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By Bernard Katz, Director: Product Management 

The People of Product Management is a blog focused on exploring the human side of Product Management. In the first series of this new blog, the Relationship Series, I explored the relationship between the product manager and other role-players in the product development environment.

I would now like to introduce you to the second series in the blog, the Concept Series. How do the people of Product Management respond to important business concepts? Let’s start with the concept of strategy. To some it may feel like a warm, comforting blanket. To others it’s a straitjacket, tight and stifling. What about the concept of innovation? Read More

By Bernard Katz

As a surfer, I am at the mercy of the wind. The basic natural phenomenon of wind strength and direction has a direct impact on my life. At a practical level, the wind governs if I surf or not and how much I spend on petrol to get to various surf locations. At a deeper level, the wind influences my mood and thus my relationships with those closest to me. When the wind blows strong from the wrong direction, I am on edge, I get fidgety and annoy those around me. When the wind is fair, and the waves are good I am uplifted. There is a sense that anything is possible.

Relationships in product development are like the wind to a surfer. They are powerful forces that cannot be seen or touched but can be felt intensely. Relationships influence the decisions we make. Basic decisions, such as with whom to eat lunch to more complex decisions about roadmap priorities. They fill the space between us and influence our moods and our thoughts. Like the wind they are difficult to control but when they are fair, anything can be achieved. Read more

By Bernard Katz

No one grows up saying they want to be a product manager (at least not in the time and place I grew up). Yet, despite this, the product managers, with whom I have worked, have been some of my most passionate colleagues. We all seem to have come from different career backgrounds, but like the proverbial roads leading to Rome our paths have intersected in a spaghetti junction of features and functions and user stories and releases. We often share a common goal, to deliver great products to enthusiastic users in order to make the world a better place. However, can familiarity breed contempt? Can competitive pressures get the better of us? In this post, which is part four of the Relationship Series, I unpack the relationship between a product manager and other product managers. Read more