Conversely, have you ever worked under a non-technical product manager you loved? Would you mind sharing details abou…

> Conversely, have you ever worked under a non-technical product manager you loved? Would you mind sharing details about your situation? I've had several. The key feature is that they bring something to the table: I don't actually need technical guidance on how to build the product -- I (or another engineer) knows enough to solve the technical aspects, that's why the corporation is paying me (or them). But what I do…

Love your reflections here!

I'm a non-technical product manager, and I've heard the same sentiment with the engineers that I work with. My engineers want business context and user context - they don't need someone to provide technical guidance.

To address your questions directly:

1) The most helpful skill in an engineer is the skill of speaking up. When I reflect on the dozens of engineers I've worked with, I consistently find that the ones who provided the most value were the ones who would question me constructively.

My specs aren't perfect, because I don't have a detailed understanding of the technical constraints. I love it when engineers tell me why my spec won't work, and then provide multiple alternatives for how to get the spirit of my spec to work.

As for how to help you look good - I really appreciate it when engineers honestly keep me informed about their bandwidth. That way, as I keep stakeholders in the loop, I can accurately set their expectations.

It's never helpful when engineers say "I can complete these 15 tasks by next week", and wind up only completing 2. On the flip side, it's equally unhelpful when engineers say "I can complete only 2 tasks by next week", then wind up knocking out the entire backlog.

2) I can't speak clearly to "technical adviser"-type roles, unfortunately, since I'm not technical to start with. That being said, the technical folks who interface with management and executives are typically managers of managers of engineers.

In other words - the engineers who drive the technical vision of the company are also the ones who are directly responsible for their teams' execution on the tactical work.

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#105

Post by clementkao »

3into10power5 wrote: post #44

Most of the Product related articles you see on medium or on internet are mostly ideas or advice. There are very few "rubber meets the road" kind of resources.

I'm curious to learn more! I've generally been trying to write articles based on personal experience rather than abstract frameworks or untested advice.

In your mind, what would a "rubber meets the road" kind of resource look like? What sorts of questions would it address?

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