January 31

Product Management Collaboration

Too much collaboration? What’s that mean? You certainly want collaboration, but you want collaboration done in the right way in the right amount, as these tips describe. The right amount of collaboration helps you deliver a great product. Too much collaboration helps you spiral into chaos.

What I learned about cross-functional collaboration from being a PM at Lyft. Part of Hadar Dor’s product management role at Lyft includes collaborating across several teams. As a result of all that collaboration, he’s discovered how important cross-functional relationships are in the success of your product. You need to be able to incorporate the diverse perspectives of cross-functional teams to build the best possible solution for our users. He recently shared tips and strategies for a successful cross-team collaboration he learned from all of those interactions.

(via @hadardor)

How to coach collaboration. “Collaboration is one of those words that is used so often in so many different ways that it has lost its meaning for many people.” Everyone thinks they’re collaborative, and you’ll rarely run into someone who considers themselves anti-collaborative. Yet Marty Cagan suggests that collaboration in the context of an empowered, cross-functional product team has a very specific meaning that is not necessarily consistent with how product managers are inclined to work. That makes coaching a critically important area for a manager to focus on when coaching product managers. Marty takes a look at what it means to properly coach people to improve their collaboration.

(via @cagan)

Collaborating effectively in cross-functional product team settings. “Organizations with well-defined functional areas or departments such as an IT department are finding that these functional areas can get in the way of fast-moving projects. So, if you are a startup working on a software product or need to have a startup-like environment where you have a fast-moving project that requires multi-layers of iteration and cross-validation, then you will need to arrange cross-functional teams.” And as Nima Torabi describes, those cross-functional teams require members to collaborate rather than work next to each other in silos.

(via @nitor36)

The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration.  “As a product manager, we can get too focused on the building of features and not enough focus on establishing relationships across the company.” Justin Dilley, Head of Product at FullStory, made that observation when he sat down with Hanna Woodburn to discuss how cross-functional collaboration works at growing software companies.

(via @fullstory)

Collaboration is product management.  Helen Altshuler joined the This is Product Management podcast to share how product managers can collaborate with designers and engineers, and how to communicate with the c-suite. Included in that discussion are Helen’s thoughts on the role collaboration plays in delivering value to clients, how to keep the best collaboration practices from moving to the back burner, and the role diversity plays in the workplace and how it affects collaboration.

(via @tipmpodcast)

Kent J McDonald

About the author

Kent J McDonald writes about and practices software product management. He has product development experience in a variety of industries including financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive. Kent practices his craft with a variety of product teams and provides just in time resources for product people at KBP.media and Product Collective. When not writing or product managing, Kent is his family’s #ubersherpa, listens to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collects national parks.


Tags


You may also like