Give it five minutes – Signal v. Noise Quote: "His response changed my life. It was a simple thing. He said “Man, give it five minutes.” I asked him what he meant by that? He said, it’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to push back, it’s great to have strong opinions and beliefs, but give my ideas some time to set in before you’re sure you want to argue against them. “Five minutes” represented “think”, not react. He was totally right. I came into the discussion looking to prove something, not learn something." via @cdixon (categories: ideaspatiencelisteningthinkingpsychology )
The Procrastination Matrix – Wait But Why Quote: "And the thing the monkey really likes about Q4 isn’t anything about Q4 in particular—it’s that Quadrant 4 isn’t Quadrant 1 or 2. The monkey, whose core drive is to do whatever’s easiest, can’t stand the “important” quadrants, because the important quadrants are where the pressure’s on—it’s where there’s something to prove, where your actions have consequences, where the stakes are high, and where you’re shooting for the stars, which means you might fail to reach them. No fucking thanks, says the monkey. Writing 300 blog posts while I was supposed to be dreaming up brilliant business growth strategies wasn’t “easy” in the sense that I didn’t have to work hard to write them—it was easy in that there was nothing at stake. Stakes are really what’s hard for a human." (categories: prioritiesgoalsurgentimportanteisenhower-matrixproductivity )
Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing – HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School I first read about this in his book "How Will You Measure Your Life?". Quote: "… the jobs-to-be-done point of view causes you to crawl into the skin of your customer and go with her as she goes about her day, always asking the question as she does something: Why did she do it that way?" Funny thing is that I don’t see a note saying that thinking about milkshakes this way actually increased sales, but the "what job are you using this for?" way of thinking is helpful. (categories: businessproduct-designproductmanagement )
Rarely say yes to feature requests – Inside Intercom Great list of questions for product managers to ask about proposed / suggested features for a product. Reproduced here for the time in 5 years when the blog permalink changes: 1) Does it fit your vision? 2) Will it still matter in 5 years? 3) Will everyone benefit from it? 4) Will it improve, complement or innovate on the existing workflow? 5) Does it grow the business? 6) Will it generate new meaningful engagement? 7) If it succeeds, can we support and afford it? 8) Can we design it so that reward is greater than effort? 9) Can we do it well? 10) can we scope it well? (categories: product-product-productproductmanagement )