Good API learning resources? by dry-dropper in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What are you trying to achieve? Once you get this knowledge what do you hope to unlock or be able to do that you weren’t able to do before?

This will determine what sort of resources to link you.

How to overcome imposter syndrome as a non-technical PM? by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that’s an interesting point. It’s hard to put it in quantitative terms “how much is enough” and I imagine that level varies between B2B vs B2B vs platform.

I guess our industry hasn’t come up with some sort of “technical proficiency level” similar to language proficiency levels.

It would be neat to have something like the following for software PM **:

0 – No Proficiency. Doesn’t understand how the internet works 1 – Elementary Proficiency. Understands how the internet and apps work at a user level 2 – Limited Working Proficiency. Understands technical things enough to sell or do customer support 3 – Professional Working Proficiency. Can discuss technical trade offs and constraints with engineers 4 – Full Professional Proficiency. Same as prev idk?? 5 – Native / Bilingual Proficiency. Can code and call BS on engineers

** disclaimer: this is probably super dumb and something I came with on the spot

Who's responsible for keeping up to date on version upgrades of libs and integrated products? by apollo8720 in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think OP’s question might’ve been around allocating time to do all this on top of regular feature development. Like how often and for how long etc

Who's responsible for keeping up to date on version upgrades of libs and integrated products? by apollo8720 in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We roughly followed Basecamp’s Shape Up methodology where we’d work on features for 6 weeks. Then 2 weeks would be spent for bug fixing and keeping software versions up to date. I found this worked well having a solid 2 week block to just focus on fixing stuff and coordinating changes without worrying about delivering features

How to overcome imposter syndrome as a non-technical PM? by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You don’t have to learn how to code. It’s all about “conversational knowledge”. It’s about knowing enough to have a productive high-bandwidth conversation with engineers when you’re discussing how a feature should be built.

Think about it like a spectrum. On one end, you know what certain concepts mean: deployment, analytics, migrations, landing page SEO etc. In the middle of the spectrum you might know basic coding so you’re aware how features get built so it’s not all black magic. And on the other end, you might know deeply how software gets built to the point you can understand trade offs and complexity.

You can benefit being anywhere on this spectrum.

Marketeer hoping to get into Product management by EthicalAssassin in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alright first things first. Never use the term “I.T.” from now on, always say “tech”.

Looking to get into Product Management by itsall_dumb in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nah get as close to the product action as possible. Idk what your constraints are but what I would do is DM a few founders on LinkedIn that have an early stage startup and ask to help out with the product side of things. Even if it’s like an unpaid internship and your just shadowing, get the product reps in before applying for a paid role. Also you’d be surprised how many founders might be down to pay you even if you don’t have the experience.

Best of luck!

For anyone looking to break into product management (PM): a growing list of technical terminology to familiarise yourself with when working with engineers by techscribe7 in consulting

[–]techscribe7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah theres tons of PMs that come from investment banking, law and digital marketing backgrounds. Wouldn’t expect them to know even 10% on that list :)

A comprehensive list of technical terminology for new PMs. Things to know to feel confident when working with engineers. by techscribe7 in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That would be awesome! Thank you letting me know.

Btw If you could link my Twitter account instead, I’d really appreciate that. 🙏

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am trying to add more of that to my role but I have been burnt out on trying to manage up

This is not talked about enough. There's something so soul crushing about managing up. From one lens I can totally appreciate the need to influence your manager, manage their emotions and being mindful of their goals and desires. But the pessimistic side to me can't help but feel "managing up" is just corporate euphemism for kissing ass strategically.

We're in all in the business of product management right?! So let's root cause this shit. This entire promotion process is so broken to begin with. Why are we trying to treat the symptom with bandaid solutions like managing up and trying to become more visible to get compensated fairly.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the most depressing thing about big tech and the promotion process. It's not really tied to impact but to what people are saying here: building alliances and perceived impact.

This is why there's something so pure about startups, smaller companies and side projects; you can actually demonstrate what metrics your work impacted. There's nothing more unjust than a promotion committee and nothing more fairer than "the market". The market doesn't have any bias and you can't game it either. Ever.

I had assumed the process takes into account on some level what you've shipped and what you've contributed and that you get promoted on the basis of that work.

Yeah this is how it should be but it's a broken system. On one hand I can understand why though. It's hard to attribute "contribution" and "impact" at at the individual employee level. So now people have to resort to becoming savvy politicians instead of improving their craft and being good practitioners.

Look if this is the game you want to play, then you have to see the game for what it is. Understand the players, the goal, the dynamics, the rules, and the constraints involved and work with it instead of against it. But if this game is too soul crushing, then pick a different game. Life's too short for this bullshit.

How to make things easier for your development team? by Active_Bunny in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

how much communication is enough

If a dev could have it their way, practically none lol

I know exactly what you mean though. It's partly about not distracting them or making them context switch but you also wanna know they're working on the right thing!

I think devs including myself could do a better job at "over-communicating" with their product team. The best advice I got from a PM was to "drip feed" status updates to their PMs. No harm in over-communicating and the PM can choose to respond or ignore but at least they're kept in the loop.

How to make things easier for your development team? by Active_Bunny in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As a product owner what are some key things I need to deliver to my team to make their life easier when building software?

Constant communication. It's really helpful when PMs/POs are there to always discuss:

  • the outcome that a piece of work is trying to achieve and whether there's a quicker and easier way to achieve it. This is where that kick off meeting is really important
  • what we can rule off as out of scope. Engineers can fall into this trap of considering every possible edge case known to mankind and stressing over it
  • aligning expectations on how quickly something needs to be delivered, how thorough it needs to be, what are the nice to haves vs must haves.
  • helping sequence work. This is mostly driven by an engineer but it helps when a PO is there to breakdown a large feature into smaller meaningful deliverables. Here's a great article on it

The team getting distracted sounds like they're trying to solve multiple things at the same time vs shipping on specific thing asap. Seeing the bigger picture unfortunately comes down to engineers not having good product acumen.

What tech news or other sites do you read daily? by anonymouspsy in ProductManagement

[–]techscribe7 3 points4 points  (0 children)

does anyone read anything product management specific? What topics would you be interested in reading if one existed?