Here's a TLDR for people like me who read everything diagonally 😅

1. I'm launching ProductManagerTemplates.com

2. I've organised templates based on frameworks and structures I built (with a lot of people's input) and used while at Kitch, One Month PM and advising multiple companies.

3. I'm starting with Notion and Miro templates that can accelerate your product organisation. We're adding Google Docs templates soon.

4. You can unlock Bundles (groups based on a specific use case) or All Templates & Bundles. Every time we add a template to a Bundle you've unlocked, we'll email it to you with no extra cost. If you unlock all, you'll receive every single new template for Free.

5. If you want to check it before committing, get 3 Free Template here. Hope you enjoy and share with other people and companies 🙏

Alright, now to the patient ones, those who enjoy the craft of writing.

When I launched One Month PM I wasn't expecting 1) for it to grow to so many people in such a short time (1400 people in ~24 months), 2) getting such good feedback on this experiment (NPS ~80) and 3) having a large percentage of people (30%) repeating our courses and wanting more.

What I was also not expecting were the hundreds of messages on Slack asking for more support, more tools, more tips, and more guidance.

So I started building stuff, specifically templates, and including them when you enrolled in each course.

I re-created templates I used at Kitch, including famous frameworks from some of my favourite authors like Shreyas Doshi, John Cutler and Lenny Rachitsky, and I even crafted new templates I use on my day-to-day advising startups and operators.

And I now want to bring this to everyone, even if you don't join our courses. I'm simply calling it ProductManagerTemplates.com (I mean, it's what they are...)

The overarching goal is in line with One Month PM: 🚀 to accelerate anyone into building products people really want to use.

So what is available on this initial launch at ProductManagerTemplates.com? We're starting with 5 bundles and a total of 20 templates, both in Miro and Notion:

Product Roadmapping Bundle (unlock here)

• Product Roadmap Template

• Product Requirements Document (PRD)

• Product Roadmap Structuring Work Session

• Product Roadmap Ideation Work Session

Product Process Bundle (unlock here)

• Pre-Mortem Template

• Sprint Update Template

• Product Reviews Template

• Sprint Planning Template

• Sprint Retrospective Template

Product Planning Bundle (unlock here)

• Problem Space Template

• Prioritisation Template

• Prioritisation Work Session

• Risk Analysis Work Session

• Risk Assessment Template

Product Strategy Bundle (unlock here)

• OKR and Goals Template

• Product Strategy Template

• Product Vision Working Backwards Template

Product Leadership Bundle (unlock here)

• Coaching Template

• Performance Review Template

• First 90 Days Onboarding Template

When you unlock the templates, you can easily duplicate to your Notion or Miro Workspace, and start tweaking and editing your own way.

We're planning to expand this library to include:

1. More Notion and Miro templates, including Research, Prototyping, Metrics, Growth, Measurement templates.

2. Support more platforms like Google Docs, Coda and others our users use and love.

3. Whatever else our subscribed members want us to build. You can actually make requests if you unlock All Templates & Bundles.

We hope this is exciting, and more importantly, helps you deal with the headaches of building product. Share with others (PM's or non PM's) who would benefit from this guidance 😊

Thanks,

Andre

A few thoughts on Brian Chesky’s decision to change Product Management at Airbnb. TLDR: No, Airbnb doesn’t seem to be killing the PM function.

A bit of context: around June 22nd, Brian told an audience that Airbnb was eliminating the PM role within the company. The reality, corrected by him, is that it’s more of an evolution towards a Product (Marketing/GTM/Business) Manager.

🚨𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.

Why do I cheer this change? Because unfortunately most PM's I meet are:

- Glorified Project Managers

- Requirement collectors

- Stakeholder shopping list takers

- Carrier pigeons between Leadership and engineers

- Professional “𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴”

All these ☝️ add extremely low value to a product-centric organisation. What really adds value is: 

1. True business outcome ownership

2. A consistent voice of the customer

3. A driver of go-to-market impact

If you think about it, a PM is a resource-allocator: “𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘙𝘖𝘐 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯?”. This is what Airbnb’s new role redesign seems to be focusing on: turning the PM into a GM, a General Manager of the impact of the product in the P&L (profit & loss). As it should be. Apple is known to have this “role design”, and at $3T it seems like it’s working.

Brian also mentioned how Design would be “elevated”. This IMHO is politically correct phrasing for “designers need to step up their product-game” (and not just designers but engineers as well). Great product orgs don’t run on a siloed-waterfall-style-process, where engineers get tickets and designers get specs and “now work!”. They collaborate, scope and iterate together.

𝐒𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 ⚠️ 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞?

 - Engineers that become PM’s and use their “technical expertise” as their strength

 - PM’s who are performing due to their project management skills

 - PM’s who care more about features rather than the business side of prioritisation

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐦 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐟?

 - Research savvy PM’s who are unafraid to speak with users

 - Sales-y PM’s who understand the commercial aspect of product

 - PM’s who understand the power of Marketing (and all its variances)

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈’𝐦 𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥):

 - Stakeholder leaders who expect their “shopping lists” to be prioritised

 - Managers who want detailed project management reports

 - Designers & Engineers who don’t care about the product process and live for their Figmas or IDEs.

I’m looking forward to seeing more PM GMs in the world driving real business impact, and funding it back to create user impact.

PS: Did you know the entire product management foundations program of One Month PM was designed EXACTLY like this? If you want to go deeper, apply for our Fall programs.

Some of the biggest products ever built didn’t start the way you think. And if these products didn’t decide to change, they would’ve probably died a long time ago.

Before Slack was Slack, it was Glitch, a massive online multiplayer game. When Glitch wasn’t working, the team pivoted into communication, something that was indeed working inside Glitch. This re-focus allowed Slack to be sold to Salesforce for $27B.

Before Shopify was Shopify, it was Snowdevil, a snowboard shop. When the founders of Shopify couldn’t easily get an e-commerce set up to sell their snowboard gear, they decided to build their own tools, which would become a platform for millions of future businesses. This re-focus allowed Shopify to hit $200B market cap.

Before Twitter was Twitter, it was ODEO, a podcast search engine. When ODEO wasn’t gaining traction, (in large reason due to Apple’s Itunes), the founders decided to experiment in a new field of social content: text. This re-focus allowed Twitter to be sold to Elon Musk for $44B.

Before Instagram was Instagram, it was Burbn, a social check-in app (remember Foursquare?). Even though check-in was growing, the founders saw that the most engaged users were mostly posting real-time photos of places. This re-focus allowed Instagram to be sold to Facebook for $1B and now estimated to be worth more than $100B.

Every single one of these pivots share a common trait: they simplified their product based on something their users (or the founders) did above all else.

And in a time where resources are scarcer, and the clock is turning faster every day, re-focusing your product strategy could be the way into something much bigger (including surviving).

The most common “I know what it means, but in reality I don’t” in product management is the product vision. The power of this tool is unrealised by most.

𝐀 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧.

Most PMs (and even product leaders) unconsciously de-prioritise designing a vision because they’re either focused on the operational and tactical part of managing the product, or they expect “someone above” (ie. CPO or founders) to take care of it. Often “those above” don’t do it either because they think they have “an empowered organisation, of course the vision comes from the PMs”. Broken loop.

What everyone doesn’t realize (and ends up missing) is that a product vision can…

1️⃣ help you and your team get out of bed in the morning and pumped. Especially if the day is filled with unsexy tactical things that are required to make the vision true.

2️⃣ help hire the best talent. Because which A-players don’t like to build an exciting future?

3️⃣ help avoid making wrong decisions. “Does it get us closer to paining the future we envision?” If not, should you really be chasing it?

The short term success of building a product vision is having your team using it to define their roadmaps. Long term success is lasting long enough to live it in person. And the easiest part: you can cascade it to goals, opportunities and solutions. If they all line up, then you’re likely execution against your vision.

Independently of the scope you manage, take an hour today and think “what is my product’s mission, and what does the future look like when fulfilling it?”. A beautiful narrative to that question is the raw form of your vision. Now start carving it.

🚀 Want to learn about Product Management? Check One Month PM. We run cohort-based Live-Learning on PM Foundations, Growth PM, Web3 PM, AI PM, No Code, UX Design and Data for PM. Every program starts at €99(+VAT).

Search for “Product Manager” roles on Linkedin and you’ll find infinite variations: PM, PO, Program Managers, Project Managers, etc. But are they all the same? I picked 3 typical roles and tried to define what each one mean:

For this I am using 4 variables:

1️⃣ What each role owns, i.e. you’re truly accountable for
2️⃣ What each role uses for planning, i.e. what will you be working with every single day or week
3️⃣ Who each role deals with on the day-to-day, i.e. which relationships will influence success in your job
4️⃣ What success looks like for each role, i.e. how you can deliver and grow within the role’s career path 

Let’s dive in:

1️⃣ Ownership:

- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 own a project with a beginning and end, which when delivered should be done.
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 own a set of feature requirements and the delivery of epics, increasing the product’s capacity to add value.
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 own the product, the value delivered to users, and ultimately the P&L of that product for the company.

2️⃣ Planning:

- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 use a Gantt chart project plan, including dependencies, critical path and tasks associated with delivering a project.
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 use a backlog of issues, stories and tasks, normally created by a PM or by the team, that compose the Roadmap.
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 use a Product Roadmap, outlining the narrative, opportunities and solutions that more likely get the product to its goals.

3️⃣ Relationships:

- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 deal with every stakeholder assigned to the project. If you’re not contributing, you’re out of their scope. 
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 deal with engineering, design and product managers responsible with executing on the product
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 deal with stakeholders, customers, and everyone building product, guaranteeing alignment between the decisions and value

4️⃣ Success:

- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 succeed when they deliver the shortest critical path and the project on time
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 succeed when they have properly defined requirements, and a smooth path of features to production
- 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 succeed when they progress towards Product-Market-Fit, delivering retained, happy customers to the company

Hopefully this helps differentiate the roles and expectations. Even though I don't believe in the PO role, I respect that companies have their own cultures, but let's not make someone a PO and expect them to do the PM work.

🚀 Want to learn about Product Management? Check One Month PM. We run cohort-based Live-Learning on PM Foundations, Growth PM, Web3 PM, AI PM, No Code, UX Design and Data for PM. Every program starts at €99(+VAT).

This is a great moment to go back to your 2022 Roadmap and compare it to what happened throughout the year. Here are some principles to design, communicate & execute a roadmap in a volatile year ahead:

1. Be extremely open to change, so you can iterate quickly before it’s too late.

2. Keep the planning process simple, invest in building quicker to learn faster.

3. Plan shorter timelines. Instead of closing out the entire year, focus on H1 and see how it plays out.

4. Decentralise: teams on the field have faster feedback loops. Get them in the process earlier, and owning more.

5. Design the roadmap with customers, instead of locking yourself in an office room for a few days.

6. “What got you here won’t get you there”. Past data might not tell the whole story for this year as consumer behaviour is changing massively.

7. Double down on what’s working rather than risking too much. Especially if you’re strapped with resources.

8. But if you’re on a tight deadline don’t do incremental things. Bet big with conviction or the needle won’t move.

9. Make sure goals align with strategy and strategy aligns with roadmap. If there isn’t a straight line, you probably shouldn’t do it.

10. Invest in the narrative. In turbulent times people need strong stories to find the way. Become the storyteller as much as the strategist and planner.

As you plan 2023, aim to “make it seem it’s in the room" by the end of the year 😂 Good luck 🖖

We can talk about “prioritising”, “managing expectations”, “scoping features” or “launching products” but none of these are the true jobs of a Product Manager. There are only 2 areas you truly need to care (the rest are consequences of this focus).

1. The difference between “Customer Perceived Net Benefits” and “Price”
2. The difference between “Price” and “Cost”

On the difference between “Customer Perceived Net Benefits” and “Price”:

- Customers perceive the net benefit of your product when they compare it with alternatives and competitors

- The price will be a determining factor to calculate the net value

- You want to prioritise and build features that continuously grow the perceived net benefit

- Your company will pressure you to increase price over time (more below)

- You need to prioritise building things that grow net benefits faster than you need to increase the price

- Which makes the end goal communicating how much better your product is versus competition (and really deliver)

On the difference between “Price” and “Cost”:

- Your company perceives value when their margins grow. It means the product drives more retained cash to the business.

- Cost is easy to grow, price not so much as it scares customers and reduces addressable market

- When you invest in building more product (because you need to increase net benefit), it will cost more to the company (engineering, sales, etc), reducing the margin

- Which means you’ll need to grow price to keep the margin (or increase it even faster to grow margin)

- Or you need to find ways to lower the cost (better execution, scale, etc) by prioritising this type of features

- Which makes the end goal balancing your roadmap between “net benefit creation” features and “cost reduction” features

If you don’t grow the first, customers will give up and choose competitors, which means you don’t drive value to the company.
If you don’t grow the second, your margins shrink, reducing business value, which means you don’t drive value to the company.

The price of not focusing on these areas is, at best, creating a feature factory.

If you’re a PM, you’re probably wearing quite a few different hats. Personally, I believe every PM has its own hat story. Here are the ones I use the most 👇

🧠 Team psychologist - often your team will have to do stuff they don’t like, struggle with squad members, be disheartened with the roadmap, go through bad quarters. You gotta bring them up, listen to them, support them.

🎯 Performance Coach - Shipping takes time. Time wears people out. The last stretch is usually longer and everyone is tired. You have to keep everyone up and pumped. There is never a bad day to hit the target.

👨‍🚒 Firefighter- Sh*t happens. Planning doesn’t cover all edge cases. Some “things” are nobody’s role. It’s up to you to fill the gaps and put out the fires.

🏛 Small town mayor - Getting “the town” (aka eng/PM/PD/Data etc) aligned on what needs to get done. It’s about saying what needs to be said. It’s about rallying everyone to keep the “town” moving.

🗽 Union leader - your users/customers are members of your union. You need to keep them “enrolled”. You need to defend their interests. Especially regarding decisions that could leave them worst off.

🧹 School janitor - your role is about getting your team to run as fast as possible. Cleaning up the obstacles (and keeping a tidy environment) is on you, otherwise everyone either falls or walks slowly.

You won’t be rewarded if you do this (as it’s not part of the PM role job description) but you will be punished (as in failing outcomes/not delivering outputs, team unhappiness, etc) if you don’t wear them.

Here’s how you can do a “Product MBA” in 6 months, and actually learn how to build and manage your first products, and do it at any tech company 👇 I am linking each suggestions to make it easy to get started.

Before diving in, a quick explanation:

• Each month I’ve selected a combination of 1) books, 2) newsletter articles, 3) podcast episodes, 4) conversation topics and 5) online courses (disclaimer, I lead One Month PM and this is what I am pointing to).

• I’ve also added a 6) “analysis challenge” to make you think through some successful products in different operating models.

• To offer diverse viewpoints, I change the authors in each month, but you can rearrange the order as you see fit. The goal is to go broad, and create a weekly habit on those you enjoy the most. I recommend following them on any medium they share content.

• I chose options to keep budgets as low as possible, without sacrificing valuable content.

Here’s also what I recommend you to do to guarantee as much knowledge absorption:

• Newsletter/Article = Aim anywhere between a daily read to a weekly read. All recommendations have +20 great posts, giving you enough to cover the whole month.

• Book = If you read 10 pages a day (including weekends), you’ll lock 300 pages/month, getting your monthly book read.

• Podcast = Aim for a weekly podcast episode. Usually they are 50min-70 min. Get a 15 minute walk per day, and do your reps.

• Conversation = Reach out 20/30 different PMs on Linkedin and invite them for 30 min conversations. Aim for anything between a weekly to a monthly chat. If you get more than 1/month, repeat the topic I am suggesting.

• Online course = As I am recommending One Month PM, it’s Live-Learning, so make sure to show up on all sessions. It’s like a Personal Trainer.

• Analysis challenge = Aim for 300-500 words analysing onboarding, business model, differentiating dynamics, competitive advantage and growth levers.

Here we go:

Month 1

✉ Newsletter: Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

📚 Book: Inspired by Marty Cagan.

🎙 Podcast: Product Thinking with Melissa Perri

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “What is the role of a Product Manager in a company and a Tech team?”

📽 Online Course: Product Manager Foundations at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: Airbnb (Marketplace)

Month 2

✉ Newsletter: Ask Gib by Gibson Biddle

📚 Book: Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres

🎙 Podcast: Lenny’s Podcast by Lenny Rachitsky

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “How do you run customer and user discovery?”

📽 Online Course: Growth Product Management at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: Revolut (Fintech)

Month 3

✉ Newsletter: The Beautiful Mess by John Cutler

📚 Book: Escaping the build trap by Melissa Perri

🎙 Podcast: The Product Podcast by Product School

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “How do you prioritise and what frameworks do you use?”

📽 Online Course: Data for Product Managers at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: Shopify (Ecommerce)

Month 4

✉ Newsletter: SVPG by Marty Cagan

📚 Book: Sprint by Jake Knapp.

🎙 Podcast: 20Product by Harry Stebbings at 20VC

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “How do you build and manage your roadmaps?”

📽 Online Course: No Code Foundations at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: Netflix (Consumer)

Month 5

✉ Newsletter: ProductTalk by Teresa Torres

📚 Book: Hooked by Nir Eyal.

🎙 Podcast: How I built this by Guy Raz

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “How do you manage stakeholders and management as a PM?”

📽 Online Course: AI Product Manager at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: TikTok (Social)

Month 6

✉ Newsletter: High-Impact Product Management by Itamar Gilad

📚 Book: Empowered by Marty Cagan.

🎙 Podcast: The Product Experience by Mind the Product

👩‍🏫 Conversation topic: “How do you launch products and features and set them for success?”

📽 Online Course: Web3 PM at One Month PM

📝 Analysis challenge: Notion (B2B SaaS)

Are you up for the challenge in 2023?

Most companies treat roadmaps like a pyramid process:

1️⃣ Leadership/founders decide what to build…
2️⃣ PM team explains the features, generally in PRDs
3️⃣ Designers design the features
4️⃣ Engineers code the features.

Many think this is the right way, but this is “management’s comfortable way”. It grants them control over what is built and feels “efficient”. In reality, this leads to worst products, unhappier teams and unexplored opportunities.

A better way is what I call "meeting in the middle":

1️⃣ Leadership/management explores and exposes opportunities, generally tied to a) company strategy, b) OKRs, c) strategic initiatives.

2️⃣ Product teams (including PMs, Designers, Engineers and others) ideate solutions to tackle those opportunities. Occasionally they also highlight unexplored opportunities that their field-view made them aware.

3️⃣ Both meet in the middle to discuss and agree on scope (what success looks like), resources (how many people are available to tackle the opportunities) and timelines (when is a feasible time goal that meets company goals).

This "top-down" + "bottom-up" approach has a significant upside:

💪 Empowers teams to explore solutions, and gets their buy in to the strategic decisions

🎯 Grants management a more targeted control, but over opportunities, instead of features

🤝 Allows for agreement and expectation management, where both parties know where one ends and the other starts

Win win for everyone, especially for better products.

“How can PMs have the best working relationship with Product Designers and Engineers?”

The best answer I’ve come around has been: everybody needs to wear the “product thinking hat”, and everyone needs to care the others also wear it.

Design can’t just care about UX or UI. They can’t just focus on pixel-perfect. It’s not just an animation or a trending set of patterns.

Engineering can’t just care about technical scope. They can’t just focus on architecture. It’s not just stack or “let me try this new library…”.

And PMs aren’t exempt either. They can't just care about the requirements or “stakeholders said this”. It’s not just where competitors are moving or the new “hype” thing.

Wearing the “product thinking hat” means you have to think about:

- Trade-offs (if I add X to the scope, what am I blocking/removing with that decision?)

- Delivery complexity (if I build this way, how am I making a team’s life harder?)

- Estimation volatility (If I make this decision, how am I contributing to the probability of missing the estimated delivery date?)

PMs might need to kickstart this thinking process but everyone needs to commit to including it in their own field.

It might make the “planning” slightly longer, but everyone will make better choices, generate stronger buy-in and simplify decisions. You'll also get more pragmatic, smaller, quicker features to prove whether you can solve the problem or not.

One of the greatest things I’ve changed my mind on was on being a remote PM. I used to think it was impossible. I now know it can make you a better PM. But it's harder than co-located PM. Here’s what I recommend remote PMs to do:

1. Use async as much as possible. Rely more on asynchronous messaging than synchronous communication. Sync communication interrupts people, distracts them, and doesn’t optimise for the moment they’re most prepared to deal with your issue.

2. Make your communication short and sweet. If you’re successful in transitioning to async, keep your writing laser focused. 

3. Make calls feel less transactional. When your team is remote, you’ll spend a lot of time on Zoom. Make these calls feel less transactional by bringing personal aspects into them, changing tempo and pace, and creatively adding some less-work stuff.

4. If you can, have specific co-located days. If people are 45min/1h away from each other, try having one day per week or per month together. If further away, do team off-sites every month/quarter.

5. Create your own rituals. Rituals are the basis of tribes. The more tribal your team is, the more they trust each other. Customising your rituals will make your team stick together.

6. Run collaborative sessions. Remote makes people more siloed. One way to fight this is to run group events, for example on MIRO, where everyone discusses problems and solutions in real time.

7. Never skip retros. When you’re far from your team, the retrospectives are a core ceremony to feel the pulse. Retros are more important than ever in a remote world.

8. Trust your team. Being far from one another makes you have less input to make decisions. But you need to fight this feeling and trust the team will bring the right data and decisions to the table.

Making remote product management work is the best way to make the future more evenly distributed across the world.

🚀 Want to learn about Product Management? Check One Month PM. We run cohort-based Live-Learning on PM Foundations, Growth PM, Web3 PM, AI PM, No Code, UX Design and Data for PM. Every program starts at €99(+VAT).

Who are you really competing against? You are likely wrong about who you’re competing with. Your idea of "competitors" is probably wrong because you think “products” instead of behaviours.

Here’s a couple of non-obvious competitors to some of the most famous products in the world:

1️⃣ Biggest competitor to Netflix? Not HBO. It’s Fortnite. Netflix is competing for your entertainment time, not your “I’m going to stream some movie” time. Gaming is stealing the most valuable “entertainment” time from Netflix.

2️⃣ Biggest competitor of the News? Not websites or news apps. It’s TikTok. Most young people get world facts from TikTok in short video format. Are these edited, curated and well delivered? Maybe, maybe not, but that's what people consume.

3️⃣ Biggest competitor to Google? Not Bing, Yahoo or other search engines. It’s Amazon. The most valuable searches for Google are product purchases. But what happens when you already know Amazon has what you want? You search directly there, and skip Google.

4️⃣ Biggest competitor to books? “Oh nothing competes with books…”. Twitter does. You want to get knowledge in a world where nobody has time or attention? Jump into Twitter threads and “learn anything in no time”. Is it the best knowledge? Probably not, but that’s what users are choosing to read.

5️⃣ Biggest competitor to the traditional office space? Not WeWork or fancy decorated locations. It’s Zoom, Slack or MS Teams. It’s staying home, not commuting in traffic, not wasting time distracted by everyone else.

People don’t think about “your competitors”. They think “what can I use that gives me the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins I need to solve this problem and live my best life?”

The Twitter Blue debacle is the true reason why Product teams, PMs, empowered cross functional groups and a proper process matter. It starts with a convoluted approach at a feature:

This is what happens when:

- Product Managers are too busy putting out fires
- Designers are trying to explain why "thinking" matters
- Engineers have to design UX experiences

Oh, and top-down decision making instead of empowered product teams.

But it doesn’t get any better.

For CEOs and Founders who just want to rush things out, here’s a “hindsight 20-20”

And let’s include as well the:

- “this only takes 5 minutes…”
- “Can’t we just add this?”
- “Trust me, we really need to build this feature”

After shipping +30 quarters of roadmaps there is one pattern that I believe correlates with a weak (or lack of) process: I call the 9x slap. And Twitter is about to live it.

Ask anyone working in product, if there's one thing that is certain is that estimations are always wrong. How much? Anecdotal data shows stuff can take 3 times as long as you expected.

Ask anyone in engineering, if there's one thing that is certain is that it seems the expectation of impact are never as big as PM's promised. How much? Anecdotal data again shows impact is generally 1/3 as much as people expected.

This means doing exactly what you want and achieving the results you expect will take 3 times longer, with 3 extra iteration cycles. Total: 9 times the effort.

I think Twitter folks and investors are about to be hit with a 140 character long slap.

Welcome to some harsh truths of product.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

It really just started as a small pandemic experiment. 

“What if I tried teaching some product fundamentals to 10-15 people?”

Fast forward 2 years and this week starts the November cohort, the last of 2022.

Here’s some data from this crazy year:

• 500 people did at least one program, across 18 timezones (not joking, insane)

• 20 cohorts throughout the entire year

• 1450 people currently in the waiting list for future editions, and we’re adding 5-7 new pre-applications per day

• PM Foundations sold out on average in 5 hours  

• Henrique Cruz continues running Growth Product Management

• 🎬 Mário Tarouca (MrAutomation.me) joined us and launched No Code Foundations

• Cátia Sofia Carvalho and Miguel Gonçalves joined us and launched UX Design Foundations

• João Tiago Ascensão joined us and launched AI Product Management

• Álvaro Bezerra, Mário Ribeiro Alves and Elizabeth T. joined us and launched Web3 Product Management

• João Mimoso joined us and is launching Data for Product Managers

• NPS is still above 80

And I am not even counting the insane list of guests that showed up for our Lunch & Learns (special kudos to Aaron W., Raquel Félix, Richard Cadman, Ana Margarida Silva, Joana Baptista, Rodolfo Cristóvão, Francisca Veloso, Marcelino Moreno, Humar Santos, Suprakash Das, Mario Araujo, Marta Luis Burguete, João Teixeira, Ebi Atawodi, Tiago Fernandes, Anabela Cesário, Miguel Loureiro, David Schreiber and many more).

Some people asked me: “Why are you building One Month PM?”. Here’s why: 

I believe software will be a commodity in the coming years. Writing code will actually be the exception, not the rule. Developing new products will be as easy as speaking. That means the true differentiator between successful products and all others lies in your product thinking skills. So if you believe technology is the true equaliser and the most powerful way of solving most of the world’s problems, creating more product thinkers will optimise our ability to have better technology. Learning product can’t be hard, exclusive, expensive, boring and unfit of people’s busy lives. One Month PM is my answer to accelerate this vision.

We know the world is shaking, from recession fears to layoffs. From funding drying to stock market crashes. If there is one thing you can bet is that knowledge and new skills have never been more important than now.

I hope you get to join our programs in 2023 and embark on this mission. 

Pre-apply at onemonthpm.com and equip yourself to deal with whatever might come:

1. PM Foundations > Learn the basics of product management

2. Growth PM > Learn how marketing and product come together

3. No Code Foundations > Learn 12 tools to ship your first product without knowing code

4. AI PM > Learn how artificial intelligence, machine learning and product intersect

5. Web3 PM > Learn where PM sits in the decentralised world of blockchain, crypto and Dapps

6. UX Design Foundations > Learn the ins and outs of UX design and research

7. Data for PMs > Learn how to master data and insights in your day to day as a PM

Bring it on 2023 🚀

🚀 Want to learn about Product Management? Check One Month PM. We run cohort-based Live-Learning on PM Foundations, Growth PM, Web3 PM, AI PM, No Code, UX Design and Data for PM. Every program starts at €99(+VAT).

There have been very few product management threads that have been as impactful as Shreyas Doshi “3 types of product leaders”.

Why? 👇

1. Understanding each type of product leader allows you to know the type of leader you are. Knowing what type of leader you are makes you design an opportunity space where you shine the brightest.

2. Knowing the distinction of each type allows you to assess your own PMs and map where they’re growing into. It helps you customise what sets them for success.

3. Seeing the strengths and weaknesses of each type allows you to define who you need around yourself, based on your company’s current stage. Finding the right type of leader can make or break the reason you hire them.

4. Studying the traits of each type helps you understand where you need personal development, making you a stronger T-shaped leader. It allows you to get specific peer feedback and prioritise progress.

My last advice is to be honest with the type of product leader you are, even if that is not the type of leader you want to be. Every company needs either type at one moment or another. That can be you.

There are 6 concepts every product manager needs to know by heart: 1) Mission, 2) Vision, 3) Strategy, 4) Roadmap, 5) Execution, 6) Measurement. Here’s how they all connect 👇

[1] Mission: your product’s purpose. The reason it exists. What gets everyone jumping out of bed in the morning, and choosing to dedicate their scarcest asset, time, to build something. Your mission is the answer to the “Why build this?”

[2] Vision: the story you tell. How you see the future turning out if you succeed. The world after you fulfill your mission. Your vision is the answer to “Where are we going?”.

[3] Strategy: how you make decisions. The framework that guides which opportunities you choose. It should optimize for decisions that get to the goal, accelerate toward your vision and fulfill your mission.

[4] Roadmap: your current best plan to get “there”. It’s the combination of solutions that match the opportunities picked by your strategy. Your roadmap should let everyone know what to expect, and when, as well as what not to expect, and why.

[5] Execution: the quality of delivering your plan. Execution helps ask the questions “what is slowing me down? What is helping me go faster?”. With execution, you can plan ways of accelerating your learning rate so you can double down or course-correct.

[6] Measurement: how you know if your decisions are the right ones. The way to quantify if your solutions were the best ones to deliver opportunities, if you picked the best opportunities to get to your vision, and if your vision is valuable.

Each step is tied to the previous, and the next. Making good product decisions requires you to deeply understand the concepts. Invest in clarifying each one for your product or company: it will be transformative in your decisions.

I’m looking forward to talking with Shyvee Shi as a part of LinkedIn Learning’s PM Learning Series on Friday, November 4 at 9am PST / 4PM GMT.

We're gonna be talking about stuff like:
- my career journey into Product Management 
- experience building products at startups vs. large tech companies
- how to work with opinionated founders at early-stage startups
- how to find product-market fit and craft a winning strategy

I will also be sharing what's coming on One Month PM for 2023, so if you're looking into PM in the future, I think you want to join!

If you have questions drop them as comments below and tag people who would like to join! Looking forward for this.

👉 RSVP today: https://lnkd.in/dDCrSiu9