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John Cutler

30 Dec 21, 6 tweets, 2 min read

Some thoughts on pivoting to product

to pivot to product, it will help to have:

1) SME (e.g. healthcare, EMR)
and/or
2) deep persona expertise (e.g. nurses in large hospitals)
and/or
3) strong skills in a key PM skill area (e.g. analytics)

How about certifications (1/n)

IMHO, certifications can help in one of two situations:

1. A company with no product chops using something like "CSPO" to fill tons of newly opened positions because of an "agile transformation"

2. A signal you're serious...

#2 is interesting ... (2/n)

"As an SDR, I started to see how important it was to nail the product. I started to read everything I could. I took free courses. I paid for a product manager course"

Is very different from:

"I'm a CSPO bc a 12hr course, now hire me"

How about "tech" experience? (3/n)

Experience building product is a huge plus. Less so because "tech experience" is required, but more that it shows you're aware of how things actually work. This can really help designers and developers.

But people underestimate other forms of #3 from the first tweet.

(4/n)

Examples of related experience could be:

Market research
Business partnerships
Information architecture
Customer support
Regular teaching
Working with cross-functional team
Business analyst type roles
Business modeling
Scientific research

Any of these can help...

(5/n)

Your broad choices are

With #1 and #2 go after companies in the space you are familiar with. Demonstrate enough of #3.

With just #3, shoot for multiple #3s ... you'll need them.

With design/developer...take on some extra #3 work before pivoting.

Hope this helps (end)

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John Cutler

@johncutlefish

31 Dec 21

What actual, specific, behaviors would we observe if someone was good at product thinking?

Specific enough that someone without a lot of tacit knowledge would be able to say “that’s happening”.

some off hand

1/n

Better Proxies for Value. We'd observe them challenge a "success metric" and ask if there was a better proxy for actual value exchange. Fewer overt vanity metrics (or at a minimum, leading indicators mapped to trailing indicators)

2/n

Consider multiple options. We'd observe them weighing a range of options to achieve the same effect (vs. simply prioritizing a list). "Well... some potential experiments might include..."

Read 26 tweets

John Cutler

@johncutlefish

30 Dec 21

This is an important distinction

There are "frameworks" that

1) evolved from active practice in the field.

2) are attempts to frame lots of experience (e.g. based on the messy world I've seen, there are three categories of X)

And 3) pure teaching frameworks.

(1/n)

One is not better/worse, but they are different.

1. has been "tested" in context. That context is important

2. very much depends on the "observer", the collector of experiences. In some ways these are theoretical constructs.

3. needs the learning context outlined

(2/n)

@reforge

Some of the most popular/helpful product blogposts of all time fit into the #2 cat. @reforge is incredible at this. They get product leaders together, and together write a post that presents a new model!

There's a hint of #3 in there as well.

The courses incorporate #1

(3/n)

Read 6 tweets

John Cutler

@johncutlefish

8 Dec 21

ok: "buyer personas"

one of my biggest lessons of the last year is that when sales/marketing think "personas", they are thinking:

"we need to teach people how to sell"
"we need the fastest way to close deals"
"I need to teach a junior salesperson who to prospect"

1/n

...their goal is actually the *least* amount of complexity/information needed to do their jobs.

IOW, say one message will resonate everywhere, or one qualifier will get you "buyers"

....well, one "persona" will do

When you understand this ... 2/n

...it makes sense why product/ux and sales/marketing often butt heads when it comes to research.

There's a tendency to couple

Research

with

Artifact/Tool

3/n

Read 6 tweets

John Cutler

@johncutlefish

4 Dec 21

@Amplitude_HQ

work in B2B SaaS?

something I've learned, and re-learned over and over -- at @Amplitude_HQ especially talking to so many teams.

It is vital -- absolutely vital -- to understand your product in the *broader landscape* of a customers workplace.

Why? 1/n

...when talking to a customer about your product, you will always trigger the instinct for them to be helpful and provide information about YOUR product. Which is good...

...but also a challenge.

The reality is that your product is a tiny part of their world. 2/n

"What problems are you having?"

Customer: "Um, well, [some task related to your product]"

(remembering to focus on goals)
"Oh no, what is your GOAL?"

Customer: "Um, well, [some goal related to your product]"

All good, except, again, this is a tiny part of their world. 3/n

Read 6 tweets

John Cutler

@johncutlefish

20 Nov 21

when you've found your team prematurely converging -- jumping to specifics too early -- what were some contributing factors?

...this is a weird one, but often it seems to happen when the bulk of the team is tied up with something, and a smaller group -- e.g. designer and PM -- are under pressure to "tee up" the next thing

...when the team lacks psychological safety? people just want to get it over with, so they just go with whatever seems like a reasonable deal to make the need to collaborate go away

Read 10 tweets

John Cutler

@johncutlefish

17 Oct 21

A collection of things from the vault! Wading through 1000s of images shared on twitter.

1/n: Adding assumptions and constraints to a "tree" of nested bets...

2/n: Getting specific about principles ... and avoiding vanilla statements

3/n: The iceberg of product complexity ... what we don't see when we just ponder "level of effort"

Read 13 tweets

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