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Mind the Product

Product Management

The executive product leader persona

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Eira is an editor for Mind the Product. She's been a business journalist, editor, and copywriter for longer than she cares to think about.

Eira Hayward

<p>It’s been another busy month for the editorial team at MTP towers. We’ve brought you podcasts on moving from UX to Product, fireside chats, posts on experimentation, ProductTank write-ups on organisation behaviour and dysfunction, and much more. Here’s a recap of our most popular posts in March.</p>
<h2>Burnout in product teams</h2>
<p>Burnout is causing a crisis in product teams &#8211;  a recent Forbes study shows that seven out of 10 tech employees are considering quitting over the next year; 30% of those are because of burnout. In our most-read post this month coach Rachel Hamlin addresses the factors that cause product teams to burn out.</p>
<p>It’s not just unmanageable workloads, five other factors come into play, namely lack of autonomy, insufficient reward, lack of fairness, breakdown of community and values conflict.</p>
<p>All these factors appeal to our emotions so Rachel guides us through some of the ways we can look after our emotional well-being. She looks at the questions we should ask ourselves, the habits we should look out for and the pitfalls we need to be aware of if we are to avoid burnout.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/burnout-in-product-teams/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Burnout in product teams</a></em></p>
<h2>Mistakes to avoid while creating a product roadmap</h2>
<p>This article, by Monica Dhiman, Product Manager at Clearbridge Mobile, comments that a roadmap can achieve multiple goals &#8211; such as bringing key stakeholders on one page, creating a common understanding of product strategy and vision, and keeping everyone focused on the priorities by acting as a source of truth &#8211; if it’s prepared in the right way.</p>
<p>Too often mistakes are made that mean the roadmap falls short of its intended purpose, and this, given the amount of time a product manager spends preparing a roadmap, is heartbreaking, says Monica. Some of the most common mistakes, she says, include failing to update the roadmap, bowing to requests from demanding stakeholders, making the roadmap accessible to everyone who needs it/failing to maintain local copies of the roadmap, and creating a single roadmap for everyone.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/mistakes-to-avoid-while-creating-a-product-roadmap/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mistakes to avoid while creating a product roadmap</a></em></p>
<h2>Product and UX design – effective ways to work together</h2>
<p>This post for Prioritised members talks to a number of product designers and asks them how they think Product and US design should work together.</p>
<p>We found that product designers see themselves as the advocates for user centricity, their remit is to design a clear and understandable solution and they see product managers as more focused on the overall success of the product. They think that a sense of equal partnership is important for the relationship between product management, design and engineering to work successfully, but that they need to work at understanding the needs of the business. As ever, clear communication and robust feedback are vital to a successful relationship between product management and design.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/product-and-ux-design-effective-ways-to-work-together/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Product and UX design – effective ways to work together</a></em></p>
<h2>The advantages of declarative user stories</h2>
<p>This article from Simon Schreiber, a freelance product manager based in Munich, Germany, looks at how imperative user stories focus on the “how”, whereas declarative user stories describe  the “what”,or what value is created for the user.  Simon looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and at how product people might decide when it’s appropriate to use one or the other.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/the-advantages-of-declarative-user-stories/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The advantages of declarative user stories</a></em></p>
<h2>How product teams can measure progress through outcome OKRs</h2>
<p>A hands-on workshop for ProductTank Amsterdam from product coach Tim Herbig is the subject of our final piece of most-read content in March. Marieke Leitermann’s article runs through the theoretical and practical exercises of the workshop, the most common and underestimated mistakes, how to use output-driven key results to establish a product discovery practice and summarises Tim’s key messages.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/how-product-teams-can-measure-progress-through-outcome-okrs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How product teams can measure progress through outcome OKRs</a></em></p>
<h2>Coming up in April</h2>
<p>There’s lots more sparkling content to look forward to in April. To ensure you won’t miss out on a thing, keep your eyes peeled on our <a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homepage</a> as well as visiting the <a href="https://mtpdevwpe.wpengine.com/membership/leader/dashboard/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">membership dashboard</a>.</p>
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core/freeform

Anatomy of a real product strategy by Nacho Bassino

Applied product management: Why you may be struggling as a product leader by Gijo Mathew

Our bot workforce by David O’Brien

Organizational behavior and dysfunction in product management by Ken Chin

It’s all about the outcome by Georgie Smallwood

Self-care and stress management for product leaders by Dominique Jost

Empowered Teams and Decision Agility

Hacking Confidence by Janice Fraser

Scaling Product Teams: In Defense of Process by Spectra (Adaora) Asala

Great User Research (for Non-Researchers) by Steve Portigal

March’s top product management content

ProductTank Portland

ProductTank Abu Dhabi

ProductTank Manchester

ProductTank Newcastle Upon Tyne

ProductTank Milton Keynes

ProductTank London

ProductTank Jacksonville

ProductTank Phoenix

ProductTank Ljubljana

ProductTank Belgrade

ProductTank Bologna

ProductTank Edinburgh

ProductTank München

ProductTank Birmingham

ProductTank Porto

ProductTank Pune

ProductTank Chennai

ProductTank Genève

ProductTank Heidelberg

ProductTank Málaga

ProductTank Paris

ProductTank Hamburg

ProductTank Kraków

ProductTank Riga

ProductTank Reading

ProductTank San Francisco

ProductTank Montréal

ProductTank Goiania

ProductTank Des Moines

ProductTank Bangkok

ProductTank Canberra

ProductTank Dubai

ProductTank Valencia

ProductTank Madrid

ProductTank Düsseldorf

ProductTank Bucharest

ProductTank Raleigh

ProductTank Warsaw

ProductTank Bielefeld

ProductTank Bern

ProductTank Tokyo

ProductTank Pittsburgh

ProductTank Cardiff

ProductTank Krakow

ProductTank NYC

Product Leadership Course

ProductTank Recife

ProductTank Dublin

Member AMA: Unpacking User Research with Laura Klein

ProductTank Copenhagen

Trainer-Led Workshops

ProductTank Tauranga

World Product Day

Member AMA with Ken Norton

#mtpcon London+EMEA 2022 Workshops

#mtpcon London+EMEA 2022 Conference

March’s top product management content

Eira Hayward

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