What we need in Product Management:

1)
Less “How will we build this?”
More “How will we differentiate?”

2)
Less “How to enforce accountability?”
More “How to foster ownership?”

3)
Less “What problems can we solve?”
More “What problems are worthwhile?”

👇🏾
What we need:

4)
Less “What is the 3-yr roadmap?”
More “What is the 3-yr strategy?”

5)
Less “How to run growth experiments?”
More “How to get more distribution?”

6)
Less “What is the process for X?”
More “What is the purpose of X?”
What we need:

7)
Less “Does this team run well?”
More “Does this team learn well?”

8)
Less “What are top user requests?”
More “What are top user needs?”

9)
Less “What is the template for Y?”
More “What is my goal with Y?”
What we need:

10)
Less “What is the schedule?”
More “What are the priorities?”

11)
Less “Are all stakeholders happy?”
More “Are all stakeholders aligned?”

12)
Less “How many resources do we need?”
More “What is the marginal impact?”
What we need:

14)
Less “How can I use metrics?”
More “How can I use psychology?”

15)
Less “Who will write the blog post?”
More “How can we create excitement?”

16)
Less “What will get me promoted?”
More “What will get the buyer promoted?”
17)
Less “How did Google solve this?”
More “How are we different?”

18)
Less “What does the CEO want?”
More “What does the CEO know?”

19)
Less “What are competitors saying?”
More “What is their strategy?”

20)
Less “What is rational for users?”
More “What is natural for users?”
If you liked this thread, you might also like these👇🏾
The Proxy Delusion, where we confuse X for Y in business
The Proxy Delusion, as applicable to life
In any complex environment, there is no such thing as "Problem Solving". Problem Solving is really Problem Trading.
On *understanding* competition, but not *fixating* on it
Most "Execution Problems" aren't actually Execution Problems
Product leaders need to promote the "less of X, more of Y" approach on their teams. What is the Product leadership role?
Common anti-patterns of teams & companies

• • •

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More from @shreyas

12 Nov
Sometimes there's a difference between the product & The Product.

"the lowercase-p product" is the thing you’ve been assigned to directly work on.

But that’s not necessarily "The uppercase-p Product".

The Product is The Main Thing that makes or breaks the user value prop.

👇🏾
Often:
product == Product

For example:
If you manage Google Calendar, the pixels on the screen (the product) are also what the user views as The Main Thing (The Product).
Sometimes:
product ≠ Product

For example:
If you manage the Netflix app, you are managing the product, but that isn't The Product

The Product is all the content that Netflix has licensed.

the product you manage is merely a delivery mechanism for the real Product for the user.
Read 12 tweets
7 Nov
When a team is so dysfunctional that it can only hire idiots: gonna call this “the Philly Four Seasons Effect” in honor of Team Trump’s epic stupidity.
If you're as intrigued as me, some very high quality replies here on what might have happened:
Read 6 tweets
1 Nov
🗓️Recap of Oct 2020 content

Includes:
-15 Product Principles
-Book Recos by PM Level
-Product-Focused Companies
-Do We Have an Execution Problem?
-Product Dogma
-7 Cognitive Biases
-On Clearer Thinking
-On Product Prioritization
-On Conceiving Great Products
& more....

Thread👇🏾
Read 19 tweets
31 Oct
Start-with-Principles—a technique I learned @stripe

Problem:
Should we do X or Y?

My prior approach:
X looks like this
Y like this
X&Y's pros/cons
Decide

Start-with-Principles:
Here are N proposed principles
Do we agree on them? Discuss
A new option Z emerges
Decide btwn X,Y,Z
Alright, let's see an example.

Problem:
How should we onboard users for our new prosumer productivity tool?

1. Should we build world-class self-serve onboarding, along with slick tutorials?

2. Or, should we provide a white-glove onboarding experience, Superhuman-style?

👇🏾
Start with Proposed Principles:

For now, we
A) Prefer few power users (depth) over many casual users (breadth)
B) Want an intimate view of user motivation
C) Want the brand to feel premium
D) Need to limit onboarding ops costs
E) Want a product with built-in learning & discovery
Read 15 tweets
30 Oct
Product teams tend to operate in 4 modes.

1) Assemble-mode:
Getting the team together

2) Produce-mode:
Predictably making stuff

3) Differentiate-mode:
Consistently making good stuff

4) Replicate-mode:
Making other teams better
Modes may overlap. Every product team has a *primary* mode at a given time.

Assemble-mode is about starting.

Produce-mode is about practicing execution.

Differentiate-mode is about winning via distinct value.

Replicate-mode is about cross-pollinating ideas, processes, people.
Some product teams get perpetually stuck in one of these modes.

It’s fine if you’re “stuck” in Differentiate-mode or Replicate-mode.

Not fine if you’re stuck in Assemble-mode or Produce-mode. Identify this & call it out to your team. Discuss what’s needed to get unstuck.
Read 5 tweets
24 Oct
“My team has a prioritization problem. Help!“

Product prioritization, a thread:
(1/30)
Most product prioritization problems are really strategy problems.

So you need to start with strategy.

There are 4 types of strategy problems.
4 strategy problems

-Acceptance: “we dont think strategy is important”

-Creation: “we know it’s important but we dont have one”

-Substance: “we have one, but it’s flawed”

-Communication: “we have a good strategy, but the team doesnt grok it/can’t recall it/can’t describe it”
Read 36 tweets

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