Product Rules (+ When To Break Them): The Playlist

Ten Rules For Successful Product: Don Norman

Design for how your customers really are, not how you hope they are. Don Norman, author, The Design of Everyday Things, speaks at Business of Software Conference 2009.

The Four Laws Of Software Economics: Rich Mironov

Rich literally wrote the book on Product Management – ‘The Art of Product Management’ – and has a wealth of knowledge to offer on the subject of the strategic implications to produce great products. Just remember – “Your development team will never, ever, be big enough”.

Shifting From Managing From Outputs To Outcomes: Teresa Torres

If you are like most leaders, you got to where you are because you are good at making decisions. You can quickly go from strategy to execution and you know exactly what should be done next. But if we make all the output decisions (e.g. what to build, what programs to roll out, how a process should work), our company’s solutions are only as good as we are. To avoid this trap, instead of telling our teams what to do, we need to tell them what outcomes we expect them to drive.

Bottoms Up With OKRs: Whitney O’Banner

Google famously published a leading reference for establishing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) as a way to align teams and set short-term goals. In this BoSTalk, Whitney O’Banner (Engineering Manager, Medium) delves into which aspects of Google’s video should be embraced, which should be updated in line with the times, and which should be left in the ’90s. Whitney leaves you with three ‘top tips’ for incorporating OKRs into your team, plus answers a few of the audiences hard-hitting question in the Q&A at the end of the talk.

Debunking Product Platitudes: Scott Elben

Scott shows why successful product management requires a degree of lateral thinking and a willingness to challenge or ignore conventional ‘wisdom’. Drawing on his experiences at Google, Nutmeg and Twitter, he shares how some of the most successful products are developed from a place where orthodox thinking is abandoned. Just because everything in an industry is done in a certain way, that doesn’t mean it is the right way.