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Showing posts from August, 2020

Coming up with Product Strategy

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Product Strategy is one of my favorite aspects of Product Management. As a Product lead at Lyft, Quizlet and Opower, I have started and led teams on several new product areas. When starting on a new product area, one of my main priorities is to "Map out the space" and figure out our path (The other priority is to bond with the team and understand team dynamics). I aim to share the strategy with my team and execs within 3 months of starting as it informs the roadmap, helps me ramp up and demonstrate product leadership.  Repeat practice and feedback have helped me become better and quicker at defining strategy. I have tried to distill my approach into these discrete steps.  What is strategy? Strategy is an optimal path to achieving a goal - which can be either solving a problem or realizing an opportunity. Good strategy is usually simple and clear, ambitious but achievable, long-term and durable, leverages core strengths and mitigates risks. Good strategy also explicitly identi...

Remote work's achilles heel - human connection

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We are a few months into this pandemic now. Remote work and Zoom social hangouts are the new normals and the word on the street is that they are here to stay. Video chats are functionally great - latency and quality are pretty good (well, except for the "hey, you are on mute" problem), there are good tools to collaborate well, work gets done, and most don't miss a long commute or dressing up. What I'm missing in remote work is human connection. I'm not surprised as most of us don't have any close friends who we have met only online.  Talking pictures on a screen don't evoke the same emotion and empathy as physical presence. Remote work interactions are structured and mostly transactional - through meetings with a set goal, agenda and attendees; you share your work, check in on status or ask for help. I miss the serendipitous and casual interactions. The water cooler or pantry chats, team lunches, corridor run ins and waves, casual desk drop by, walking 1:1...

Inequality - visualized

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I watched  Robert Reich's Inequality for All on Netflix. He talks about how capitalism has created extreme inequality in the US, even though other economic measures are improving. (One stat that stood out to me is that the richest 400 people have more wealth than the bottom half -150 million people!)  I tried to understand his explanation better with this simplistic example of an economy with 4 stick people - Mr. Blue, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Green and Mr. Red. They all produce the same product - the Back Box-- and earn something for what they produce. But Mr.Blue is more entrepreneurial (and luckier) than the rest.  See how that unfolds over 3 decades: 

Great technology is invisible

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I'm enjoying writing and reading on my new Apple Pencil + iPad. The beauty of the iPad is how much it feels like a book. The Pencil and finger on surface feel much more natural than 1-step-removed interfaces mouses or keyboards. The UI is clean and fake constructs like windows, tabs or tool bars are all muted.  It transforms into a blank slate where you can create or a paper that you read.  The creator and the content shine, everything else is invisible. The ultimate technology is invisible. They are tools that empower users but get out of the way.  In the words of Steve Jobs: “And it’s the same with Toy Story. The audience isn’t gonna care about the Pixar animation system, they’re not gonna care about the Pixar production system, they’re not gonna care about anything–except what they will be able to judge for themselves, and that’s the end result, which they can appreciate without having to understand what went into it, what went into creating it. And that, I love."

Life is an improv - which scene are you going to create today?

Over the last few years, I have embraced  Buddhism  and  Stoicism . Both philosophies preach acceptance of the present moment, non-judgement and love, and exercising control over your response to stimuli. They are excellent defensive philosophies and regular practice has brought me peace and equanimity.  Now I am realizing that these are philosophies are essential, but not sufficient. They don't give me a forward direction - an answer to "what should I do every day". Lacking a direction and simply going with the flow makes life dull and may lead to regrets. So I have been converging on this new directional philosophy to supplement these defensive philosophies. Life is an improv - every day and every moment, you are creating and acting new scenes in your life. You get to act solo, or with other people, with different sets, and many props. While there may be no grand meaning or purpose to this show, they mean everything to you as they make up everything that you...

Quantity and repetition lead to Quality

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We can't get good unless we get going -VisualizeValue I fell into a classic writer trap. I started off publishing blog posts very frequently - short ones, 2 or 3 times a week. But after a few months of doing that, I felt my regular posts lacked depth or novelty to attract an audience and that I should focus on more quality writing than quantity. Well, that's harder to do and as a result, I stopped publishing frequently.  The path to quality is often quantity. To become a better and quicker writer, you should aim to write frequently, rather than aiming to write a handful of high quality pieces. Regular reps improve your clarity, speed, and quality. I feel it and I know it. Aiming for just great essays can become the enemy of regular repetition and daily improvement.  I think this applies to skills and habits beyond writing too. Doing something regularly and thoughtfully is a better strategy to learning and improvement, than starting (and getting stuck) with long and hard p...