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Show Me the CourseWelcome to my blog. You may want to filter posts by your role for your convenience. Click here if you are an individual contributor in product (aka. PM) and here if you are leading a product organisation (aka product leader).
I know, I know. You saw the headline and probably rolled your eyes a little. "Product operating model versus project operating model? Really, Petra? In 2025? Haven’t we moved past this already?" I hear you. And honestly? Part of me wishes we had.
Read MoreWelcome to autumn! We’re kicking off the new season with a hot topic on the All Things Product podcast: AI evals and discovery. In just a few days, this episode has come close to breaking our record of the most views on YouTube, so clearly it’s a topic that’s resonating.
Read MoreWe’re nearing the end of our summer break and I wanted to take a moment to share what was clearly the most popular episode of the All Things Product podcast this summer: AI Prototyping. Given the interest in this topic in the product world in general (and even in our own programming at Product at Heart), this is not surprising at all.
Read MoreIn this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres tackle a big question: How does capacity planning fit in an outcome-driven, discovery-first organization? Spoiler alert—it usually doesn’t. Teresa shares why traditional capacity planning breaks her heart, while Petra offers a nuanced take on how her past teams used it for internal alignment (not control). Together, they explore the clash between rigid planning rituals and the reality of continuous discovery work.
Read MoreThis article might seem like a departure from my usual tips for product leaders and product managers, but I’d encourage you to give it a read if you’ve ever participated in a conference or community and you’re looking for ways to advance your career. I’m sharing some of my observations and hopes for the wider product community and the role we can all play in its success.
Read MoreNow that I’ve been blogging regularly for several years, I thought it might be helpful to take a look at my blog’s performance and share the top 20 posts. I’m not doing this just to brag—since I’ve got quite a lot of content, I realize that new readers might be unsure where to dive in. This provides you a handy roadmap you can use to check out the most popular topics (or at least those that get the largest number of page views).
Read MoreIn this post, the final in the series, we’ll be reviewing the most important points for you to remember (I’m calling this your “Managing up cheat sheet”) as well as some ways to make sure you tailor your message to your manager’s communication style.
Read Morein the third post in the series, we explored what you can do when you’re experiencing conflict with other people or teams. In this post, we’ll be looking at another specific situation when you might need more support from your boss—when you’d like to develop your PM skills.
Read MoreIn this post, we’ll be looking at a specific situation when you might need more support from your boss—when you’re experiencing conflicts with other people or teams and when the boss competency of role clarity might be the missing piece of the puzzle. Need a refresher on all ten boss competencies?
Read MoreIn the first post in this series, I covered why managing up is an important topic, introduced the ten boss responsibilities and the ships vs. shipyard metaphor, and explained why your boss might be struggling in these areas. Want to read that post? You can find it here. In this post, we’ll be looking at one specific situation when you might need more support from your boss and I’ll share some tips and tricks for you to try out.
Read MoreHello there, lovely product people! I wanted to share a quick note to let you know that this article is a little different from what I usually share here. While my blog typically highlights work I’ve already done (e.g. frameworks I’ve developed, podcasts or talks I’ve given, clients I’ve worked with), this post actually represents a work in progress.
Read MoreIs your organization dabbling in new frameworks or methodologies, but you’re unsure about their potential success? You're not alone. Many "trendy" frameworks often turn out to be underwhelming due to one major pitfall: superficial implementation.
Read MoreIn any role, your manager has the ability to make or break your experience. But perhaps this is especially the case for product managers because your job involves so much cross-functional collaboration and influencing without authority, so even more than other roles, you need a leader who will support and empower you.
Whether you’re interviewing for a new product job or your company is hiring a product leader and you’ve been asked to participate in the interview process, you will occasionally find yourself in the position of choosing your new boss.
As the year winds down, many of us find ourselves immersed in personal retrospectives (I just published one myself!), reflecting on our current roles, jobs, and the paths we tread. It's a time when questions about career trajectories and the value of our work come to the fore. This moment of introspection often leads to pondering one of the most critical yet overlooked aspects of professional life: the true nature of the trade-off we're making in our jobs.
Read MoreStorytelling is a critical skill for product people. And it’s often not enough to tell your story one time in one format—you need to experiment with sharing it many times in many formats to find what works best for your company and stakeholders. This is why I love this story from my coachee, Matthew Arnold, Director of Product at Brain in Hand. Matthew knew that he needed a way to communicate his product vision and strategy—or “stratevision” as he calls it—and he landed on a solution that’s both simple and effective: a comic.
Read MoreOver the past few years, I've noticed a growing visibility of product coaches in our industry. They're at the conferences, they're prominent on social media, and their influence is making waves in the business world. As a result, many companies are beginning to recognize the potential value that a product coach can bring to their organization. This is a good thing!
Read MoreI recently attended a product meetup and have to share an observation: Many of us could better introduce ourselves. So I’m sharing real-life examples with this post of how an improved introduction could look like.
Read MoreOne of the things that’s so exciting about developing a coaching tool is seeing how people adapt it to their own needs. And this post celebrates two incredible product people who have gone above and beyond in their adaptations. Not only have they created dynamic versions of the PMwheel, but they’ve made these updates available to anyone who’d like to use them. Meet Product Coach Lisa Mo Wagner and Product Director and podcaster Jason Knight.
Read MoreWhen you’re working in product, there’s generally no shortage of ideas. And that is a good thing. But it can sometimes be overwhelming to collect and qualify all these ideas to see which ones have the potential to add value to your product. So how do you filter all these ideas and prioritize what to pursue? I will try to provide a pragmatic, hands-on answer to that question with this article, through a process I refer to as “opportunity assessment.” But before we start, let's talk about some prerequisites and the basic process.
Read MoreAs a product leader, it’s likely that you’re always searching for tools that will help you foster alignment, transparency, and focus in your product organization. Maybe you want to help your team work in a more customer-centric manner. Or perhaps you believe metrics could be valuable, but you don’t yet know how to use them properly. If any of this sounds like you, KPI trees might be the answer.
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