Product Management

There are many approaches to product management, and every organization tends to breed its flavour of leading product. For many years, I have been thinking deeply about my core values and which ones withstood the test of time as I worked on different teams and businesses. During our recent trip to Japan, I was dumbfounded by the amount of respect every single person seems to have towards their craft. Whether it’s a shopkeeper, artisanal craftsperson or a barista, everyone seemed to take their role in society extremely seriously. Not only that, but there was also a sense of progression, of continuous improvement at what they did. I came back from that trip with a deep respect for a culture that could breed such professionalism. ...

Over the last couple of months, I became completely obsessed with a first-person factory simulation game called Satisfactory. As a product builder, I frequently draw inspiration from game design, and I think Satisfactory is a masterpiece in that regard. While it’s still fresh in my mind, I wanted to capture some well-crafted game design elements in this successful game. Factory Simulations First off, the relatively new genre of factory simulation games is worth noting. These are essentially puzzle games with some elements of real-time strategy mixed in. More than 20 years ago, I remember playing a game called “Factory: The Industrial Devolution” on my Mac. As far as I know, this was one of the first creations within the factory simulation genre. It had completely captured me back then, and now I understand why. ...

The term “high-impact” gets thrown around a lot lately, and it got me thinking about what that exactly means and why it’s important. And if it’s essential, how do we achieve it as product leaders? When we talk about impact in the product world, we usually mean a few different things: Impact on end-user experience Impact on business goals of the organization Impact on internal processes All of these are worthy goals to have for any product team. Of course, any PM would want to have a positive impact on both the customer experience and revenue, as well as making their peer’s jobs easier with better processes and internal tooling. ...