A while ago I selected a bunch of articles that have impressed or inspired me and I thought would be useful sharing. At that time I figured I could regularly post an article with resourceful or inspiring articles but I didn’t realise I needed the time to read them all myself and let them sink in so I could think about the actual value.
Starting with this post I want to theme this series with a certain topic, which helps me to maintain the quality of this series but also enables me to create a valuable resource of knowledge and learnings that will hopefully be useful for you as well.
Product Management
This list resembles a collection of articles I’ve read the last 4 months, some of which turned my perspective on building (and iterating on) products completely upside down.
- Your app makes me fat – About giving users what they actually care about, in stead of demanding their attention to get a simple task done. The cost of attention is a great way to think about how useful your UX is.
- Getting the V right – Think about what makes your product actually viable. You can cut away only so many features but what do you really need to release a successful product?
- Why we need storytellers at the heart of product development – Quoting “A product is more than an idea, it’s more than a website, and it’s more than a transaction or list of functionalities.” What story are you telling as a team? What story do your users perceive from your brand?
- Blameless Post mortems and a just culture – Etsy is famous for their platform but likely to be more respected on how they approach and write about their company culture. Here’s how to learn from mistakes you make and build a strong team.
- Storytellers have more fun –
We forget how important stories are to people. This made me think about what story are we trying to tell with this product we’re building. - The Dribbblisation of design – On how design is not a beauty contest, but an important toolkit to enable people to use your product without frustration.
- Understanding the job – (video) This is linked in the previous article but deserved a spot here as well: for what job does a user wants to hire your product?
- How to work with designers – Julie Zhuo, Product design director at Facebook shares here insights about how to think and communicate when working with designers. (Tip: read also her other article on How to work with PMs to get the full picture and understand how you can be perceived as a PM)
Required reading
A couple of weeks ago my co-worker Matas shared a readlist which should definitely be part of this article. It was derived from this post by Robert Lenne, who is head of design at Artsy.
Product Weekly
If you are interested in more things to read around product management; my friend Niko Felger is running a newsletter called Product Weekly, which selects a few of the most interesting articles related to product management and development every week. Sign up here.
But wait! If you know of some links that are worth sharing you can submit them to Niko as well using this form.
I hope you enjoy this article, if you have any recommendations please send them over on Twitter.
Thanks!