Engineers love to talk about their stack. The Stack is a set of tools they use to host, test, deploy and maintain their code. Product Managers have a stack of product management tools, too. The Product Stack includes tools that support the process from discovery through planning, launch, and iteration.
There are many book lists out there for product managers, but this list is different. This list focuses on helping you build influence as a Product Manager. Because as many product managers know, influence is an essential part of your role, but oftentimes the most difficult part about product management.
Influence without authority is the skill that turns a good product manager into a great product manager. Learning this skill is necessary to set you apart.
Just the other day, in my storytelling class, a student asked: how long should an elevator pitch be? Every startup founder and entrepreneur has an elevator pitch. But they are often found scrambling for just the length and right set of ‘power words’ to deliver a winning pitch. What can be particularly stressful about an elevator pitch is that there is no standard. The pitch length varies. You have 30 minutes worth of stuff to say, but an unknown amount of time to say it. And then the other person’s knowledge is also unknown. That makes it necessary to adjust each time, which can be tricky.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker In 1997, Steve Jobs rejoined Apple when the company was 90 days away from bankruptcy and spent a whopping $90M on the “Think Different” campaign that displays no products whatsoever. An outsider might call this an insane move. But the late visionary knew that humans thrive on stories. These stories create a robust company culture, which serves as the fertile ground where a strategy truly bears fruit. Accordingly, as much as the campaign was aimed to revive Apple’s brand, it was about making the folks at Apple see themselves as the protagonists set out to save something worth saving.
‘Let me tell you a story…’ A line that has almost, always earned an immediate interest from the audience.
Covid is wartime. The future is suddenly extremely uncertain, and the entire organization is looking for direction. Wartime requires a wartime leader. Here’s what makes a wartime leader tick.
My husband kisses me goodbye, starts his car, and drives into morning traffic. I wave walk the 5 steps to my home office. Yes, I work from home. I never thought I would be able to work from home while in a leadership role. But here I was, leading a team from home for 8 months before Covid-19 forced everyone else to work from home.
Product Management makes decisions, lots of them. Some days it’s 10 small decisions about the product interface, some days it’s one major decision about a $3M acquisition. Decision making is part and parcel to the job.
For a young company, the value of a VP of Product or CPO can be difficult to ascertain. Many argue that senior Product Managers with 3–8 years of experience would satisfy the business’s strategic needs. And that’s indeed true for the first Product Manager hire as I outlined in my 0–1 article. On the other hand, a CPO brings a deeper and more strategic product perspective that can help companies build a vision for the future and optimize their current focus.
Picture yourself sitting in a circle around a campfire with your closest friends. One of your friends is telling a story, you lean in, you’re captivated. What is it about that story is drawing you in?
For any founder, particularly technical founders who are closer to the code than non-technical founders, hiring your first Product Manager is risky business. It’s usually prompted by the founder or engineering leader declaring
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