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9 concepts you will not find in any product management book
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9 concepts you will not find in any product management book

What PM theory is missing

Andre Albuquerque
Jun 6, 2022
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9 concepts you will not find in any product management book
www.andrealbuquerque.com

There is so much product management theory misses.

Here are 9 concepts you wonโ€™t see mentioned in any product book:

[1] ๐€๐ง๐š๐ฅ๐จ๐ ๐ข๐ž๐ฌ: storytelling is a secret superpower of product builders. Great stories connect insight with understanding. There is no better bridge than analogies. Itโ€™s the mental version of โ€œdraw me a pictureโ€. And a picture is worth a thousand words.

[2] ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ง๐œ๐ข๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ž๐ฌ: mental models help you cut through the noise and make thoughtful decisions. Principles are the foundations of mental models. The right principles help you choose which mental models to apply, and optimise for great decisions.

[3] ๐“๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ญ๐ž๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ : your experience dictates your default path. But often, your team wonโ€™t be experienced. The best way to bring your experience is to guide them through. Great taletellers add the right amount of detail, passion and reflection in their stories, to make sure the audience gets the point.

[4] ๐๐ž๐ฆ๐š๐ฐ๐š๐ฌ๐ก๐ข: Japanese define it as โ€œinformal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or projectโ€. A PM relies only in the power of influence, not authority.

[5] ๐„๐๐ ๐ž ๐œ๐š๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ : the Devil might be in the defaults, but Murphyโ€™s law happens in the edge cases. Most products fail, not because you missed the happy path, but when an edge case exists, your users will trip on it. Edge casing is the art of pushing the boundaries of โ€œwhat are we missing?โ€.

[6] ๐ˆ๐ง๐ฏ๐ž๐ซ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง / ๐๐ซ๐ž-๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ž๐ฆ: Shane Parrish says inversion offers you the power to avoid stupidity. Thatโ€™s pretty appealing in a world where stupid decisions are costly. In the PM life, inversions are often called pre-mortem, where you discuss all the things that could derail an implementation.

[7] ๐๐ซ๐จ๐๐ฎ๐œ๐ญ ๐ƒ๐ž๐›๐ญ: if you know tech debt, then understanding product debt is easy. Every time you donโ€™t run research you accumulate product debt. Every time you donโ€™t test a prototype, you accumulate product debt. Every time you skip documenting stuff, you accumulate product debt.

[8] ๐๐ซ๐š๐ ๐ฆ๐š๐ญ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ: the act of saying โ€œscrew itโ€. Not the โ€œscrew it, I donโ€™t careโ€, but the โ€œscrew it, letโ€™s figure it out as we goโ€. Pragmatism makes you think in an effective way, not an efficient way. It protects from adding a framework, a process or a tool that is just going to add friction, not harmony.

[9] ๐Œ๐š๐ฒ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐ง๐ : PMโ€™s have no authority, but often you see yourself having to rally your team. When you make that impactful speech. When you organise that offsite. When you bring those doughnuts to make the team love mondays. This is what I call โ€œmayoringโ€ or โ€œacting as the mayor of your small townโ€.

Ask any seasoned PM, and I bet theyโ€™ll share a story when one (or more) of ๐Ÿ‘†changed the course of their products.

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9 concepts you will not find in any product management book
www.andrealbuquerque.com
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