Dealing with Deadlines Anyone who has worked in product management has been exposed to deadlines. Deadlines we impose by ourselves, but unfortunately most commonly deadlines set by stakeholders or 3rd parties . Even as human beings, we often want more than what we have or what we can do. I think its part…

Team Safety I think one of the most important factors in building successful products and product teams is that the product team feels safe. If teams do not feel safe, or if you have a blame culture then how can you expect anyone to think outside the box, innovate or take risks…

In this article, I want to specifically focus on the term course correction. Going off Track You might experience it as a product manager, you have embarked on a new project or feature, you think you have all the information and detail (which is very difficult I might add), a few sprints in…

Roadmap Sabotage Creating and building products or projects can be a tough thing, and there are usually many different factors (some in your control, some not) that can cause your project to fail and ultimately kill your product roadmap. Sabotage is a big one. Imagine in Hollywood war movies, where the good…

Roadmap Architecture & Structure As a Product Manager it is important that you have a roadmap in place. Equally important is that you design your roadmap architecture and structure. This becomes increasingly important as your company, teams and products scale. The larger your company and product grows, the more difficult it can be to…

A Scrum Master is not a Manager Often organisations new to Scrum and trying to implement it struggle with the Scrum Master role. I mean; its a person who the team does not report too, yet they are responsible for the process and getting things done. …

Protect the Team A very important role of the Scrum Master is to protect the team. This can come in many forms such as uneducated stakeholders or over eager product owners. I have highlighted two things below which I think are important for the Scrum Master to protect the team from. Complacency Remind yourself…

Estimate Story Points in Ranges Someone once told me this great analogy for estimating story points. Image you have a well where you take water, and you need to transport 10 litres of water back to the village. You have a 8 litre bucket and a 13 litre bucket. …

Missing Stand Up on Sprint Planning Day We all know everyone doesn’t like meetings. A good tip to save you some time is to not do the Sprint Planning on the day of Sprint Planning. What you should actually do is spend a few minutes at the end of the Sprint Planning meeting to discuss the first…