March 12

Leading a Team of Product Managers

Effective product leaders aren’t taskmasters. Effective product leaders provide minimal structure and timely support that allows the Product Managers they lead to build great products that solve customer’s problems. Here’s some insight into how you can provide that structure and support.

How to manage product managers. As a product leader who manages product managers, you lead those who guide decision-making. If you don’t do this role well, you can sink an early-stage company. Ryan Seamons shares a few lessons that can help you manage PMs more successfully and keep your organization afloat.

(via @Product_Craft)

Managing a team of product managers. Luisja Álvarez has led a team of PMs for over three years. During this time, he’s learned that managing a team of Product Managers is completely different from being a Product Manager. With this in mind, Luisja explains what you will gain and what you will lose if you decide to move your Product career to the management path.

(via @uxdesigncc)

How are product teams organized? The product team is responsible for implementing strategy, building the roadmap, and defining product features. These are the people who choose what gets built, promote what is new, and measure performance — crucial organizational roles within any company. The folks at Aha! explain how you should structure your team to best support the goals you want to achieve.

(via @aha_io)

Establishing a product organization structure. “Creating digital products is a complex undertaking. Any non-trivial digital product requires multiple people with different skill sets to cooperate in the discovery, design, development, operation, and distribution of the product. This cooperation needs some degree of formalization in the form of an organizational structure and processes.” Jens-Fabian Goetzmann explains how to establish a product organization structure by considering how to manage the relationships that exist between people on those teams.

(via @MrJefago)

How to level-up your product team: The Three ‘Ps’. Every product management team is busy. However, some are far more effective than others. Luke Gallimore explains that effective product management teams define a clear value-based product strategy and create and manage a healthy roadmap. Luke provides a framework to move your product team forward and “level-up” your capability.

(via @luke_gallimore)

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.


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