PITA 032
ICEBREAKER: Poems in the Aether
TOPIC 1: How to balance moving fast with doing things the best way, but slower?
Early stage, finding product/market fit
Design sprints/prototype to learn
Saying no - alignment to vision/mission/strategy
How to Time Product Launches (the Peanut Butter effect)
TOPIC 2: Prioritisation when going from zero-to-one (low data, high competing demands)
Can you draw clear proposition lines around the different options? Pick one to focus on
Don’t beat yourself up- we all have to go back to intuition sometimes. But get data as soon as you can
Rephrase it as a bet, and timebox the experiments
Advice on startup metrics: https://amplitude.com/startups
TOPIC 3: How do I convince stakeholders they need proper product teams set up? (merged into new org with our existing products, they are not used to digital teams)
Approach from the direction of the acknowledged problems that they have, not the solution you want to implement
What user research do you have? Talking to users and representing their pain/issues/needs is a good start
What stakeholders/influence do you have?
Get a timebox on a consultancy to show results (quick wins)
Classic managing up techniques: make it their idea! (tactical framing)
Showing the issues from a support/devops perspective - the cost of NOT having a product team
TOPIC 4: Hiring remote-only PMs during these absurd times (perspectives from companies and candidates)
Companies are looking at this from a lot of angles
Look for
Hard skill profile - has that shifted for remote-frost. More of a corraller, documentation, etc
What’s going to make the company sticky? How do we create culture whe emote
New Microsoft Study of 60,000 Employees: Remote Work Threatens Long-Term Innovation
Expectations (and success) really depend on if only the PM is remote, or the whole team/organisation is at least remote-first