Product Thinking

Saying “no” is a big part of parenting and a big part of product management. We can’t do everything, whether that is buying every stuffed animal or building every feature request. But we can do more than simply say “no”.

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Weekly newsletter: Saying "No" Effectively: 5 Ways to Say No As a Product Manager
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Airbnb is done with product management? Maybe, but not so fast. In this episode we explore what they did and why it very much depends on what a company wants.

Product management is always different at different companies, and often fills the void of whatever is needed. Sometimes that leans more toward discovery and user experience. Sometimes it leans toward more technical. And sometimes it leans more toward business outcomes and general management. None of these are wrong, and the role always encompasses parts of all of it.

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Weekly newsletter: The End of Product Management at Airbnb
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Winner Takes All: Case Studies in how Online Marketplaces are Creating Modern Monopolies delves into the world of online marketplaces and how they are shaping the modern economy. It gives a brief history of digital marketplaces, starting with some of the earliest (like eBay and Craigslist) and then goes through the evolution of those marketplaces. In this episode, we explore some key takeaways from the book. 

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Weekly newsletter: Winner Takes All: Book Review
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Messi, AI, and House of Suns. What more do you need? Another month, another host of great articles, listens, books and other finds from Product Thinking and around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed.

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Weekly newsletter: Messi, Estimating, Heatwaves, AI, and House of Suns: Monthly Wrap from June
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We, as humans, are bad at estimating. Everyone falls victim to the planning fallacy. We consistently underestimate the time it will take to complete something. 

Why do we underestimate? And what can we do about it? Listen as we explore.

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Weekly newsletter: Why We're So Bad At Estimating: And What We Can Do About It
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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This week we explore short-term and long-term thinking with an example from Covid-19.

We’d have been much better served during the pandemic if the FDA hadn’t relaxed its rules for so long or had thought about the long-term consequences of their hand sanitizer policy. And we’d be better off as product teams and organizations if we thought more about the long term while balancing our short-term needs.

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Weekly newsletter: Lessons in Thinking Long Term: Understanding Consequences of Short-Term Focus
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian was an excellent read. If you are interested in AI—including its history, its future implications, and the philosophical ramifications—then this is a book for you.

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Weekly newsletter: The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values - Book Review
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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Another month, another host of great articles, listens, books and other finds from Product Thinking and around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed.

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Weekly newsletter: Twitter, True Grit, and Giving Up On Your Dreams: Monthly Wrap from May
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We have to understand the problems we’re solving, our users, and our business. If we don’t, we’ll create products that fail. Those products may be small feature sets, or they may be bet-the-company initiatives like Twitter Blue. Either way, we can all learn some lessons from these failures.

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Weekly newsletter: Product Failures From Twitter and Others: Learning From Past Mistakes
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Like we love to say, a roadmap is not the project plan. It won’t include all the technical details for the next year. Nor should it. There is a time and place for those, but it is not the roadmap. Just like there is a time and place for nuts, but it is not in chocolate chip cookies.

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Weekly newsletter: Ingredients of a Roadmap: Like Cookies, You Need Some Key Elements
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Twitter: @kylelarryevans and @producthinking and @prod_by_design
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